OH, ONE MORE THING.
On the front page it's been listed that I'm playing a show in the club Lovesexy, 104 Hudson Street, about three blocks from the PATH Station (map) Hoboken, NJ, this Friday, January 31.

I am aware that the thirty-first doesn't fall on a Friday this year. The show is actually tomorrow night, Thursday, January 31. I go on at 10, after Dots Will Echo and Karen Davis, and just before my buds Lunchin.

I know very few people in Hoboken. I would love to see you there. Mention the fact that you read this and I'll buy you a drink and tell you a dirty joke. Why? Because my heart is all I have to give. Especially after the money runs out.

Oh yeah, there's a caravan of us who are going to be meeting at Penn Station tomorrow at eight and heading over en masse. Let me know if you want to meet and go over. It's a short little jaunt under the river.

ANGSTA'S PARADISE
The problem is, I'm just blocked this week. It happens, I'm cool, but I know what needs to go down to get me back to center.

I've needed a vacation for a while, and I'm almost at the point where I can start saving for one. I could go to Toronto for a weekend some time, but in a larger, get-away-fergawdsake kind of way, I've been thinking about England in April. I miss Leyna and her kids, and I can book a few shows in Cambridge and London and expand the circle a bit. And the UK is very much Somewhere Else, where I'm largely off the map and I can be a little of nothing. It's the elusive day without me I've heard a few write about sometimes.

Because by god, if I'm like this now, at the beginning of making the record and not much further through getting the book done, than I'm going to really need a rest come the Spring (by which I mean the real Spring, not the absolutely freakish weather here these days. I walked to work today in a short sleeve shirt, and right now it's just after midnight and I have my bedroom window open and the fan on to cool off the apartment. Jaysus.)

The problem is I'm no good with this whole large-project-in-process thing. I'm able to get past it sometimes (I do have two CDs, and the book sits like a faultline in the back of my head, and I can cite other examples I swear), but really, I find myself being a very get-to-end-of-job kind of guy.

And considering that the two large projects of great importance will be ongoing for the next few months, I don't anticipate getting a full night's sleep for a while. But oh, when the little victories come, and they will, how sweet they'll be. And by the end of the summer, I just might be somebody.

DOING YOUR CIVIC DUTY MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD INSIDE
You know, I have always, somewhere within my black little heart, scoffed at people who are loaded to the teeth on their websites with webrings. It always seemed that those big bulky off-loading pics that cluttered the bottom of personal pages like lint were visually jarring and more trouble than they were worth. That being said, you may have noticed I am a part of Jish's webring. Admittedly, I signed up for it out of joiner's hubris when I first set this place up, but you know, there are times I just feel good being a part of something, especially now, when things are less than perfect. And Jish is good people. A nice boy. Does good for his posse. Loves his mama. You know the kind. All too rare.

So in that light, props to my neighbors, magician.org.uk, the world's only magic-themed weblog (and how cool is that?), over here, and on this side we have The Nitesite, which is cool (though beware link rot).

ME & MY CHUCKS
I have worn Converse Chuck Taylor All*Star High Top sneakers since I was in high school. They were cheap, they looked real distinctive, they didn't have all the frilly little geegaws and doodads the other shoes had, and all the punks wore them, and by gum I was a punk, or at least I wanted to be one real bad, by gosh, and so I picked up my first pair for like 6 bucks out of my first dishwashing paycheck when I was 16, and I've worn them ever since. Damned comfortable on my dogs, and I like lacing 'em up tight, and they was cheap, which was cool because I could never afford Air Whatevers or Those Liquigel Pump Things anyways, never mind that I felt like I was some kind of moon man or something whenever I tried them on in the store.

So Chucks it's been, through every bar gig I ever had, every band I've ever been in (I have two pairs of Nice Italian Shoes I wear at the office, but other than that and a pair of blue Doc Martens I got at a garage sale last year which I only wear during snowstorms, so this year like not at all, all told I wear the damned things about 363 days a year), every everything. I've had 'em in black, blue, red, green, white, orange, and mauve, with Canadian and American flags on 'em, I've laundry markered them and played full-contact football on muddy fields with them, I've had showers in 'em, I've had sex in 'em (not the same pair, hell, not the same year - I'm encapsulating, let me finish), they've been my footwear across at least three continents, eight provinces and something like 35 states, I have literally lived my life in these things. (Endorsement inquiries should be addressed to the proprietor.)

They're a part of my identity, even among the punks and rebel folkies in the Village. Kirsten, just as a f'rinstance, calls me Tony Hightops. I don't like the name - it doesn't ring right. Also, present posting aside, I Am Not My Shoes. (She doesn't call me that to my face, but I know, and she knows I know. It's cool. Really.)

My Chucks have been the most fruitful and symbiotic relationship I have ever had, and when they allegedly stopped making them last year, I bought as many pairs as I could in fear of never being able to get them again and not being able to find something that would give me the strapped-in foot-joy that I got from them.

But I went into the shoe store on the ground floor of my building yesterday, and there, lined up against the wall, like a beacon in the darkness, like a chorus of angels guiding my feet back to podiatric heaven, there they were in all their glory! Never again shall I fear trudging around in Keds or stolen bowling shoes! Now my feet shall ever be the happeningest feet at the end of my legs! I may be into my 30's, but I'm still punker than allayouse, muthafuc-kah!

(Actually, yeah yeah, turns out they never stopped making 'em, there was just always a run on 'em whenever they showed up in the stores. Also, now they're being made in Indonesia instead of in North America, but -- details, details.) Och, fergawdsake, don't confuse me with facts. My Chucks are back! Huzzah!!

FUN WITH HIGH STRUNG DRONES
The building I work in by day is yer standard Midtown skyscraper with multiple banks of elevators serving different floors of the building. It's also one of those fat at the bottom, skinny up top buildings, so the bank of elevators I use to get to my corner office (that's right, you heard me, I gots me a Corner Office, and how glammo does that sound, eh Paco?) (Actually, it's more a convenience thing, it's got the window wall, so everyone can see me and they know where to go to get their letters typed or whatever, but hey, it is, y'know, in the corner of the building) on the second floor is served by three elevators. These three elevators serve a total of four floors.

My point? No waiting. It's one less hassle in what's usually a hassle-filled day at the Day Gig.

Anyway. This morning there was a guy about ten yards in front of me getting on the elevator, and he presses his floor and starts frantically pressing the Close Door button. I'm not quite there yet, and I consider running, but I'm watching him be all quickquicknownow with the buttons, and I think: Dude, if you're in that much of a hurry, then go on ahead.

The door, however, doesn't close immediately, no matter how much he pumps the close button. He looks up at me with this look of fear in his face, like I'm going to decommission the elevator or kill him or something, I don't know, and our eyes lock for a moment. (I have a shaved head, but I really don't see myself inspiring much fear in anyone from my stare, especially in the morning.) So I stop, facing the doors, and as they close, I stick out my hands and say, just loud enough for him to hear, "Ooga Booga."

And the guy, literally, jumps.

TIMES SQUARE
I'm aware that this record I'm making, and the book I'm writing for that matter, may be good enough, and I now have maybe enough friends that if I work them hard enough, I might no longer need a day job. I have a chance, over the next year or so, to make my life mean something to other people than the ones I happen to meet and get in the face of personally. What making a difference ultimately means, I only have the slightest idea.

I walk to work through Times Square every morning. There are hordes of people, a literal sea of humanity surging down the streets, stopping traffic and overpowering everything with their sheer numbers and relentless energy. It's a wonderful thing to behold. Every single one of these people not only has a story, but they get their kicks, they eat and think more than they'd admit about sex and watch movies and indulge in their vices and wish for more out of their lives than they've got and sacrifice more of their time, energy and money than they'd like, just to get on in the world.

The cool thing about Times Square is that among these people, even early in the morning, you have tourists mixed in with them. They're looking up at everything, and many of them have made a little something for themselves, they come from the rest of the world and are here to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Some of them have spent their life savings to get and be here, knowing that to see the glamour of New York City is some of the proverbial More that they've been working so hard for, back wherever they came from. And even living here, it is glamourous. At least, I still feel it. The sheen of the world still glances off the every-square-inchness of the billboards and the old Paramount building looking over the Square like a benevolent old headmaster, and the energy that's naturally here still gives everything that rosy, utopian glow.

Some of the tourists are obviously a bit better off than those who are spending their two weeks' vacation here. Whether they live up on Central Park West and are just picking up a few things for their next weekend shot over to Brussels, or the children of some highfalutin executive are running around the city like it's their own private Toys R Us, these people don't fall in step with the working people or even the regular turistas. They flit about, bags three-deep in each hand, smiling transparently at everything, and manage to find cabs when all around them cannot. (It's a genuine gift, and in this town, a marketable skill.)

I pay way more attention to these people these days. I wonder how they got to that point in their lives that the sense of entitlement they feel is so ingrained that even this city, bigger than anyone in it, does not dwarf their sense of self. I wonder how they managed to achieve their station in life, and if I might ever get the chance to do something other than scrape by, making a decent wage in a place where a decent wage is enough to live on and not much else.

I wonder how so many are able to genuinely make their mark on the world, or at least dance across the face of it. I wonder if I can ever become one of those people myself.

I still think it's possible. If one great song, or one great album, can do it, then I can do it. I just have to, well, you know.

IRONY IS STILL DEAD, RIGHT? RIGHT?
The Super Bowl telecast this year is going to be a tribute to America (because really, none of the other Super Bowls that have ever been played and telecast around the world to the teeming hungry billions over the decades have had anything whatsoever to do with flag waving and Gee Ain't The USA Great, now have they, nope, not that I can remember).

In this time of national crisis, it is especially important that we all come together in the spirit of unity and togetherness that the Super Bowl (and the Olympics, next month's patriotitism-for-the-world sporting hoedown; March we have college basketball, in April baseball starts, we're good for a while) brings to all families, be they white, black, asian, latino, or white, be they nuclear or dysfunctional, be they rich, or not so rich, or even poor, be they urban, rural or especially suburban, and bond, yes, bond beneath the red, white & blue flying above all our houses in loving tribute to those who have given and continue to give their lives and freedoms so that we can sit home and choke our proverbial pretzels while one group of rich steroided oxen plows repeatedly into another differently-attired herd for greater cultural glory, richer advertising contracts in years to come, and oh yes, our collective enjoyment.

And while we hunker down at 8:00 in the blessed a.m. to put together the proper spread and make sure we have enough onion dip, Cool Ranch Dorito's and Country Club Malt Liquor on ice to get us and our pals through the long day ahead, we can listen to the musical acts that will serenade us, tug at the tender strings of our patriotic little hearts, and stir us into a jingoistic fervor not seen since, well, ever.

They're going to have America's greatest nutcase diva not currently in der cuckoohaus (and also not otherwise booked), Mariah Carey, sing the national anthem, and if there's one song that having a 9-octave range will serve her well singing, that is definitely it. Expect stellar performances from Mary J. Blige, Marc Anthony, Barry Manilow (YES! Do ''Mandy''!) and they'll be joined by those other three great American performers, Paul McCartney, The Barenaked Ladies, and U2.

Now, I got nothing against any of the non-U.S. born artists. In fact, far as I care, those three acts will be the best part of the music portions of the show. (Oh, maybe except for Manilow.) And really, far be it from me to insinuate that my old buds the Barenaked Ladies don't belong there, or that I'm not proud as hell that they'll be playing for the biggest audience on the planet. But the fact that the organizers felt the need to celebrate how great America was by booking, let's see, an Englishman, an Irish band, and a Canadian band to play this superUSAfest doesn't quite seem in tune with the message they seem to be trying to convey, is all.

You don't have to go to Lee Greenwood, who turns as many people off as on with his Civil War Uniform Helms-Buchanan schtick. What about Dave Matthews? What about Lenny Kravitz? Mellencamp's got a new album out. Pink could do her Let's Get The Party Started song that's all over the place right now. It'd be a blast. What about Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight or Willie Nelson? Where's Ricky Martin? (Hey, where is Ricky Martin?)

I'm not second-guessing, really. Well, okay, maybe I am. But by leading with Hey, ain't this country great as your stated theme for the Super Bowl and then the best acts you book, your marquee acts, the actual reasons a lot of non-sports fans are going to watch, are all foreigners, well, it's just a little funny.

That said, McCartney and the BNL basically live here now, and U2 does happen to be the biggest band in the world. But still. The one message I get from all of this (and maybe it's the message they wanted to send out in the first place) is that in reality it is non-Americans are who truly Make America Great.

(Note: Dorito's is a trademark of the Pepsico Corporation.)

OKAY, HERE'S ONE.
First off, I don't spend much time looking through my referral logs. I find they don't show me much that I didn't already know. You know why you're here, don't you? That's good enough for me, for the most part. (Now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't care completely. There is a little counter there in the corner down there, 'tis true. But really, it's not that important. I'm not in the information gathering business, least as far as this page goes.) But every once in a while, I find something interesting. Like this.

Last week, on Fark, they were having a contest to find the shortest search phrase that when typed into Google, would only return one result.

Well, someone found this site, and only this one site, looking for, of all things, "trailer parks of alabama."

Now you'd think someone else, somewhere out in the online megaverse, would have mentioned such a thing. I don't think it's reinforcing much of an unfair stereotype to state that Alabama has within its borders many, many trailer parks, and I coulda swore said parks were the stuff of legend. I was actually listening to Lewis Black ranting about them yesterday at length, in fact.

But someone (maybe you?) was looking for them, and their search led to me, and only to me. Not only do I seriously doubt this site had what they were looking for, but I hope they figured out a way to rephrase their search to find whatever the hell it was they actually were seeking.

I hope they learned their lesson. Whatever the hell their lesson might have been.

Anyway. Time to climb out of my haystack, pack up my needle and go off to work.

THE NEXT BIG GRIND
I'm finding it so hard to focus on news and world events these days. Maybe it's because there doesn't feel like any.

Bush's little invasion into the old world to get Osama, or as I've started hearing him called from non-satirists now, "the new Hitler," is in the process of failing (He may have already escaped, which should surprise exactly no one). The heroes are still heroes, the traitors are still traitors, and maybe the whole meet-the-new-boss same-as-the-old-boss front-page monotony is dragging my interest level in what the hell's going on in the rest of the world down. (This Enron debacle is going to be a big deal, though, especially the Bush administration loses their little game of who-knew-what-when.)

Maybe I'm just preoccupied with other things right now. I've been listening to the new scratch tracks for the record, and the songs are pretty good, all told. Okay, fine, some of them suck. But there's 18 or 19 songs that are redeemable.

I'm going to try writing at least two bluegrass songs this week. Not only is it a good exercise anyways, it'll keep my mind off the headlines that aren't saying anything anyways. (The news-apathy will change, any minute now.)

FISH SIZE vs. POND SIZE
My excellent friend Kate had a less than perfect experience with the Godfather of antifolk and the central evening of the East Village songwriting scene last Monday. (And I'm only getting around to mentioning it now. I know, I know.)

Thing is, in her rant (read her rant and come back - it's worth it, and I'll wait), she's not wrong. The New York Antifolk scene is a cloistered clusterfuck of bitter people who for the most part don't interact in any good way with each other, led by a delusional self-obsessed man from a little red planet. Okay, I'll give Kate that much. But isn't that how the whole world is, sometimes? I know this is a feeble defence, but - what kind of person goes into songwriting, or performing, in the first place? Laches are everywhere, predatory, unaware of their effect, uninterested in what doesn't apply to them. And if you as a performer are truly well-adjusted and comfortable inside of yourself, then you don't knock yourself out. You don't forego sleep, sanity and global perspective to sit in a dark smoky room listening to dozens of other performers do varying degrees of shitty music before you get up and play a song or two of your own to the chairs, hoping to suck less than whoever came before or after.

The Antihoot is an open mike, and a popular one at that. Of course it's openly corrupt and stale. Of course Lach plays favorites. He's been doing this for going on twenty years now. I'd love to say it was better a couple of years ago when I started hanging out there, but I can't say that it was. I happened to make a few friends there and put together a pretty good band, most of whom I still hang out with, and we've all stopped meeting there and moved into other nights, other clubs, other situations, hopefully at least marginally better ones.

But I have this - this problem. It's partly the need for validation for my existence on this earth, it's partly the need for attention, it's partly because I'm so damned shy that singing in bands is a bit of an icebreaker around strangers. It's cool to have a light shine in your face and sing something you wrote and have people clap for you every three minutes or so. But I know better than to think I'm doing this to set a good example for anyone. I do my best, but I'm as flawed as Lach or anyone at the Monday night antihoot is. Anyone who's genuinely happy isn't torturing and demeaning themselves by knocking themselves out in music (certainly not for the money I'm seeing from this so far). Those who find happiness, genuine cosmic happiness, at some point disappear from the lives of the uncool as if called up into heaven, and sure their art starts to suck, but oh, they sleep sweetly at night like little children.

BOOTY CALL
I didn't get a huge amount of presents for my birthday this year (which was fine, because one, I didn't get nobody anything for their birthdays or Christmas over the last year or so myself, and two, aside from the fact that I have for the most part a pretty excellent circle of friends for whom I'm damned grateful, the only two gifts I really care about are getting the book and now the album finished, and thems is on their way), but I had to mention the excellent dinner I had with a disturbing number of my closest friends at the Gould Finch (it was not cheap, and I feel both wrong to tax my friends like that and extremely grateful that they did), and more importantly to this note, the loot I got from Jon Berger.

He brought me a homemade Christmas stocking (Jon's Jewish; no, I have no idea) containing:

* A shuttlecock hacky sack, with multicolored plumage (perfect for the next Phish concert! Hey, when is the next Phish concert, anyway?)
* A set of interlocking blocks, labeled "Creative Construction Toy" but clearly modelled on something else
* A lovely silver plastic sherriff's badge, with hula dancers engraved in the center
* A Mr. Potato Head keychain ("really works! Mix and Match the pieces for lots of funny looks!")
* A 2000 Bolivares note from Venezuela (worth about $2.63 US, according to [xe.com])
* Some Terrifying Sticky Eyes, all the more terrifying because the package had been opened and they, um, weren't really sticky anymore
* A set of three square rubber stamps with drawings of naked cherubs on them, and a matching pink inkpad (it's a set)
* A Skull Sucker liquid candy-filled lollipop ("Squeeze the Liquid Bottom - Suck the Candy Head!")
* A CD of Charlie Starkweather - Where I'm Calling From (which I'm listening to for the first time right now - review to follow)
* Three collector's cards from comic books (Archangel, Doom 2099 and Black Bolt)
* A small Wildlife Adventure Viewer, the kind you stick a card with small slides in and hold up to a light, whats the name, one of those things, you know. It has two cards with it (the theme is Underwater, which is cool). It seems to have been a freebie from Arby's.
* A gold Phoenix clasp necklace which looks great on me and which I'll totally wear the next time I go dancing at Barracuda, or just look like I might
* A skinny bendy bunny figure in a pink tuxedo
* A bottle opener keychain (yess!) imprinted with "Kevin Cafferty - Packaged to Play"
* A small package of gold face glitter from chickclick
* A stick pin with the Space Shuttle and an apple on it that says "I touch the future / through education"
* A pen with a $100 imprint on it, because hey, it's all about the Benjamins
* and a Woodstock (from Peanuts) Pez dispenser.

Now, even given that most of this stuff (maybe all of it) was picked off his apartment floor during a big cleaning jag (Jon's a bit of a packrat with a large apartment in a not-so-great neighborhood; no, I have never been there), and it is worth noting that some things have been used (the Pez dispenser, for example, had a single multivitamin wedged into the inside of it), even so ... there is a lot of cool crap here.

Especially, as I said, I haven't been terribly generous myself. (Jon's birthday was two weeks ago. Shit.) Now I have to be a whaddyawhaddya, a model citizen or something just to keep my karma in line.

Jon, you have my private thanks for being so gracious and wonderful. Accept my public thanks as well.

BORING STUDIO NOTES (FIRST IN A VERY LONG SERIES)
Last night was the first day of recording - we got 13 songs down in two hours, just guitar and voice, but that's what step one is supposed to be, you know? And of course, the two I wrote on the weekend and had never actually played all the way through even yet were the two that sounded best, and even they need some work, but that's okay because that's why we're doing all this in the first place, a few days of this and then we listen and listen and maybe go back and rearrange and rewrite some lyrics or whatever and then let the musicians listen to them and we all work out parts for a few weeks and then BOOM, we go in for real, on a much more expensive clock and with the stakes as high as I want 'em.

So expect a finished version of the new record sometime in mid-2006. And of course, much kvetching on a daily basis between now and then.

I look forward to reading a newspaper again and getting nice and outraged at the hypocrisy of the real world. But until then, I'm still hiding in my own little hole, playing my guitar just like yesterday.

Oh, Item Two - The Moldy Peaches are off on their first North American Tour. See them if you can - there's no one like them. Tell them I send them love and stuff.

CATCH YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE
I can't tell if this was disturbing or not: I was going through my little lint trap of stuff (part of the bigger housecleaning after the Claus beaning of the last couple weak weeks) in my folders, and mixed right in there among the nekkid Martha Raye pitchers and the MP3s of satanic messages masked backwards in assorted Barry White songs (there's lots of them - I love you pronounced backwards is ooh, evil, yeah - check it out) was this shot of a card for your wallet which tells someone who finds your corpse that you allow them to have their way with you after your death.

I have no idea how this picture got there. (Honest, officer.) The concept isn't so bad, and frankly I wouldn't care myself - if I'm done with this body, you all can go to town with it. (Especially, might I just add, if you're Molly Parker. And Molly, if you're reading this, then, um, if it's alright with you, please, oh please don't wait for me to die. We can start tonight.)

And the Village Voice did a piece which showed a similar card too a while ago. Who knew?

A QUICKIE MAKEOVER
New look to the site tonight.

I just felt like this place needed a bit of a change of scenery. These are not substantive changes by any stretch, but I cleaned out the creeping link rot and stuff so now I feel better, and really, I'm looking for something I'll not be freakydeaky about staring at in the years to come. I dread ever coming across some monstrosity that Google might have, hidden away in their cache somewheres, of some barely working puke-colored experiment I unwittingly foisted on the four people who might have had the distinct displeasure of actually visiting my site back in the day. This getup, while boxy and all desert-at-night, will have to do until I get through making the book and the record.

Updates: The book has been on hold for two weeks while I got drunk for New Years and got my heart bruised a bit. I'm all refreshed now and ready to burrow back into my hole and get the thing done. (There was supposed to be a Talk of the Town article in this week's New Yorker on Novel Writing Month, featuring a nice, meaty interview with yours truly, but they seem to be sitting on it. If you feel like it, send them a note asking where the hell it is. (No point in being confrontational; "Hey there, more pieces on local indie novelists please!" would probably suffice. This is a good and righteous thing even if they wind up doing something on those Brooklyn McSweeney's guys or something instead.) You can bcc me in the note, and if they run the piece later, I'll take you out for drinks when I get the big advance, and that's a promise you can take to the bank, bucko.)

The record? I have 21 songs, not counting the Bacharach or Otway covers, and Monday night is officially Day One in the studio. (Woo hoo! Happy birthday to me.)

But enough of all of that. Now that I've got cable in the new apartment, I have a shitload of online reading and writing to catch up on.

Happy New Year, y'all. May aught-two be a damned sight better than aught-one.