Whoa, this is sad. Almost five months since the last diary posting. While I am Extraordinarily Busy, there is really no excuse for this. And you would think that I'd be fixing to burst with news and information, but that isn't the case. Sure there are the usual updates, such as the news that there was another performance of sea shanties on November 2, which was triumphant and epochal. The Valparaiso Men's Chorus got its collective shit together and learned another set of music not on the CD. I harbor the faintest of hopes that we can make another CD. I can't see why not. Maybe the chorus could go out and sell magazine subscriptions to help raise the money. I think it would be cute to see Fayard and Starnes knocking on doors and putting on an earnest face. We could offer people Ranger Rick and Boy's Life. If those magazines still exist. Perhaps a sailing magazine or one devoted to piracy (even though we are not a pirate band). We have been offered a slot at the Offbeat Best of the Beat awards show. Hopefully we can field a quorum.

Outside it is a nice mix of rain and wind. High quality late November weather and a hell of a day to lose a window in one's car. We were driving over to Henry's birthday breakfast over at Elizabeth's when all of a sudden going down Gallier the driver's side window exploded with great fanfare and noise. Kourtney and I just about shit our pants, thinking we were shot. The window fell off its track a few weeks ago and last night I jammed it into a spot from which it could not be moved, in a frenzy of Bayou Classic traffic trying to find a parking spot by the casino. I guess it was wedged in there pretty good since it only took a little bump to make it shatter. Now it is covered with a garbage bag and its raining and my wife had to drive out to UNO where the campus is pitch black due to a power failure. She just called to say she's coming back home. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and play your Nick Drake records. Yeah. I feel like if it wasn't for the car I'd have nothing to think about, it feels so much at home in the very front of my imagination.

In other news, I finally broke down and ordered another 1000 Banjaxed CDs, although I wanted to use that money on making a new recording. There is no reason not to do both, except for money, which will always be the lamest excuse for not doing anything. But no matter. There will be Banjaxed CDs for all who desire them in just a few days. One thing there won't be are 007 CDs, at least not "Studied Rudeness", because we are almost done recording a new one. We have been down at Andrew Gilchrist's "House of 1000 Hz" rocking the steady. We have only a few overdubs left to do and then mixing and mastering. The good folks at Discmakers will be soaking us down soon and you will have the new 007 in your hot little hands just in time for the post-christmas rush.

So there it is. there will be more CDs soon of all sorts of stuff. Did I ever mention the story about how my father once asked me about my future? I was out of college about a year or two and floating around in a kind of brownian motion, halfway expecting and hoping for a career in music. It was in the living room of the ancestral home in New Jersey and he asked me almost thoughtfully what were my plans for my life. Now, one thing about my old man is he can take a joke, so I took a moment and thought about what would be my reply to this very charged question. "I was thinking I would go to law school", I said. He then looked at me with an expression very close to anger and told me, sternly, "I'll break your fucking legs". I think of that every time I'm loading bass amps into a car.

The usual apologies for not posting one of these for so long, etc. What can I say? Its been a big spring and now that its officially summer i can see the days stretching out ahead of me like a wild highway out in Utah. They're tearing up the street in front of the house and there's dust everywhere and that beeping sound whenever the heavy trucks go in reverse. They repaved St. Claude Avenue less than five years ago and we're all wondering why they're doing it again so soon, especially as it was one of the better preserved thoroughfares. Maybe it's part of a maintenance schedule but graft is the more logical explanation, especially when you know Burgundy Street just two blocks away has been a nightmare for years. You don't even want to ride your bike down Burgundy. But even Burgundy pales in comparison to the condition of just about every street north of St. Claude (the virtual demarcation line of the Corps' floodwater). There you seem to be transported to some forgotten little town abandoned by Okies or the Army years ago. Its an eerie feeling until you remember that that's exactly what it is, and you wish you had a humvee to get up to Claiborne Ave. so you can cross the bridge over the train on your way to Mid-City to buy groceries.

But this isn't going to be that kind of piece. The Culture of Complaint went out of style years ago. But what is that godawful smell? Its like someone bottled the air in Elizabeth New Jersey and pressurized it to use as paint remover. They're blowing out the sewer lines down at Schatzy's. Whoa.

OK. Chazfest, anyone? Kourtney and I want to say "thanks" here to everyone who came out to the second annual Chazfest and an even bigger thanks to all the people who helped put the thing on. It was a gargantuan undertaking and came off with hardly a hitch. It was like that theory of cosmology where a deity designs and constructs the universe and then essentially flips the "on" switch, leaving the rest of eternity to observe or catch up on paperwork. Just substitute the Chazfest staff for God, a party for the universe and a Thursday in May for Eternity and the result is pretty much the same. I'm going to try to do a big shout out here and try not to leave anybody out. Number One in the hit parade is our wonderful friend Dannal Perry who was Above and Beyond in every way, going so far as to go down to that Den of Snakes City Hall with me on the morning in question and encouraging us to fly in the face of Wisdom. We don't need no stinking badges. Next up in our pantheon of heroes are Jay Holland and his "Sound Ninja" Reid Billingsley who ran the main stage with the discipline and prescision of nazi stormtroopers, but without all the bad vibes. Rob Davis brought six thousand pounds of P.A. equipment in and out of the place and worked his ass off (I found your hand-truck, rob--give me a call) while Trevor Brooks brought a whole mess of backline. The second stage was masterminded by the one and only Jeff Treffinger, ladies and gentlemen...Mike Biagas brought the main stage....All the gang at Sweet Olive LLC--thanks for letting us invite thousands of people over to your place. To all the good people at Pot O' Gold--you are in our thoughts. Tom Beeman did the shirts. Do you have yours yet? Special thanks to all the residents of the Truck Farm for putting up with major disturbances and especially for helping out. All the bands at both stages got on and off in a timely manner and for that we thank you. All the vendors--the food was dee-lish top to bottom. All the volunteers deserve special praise for keeping the beer moving and extracting the donations. Bob our intrepid web guy who secured www.chazfestival.com for us--you're the man! Contact Chuck Morton for all of your insurance needs. Rhonda at Funrockin! for foiling the shirts--they are a big hit. Eric and Bailey at the Saturn Bar were kind enough to bring us some ice in the mid-afternoon. I know I'm forgetting somebody. Last but certainly not least thanks to Chaz and Jessica for loaning us the name Chaz and that pretty visage for our iconography.

Somewhere in there we put out the shanty cd. I think it was the week between French Quarter Fest and Chazfest, so naturally it was a breeze. Eric and Family over at the Saturn Bar were generous enough to let us bring out-front hooliganism into their bar, and so we thank them for that. Most commonly heard comment on the Valparaiso Men's Chorus "Guano and Nitrates" cd release party: "I never felt so much like I was on a boat". It's true--I think it was during "So Early In The Morning" that I looked up from the lyric sheet that I was using to see the drunken multitude swaying all the way up the stairs. The room was packed and everyone was swaying like condemned buildings and singing at the top of their lungs. Beer and snot running down people's faces. There was the smell of burning rope and grown men were crying like babies and heaving over the side. Out of sheer necessity, we went ahead and did the set a second time and it was even more over the top. By then people knew the score and learned that they didn't need to know the words. Any and all concern for decency and dignity was by then jettisoned. I truly believe there was a moment when we could have decimated an equal or greater number of Scottish football fans.

(But even this didn't even come close to the scene earlier that day. The night before the shanty deal went down we were hipped to what was going on right under our noses right here in New Orleans. Over at the Holiday Inn by the Superdome they were having a thing called Pyratecon '07, which is the annual North American pirate convention. I am telling you this and it is no lie--there is a strange network of pirate fetishists out there, maybe even in your community, maybe even in your own family, for whom "talk like a pirate day" never ends. That there was a pirate convention here in town the day we're celebrating seaborne song was just too weird to ignore so we went over there with some flyers and some cds to press some flesh. It was a regular warm spring day on Loyola Street but milling around the entrance of the Holiday Inn were a bunch of people in pirate costumes smoking cigarettes and drinking out of what appeared to be flagons. They told me to just go up to the eighth floor and there they all were, sitting behind folding tables selling scabbards and scrimshaw and wench gear. I was looked at a bit funny at first because of my strange non-pirate wear, but overall they were nice folks who regretfully would be unable to attend our soiree, as they had their big ball that evening. Downstairs there was a bunch of pirates hanging around the bar. I even knew one of them, or one guy seemed to know me. They're considering having us play at pyratecon '08. You can go to myspace.com/pyratecon and let them know how you feel about that.)

Otherwise they shaved some moles off my head last week. I've got some stitches holding my scalp together, but I think I'm gonna live. Currently I'm looking around for for something I don't need, if only to have the opportunity to say "I need that like I need a hole in my head", and have it really mean something for once. I am pleased to report that as I survey the porch here on the Farm I am surrounded mainly by useful things, so it will have to wait.

Have a great summer everybody.

Today’s a fine bright day and my thermometer reads ninety-six degrees. The grass is running riot and needs cutting, but I’m going to blow it off for another day. The lawn guy* is off somewhere in the Northern Midwest and has left the task to me and our landlord. Yet the sun shines on him still, as well as my overheated car and the president downtown making speeches, allegedly admitting that mistakes were made. Good for him. Later he’ll come by the truck farm for a beer and he’s going to offer me some coke. But I’m going to just say “no”. “No, George,” I’ll say. “I’m just enjoying the luxury of this fine day and my overheated car. Now take that stuff inside and do it in the bathroom like normal folks do. I’m a public figure—a minor entertainment personality—and I’ve gotta watch what I do and say, because it always comes back to haunt me sooner or later. I don’t enjoy the same luxuries as you, George.” The cool thing about George is he usually takes this kind of talk in stride. Unlike my other friends, he doesn’t mind being told what to do. He fools people with that Texas “swagger” thing, but all you have to do is bark at him a bit and he steps back into line. Knowing that you can count on things like that makes it easier to deal with this uncertain world.

     People today are asking where you were a year ago today and what you were doing. The first time this question was put to me last night I couldn’t help but wonder at our species that has figured out how to calculate to the second the Earth’s position in relation to the Sun. As my friend Keith would say, that’s pretty rad. Spinning on the same axis in the same spot in space as when Anderson Cooper was buying his first pair of Wellingtons 365 days ago. I know he’s going to be sporting some fancy footwear later at Vaughn’s, but it will pale in comparison to the bondage gear he usually prefers in his more informal moments. Chaz bought a special dog collar for him to wear with the word “Coop” emblazoned near the chain clip in stainless-steel studs. Anderson won’t stop talking about the times spent in the sling at the Phoenix last year. Whatever it takes to take the edge off, I always say.

     This sort of scurrilous gossip won’t endear me to the cable news channels. That their star journalists come to New Orleans to admonish the locals on-camera, then run off to blow their per diems on cock fights and Vietnamese rent-boys is well known, though rarely discussed. If the heavy hitters of the news media relish their time spent in New Orleans, if for no other reason than to Take it Out and Let it Eat, we’ve long turned a blind eye down here. Never mind the rumors of NBC’s Brian Williams’ flagellating himself with a soft-shelled crab po-boy uptown in broad daylight a few months ago, or CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s meth-fueled rantings about the Pope at St. Louis Cathedral not long after the famous “chocolate city” speech. These things don’t merit much more than a cursory glance.

    And so it’s a week and a half after I wrote the above and that guy I mentioned, Keith, has gone on to the next life. Although I don’t believe in any of that shit. Pretty un-rad. I’m going to close this thing and go wash my hands. Maybe go buy a nice bottle of French Bordeaux and get weird.
Sic Transit Gloria.

I was thinking about the president a lot about a month ago. You see, I was clearing a lot of brush from out the back of our house in preparation for Chazfest, and since that’s what W. does for kicks out at his ranch in Crawford TX, I felt that I was perhaps getting on a parallel vibe with The Decider. And what’s more, I had Spinal Tap’s “Heavy Duty Rock and Roll” going through my head almost all day every day. Probably because the tool I was using is a Milwaukee brand Heavy Duty Orbital Super Sawzall (there is no substitute), with the words HEAVY DUTY emblazoned across the chassis and the carrying case. So I was in a good frame of mind most of the time as I ripped through dead trees like a laser with this vicious piece of hardware, while imagining my old pal The Decider pedaling by on his mountain bike. “Heavy! HEAVY! Duty! DUTY!!! Heavy Duty a-ROCK AND ROLL!!!” I happily sang to myself while my fine machine chewed through dead tree-flesh. I’ve got to hand it to the President of the United States—he sure hit the main nerve when he came up with that wacky pastime. There is no more mindless and satisfying pursuit than clearing brush. There’s the noise of the machine and the sting in your muscles, easily measured progress and a clear path before you of what still needs to be done. The knowledge that the brush and the trees are going to keep growing and dying brings a little Zen flavor to the whole enterprise. Never is there a need for careful analysis or measured foresight. I say that when he inevitably retires, we can hook him up with, perhaps as a severance package, his own landscaping rig, with a big steel mesh trailer behind a doublie. He’d have dibs on the gig out at Arlington National Cemetery, of course. Or we can set him up as a greenskeeper at some obscure golf course where no one knows him. I think it would be a slam-dunk.

But we shall not lock our hearts in chests of silver, dear readers, nor shall we bind them with golden chains. This forum is really about show business, and if this space morphs into any kind of polemic I urge any and all to correct me. There is no use for vengeance in this world. Out of my window I see trees and the dappling sunlight that filters through. The only sounds are the birds and the ceiling fan, and Dave Van Ronk singing “Brian O’Lynne”. The kegs from Chazfest still linger in the yard, along with the empty wine bottles from last night’s wake. In a few minutes I’ll go to the house where I used to live to collect the last of my things. I’ll leave the dishes in the sink for now. The house I’ll leave unlocked since I’ve lost my keys. I will, however, change out of my pajamas, cheap clothes I’ve had since high school. They say that they found the robe over there that I got in the seventh grade. I tried to throw that thing out when I moved to New York, but I guess it never made it to the trash. Maybe that was a mistake. I think I’ll hang on to it for a while. Wear it while I’m burning trash and drinking bourbon. The world was made of sadness and stinks like old clothes.

Fast-forward  three and a half weeks. It rained today for the first time since Chazfest. That’s good news, as Jeff put down some grass seed yesterday. The lawn’s looking good, I must admit. Pirner came by to cut the grass the other day. He’s really got a feel for lawnmowing. I heard a great story in which Dave played one of Bill Clinton’s inaugurations. They were waiting in the oval office for Bill and he breezes in eventually. Dave looks out the window and points out to the president that the lawn needs cutting. Bill says that he’ll call someone about it, at which time Dave asks if Bill is going to play any saxophone with the band. Bill’s response was “you play the music and I’ll play the president”.

There is no music news that I can think of.. The Tin Men had a nice trip up to New York. If you made it out, thanks for coming. I have a feeling there’s going to be some recording soon, but I can’t say why. I have hardly any gigs coming up except another New York swing, this time with Kourtney. I’ll be in The City and Portland, ME. Also the Circle Bar on Wednesdays through the twelfth of July. I’ll be back the ninth of August. I wonder who they’ll get to do the Wednesdays.

I’ll close here, as there’s nothing I can think of that’s the least bit entertaining. Drop me a line with any questions or comments.
alex

And balls to this internet thing.

Yes. That sounds good. . It has been a while since we’ve cranked up this website, but now’s the time, children. Now’s the time, indeed. And since the interweb is working, and I feel something resembling gin-lust, it’s probably time to get something down, for whatever reason.

 A good place to start might be that my wife (an incredible woman, mind you. Staunch is the word that comes to mind. She could bend roofing nails with her gaze while coaxing sunflowers out of poisoned soil. She could re-create the world from memory and bring dead dogs back to life. Don’t cross her) and I moved from the sylvan climes of Williamsburg Brooklyn back home to the land of our meeting New Orleans. The move was kind of sudden—we’d been talking about it pre-k, but decided after we’d secured a Bunyonesque space in the nine that it was put up or shut up time. Compared to NOLA New York just doesn’t seem that interesting. But what the hell? We had a blast up there and for me it was great to play with some new people and in some new places. Bill Malchow and Brad Gunyon are total motherfuckers. But to wash dishes to finance your music fix just don’t seem right.

 I won’t go into the saga of our journey South. Suffice it to say that cats can get out of those cages, if they’re ornery enough. Along the way it changed from winter to spring and when WWOZ started to come through on the radio of the Penske truck, and the glow of the city became visible in the sky at about 8:00 pm on the twin-span—have you seen that?—shit just started making sense. We had time to wash our faces and change our socks before heading to the Circle Bar for the first Wednesday night gig. I had so stones and had to call it a night after one set, but the pattern was re-established. In the land of the Weird He was King who had clean socks and a clean face—at least that night. And the attendance was perfectly sparse, so I don’t think anyone got hung up.

 Somewhere around the end of February they had Mardi Gras and that was kinda fun. All in all, as far as Fat Tuesday was concerned, I’d have to give it an A-plus. The weather was stunning. The whole carnival season was tinged with such heavy feeling for everyone—I never saw people verklempt at the Krewe du Vieux before. I’ve never been one for parades, really, but this year it seemed like a Civic Duty. We got to hear that rarest of things at the Muses parade—some real live New Orleans high school marching bands—and I swear to god I almost wept like an altar boy after a particularly harrowing Station of the Cross.

 The Bass Parade came off in grand style as well, even with the glaring absence of one of our founders Joe Cabral. People just started showing up at the R Bar around 2:00 or so. I brought an acoustic bass to which I rigged up an improvised strap with clothesline, and once again I was the loudest guy there, which is the main trick with the bass parade. I’ll try to include some photos of the hallowed event on this site, but there might still be some floating around on www.nola.com.

 On Fat Tuesday I went as Canada. I sang the anthem in both English and French most of the day. The worst part was people thinking I was the USA because I painted myself red.

 So what’s new? You may ask. Well, the cars running again after a quick $400.00 infusion to fix the starter along with some other things. The weather has been super fabulous as well. We give the destructo-tour to whomever is visiting. The lower nine is getting kind of touristy, actually. We can’t get the phone company or the cable company to come hook us up to the interweb where we live, which goes a little way towards explaining the huge gaps between updates. Hell—it’s almost the middle of April as I write this, and the last thing I remember writing here was around Halloween. Forgive me, gentle reader. The vagaries of the local communications utilities have conspired against Yours Truly. But those who follow these pointless ravings on this site are by now accustomed to huge gaps in The Tale. I can hear you calling Bullshit through my back porch window. All the way from up in Maine or the Dakotas, or wherever in Hell it is you live. Actually, what I am in fact hearing from my porch window is Andre Williams argue with some guys from the 40s next door behind the studio. I think they’ve been drinking all day and they’re getting into the Rock and Roll. Sort of like spitting fire into your rum salad. I’ll bet it’s going to sound sublime.

 OK. Now for some real news. We’re having the first annual Chazfest here at the Farm on Thursday May 4 so be there. www.chazfestival.com . The beer will be cheap and pray to god or whoever it is you pray to that it doesn’t rain. We’re going to have our own cops, toilets, the whole shebang. This is my first foray into concert promotion and even I have to admit my heart goes out to Quint. And Quint, if you’re reading this, stop by that day and we’ll have a quiet drink alone upstairs here at the house. Just you and me. I’m going to take back all those things I said about you and maybe even ask you for a job, because all my friends I couldn’t fit into the schedule are treating me like a leper. But fuck those guys, eh, Quint? Fuck them and their cheap bitterness. They just don’t know the angles. Guys like us, we gotta make the tough calls EVERY fucking day of our LIVES. Fuckin-A. And you know, Quint, I’ll even bust out some of the good whiskey and as the shadows lengthen in my sanctum sanctorum we’ll walk to the window and feast our eyes about at all that which I have created. Over the din a silence will come through the room and I’ll put my left arm around your shoulder as I take a pull from the glass with my free hand. That’s right. And I’ll say to you, “My man. See those fuckers down there shaking it in front of my stage? See those dumb sons of bitches lining up for my bathrooms? Drinking that piss beer? They think they’re having some sort of Authentic Experience.”

And you will bring that good whisky around in the glass with your left hand and raise it to your eye and wink.
     “They always do, my man,” you will say.  “They always do.”

It was the Chinese, I think, who came up with the proverb "may you live in interesting times". Well, maybe it wasn’t a proverb at all, but a curse. Something one might say to a rival or an adversary. Nonetheless, it was this phrase that stuck in my mind when Kourtney and I took our first look at post-Katrina New Orleans a few weeks ago. A very interesting place. You should go take a look. Another thing that got into my head was those Hindu guys and their notion that the Gods created us for their own amusement. I’m sure I’m mistaken, but somewhere down the line I heard that Krishna or Vishnu or whoever set up this proscenium one day and peopled it with people, wound them up and let it rip and now they’ve got a never ending Laverne and Shirley going on while they loll around the universe and eat papaya salad or whatever it is they eat up there. Now that I think about it, I find that it’s a shame that this hurricane/deluge didn’t happen to the Chinese or the Indians, who are much better equipped to deal with it. Here in America our homegrown ecclesiastical mechanism is capable only of imagining a vengeful God who’s only delight is visiting His wrath upon the sinful. This idea is so hilarious that it gives me faith in this great nation. If Jesus could come back and see what people are doing in His name, he would never stop throwing up. Max Von Sydow said that. We live in a state of Irony. Ho ho…Big Ideas here. I know what you’re thinking…He’s drunk—he’s inhaling something…but what the hell. As long as I’m dropping names I think I’ll invoke the venerable Albert Einstein, who made the bold assertion that "God doesn’t play dice". Well, Al, I beg to differ. In fact, I say that God doesn’t only play dice, He plays blackjack, counts cards, shoots pool and does a little loan-sharking on the side. And that’s why I love Him. My god is a fun God, albeit a little slippery. Go down to the lower 9 and check out the barge that parked itself on the school bus next to the "no dumping" sign. A finer feeling of communion cannot be had at any price, in my opinion. Me and the Hindi agree on this, and it makes it easier to breathe.

Another great thing about Katrina is now everyone has something to talk about. In our five short days there we got some jist of the overall conversation. "How’d you make out?" is a good opener and if things get stale you can always whip out "Who’s your tree guy?". All my shit came out fine and dandy. We are three doors down from the river, after all. We were lucky in that it didn’t smell as bad as it did at first. It was also nice and quiet. Freilich was ruminating one day that the overall tone of the city was like summer, but even quieter. He imagined a "fifth season" when summer finally rolls around, sort of like a moon of Pluto, where everything actually stops. That sounds like the place for me.

It’s also nice to finally hear broadcasters pronouncing the words "New Orleans" more correctly. They have finally spent enough time in that wounded city to jettison the classic mispronouncement "New Orleenz", and not warp it the other way with an exaggerated "Naulenz". I even overheard an NFL broadcast the other day that didn’t have that trademark four-syllable "New Or-lee-yinz" they’ve been using for years. So you see, life is just full of little blessings!!!

I’m not making any threats, but it seems the New York adventure is coming to an end. Compared to New Orleans this town is just plain boring. In fact, just about all of the US of A is pretty boring, as are the vast majority of North Americans. Not like the Northern Irish or the Banglideshi, who always have something to talk about and dance better than us, frankly. "Love it or leave it", you might say, and I would tell you that I tried to, and being half-Canadian wasn’t good enough for the Canadian Consulate. Quintron said it very well when he said that New Orleans is still one of the weirdest towns in the world. Friction and stink make for great art, they say. And while I am not an artist, but an entertainment personality, I will say here that the situation is excellent. I might even come up with a Mardi Gras costume this year.

Can anyone tell me where I can get a best-ham sandwich?

Hello everyone. I finally have a little free time to piss away on the diary. Obviously there’s a lot going on. I have been running the two nights of New Orleans Band Hangs every Tuesday and Wednesday, and it’s a different lineup every night. Also working the job washing the glasses and taking out the trash. But I am fed and the bills are paid and there are new tires on the car.

Standard Time has been in effect for a week now and with it comes the old familiar gloomy feeling. Like when you put on the winter coat for the first time. Everyone seems to love the fall (some would say Autumn) but I don’t. All around me I see only Death and Football. Both are inevitabilities, but it is probably the NFL that depresses me the most. It’s a sad and weary spectacle of pure boredom punctuated occasionally with hypercharged pituitary cases flinging themselves about to the tune of that stupid Gary Glitter song. And if Freddie Mercury were alive today to witness the whorish gang-fuck his song has become the soundtrack to, he would never stop throwing up. At least when I had season tickets to the Saints we were all in the front row and didn’t have to watch the game. Just drink enough to forget that it was noon on a Sunday (!!!) and you just paid eight dollars for a slice of cold pizza. Every once in a while Fish would let you know that it was third down and it was time to shriek, then you could go right back to socializing and screaming obscenities at the place-kicker, who had the misfortune of practicing kicking the ball into his little net not ten feet away from us. Chris Rose summed New Orleans up best when he wrote in his column that Katrina could never be the death-knell of a city that has been rooting for the Saints for thirty five years. Well put, my man.

These are Strange Days indeed. I never figured I’d find myself in a band with Rob Wagner, Shatzy and a character named Simon Lott who is a truly Strange Man. The other night at Micky’s Blue room I had brought my acoustic guitar and we were playing a country tune of mine. The solo section came around and now we’re hearing a soprano saxophone. I think that’s pretty messed up, me. In all seriousness it has been an honor to be playing with those guys as well as Martin Krushe, Scott Murchison, Evan Christopher, Brian Coogan, Coco Robicheaux, Dave Easley, Matt Perrine and Washbord Chaz, Glenn Hartman, Benjamin Ellman and the irrepressible James Andrews. The NYC cats have been great too. Dan Green on Dave Dreywitz on bass, Brad Gunyon and Claude Coleman on drums. "This next one’s entitled ‘Ooh Ooh Pah Doo’ (just trust me, dude. It’s in E flat and it’s a blues. I’m gonna count it off…)" Everyone’s just rolling with it including the audiences who have been shaking it properly. And people are still showing up. Cass Faulkner and Brian Seeger came by the other night and might be here for a little bit. I talked to Luke Allen the other night. He was quite drunk and said he needed a gig, a band and some floor space. I hear Lynn Drury might be on her way as well. Strange days indeed…

Perhaps the strangest moment of all was the New Orleans contingent of the Halloween Parade. We had the Rebirth and the Hot 8 rolling down Sixth Avenue with some lady buck-jumpers, Henry Griffin running the show and a whole lot of confused New Yorkers holding umbrellas. I’ll never forget the stunned looks on the faces of the spectators behind the police barricades. I don’t think they knew what to make of it. But for me the best moment was seeing the Hot 8 at a place called Bait and Tackle in Red Hook. They were an hour late and I heard that someone asked, "how long does it take for them to set up?" The dropping of the jaws was about what you would expect when they finally hit the stand. I’ll come right out and say it—I had to fight back the tears when I saw a newly fattened-up Keith "Wolf" Anderson take his first solo of the night. I’m getting kind of emotional even as I write this. On the break we got to swap war stories and generally shoot the shit and you would swear we were all You Know Where. And now we all know there is a There there. And while we are all here and there, the There is Everywhere. And I believe in my soul that the situation will be excellent, me.

Yeah you right.

Well they say there’s a hurricane going on in New Orleans today. All my television offers is The People’s Court. My phone gets no incoming calls. For some reason I can’t get online. I seem to have drifted into a paradise of ignorance. All I know is that my friend Yvette has assured me that my 1960 Fender Concert amplifier is safe on the second story of her house. All in all, I’d say the situation is excellent.

We had some tours lately, one with 007 and another with the Tin Men immediately afterwards. Before I say anything else I’d like to talk a little about a place called Grape Street in Philadelphia.

If you read my last diary entry, you will recall a little rant about a certain club that stiffed the Tin Men last spring. I didn’t use the name of the club because I had to play there again with 007. You will also recall that in that rant of several months ago that I had in mind some actions that I was going to take with their representative, should I have the ill fortune to cross paths with him this time around. In all the hubbub leading up to these tours, I forgot to get a copy of the Pennsylvania State Civil Service exam, which I meant to give to their factotum, as a small gesture of my esteem. I think my purpose was to shove it up his ass or somesuch.

It’s too bad that I didn’t have the document, but it makes no difference as I made it clear to the band that I would have do dealings with the management. My hostility towards this place would surely get the better of me, and in the end would not have been productive at all. The gig was set up through persons in Philadelphia who have regular dealings with the club, who had assured us that there would be absolutely no question of our getting our guarantee.

In the end we did not get our guarantee (a very modest sum, I can assure you), but only a portion of it. The first I heard of this was after we had loaded up the van and were ready to depart for New York. I’m pretty sure I laughed when I heard the news. This world is pretty tough, even without the lying, scumsucking, soulless cunts at Grape Street Philadelphia.

Let me be Perfectly Clear: GRAPE STREET PHILADELPHIA RIPS OFF MUSICIANS.

Grape Street is located in Manayunk, sort of a trendy, Philly version of Williamsbug, Brooklyn. They had us on a bill following two metal bands and a sort of jazz combo. We went on after midnight on a Wednesday, charged us for our drinks and food and were generally hostile, especially about parking. This club sucks ass—Don’t go.

Extreme Touring

This is my new term for booking a tour on the day of the gig. If you were interested in how July’s Woodstock shows went with the wack band opening up for Buckwheat Zydeco and the Subdudes at the Joyous Lake, I can tell you that we didn’t get our guarantee. The promoter said he’d mail me a check when his online ticket sales came through. That never happened. But I was hopeful because I knew that the Tin Men were scheduled to play there in August for the promoter’s birthday party, as well as the club gig. As it happened, Chaz’s wife, Jessica, was surfing the interweb and came across the Joyous Lake website. Seeing no Tin Men listed, she e-mailed the club and got a response from them to the effect that we had cancelled. This is on Friday afternoon as we were preparing to leave for upstate. I made some calls and finally got to speak with the woman who does the bookings for the place. She talked to me for over a half an hour about this promoter character, who vanished owing a lot of people a lot of money. He goes by three different aliases—Scot Stanley, Scot Blend, and Scot Dion, and pulled similar capers on the West Coast. He is Irish and told Matt Perrine he’d been taking elocution lessons in order to lose his brogue. The booking lady (Janet Morra—a very nice woman who was a big help in filling thye gaps in our knowledge) intimated to me that she’d heard that Scot and his family were involved with the IRA. He owes money to a bunch of bands including several New Orleans acts. He also owes money to backline companies and music venues. He’s pulled scams involving online ticket sales. And we were supposed to play this guy’s birthday party. This is where Extreme Touring comes in.

What we did was call every place we could think of and ask if we could play that night. Will Beam of the Meeting House at Cold Spring, NY came through for us on the Friday night, and Mike Mikkelson of the Black Swan in Tivoli, NY, let us play on both Saturday and Sunday nights. To these two fine gentlemen we owe our heartfelt gratitude. From what would have been sheer disaster we salvaged our weekend rather nicely. And the shows were pretty cool. The Cold Spring show was especially rewarding because these people had absolutely no idea what to expect when we came rolling in with the tuba and the washboard. They scratched their heads a little at first, but when it was all over we made some fans and sold some CDs.

P.S….But all this was pre-Katrina. I’ll have to save the post-Katrina stuff fro later. I’m just too inundated

Alex - Video Diary Entry - Play (1.4Mb QuickTime)

It’s nice to finally be able to get a moment to do a diary entry. I’ve been busy as hell, and nothing sticks in my head right now, so I’m just going to try to catch up. There have been a lot of things in the past few months that have happened where I said to myself, “gee, there’s something for the diary”, but for the most part it’s good that I didn’t put them down as they were at least in one case a totally vitriolic rant about the scumsucking, lying, venal cunt who screwed one of my bands out of some money at a certain club that, unfortunately, I’ll have to play at again. Suffice it to say, this piece of dogshit will get a large piece of my opinion shoved very far up his ass as soon as this certain gig is over and whatever pittance this slimeball deems fit to hand over is duly delivered. Take it from me—Showbiz is an ugly trade. Sometimes I wish I had taken my father’s advice and taken the civil service exam right straight out of college. But I am not a Morning Person and would probably never last at, say, the Parks Department, or the County Assessor’s Office. I have never had the knack of running a fiefdom and coming down on hardworking honest folks like you and me. This fuckhead I’m talking about has all the qualities you’d find in a meter maid or a loan officer, so perhaps he’s really found his niche booking a club. But perhaps I’ll bring along an application for the civ test, so this asshole can at least know that there’s something for him out there suitable for his temperament. I can see the exchange going something like this: “Hey you guys were great! You had 60 people paid minus the 70/30 split minus production costs. Plus you guys drank $106.00 worth of tequila. Here’s $19.75”. To which I will say “Holy jumping George! Thanks a lot, pal! We LOVED playing here tonight! By the way, do you remember me from last spring? Probably not but I remember you and I brought along an application for the Civil Service Exam. I’ll bet with your intelligence and experience you could easily get a position peeling gum up off the sidewalk. You and your club obviously need this money a lot more than us, so why don’t you keep the $19.75 and use it towards your application fee? Either that or shove it up your ass?”

But this will not be that kind of ugly submission. No. I’m feeling fine and light today. Last night I got to do a gig with Dave Driewitz and Claude Coleman at The Delancey, and it was fucking stellar. We fucked just about everything up, but it was like a blitzkrieg. The shit was Up and Loud, and my broken left hand didn’t even hurt. Those guys are real pros and know a thing or two about the business of Rock And Roll. Kevin O’Day was in town with Anders Osborne and Magnetic Ear, who played after us, and he sat in on the F-bowl tune My Money and completely kicked its ass. I thought I’d never want to hear that shit again but it was worth it that one time. Maybe we’ll play it again in about five years.

Other shit that’s been happening is the Tin Men just played a wedding in Malibu, CA last weekend in the midst of sheer opulence. O.K., so we had to play a Billy Joel song and Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, but after we got that shit out of the way we kicked their asses. The sound company, in their inestimable competence, forgot to bring a guitar amplifier (although I’m sure they charged the family for it), but that didn’t matter. The guests were, for the most part, completely bewildered and transfixed. I don’t think what the Tin Men bring is available at all in Phoenix, AZ, or in the rack at the register at any Starbucks. The role of the Tin Men is to Confuse and Enlighten. We achieved that rather handily.

So. The new website is coming along pretty good. I’ll have the paypal and cdbaby shit going soon, as well as some more pictures. Maybe even some video. The guy who’s helping me with all this sent me an e-mail today to let me know that he’s putting the software I need to run this thing myself in the mail today. That means I’ll be just about 100% self-sufficient until something goes wrong, as it inevitably will. Drop me a line if you’ve got any suggestions or problems.

Not too much happening in July except Dave, Claude and myself going up to Woodstock to open for the Subdudes and Buckwheat Zydeco on the 15th and 16th (see “shows” for details), and some sort of aggregation to perform at John and Peter’s in New Hope, PA on the 23rd. August will feature tours by the Tin Men and 007 in the Northeast. Also the next New Orleans sojourn will be in September. Stay tuned for details.

That’s about it. I’ll try to have something more entertaining next time, but I’m not making any promises.