the team of my taste

na na na na na na na nah
they say it's your birthday
it's my birthday too, yeah

Actually, they say it was my birthday Saturday, and my profile has a picture of me in a pointy hat to prove it.

Thursday I played the Hotel Cafe. Here's the setlist;

how many times
easy for you
satellite
princess
sun still shines
only rehearsal/treat me bad
simple city/outside opinion
2x2
what if I
one spin

Brandon Rogers sat in on pianer and vox. Bill Shupp played drums and cymbals, Joel Martin played guitar, and Brett Simons played the bass. I had a mighty fine time and consumed a terabyte (terror bite?) of calories thanks to Julie G. providing the cake of three milks, or tres leches, if you prefer. It was delicious.

Saturday we had a small party at my brother's place where I recorded a pre-Benamin Franklin-style album (I think you get sued by MTV if you say Unplugged). It was me and my brother's über-fancy 1968 Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, plus an upright piano. I recorded 15 songs, 12 of which are ready for prime time. There were a couple of false starts, and a song where I substituted poop [sic] instead of the correct lyric. I'm told that these should be on a bonus disc, albeit one with a parental advisory sticker.

I'm planning on selling this live album at shows and online, plus putting some video footage on youtube. It won't take long to mix and master, all I have to do is go through some pictures with Austen Risolvato and ship 'er off to the factory.

I'm doing this live album because I want to have a recording that's just me and the guitar, and also to tide over my very patient fan base. My new studio record is done (barring the composition of another song or two) and ready for mixing, but I'm lining up new management to get a strategy as to how and where to go with this album. This is to insure that my next birthday party will be hosted by P Diddy and decorated by Martha Stewart.

I'll be playing on May 7th at the Air Conditioned Supper Club, which is 625 Lincoln Blvd. in Venice, CA. Don't be afraid. There's a flyer on my profile.

In other news, I was inspired by a conversation about David Bowie's lyrics to mess around with dadaism and the cut-up technique:

* Take a newspaper.
* Take a pair of scissors.
* Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
* Cut out the article.
* Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
* Shake it gently.
* Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
* Copy conscientiously.
* The poem will be like you.
* And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

-Tristan Tzara

I have my own technique for accidentally creating poetry. It's called the AltaVista Babel Fish translator, where you can translate phrases from English to other languages and back. Hilarity ensues.

For example:

It was my birthday on Saturday. I was given tickets to a basketball game. It was enjoyable even though my favorite team lost the game because they can't defend the pick and roll.

Once it's translated, and returned to English:

That was my birthday of Saturday. I could give the ticket to the tournament of the baseball. That those protected one piercing, being not to be possible, to roll, was pleasant to the team of my taste losing the game.


Taste losing the game, indeed.

Go Lakers! And, thanks E, E, and J for the tix.