Thing a Week 21 – Chiron Beta Prime
I’m in Denver you see. So this is from the reserves – I wrote it around Christmas time last year at the request of my friend Andrew at Z+ Partners. For their holiday card they sent a CD, and they wanted a Christmas song with a futuristic theme. Of course I went right for the post-apocalyptic, stranded on an asteroid, ruled by robots situation. What would a family Christmas letter sound like from there? Well I think it might sound…something…like this…
The song: Chiron Beta Prime
No Guns, Knives, Jokes
So here I am in the Portland airport killing some time, eating some salmon hash. Free Wifi – why is this not everywhere?
Last night’s event at Powell’s in Portland supported my theory that audiences in the Northwest are the greatest. Lots of people who laughed, a few who drove from Seattle to see us, and Marty even brought his half pony half monkey stuffed animal. Also met Glenn of the two Ns, and Vincent of the Shop Vac solo. Nice to put faces to names. Thanks to everyone who came out.
Milwaukee is cancelled! Not the whole city, just out appearance there. I hear there’s some weather. Instead we’re going directly to Denver to kill 24 hours and then do our last show of this tour on Friday night at the Tattered Cover. If anyone has any suggestions for things we must not miss while in Denver, please let me know. Maybe John and I will go quail hunting.
Which brings me to this: Jill Sobule has beaten me to the punch with a topical song about the Cheney shooting (are they calling it quailgate yet?). Watch it Sobule, you’re on my list! The song is here: Dick and Harry
LA Maybe Not So Bad
I must say, I’m rather enjoying my time here in a way that I usually do not when I’m in Los Angeles. Maybe it’s because I’m doing nothing but hobnobbing with celebrities and performing for warm appreciative audiences – last night at Book Soup was a lot of fun. We did some hobo material which we hadn’t done in a while, and I knew from the first couple of minutes that it was going to be a good show. Not to mention the kind folks at G4 TV who made us feel famous and special and talented.
Speaking of which, for those of you who missed Attack of the Show yesterday, fella by the name of BadServo has digitized my segment and put it on his site. It’s kind of a big file so it may take a while to download, but you can find it here: JC on Attack of the Show.
Day off today – I am “taking some meetings” – and then tomorrow we fly to Portland for more fun. But first a little Trader Vic’s. I hope to be ass-up in a Scorpion Bowl in about 3 hours…
Snowless in Silver Lake
I can’t believe I missed the big snow in NYC. I love when the city really gets hit and everything shuts down, but here I am in damned sunny California. Typical.
The McSweeney’s event was fun, a nice big friendly crowd and a bunch of great performances. I say again, Patton Oswalt is hilarious. I was also blown away by Jon Brion, who played songs in between acts. He’s a producer and musician and all around musical genius. He had just a guitar and a piano, and he didn’t prepare anything ahead of time, he’d just watch the show and then play whatever came to him. He obviously knows every song in the world – really nice guy too. He plays Fridays at Largo, and if you’re in LA you should probably go and see him.
Last night we went to a fancy cocktail party where I met Emo Phillips and Matt Groenig and was too shy to talk to Albert Brooks. LA! And today we’ll be on G4’s Attack of the Show, and then at Book Soup tonight.
I leave you with this video of a bear rescue that involves a trampoline (don’t worry, the bear is fine), and also this video of a Rube Goldberg device constructed in Half Life 2. Watch them and think about physics.