On the Road
Sorry for no postie, I’ve been traveling with Mr. John Hodgman doing book stuff. Chicago and now Boston. Last night we appeared on a public access cable show called NightBeat, or maybe NiteBeat, here in Brookline. It was live TV, and it was very strange – I was a little spooked by all the cameras, but I pretended like everything was cool so I’m sure I came off really smooth. I have a tape, which I will watch in private someday when I am very brave.
Today I’m doing a phone interview with Jimmy Diggs on a show called Daily Noise about Baby Got Back and maybe other stuff. That’s 1:30 EST, and you can listen at any number of internet stations – check the site for details.
And of course, tonight is the Little Gray Books lecture about Brookline, to be held in Brookline, when I will sing a song called “Brookline.” At which point the universe collapse in on itself.
This week’s thing coming soon…
Baby Also Got Back
So this is weird. I was in the car driving back from Albany when my cell phone rang. It was somebody from K-something radio station somewhere in CA (I have a great ear for detail) who wanted to talk to the guy who did the Baby Got Back cover. He asked if I’d be willing to do an interview and when I said yes he asked me to hold on because he had to play a song, and suddenly the station feed was coming through my phone. I realized then that he meant I was going to do an interview, like, now. So I waited on hold a minute listening to them play some Boston song. Then someone else came on the line and said that they just wanted to make sure it’s my cover, and they play it for me. Turns out it’s not me – it was a little hard for me to hear over the phone, but I could tell it wasn’t me. Just a guy and a guitar, no other instruments or vocals as far as I could tell. I told them so, and they said they needed to regroup and then call me back. And then they never called me back.
Now I wish I could remember the radio station, or the guy’s name, because I’m dying to know where that other version came from. Is it possible there are two Baby Got Back covers floating around out there? Does this ring any bells with anyone?
700 Hoboes
Enough already with the hoboes! I know, sorry, one more thing though because it’s kind of cool. Someone has thrown down the challenge for 700 illustrators to each draw one of the hoboes and post it on flickr. Any of you artist types out there may want to get in on this action – just post to flickr and give it the “700hoboes” tag. There are already 16 of them done, so that only leaves 684. I suspect you can still find some good ones in there. See existing drawings here: 700 hobo drawings
Finally
I set up some space on the songs page to download Thing a Week songs and get lyrics. Don’t forget to give me money!
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