The joint was jumping and the band began to swing

“You shoulda heard those knocked-out jailbirds sing, let’s rock!” I shook the electric guitar and laid down power chords. “Everybawwdy, let’s rock! Everybawwdy in the whole cell blawk! They was dancin’ to the jail! house! rock!”

I finished the chorus and stopped abruptly. George Furth sat, grinning thinly before me. He’s seventy-three years old, an elfin mug laced with a drizzle of white hair. A white monogrammed scarf hangs loosely around his black turtleneck. I idly wonder why he’s wearing a scarf on a warm sunny day.

“Well, we got another Elvis here,” says George. I smile politely.

Doug Katsaros sits down at the piano and starts banging out the Eagles. I grab an edge of the piano and hang on. “On a dark desert highway!” I scream. “Cool wind in my hair! Warm smell of colitas…”

George pounds the table. “I can’t hear him! Doug, play quieter!”

“What?” shouts Doug.

“QUIETER!” screams George.

“Sorry,” says Doug.

I try again. “Welcome to the Hotel Caaalifornia! Such a lovely place, such a lovely place…”

We peter out at the end of the chorus. Again, George’s nondescript smirk. “Your mother must be proud of you.”

I think. “She’s my mom. She doesn’t have a choice.” The audition’s over, somehow.

So I’m getting off Adam’s Cardinal when the call comes. George is writing, Doug is musicking, and they want me to play and sing it. The showcase is called “The End” and it goes up at the end of May. They want to tour the show.

These guys all had their turn on Broadway, and they want to get back to where they once belonged.

First rehearsal was last night. We’re still working out the arrangements, but Doug has me singing (four songs, one solo), playing bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and — dear sweet God — the banjo. Are banjos legal on Broadway?

You don’t have to be beautiful to turn me on

Wednesday night, ten p.m, South First. The jukebox drones and the waitresses dawdle. Valerie drops her glass of red wine on the table with a thonk and scratches her nose. She’s in lecture mode.

“Now. About kissing in film scenes. There is a protocol to be followed. I was doing this sci-fi film once and I was gonna get kissed by this bad-ass biker dude. And the cameras rolled and he gave me this little teeny kiss. So I tell him, whatsa matter, ya fuckin’ pussy? Kiss me, goddamn it! And the cameras rolled again and he stuck his tongue in my mouth, so I slapped him up-side the head and said Don’t you ever do that to me again in your life! So the third time he got the kiss vaguely sorta right. Protocol.”

Valerie killed the rest of her wine. “Wanted to tell you. Saw that kissing scene with you in that video I asked you to do. Gotta tell you to keep that tongue in your mouth. It’s a safety issue, you know. You don’t know what germs the other actor is carrying. Basic rule of stage and screen: never kiss with tongues. So in the future, don’t you stick your tongue in anyone’s mouth either.”

I blinked. “You going to slug me?”

“I need another glass of wine,” Valerie said, flagging a waitress. “Hey!”

Let the sun and light come streaming into my life

An hour ago I auditioned for Doug Katsaros’s new musical. Katsaros wrote this B-flat. It’s late, I’m hungry, I’m waiting in line for a sandwich. To my left is a woman: five-foot-four, possibly Filipino or Korean. She has a thick pair of wire rims on her stubby nose. She carries about fifty pounds of unflattering weight, mostly around her belly. Her thick fingers, devoid of any rings, sift through her wallet. As they do so, I catch a glimpse of a neatly stacked wad of orange Super Lotto tickets.

And in that instant she becomes very real to me, a life of the same recipe as yours and mine, a creature of mud and dreams.

No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man

Eight thousand feet down, the Sacramento Valley shines beneath me, a living emerald quilt. Lakes shimmer in the brilliant haze. From here, the cars are white blood cells, coursing through the veins of Calaveras County.

Adam Wilt is the amiable pilot of this Cessna C177A N30304, vintage 1969, with all the Populuxe design hipness of the period. The vinyl dashboard is crinkled and cracked from years of sun and air, and the windshield is streaked with hairline scratches, but the ashtrays are clean and the wings are unmarked. The fat-ass engine growls and hauls us through the fog.

“We’re at cruising altitude,” says Adam. “I would say it’s OK for you to get up and walk around the cabin, but I’d have to get out first.”

“I’ll bet you’ve used that joke before,” I said.

Adam looked chastened. “No, I haven’t,” he said. Mountains, fields, trees, sky: everywhere, luscious and thrilling hues of green and blue.

We met Josh and Tasha at the airport, who greeted us like old friends. They smiled and corralled us into their van, loaded with props, sunscreens, a tent, a power generator, and a gregarious chihuahua named Dieter.

In half an hour we are at a lush, open, green pasture that goes by the quaint name N 57 deg 36.657′, E 120 deg 53.387′. Dave Kellum, the director, introduces me to the costume: a green industrial plastic slicker, black coveralls, black shirt and tie, gas mask, and bowler top hat, filled with several bags of ice to keep me cool. The suit plus full-face gas mask plus balaclava plus bowler hat plus galoshes plus slicker plus backpack weighs in excess of eighty pounds.

I stand in front of the camera. Grips reflect fill lights on my sweltering head. I blink and become Geoffrey Done.

“Son of a bitch,” I whisper. I raise the pistol towards the mechanical eye, two-hand grip —

Bang! Cut! “Okay, next set-up,” says Dave, and four people scramble to rearrange my costume.

Six hours and fourteen set-ups. At the end of a productive day, Adam and I are back in the Cardinal, floating at one hundred twenty miles an hour into a picture-perfect west-coast sunset.

Mary Moon will outlive all the septuagenarians

Ten p.m., Rico’s housewarming party in downtown Berkeley. A wide-eyed, Birkenstock-wearing ragga sits cross-legged on the floor with a Slinky in one hand and metal crimpers in the other. He twists the wire into a dog on all fours, a hunched man, and an unidentifiable blob. The twists of wire end up upended on the coffee table.

“Taurine,” the short-haired redhead pronounces with authority. She fingers a plastic cup of warm wine.

Sitting on the couch is a mellow co-ed who slaps lightly on a Latin bongo drum, laying down a protest beat. His left hand keeps the beat while his right hand works a small Baggie from his pocket. The plastic bag, filled with about half an ounce of tiny green leaves, arcs through the air into Rico’s lap.

“Taurine,” the redhead says again. A mottled pitbull-pointer mutt noses into her lap and looks at her lovingly. “Dogs need it in their diet. It’s what they add to vegan dog food so dogs don’t get sick.”

Rico opens the Baggie and sniffs the contents. Rico opens the packet of green spice and fishes out a small furry mouse, with a ratty brown feather for a tail. He shakes the leaves from the toy and inspects it critically. “What the hell is this?” he asks.

The drummer laughs. “Catnip. For your cat. Put the catnip in the mouse.”

My wife rubs my neck as I fingerpick the guitar. I ponder: is it right? is it decent? for a dog to eat vegan dog food?

The child is grown, the dream is gone

Mr. Fantastic, our drummer, is recovering from severe carpal tunnel syndrome. He writes:

i have never been this exhausted in my life. but it was worth it. i had an
amazing time last night, and, as always (against eric's instincts... ROUND
1 - FIGHT), i wish we had at least an audio tape of the show. there were *so
many* amazing moments that i can't remember them all. definitely baby got
back and the juicy fruit/big red/mortal kombat sequence were all-time
favorites. i have very fond memories of my guitar wanking on 'one i love'
(although i may be the only one).  hey ya and add it up proved our dangerous
hippo powers to the world.

i especially want to thank you guys for packing and unloading all the gear
by yourselves and letting me go straight home after the show. i was
unbelievably exhausted and my friend had had a very long day yesterday.  and
now, please pray for my wrists so i can try to live a normal life.... ;-)

Thanks to you, loyal friends, for rocking our world.

Er war ein Punker, und er lebte in der grossen Stadt

This is your final warning before I call the cops: you are commanded to rawk with us on Saturday night, March 13, 2004 at the Werepad in San Francisco. Get on the guest list here.

Alzo! Due to loss of one and one-half fingers, the SUTN show dates and my scripts therein are sliding wildly. Current ETA for the new Gavin Newsom sketch is film date of 7:00 p.m. Sunday, April 4, 2004, at the KPIX Studios in San Francisco; TV air date of April 10 at 1:00 a.m. (That’s late the following Saturday night.)

Both of the above events are free! Attend one and ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY!