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The trip from Schenectady to Wilmington was punctuated by a screening of Disney’s classic The Little Mermaid. This is being recreated for the stage soon, keep your eyes peeled for imaginistic costuming and staging.

I got pulled over for talking on the cell phone while driving. Due to something called plausible deniability, the hunky B-S officer said I was all set and could continue on my way.

I was wrong about the President, he is a funny and gentle person. This is not something I would have guessed recently, but I visited his place a couple days ago and I did one of those online feng-shui sites and we came up really compatible. I will buy the pop up book and wrap it in glad wrap (gladly wrap it) to preserve for sale to future generations.

The show is sold out in Delaware, which is strange because as a small state, I would assume it easy for the citizenry to escape to fish restaurants and movie theaters in Philadelphia or Baltimore for entertainment. But no, there are at least 1500 x 8 people who need me to be here now. I cannot take this job lightly. We are playing in a theater in the DuPont building which is really cool. Check my videos page for some up close views of me at work! Don’t tell anybody!

II

Our week in Ottawa was highlighted by several more St. Patrick’s day parties and a visit to the cat ranch next to the house of parliament. They sure do look after those kittens. The beer is ultimately expensive in Ontario, and is kept in stores labeled according to their contents: “The Beer Store, “The Wine Rack.”

Our trip back across the pond featured a stop at a luxurious and duty free Duty Free shop. Here you could buy things like cigarettes without supporting either the US or Canada in neither the war on drugs nor terror.

The biggest news is that I wished upon a Weinstein and got an accountant. This is someone to whom I can tell all my secrets -- like a kitten -- and who, unlike a kitten (I hope) will then write these down and mail them to the government. He specializes in dealing with touring performers and has focused his considerable spare time since 1985 staying up to date with the tax code. We, of course, met at Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga to discuss how to set up a relationship. He wore his gray partial head of hair in a seriously long pony tail covered by a checked newsie cap and featured a homemade looking t shirt advertising his services as tax man. Despite these unique personal touches, we still could not find each other in the crowd.

He handed me a packet which includes simplifications of several tax forms available from the IRS. There are places to put numbers corresponding to my “records” of how much I spent on makeup and photos of myself. Clothing is only deductible if it cannot be worn on the street. No matter how shiny the dinner jacket, it could be worn to the mall and is not deductible. No matter how epileptic my tapping, the tap shoes are not fit for 5th avenue and can be purchased pre-tax thank god. The packet contains at least one error per page.

my old myspace page

This is my old myspace bio, which got worn out by my 14 friends reading it for the last 6 months, so I put it here for eternity and made up something else:

I'm ex-lead guitar for the ultra-local (but much pod-casted and tape-traded) Dominc's Drain Plugs. We were based in Japan, but played a distinctly neo-urban style, opening for the likes of the Skinsults and, once (triumphantly), Fromage In The Larder. Our lyrics required intense concentration to sing properly, but the audience thought it worth the trouble. I had lots of flamboyant guitar chords, was able to play them rapidly and with the guitar swung thither on my back. I have mastered the karma of this instrument.

Do you have space for my wii in your bag?

In preparation for what is reported to be the third largest St. Patrick’s day parade in the country, we drank a good deal last night and stuffed our bean pole of a trombonist into a tiny plane and sent him home. Scranton is at the very least the most surprising city one could ever visit, with a community spirit and draft specials completely out of line with geography and culture. There was an asian coffee shop employee this morning (full disclosure: 13:30 EST) who charmed $2.80 right off me by answering the phone and taking messages in a full this-is-my-grandmother-from-Thailand accent, which was not her real voice. This was probably an effort to get attention, and it worked. Sometimes you just buy food named as a bathroom scent. I could have just exercised my tipping power and stuffed a couple bucks in the fish bowl on the counter instead.

Tomorrow marksthe second celebration of St. Patty’s day this year. The first was at Penn State and Tight Nightgown prods. Present State Patty’s Day, 3.02.07. Now we have Scranton Slim and The Greek Events Presentation, LLC present Parade Day 3.10.07. There are many things happening that are newsworthy and I just missed getting my photo with Channel 16’s roving reporter Whit Whiteson (“I grew up watching your father…”), but was probably on the news anyway. Drink specials stary all over town at 7am and you are not allowed to move a car within about 6 blocks in any direction of the federal building in front of which events will take place. The police are already out, and there are bunches of drunks on the street holding bouquets of shiny green mylar items they are presumably trying to sell. The good thing is, the drafts are only $.17 tomorrow, so the shiny hats should be cheap too. The goal is to partake, and to show up not wearing diapers to work tomorrow night and to do justice to this little piece of art called Hairspray.

Also, we played wii bowling in the hotel bar last night for a while, and then my roommate came up to the room and bought a wii at 5 am because he couldn’t figure out how to cancel his bid in time. So if you get a random text saying “we’ve got beer and wii bowling in 418,” you know it’s no scam, and you will get your own controller.

Also there is a 24 year old Scrantonite who built a bunch of huge k’nex models and dresses alternately like a 10 year old (yesterday) and a zoologist guest on Ellen (today). He has displayed models at the k’nex factory just down the road. His current project is in front of Boscov's at the Steamtown mall and is quite engaging for men to look at. Women don't seem to care.

Also down the road is an agency that trains and deploys pharmaceutical sales people, who are often from the Midwest. Next time you see a pharma rep, thank them for their sacrifice. They had to get up at 8 this morning.

In Bethlehem They're Killing Time...riding their Segways

Since I haven’t ritten in a while, and have eliminated silent letters from my style, I was waiting for a defining moment to get the juices flowing again. Would it be smashing my head on a fire valve in Flint, MI and bleeding into my hat? Or being continually harassed by hotel employees regarding use of the complimentary shuttles they all begrudgingly “schedule” for our use? Or getting out the old tennis racket for a couple hours of punishingly refined fun at a raquet club in Kalamazoo? Perhaps waiting 35 minutes for a bagel and peanut butter at a stupid little shop in State College and protesting the shite service (can I say that on the radio?), honorably, by not bussing our own table? Or touring the semi desolate town of Bethlehem where most of the geography is fenced off and abandonded, leaving enough room for a home goods store and Segway dealership. The moment happened today as I was carrying my bags up to the 7th floor (translation: 8th floor) of the Binghamton Regency and was teased by a group of firemen descending who fell silent when I said “I want to be like you when I grow up.”

Also on the way to Binghamton we stopped for lunch at a song-worthy oasis of metal buildings on the highway in Pennsylvania featuring names like “Store,” “Fireworks,” “Country Kitchen” and, appetizingly, “Mahwah Tires.” Paying fantastic homage to the herd mentality, we 45 or so dandies and youths were a mere 30 miles from our final destination, but needed so badly to eat and romp in irony that we delayed our arrival in Binghamton (motto: “are you really here? Wow.”) by over an hour. I saw the most massive section of human fecal matter I could ever dream of sitting in a toilet in the “Store” restroom.