“Not even on my birthday!” she testifies. “Christmas and Mother’s Day – that’s all I deserve, I suppose. Have mercy.”

I sip from my cup, and it bubbles louder than I had anticipated. I look around, but nobody’s noticed. I take a louder sip to test the limits.

A teenaged couple are avoiding eye contact with each other. He’s mopping his plate with a dry piece of wheat toast, and she’s dabbing the corners of her mouth with a folded napkin.

He clears his throat to loosen some phlegm, and she gets up to go to the bathroom. A chubby waitress saunters over, lifting her hips way too high on both sides – so much for subtleties – and sets the check down lightly. She turns around, and I have to take another sip of my coffee to hide my surprise. Her mustache is bold. Thick. A blonde caterpillar, cozy on her philtrum. My eyes dart down to the checkered pattern in front of me.

“1985,” I hear. “Sugar prices are climbing, people in suits are panicking. Coca-Cola is screwed. Pepsi’s been gaining on them since the late 70’s, there’s no way they can afford to switch to a cheaper sweetener now.” His friend is chewing. Nodding, but mostly chewing.

“Unless,” he bellows,  “they can divert everyone’s attention to another product entirely.” He pauses dramatically…

“New Coke. It’s like drinking from a rusty spittoon. No corporation in its right MIND would take such a successful product off the market, and replace it with a completely different formula. People cry. Angry letters are written. Phone calls are made. 77 days later, when Coke re-introduces its “classic” formula, people are so busy celebrating, that they have no idea what’s been added to their drinks; High. Fructose. Corn syrup.”

He leans back in his seat, smiling, puffed up with self-appreciation. I check my watch. It’s closer to midnight than I had suspected, but still not close enough. I lift my mug to take a drink, and realize it’s empty. I look for Tom Selleck the Waitress, but she’s busy eyeballing the kid, whose girlfriend has returned and still isn’t saying a word.

“Victor knows that Julia and Michael have been seeing each other,” says the pruny lady. For a second, I think she’s talking about real people.

“So he locks him up in a bomb shelter he built in his basement, and makes him watch on a television screen while he makes love to her.”

The waitress refills my drink, but doesn’t bother to smile at me. Even if she had, I wonder to myself, would I be able to see it behind her crumb catcher? I smile back anyway, and she strolls off, popping her hips like her pelvis is dislocated.

The teenaged couple are at the counter now, and he’s got his wallet out to pay the bill. She’s not giving him the ‘You’re-paying-my-bill-so-now-I’m-indebted-to-you’ vibe! I silently cheer for her in my head. Move closer to him. Give him the Grateful eyes. Something!

He pockets the change, and they exit together, more than two feet between them. I release a sigh of defeat. I check my watch. It’s closer to midnight than I had suspected, but still not close enough.

Are We Not Horses? is an album by Canadian indie/folk band Rock Plaza Central, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever listened to before. A concept album in the truest sense, it tells the story of a group of robotic horses who are programmed to believe that they’re real horses. Take a second to digest that, and I’ll move on.

It starts with the catchiest song on the album; the moderately-paced, 3 minute folk/pop tune I Am An Excellent Steel Horse. The lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Chris Eaton has the perfect voice for an album about horses, and I can’t explain why. His voice is a blend of Jeff Mangum [Neutral Milk Hotel] and Jack White, [The White Stripes] without sounding too much like either one.

In the beginning of the album, the horses are just walking around being horses. They’re determined and strong-willed, and want nothing more than to be the best horses they can be (“we have our lives together / and we want nothing more / I wanna be a shining example”). But halfway through the album, they struggle to accept the truth, (Eaton screams “They say that we’re not horses…well, what are we THENNNN?!”) that they are, in fact, made of steel and programmed to think they are living and breathing. But once they accept it, they find that being a robot isn’t anything to be disappointed about (“We’ve Got A Lot To Be Glad For”).

As hard as the concept might be to follow for some, the music is interesting enough to hold your interest. From the trudging folk of I Am An Excellent Steel Horse to the Latin can-can rock of Anthem For The Already Defeated, it’s a grab bag of diverse sounds and styles, but there’s a thread holding everything together; it all sounds like one piece.

Check it out, if you’ve got the time. I’d recommend it if you like Neutral Milk Hotel, Modest Mouse or The Shins. You can listen to the songs for free
here, download it here, or buy the cd here.

How could he have gotten himself here? Heaving the heavy hilt of his gardening tool into the hollow mud under the Henry Hudson River, he holds his handsome face away from the hot sun that, only an hour before, had been hidden behind the hilltops.

On observing the orange orb, Walter oscillates the old shovel over his hear, ousting it from his hands over onto the open bank. Out of an odorous duffel bag, he lifts the obese body of Orville Oakley, an old oil tycoon with a letter opener in his occipital lobe.

As he arches his back, asserting an aggravated groan, he apprehensively asks himself, “Am I really an assassin? Is alcoholic arrogance an appropriate reason to actively and aggressively authorize an action such as this?” And with this awareness, he adamantly agrees, and allows the body to drop into its apt, aquatic grave.

Morning makes itself more noticeable, melting its way across the mountains. Meanwhile, Walter maintains a measure of motivation, moving the mud over the motionless man, mindlessly and mechanically. “Me, a murderer? Maybe…” he muses.

In the end, it’s important to identify what may seem implicit; injustice breeds involuntary insanity, in both the idiotic and the intelligent. Though it isn’t in us all to inter the ignorant, I think it is inevitable. But then again, Who Am I?

I finally received my FM3 Buddha Machine! But what the hell is it??

The Buddha Machine is a small plastic box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. In the middle is a large, circular speaker, and on top there’s a volume control, a headphone jack and a pitch wheel.

When you click the volume control on, a low ambient drone starts coming out of the speaker — and then loops infinitely. And, while it sounds kind of annoying, it’s really quite peaceful. It has 9 different loops to choose from, which can be selected by clicking the button on the left side of the box.

Once a loop is playing, you can use the pitch wheel to speed it up or slow it down, according to your mood. And that’s it! You turn it on, set it to a loop that you like, and then sit back and absorb the peaceful sounds. Or you can get creative, and record the loops to your computer, and lay them over each other to create something new (which, apparently, some people have already done).

Oh, and according to the diagram on their website, there’s a miniature Buddha figurine inside…

Pretty sweet. $23, it comes in like 10 different colors (I got burgundy) and you can buy it here.

1. Da Da
2. Why I Still Don’t Have My License
3. I’m Short
4. Your New Boyfriend
5. Captain Tug-a-Lug
6. I Like You
7. Ding Dong Sing-Along

Ding Dong Sing-Alongs is a children’s album that I made to buy me time to write more songs for my next full length, Songs I’d Like To Sing Into Your Open Mouth. None of the songs on this album have ever been released in any other form. Some of them have sort of become staples at my live shows, particularly Captain Tug-A-Lug, a song I wrote about my (now deceased) baby puffer fish.

Please download it. Please share it. Please distribute it. Please memorize all of the words and request the songs at my next show. Thanks!

DOWNLOAD: DingDongSing-Alongs.zip

My brother’s awake, and wrapped in a blanket on the couch where my dad had slept. We watch the same line-up every morning; Johnny Quest, Pink Panther, The Flintstones. Most kids our age won’t be awake for another 4 or 5 hours. But we have to be, because at 5, we’re getting dropped off at my grandma’s house. My dad has to be to work, and we have no idea where my mom is.

I put my jeans in the oven, because it’s cold this early in the morning. I leave the oven door open, and turn around in front of it, so it will warm my whole body. It’s a routine I practice every morning. I don’t know whose idea it was to use the oven, though.

Just before 5 am, my dad goes out in the driveway and starts his car. He turns the heater on, shuts the door, and comes back in the house to let us know it’s time to go. My brother brings a blanket and climbs into the back seat. I push the front seat back, and sit down. My dad tells me to watch my feet, and shuts my door. He climbs in the driver’s seat, and turns the fan on to start filling the car with hot air.

It’s still dark outside, and while we drive to my grandma’s house the moisture outside is making the windshield wet, so my dad turns on his windshield wipers. It’s only a 5 minute ride to her house, and when we pull up in front of it, she comes out onto her front porch and opens the gate for us. She looks tired, and my dad talks to her for a while, while me and my brother lay down on the couches. He says bye, and we hug him before he leaves.

My grandma goes into the kitchen and asks us if we want something for breakfast. My brother’s already asleep, so I sit at the kitchen table and she pours me a bowl of cereal. Old people cereal. My brother always says he thinks it has rocks and snail shells in it, along with the dried cranberries and bran flakes. My grandma sits down at the table, and starts shuffling her cards. Her favorite radio talk show is coming out of the speakers of the stereo. She sets up the cards for solitaire, and I watch out the window as the sun starts to come up really slowly.

Her tablecloth is flowery, and the shapes remind me of her and my grandpa for some reason. There’s a red miniature grandfather clock with a real ticking pendulum in the center of the table, and to be random, my grandpa has super-glued a small toy rat on top of it. The pendulum keeps stopping, so I reach out and push it back into swing when it does.

I finish the bowl of cereal, and go to the sink to rinse it out. I ask my grandma if I can watch TV,  and she nods; she gets really focused once she puts on her glasses to play solitaire. I go into the living room and turn on the huge TV that my grandpa spent a couple thousand dollars on. It’s only 6 in the morning, so every show on is a kid’s show or morning news. I put it on Nickelodeon (which, at 6 am, is actually Nick Jr.) and watch Eureka’s Castle. Kind of a girly show, but I’m 6 years old.

I lay down on the soft, orange couch and before I know it, I’m asleep…