"This song has no title, just words and a tune..."

It's funny to me that people actually read this. I mean, don't get me wrong, Huey Long- I love that people read words that I write and I love even more that people notice when I don't write words for a really long time. I guess what I'm saying is, you asked for it, and I'm gonna give it to you.

The reason I haven't written anything here in a bit is because, as some of you probably know, on Monday and Tuesday, I had a reading of my musical, The Black Suits. The Suits have consumed the last two weeks of my life- and it's been kickass. There is nothing I'd rather do than be in a rehearsal room with actors I love and watch them turn words on a page into people. Ah. That makes it sound like they are turning actual words into people, like, through witch-craft or something. To clarify: The actors are not, in fact, witches. Quite the opposite. They are fucking glorious wizards of humanity, taking 50 or 60 lines of dialogue and a handful of songs and creating real, live human beings. It's a very powerful and gratifying thing for a writer to watch. Just thinking about it makes me all tingly and shit. At any rate, the process was awesome and the readings themselves were awesome, and I got to spend a lot of awesome time with a lot of awesome people. And everything beyond that? Well, ah. Uh. Yeah. You know, trying to get a very personal, very un-musical-theatery musical off the ground is sorta spirit-killing. I mean, without going into too many details, here's what's going on: [POTENTIALLY CAREER-RUINING COMMENTS OMITTED BY THE WRITER IN A RARE MOMENT OF GOOD SENSE.] So now you know. Wow. I can’t believe I used the C-Word in a blog post.

On Monday night I’m going to see Michael Penn at Joe’s Pub! So psyched. If he does “Long Way Down (Look What Cat Drug In)” I’ll probably cry. Incidentally, if you’re reading this and you don’t know Michael Penn, you should. He’s one of the greatest songwriters ever and a huge influence on my shit. (“Influence” = “I steal A LOT from him”)

Oh- huge news, dudes. The beard is no more. Gone. We had fun together, but then I realized that I was sick of things touching my face and I shaved it off. Then I took the hair and I put it on a LIFE magazine cover that featured a picture of a bust of JFK. That made feel good about myself for some reason.

It was at this point in the writing of this blog-post that I realized that I had a teaching gig in Brooklyn tomorrow at 9am, and I didn’t have a keyboard to bring with me to the school. Fuck, right? Fuck, Yes. Luckily, I know really cool people who let me borrow their keyboards. So, a huge shout-out to Claire Karpen, Mike Pettry, and Andy Herz, whose apartment I just ran to and whose keyboard I just stole. Technically, the keyboard belongs to Herz, so an extra-loud shout out to him. Actually, the man needs a double shot of extra-loud shout out, because in the middle of a conversation about Long Island (Andy hails from Roslyn), the dude made reference to the “Rape Diner.” While rape is nothing to get excited about (well, unless you are the one doing the raping, I guess), to hear someone other than myself or my immediate friends-n-family refer to the Seacrest as “Rape Diner” is, well… well… it’s just thrilling. To explain-

and now it's time for this week's edition of...



HORRIBLE STORY TIME with Joe

Back in the 70’s, the Seacrest Diner had no windows. One day, some evil bastards came in and just raped everybody in the diner for, like, hours and hours. And no one knew cuz there was no windows. So, now the Seacrest has windows. Problem solved. Horrible, I know, but it sort of takes a story that intense to warrant the nickname of “Rape Diner.”

HORRIBLE STORY TIME with Joe
FIN



Earlier tonight, I realized that I’ve never used the word “simpatico” in conversation. I am so proud of this. It is my goal to never use “simpatico” in casual conversation, or, actually, any kind of conversation.

So, in that JFK picture, my beard-shavings kinda look like pubes, huh? Weird.

Ed Wood is one of my favorite movies. I’ve been watching it since I got back from stealing the keyboard. It happens to contain one of my favorite lines of all time, and the line was just uttered, so I feel like I gotta share it with the world. Ready? OK. Here go.

[JOHNNY DEPP is at bar with (the awesome and criminally under-used) JULIET LANDAU. The BARTENDER comes over.]

BARTENDER: M’am, would you like some water?
JULIET LANDAU: (Terrifyingly explosive) NO! No Water. No Liquids-- I’m highly allergic to them!

[End.]

How killer is that? God damn. The dudes who wrote that also wrote Problem Child AND The People Vs. Larry Flynt. They sort of have the coolest career of any writers ever. Man. One day.

*******
Miss D3438 (11:43:54 PM): how are you?
Miss D3438 (11:44:00 PM): Do you still have the beard?
Spunky4evr (11:44:49 PM): ....
Spunky4evr (11:45:01 PM): ........
Spunky4evr (11:45:30 PM): ....Nope! Shaved it off!
Miss D3438 (11:46:10 PM): Yay!
Spunky4evr (11:47:30 PM): I was actually thinking of you as I shaved it off.
Spunky4evr (11:48:13 PM): Ha. That sounded weird.
Miss D3438 (11:49:03 PM): Yeah, it did.
*******

This past weekend I found myself wandering around Manhattan late at night and thinking about shit. I started thinking that maybe the reason I want to write musicals is because it's just an excuse to spend lots of time and drink lots of alcohol with people I love.

Then I realized that I actually want to write musicals because it's an opportunity to create (yeah, get ready for it, I'm gonna say it...) art with people I love.

So, yes. The reason is creation. The alcohol is gravy.

...But then again, isn't it always?

No, I don't know what that means, either. Time to jack off.