It feels like we're gonna do pretty well in SF. I've heard back from lots o' folks who are planning to come to the show, and for the first time we're using a promotions person instead of doing it all ourselves. Michael Vavere-ah hell I can't spell his name. Anyway he's a good friend of ours from Popcorn AntiTheatre and we figure he knows his way around a press release. Him and, it would seem, just about everyone else in San Francisco have gone to New York. There's a huge Laughing Squid show there featuring the Bicycle Rodeo and Chicken John and other good folks. I would have loved to have gone, but alas my fate was to stay here and play super promoter.
My lovely girlfriend and stage manager Bryna is away on a cruise. A friend of her's one a contest for selling the most furniture at the store where she works so she got a cruise around Van Couver and invited Bryna along. I'm being a good little man and cleaning the house so she can come home to something other than the retched mess our house becomes when we're doing shows.
Now that I've begun rambling about nothing this page feels much more like a blog.
It's funny, my life is tamer than it's ever been. I thought being in two troupes in two cities would mean lots of debauchery, but I just aint got the time. I don't know how folks do both. I'm so domestic. I go make funny, then I go home and get some sleep so I can go to work the next day. If the day job ever leaves the picture though, why I tell ya, I'm gonna consume granulated sugar! And that's not idle threat. I'M WILD! WILD I TELL YA!
If ya wann have some fun check the Message Boards at WWW.RetroCrush.com. Fun little online community they've got going there.

Click here for taco pic. Too big to post on blog, and I'm too lazy to resize it right now.
Mmmmmm Tacos!
Thanks for the kind words Amber. (see last entry) You're a sweetie.
This Velvet Hammer thing is pretty damn exciting. Francois Fly and I will be working with them, though I may be more behind the scenes in the beginning while Francois hogs the spotlight. I'll be working with The Millionaire from Combustible Edison! Pretty damn exciting. Plus I'll be sharing the stage with talented comedians and ALL THESE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS! Don't be shy, have a peek.
We will definately be returning to LA soon.

A bunch of us went out last night to see Becca and Francois Fly performing at The Distillery's open mic night. Sacto 21st and L. Becca rocked. She's so funny. I'm not a big fan of spoken word but her poetry/spoken word/story telling bordered on stand up comedy. The audience there loved her and she was invited to do an encore. How often does spoken word invoke an encore? Her first story was about our trip to LA last weekend and she finished writing it just minutes before reading it. The second story told of a nightmarish Santa VS Clown experience at burning man.
Francois Fly was also verry well recieved and after seeing the lame Hollywood Cafe audience not get it, it was great to see him slaying this audience. This should have him in good form for his audition with The Velvet Hammer on Saturday. Keep them fingers crossed. I'll be heading to LA as well, again, and I'll be performing three shows with The World Famous Lizard Boy. It'll be so nice to actually spend a weekend at home next week.
We're going to the Distillery again next week so come on out.

WE SOLD OUT THE KNITTING FACTORY LA'S ALTERKNIT LOUNGE! I'm talkin' standing room only baby.
The show went great and those snooty LA types realy dug us. What a week we had. There was the shopping trip to buy cool Fetish outfits. The outfits were for a trip to Miss Kitty's, a fetish club. I'll let one of the other kids write about that adventure. I didn't go. Ben and I went that night to see our pal Francois Fly perform at PsychoBabble, a coffee shop. What a crazy scene that was. Francois bombed as did most of the comedians there. The headliner, Vince Morris, a real weiner, ran out of material and just rambled on for the longest time, not even telling jokes. Just talking and "enlightening" us. He was spouting this real conservative, sexist shit and then telling us he'd rather enlighten his audience than get laffs. Well, that got laffs. HA HA HA HA! He also took a cell phone call onstage, not making a joke out of it but actualy taking the call and then awkwardly returning to his rambling. And he talked MAJOR shit on Francois Fly. What a dope. He don't know genus when he sees it. Judge for yourself. See some Francois Fly action by clicking here!
My favorite part was the crazy woman who runs the show explaining to Francois that what he does isn't realy stand up. That Stand up is "Having a converstation with your audience." Amazing. Francois mentioned The Unknown Comic but didn't bother mentioning the many fine styles of stand up that came before the current conversational style. This woman was so nuts. She's way anal about the night, directing the comedians who help her close the place up on how to sweep and how to fold the curtain and how to wipe after they have a crap. It was a surreal experience.
Did I mention we sold out The LA SHOW? Unless our drunken behavior outside the club after the show gets us blackballed I see no reason why we should not be invited back again.
Driving down Hollywood Blvd after the show Britney was entertaining every car we passed with "Hi sailor" and "I'M A MAN, IN A DRESS!" At several points I was sure she was gonna hop out of our car and into someone elses, but instead she just handed over a poster or two, car to car. On the drive back to Sac Britney going into truck stops in make up, no wig and a flannel night gown was quite a sight. A brave one that Britney.
I'm so proud of everyone in the cast, and so thankful to:
Irina for doing our posters and for coming to the show over and over including in LA (her man Bob too)
and to Becca for all her help from selling merch to being our girl friday.
To Brett the Reptile Boy for letting so many people stay in his little studio apartment along with all his reptiles.
To Allen for driving down and doing our sound for us.
To Bill for doing our LA stage managing.
To Bryna for getting us organized in the first place and for sending so much love our way.
To Sue and Tobias who have been big LA fans. Sue is doing so much to get us seen by the right folks. Thanks.
To Brian at The Knitting Factory who went the extra mile for us.
To all our friends, family and others who came to see us.
I'll encourage the rest of the cast to write of their LA adventures here as well.

Oy. Hi. I was thinking lizard boy had some skin thing going on or something, but he looks pretty normal on the site. So, I have come to just accept the fact that I was on South Park. Today I added this to my web site: "This is the site of musician and not-quite-mad scientist Xeno, as seen on South Park episode 704. Contrary to events in the cartoon, Xeno is not an inspector of alien butt probes ... so stop sending them ... m'kay?"

LA coming up!

Well Here I am in Sunny Los Angeles.
I stopped off at my brother's place in Pomona. He lives in this cool art colony in Downtown Pomona. Real cool.
Then I headed to LA and did a couple of reptile shows with my good pal The Amazing Lizard boy . Not a bad way to make some cash at all. Entertaining kids is a blast and Brett's a great guy to work with.
On Sunday I went to Edward's (one of my other brothers) house for my mom's 60th birthday. I got her this great card with a picture of a big black guy kissing a black woman's hand. In swanky writing it says "Happy Birthday Baby, I Love You" The inisde was pretty moving as well and I was so glad to have found my mom a card that realy expresses my love.
Oooh, and Bryna, Brett and myself went to the 98 Cent Store and found these cherub magnets and I'll be damned if one of the Cherubs, upon close inspecition, aint givin' the other two cherubs the bird. Middle finger, straight up, quite nice.
And it's not packaged as a silly gimick or anything. I'm sure sweet blue haired church ladies are buying them in droves. As soon as Xeno gets down here I'll have him photo them and we'll get them up on the site.
It's now monday and it's the first day I've gotten any rest. I'm doing some flyering and postering and I'm realy excited to see the tiny little picture of us in the LA weekly. I sho do hope we sell us some tickets. LA's a tough town with SOOO much going on.
I'm excited and nervous about getting back into the habit of doing stand up comedy. I plan to do some open mics in SF and Sac when I get home.
I'll keep you all updated.
Can't wait till wednesday when more ICBINCers arrive.
Peace

Red Hot Non Stop Liberation Action All Night Long Baby!

As the news starts bringing us pictures of coffins draped in American flags it becomes especially unnerving and offensive to see the Army recruitment commercials on Television. Their "Army of One" campaign, with all the glamorous images of soldiers shining proudly in combat, that gleam in their eye that says, “Soon as we’re done with this hard core macho training exercise I’m so gonna get laid”, it’s different than what combat looks like on the news. But who am I gonna believe? I’m waiting till it goes further. Till Madison Ave and Pennsylvania Ave intersect to bring us;

“YO, O.G.s, You, my homeys, are some seriously bad ass motherfuckers. Aint it time y’all got your war on. Join us. We planning one hard core drive by on Baghdad, and then we gonna get down and party with our new homeys that done been liberated. Its "Operation Liberate and Celebrate", and at this after-party, the drinks are on the house. I should also mention, I’ve seen behind a burka or two, and some of them babies do be havin’ the back, if ya know what I'm talkin' about. Oh, and did we mention all the sex with white women!?! Why everybody loves them some sex with white women. (Cut to Mrs. April 2004 'Howdy boys. Liberation is my favorite lubrication'."

We have this Idea that these people suffering under Saddam are sitting there saying “Man, that Saddam sucks. I wish we had some western style democracy, yes sir.”
No. Many of them are rubbing their beards saying, “hmmm, when I'm dictator, I tell ya... I won’t be putting up with this bullshit Saddam puts up with, no sir.”
And believe it or not, there are fundamentalists over there going, “The Taliban. Yeah, that’s what we need. That'd bring us a little law and order. My goodness have you seen how short some of these girls are wearing their burkas. And so many of them can read. Oh, how many years will it take to make them forget that.”
These are the same people who if they lived here would be voting for Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell.

So in we come, getting our war on, and we expect “Oh thank god the Americans are here. American democracy and value are here at last.”
But more likely they’ll get “Hmmm, they want to topple Saddam. Okay, let’s not get involved in case they decide not to finish the job like last time. I can’t afford to lose another leg you know. But try not to get in their way. Let them get rid of him for us. Damn, Being dictator is so gonna rock. OH YEAH. And I tell you, I’m not gonna let these American mess with me like Saddam did. No sir, I’m gonna kick some ass. Oh yeah, just as soon as I deal with them fuckin’ Kurds. Uppity son’s of bitches. What… what’s that Allah….oh yes, yes of course I’ll kill the Shiite Muslims as well, that’s a given.”

Dont' get me wrong. There are tons of good, hard working intelligent people in Iraq. But few of them are big fans of the US, and when you look at some of the beautiful gifts we've given them in the past, like that great man Saddam that we helped to power in the first place, they may not be too anxious to unwrap the big box o' liberation we're sending over with the camouflage wrapping paper and the big pretty mushroom cloud shaped bow. They may not choose to accept our gift certificates redeemable for American Democracy and American Values.

And it leads me to ask this; Doesn’t a majority have to want democracy for democracy to be democratic?

And what the hell are American Values? They have TV over there. They’ve seen The Bachelor. They’ve seen Married by America. And they saw how Bush got elected. American values are going to be a hard sell.
Especially to those freedom hating bastards in Iraq, and all those other places that aint America. God Damn do I hate them places.

CONGRATULATIONS TO XENOPHILIA FOR WINNING THEIR THIRD CONSECUTIVE SAMMIE (SACRAMENTO AREA MUSIC AWARD)!
This puts Xenophilia in the Sammies Hall of Fame! They played at the awards show and were great. We are so priviledged to have them working with us and I'm stoked that they'll be with us throughout the tour, LA and SF! Congrats guys. Check 'em out at www.xenophilia.com