I Don't Know Much, But I Know It's YouTube

So Colin Meloy of the Decemberists threw down a gauntlet for reasons unknown to me. On his Twitter feed (is that what it is? a feed? a page? an account? or is it just his Twitter?), he asked fans to write a song about Linda Ronstadt and post them on YouTube. He'll select a winner and post it to his Twitter afountage. I'm a fan, so I figure I qualify.
It was fun to have a challenge to write a song like this, with no real expectations. I'm been up to my ears in writing and orchestrating some faux-Jacobean music for Stratford's production of Bartholmew Fair, so it was a nice treat to write something that comes a little more naturally like this. Being a Ronstadian scholar and all, you know.

woke up new with tobias wolff

How great is this?

Testing 456

Well, between my new Blogger account, and trying to pull the RSS over to Facebook (to? from? near?), I'm trying to figure out how to post photos inside the blogs.  I see over here on Blogger that there's a button for photos.  Shall I click it and see what happens?  Yes, of course I shall.  If it doesn't post in the RSS feed, then I'll have to (after banging my head against the wall) go back and upload them to my Flickr account and link to them from here.  

Wow.  That's a whole lot of corporate social media brand-names in one sentence!  Let me throw some more in just for fun:  Google! Delphi! Prodigy! Compuserve!

What you should be seeing is a picture of the Texas plates we ordered on our trip to Rochester yesterday.  Picked up a cute little Fender Mustang bass at the dusty, disorganized and awesome House of Guitars, and worked up quite an appetite which was quickly vanquished by the Texas Hots Plate at Tacis Irondequoit Hots across the street.  Although it didn't seem to live up to my long-ago memories of Nick Tahou's Garbage Plate, it wasn't 1am, I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't 23.  Still it was probably not that different. I'm sure purists will flame, but welcome to Web 2.0. The plate consisted of two very good hot dogs (local Zweigles), split and griddled to perfection, home fries (the deep-fried chunky kind, not my favourite style) and macaroni salad, covered in mustard, onions and what they call hot sauce - a ground beef deal that seems not too far off from Cincinnati chili, another of my favourite food blogging topics.  

In short, I should have not gone with the mac salad - it didn't do much for the plate, and just added a lump of something cold.  I guess it might be the standard choice, because it's what the dude behind the counter offered me, as in "home fries and macaroni?" Like the locals?  Like, if you don't want to seem like a martian?  What was I thinking in not ordering the baked beans?

We each ate our hot dogs and the sauce and picked at the other bits a little before heading back home and rolling around clutching our bellies.  Who's got bets on me hitting 220 again before this year is over?

Whew

Well, day one of the new frontier was exhausting.  Lots of media asking about the past, the future, the reasons.  Well-wishers, dirt-diggers, and everyone in between wanted to know the story.  I really shouldn't be amazed that this is as big a story as it is (especially in Canada, it seems), but am glad and proud of the fact that people care.  I'm really proud of the 20 years I spent with BNL, and it's always heartening to hear how it has affected so many people.  To the fans who are really, truly grieving right now - it's ok to be sad.  This is a big deal for us, and we know there was a kind of magic between us onstage.  But look at it as a twofer.  You'll get their music and mine.  Double your pleasure.  Double the magic.  Like Queen said, "It's a kind of magic."  Or as Pilot said, "Oh oh oh it's magic."  Or as Doug Henning said, "Ta Daa!!"

Can you tell I'm tired?

I'll be on Mix98.5 in Boston at 8:15 tomorrow, WCLZ in Portland, ME at 8:45, and then Friday morning I'll be doing Q on CBC Radio 1.  I can guess that there will be more in between.

Gone Solo

Yes, it's official.  I am no longer a Barenaked Lady.  After twenty years (plus a few months), I'm heading out on my own.  I'm really excited about all the opportunities coming my way:  I have an album's worth of songs and will be putting together a new solo album on top of the work I'm doing for this year's Stratford Festival, and a studio recording I did with The Art of Time Ensemble, which will be released later this year with a tour to follow. You can click here to hear what we did live last June.


Blogger, Facebook, Twitter. Anything else I should do? Is Myspace dead?

Stay tuned and I'll keep you updated.