Song Of The Day: Cigarettes and Red Vines / Aimee Mann
Word Of The Day: Verbicide / Destroying the meaning of a word

What a week. I have to tell you, I LOVED those shows in Ames and Des Moines. GREAT audiences, and wasn't it a blast having Tripp Lanier on the road? He knocked the bass out, and he drank the Jack Daniels, and he danced like his pants were in France. On top of all that, he put up with my shit. For instance, I was a verbicidal maniac for a couple days on this leg of the tour, and for some strange reason, I became fixated -utterly obsessed- with the repitition of the phrase "Space Lasers" in the voice of a very gay man. It brought me great joy. It's just some phrase I heard in passing on the radio, and I began to repeat it, extra heavy on the lisp and inflection, and I don't know why and I never will know why, but it made me laugh like hell. Tripp was the only one there to hear it, and see my disproportionate reaction of glee, convulsing and contorting my body like a nine year old girl who found a neon worm in her shoe. I added a twist to "space lasers" early on, like I was singing it, I imagined myself in the 1950's, with a big band behind (horns, rhythym section, the whole package), like I was a major Vegas draw, and I was knocking this fucker out of the park, but it was all delivered with a lilting, inviscerated, submissive, highly feminized quality. "Spaihhsss Laaahyszeerrrhzzz!" I would sing, then laugh and laugh and laugh. "Spaaaayys Laaahhyzerrrrz!" More laughing. I would do that a half dozen times, laugh and laugh, then wait till things had relaxed, and begin a whole new cycle. By the time Tripp and I checked into the hotel, I'd said it a few dozen times. As we drifted off to sleep, I offered it again into the dark hotel room

"Spaaays LAHHHYZERRZ!"

then, no lie, when I fucking woke up the next day, the first thing out of my mouth was

"SPAAAYYYS laaahyzerrz!!!" laughing, laughing.

I told Tripp we have to make a song, and those will be the ONLY lyrics. augmented with sound effects of me doing my best laser gun impersonation, and some spacey Theramin or something. Golden.

Well, anyway, I'm off to L.A. to work on my new album. For the next ten days I'll be with Alex Gibson in Hollywood, making a masterpiece with love and devotion to the Mystery. Can't wait to get back to my old stomping grounds in the heart of of the music biz. I'm going for a major label deal on this one. I'm ready to move this music into the World in a bigger way, and at this point it is a win-win situation. I absolutely love my career as it is now, and I also know I've been hiding my light under a bushel, and it's bullshit. So, I'm going to push harder on this one and see what we can do. Weeee!!!