calming down

So after yesterday's high larry tea, this evening is being spent a) watching last nights "Extras" and b) playing my red guitar. I've been trying to get the fingering for this one tune, and it's driving me crazy. It's sorta like "lesionaires", since I've been playing that song for nearly two years now and I always, without fail, fuck it up. That's next on my list of songs to perfect. If I can get through that song twice in a row without a clam, then I can die happy.

jesus is sad

I received this redacted letter, forwarded to me by my Aunt Barb:

As you well know, we are getting closer to my birthday. Every year there is a celebration in my honor and I think that this year the celebration will be repeated.

During this time there are many people shopping for gifts, there are many radio announcements, TV commercials, and in every part of the world everyone is talking that my birthday is getting closer and closer.

It is really very nice to know, that at least once a year, some people think of me.

As you know, the celebration of my birthday began many years ago.

At first people seemed to understand and be thankful of all that I did for them, mostly because the church had anyone who wasn't understanding or thankful killed in my name. Life was better then. But in these times, no one seems to know the reason for the celebration.

Family and friends get together and have a lot of fun, value each other and their time together, but they don't know the meaning of the celebration. I remember that last year there was a great feast in my honor. The dinner table was full of delicious foods, pastries, fruits, assorted nuts and chocolates. The decorations were exquisite and there were many, many beautifully wrapped gifts.

But, do you want to know something? I wasn't invited. I was the guest of honor and they didn't remember to send me an invitation.

The party was for me, but when that great day came, I was left outside, they closed the door in my face. Poor me! But I don't get mad, (I am "the nice one", right?) I get even. I wanted to smite eveyone, kill them by flood, but unfortunately my father promised not to do that again. He's such a bore. I can't wait until I'm 2018 and I can move out. I did get to sneak in a little flood, though (take that Bandeh Aceh!). It’s my birthday. Mine! I should be the center of attention and I hate it when I'm not.

In truth, that didn't surprise me because in the last few years all close their doors to me. Since I wasn't invited, I decided to enter the party without making any noise. I went in and stood in a corner.


They were all drinking; there were some who were drunk and telling jokes and laughing at everything. They were having a grand time. I hate it when people have fun. It adds insult to injury. It's MY birthday!


To top it all, this big fat man all dressed in red wearing a long white beard entered the room yelling Ho-Ho-Ho! He seemed drunk. He sat on the sofa and all the children ran to him, saying: "Santa Claus, Santa Claus"; as if the party were in his honor! I wished I had been strapped with explosives, I could have given Santa a big hug and blown him all to pieces. Santa Claus would have spattered all over the fat little faces of the kids waiting to sit on his lap. That would have taught them a lesson, the ones that survived anyway. The ones that didn't, well, they get an automatic invitation to my big celebration (see below). When it's my birthday, you better celebrate me or I'll make you pay. Remember Hitler? Think Hitler times a thousand. That guy knew how to get stuff done in my name.


At midnight all the people began to hug each other; I extended my arms waiting for someone to hug me and do you know no-one hugged me. Why wouldn't someone hug a strange man who snuck in uninvited to a party and had been sulking in the corner?


Suddenly they all began to share gifts. They opened them one by one with great expectation. When all had been opened, I looked to see if, maybe, there was one for me. What would you feel if on your birthday everybody shared gifts and you did not get one?

I then understood that I was unwanted at that party and quietly left. I knew I'd get my revenge later by sending this email to all my friends on the internet.


Every year it gets worse. People only remember the gifts, the parties, to eat and drink, and nobody remembers me. Poor me. What's the use of being the son of God if you're not always the center of attention?



Invite me to your party this Christmas or you will be sorry. Two thousand years ago I came to this world to give my life for you, on the cross, to save you. I did it unselfishly. I'm really really unselfish. That's why I get so upset when Christmas isn't all about me.


I want to share something with you. As many didn't invite me to their party, I will have my own celebration, a grandiose party that no one has ever imagined, a spectacular party. I'm still making the final arrangements. Martha Stewart gets a free pass to this party because she's making the appetizers. The Queer Eye guys, too, because they've made my house look better than that prick Michaelangelo ever did. I get a sore neck every time I think about him.


Today I am sending out many invitations and there is an invitation for you. I want to know if you wish to attend and I will make a reservation for you and write your name with golden letters in my great guest book. You'll have a golden ticket!

Only those on the guest list will be invited to the party. Those who don't answer the invite will be left outside. And outside I'll make it rain fire and there will be torture and pain and people will deserve it because they didn't answer my invitation. Do you want to go to hell, or be part of my great party? I hope you're not stupid. Come play with me!


See you when you die, which I hope is soon! I Love you! Jesus

Share this message with your loved ones, before Christmas. Or else.

new kid on the block

A big congrats and warm fuzzies go out to The Nancys' mastering engineer, Robert Marshall and his wife on the birth of their new baby boy, Sage. Way to go Robert!

killed by christmas

This weekend, my partner's kin helped him pick out and decorate a tree for our living room. Last night, I sat down in the chair next to it, and proceeded to have a respiratory attack like I've not had before. I felt my throat closing up, and I started hacking, and thought "well this would be an ironic way to go". It seems I'm allergic to this particular tree, but I've never had this kind of reaction to a christmas tree before. Bummer. Even though I'm totally ambivalent about the holiday itself, I've always liked the tree. If only Festivus used a tree instead of an aluminum pole.

i survived

the weekend. There were no survival skills required, really, since it was a good weekend all around, with various family members and in-laws staying with us. Nice turkey day dinner, and a few laid back days after. I saw the psychodots yet again on Saturday night and they rocked as usual. They've got a new disk out, "Terminal Blvd.", and it's a damn fine collection of tunes.

Spent Sunday afternoon with the guitar. Not writing or anything, just playing. My fingers are sore today. Gotta build up those calluses.

i dream of words

I had a dream last night where I was talking with some anonymous person about The Nancys' lyrics. She asked me what they meant, and I said you'd have to ask Jon. I said "he's got this strange and beautiful way of putting words together, and I don't always know what they mean at first, but they're cool, so I don't worry about it."

i dream of guitars

I had a dream last night that I was playing this sweeeet classical guitar. It makes me want to go out and buy one.

frozen nuts

Yesterday was Chicago's first taste of winter, as the temp plunged and the wind kicked into high gear. Can't say I was ready for it. I went out with the dogs for a little walk around 11 dressed only in my little fall jacket and pretty much froze my nuts. I had been debating about wearing a heavy jacket and a hat, but decided on the lighter jacket and no hat (because, like, uh, my hair was perfect). Needless to say, I changed into the real winter wear before i headed downtown in the afternoon. The wind was worse downtown, ripping along at a hefty clip, and nearly knocked me over at one point. What does this all have to do with The Nancys? Absolutely nothing. Except that Jon was probably a bit chilly, too.

better

It's a new day, and I'm feeling a little better than yesterday. I'm taking it easy this morning though, since I have meetings to go to downtown this afternoon. Just hanging at the house with the puppies, keeping up with the emails and calls, hoping some of them turn into some business.

gross

Feeling like ca-ca today. Started the day at the studio, got tons of stuff done because I've become, like, Mr. Productive (the meds help). Then I started to feel squiffy around noon. Was planning on doing a bunch of errands this afternoon, but after my first stop, I decided to just come home. Now, I feel like getting more stuff done, but can't really motivate myself. My guitar is taunting me from it's perch on the wall. -play me--play me--PLAY ME- All I can really bring myself to do though is be a lump. Lumpy lump lump.

bored

So, as you can see from the frequency of my recent posts, I've gotten bored with blogging, so I had to take a little break. Fear not! The Nancys are still plugging along in our own inimitable way. I've just posted a page on MySpace.com , and will upload some other pix and music there. That will happen later today. If you're on myspace, add us to your list of friends!

Jon and I will soon hunker down to write the next batch of material. We've both got stuff floating around in our respective heads. I think we've abandoned putting a live act together for the time being, though we may do some more acoustic shows. We shot some new press pix last weekend and I'll post one or two on both the myspace site and thenancys.com.

Women are the cows of people!

Ok, extremely offensive, but that has got to be one of the best lines every written for a tv show. It's exclaimed by Reese (Malcolm in the Middle) after learning that milk comes out of women's breasts.

restaurant ennui

For the past few days, circumstances have conspired, the planets have aligned, and I've been forced to eat out for either breakfast or lunch. For the past few days, circumstances have conspired, the planets have aligned, and I've gotten the absolute worst service at each of the different restaurants I've eaten at. Almost puts me off eating out. At restaurants. Crabby, inattentive wait staff and kitchen staff who haphazardly throw together meals without regard for even coming close to having the burger land on the bun. Must be a sign of the apocalypse.

finally

For fuckity fuck's sake, I think I've finally got Jon up on this blog thing. For reasons completely unknown to me, the invite worked this time, and he's currently being set up to be able to post here. Hooray! Look for a post from our man Trancy, aka Rocko, aka mixmaster Jonny D soon. What will he have to say? Who knows? I guess you'll just have to come back and find out!

no promises

Seems The Nancys can't get the blog thing working at all, aside from me finally being able to post. That's what I get for depending on a free service. I totally got what I paid for. The links for Jon to be able to post aren't working for whatever reason, and I'm pretty frustrated trying to get responses out of Blogger (as in, they just don't respond).

So no more promises as to when both of us will be making posts here on this page. For the moment, it's just me.

Jon is off at Ravinia watching Rufus Wainwright this evening. I'm not a huge fan of the Ravinia lawn anymore. I'd much rather be in the pavillion.

The Nancys are sort of in a holding pattern. Jon and I are both once again swamped with our respective day jobs, so it's been difficult if not impossible to do any band related stuff. During the early weeks of the summer, we were thinking of getting a guitar player for some live shows, and I would play drums. We put an ad out there, but didn't get any responses we were thrilled with. Then, I decided that if I'm going to be doing live shows with the Nancys, I'd much rather be playing guitar, even though it would take me a lot more work to prepare. Drums come much easier to me than guitar. We've been chatting casually with one particular drummer who expressed interest in playing with us, but haven't been able to set a time to get together. I know it's not going to happen this week, but maybe next. No promises. We're maintaining a completely flexible attitude.

Another chat Jon and I had via email a few weeks ago was starting to write songs for the third cd. I'd been noodling with a software synth, and I think that might be a big element of the new disk, as opposed to the zero synths on ...panic. How the hell did I produce a disk that didn't have any synths at all? I'm still pretty amazed at that. I love toying with synth sounds.

I do think this new one is going to have a more aggressive sound. I have this sound in my head that I think we can totally pull off. Jon's voice is well suited for the type of stuff I have floating in my brain.

This weekend I'll be attending a fab do at chez Jon. I'm putting together a set of photographs to display in their den. Wish us good party cheer.

and now...

So after all our bloggy trials, we decided to change it up...now both Jon and I will be posting here on the same page! Hooray! More Nancys ranting! I know you've missed us but now we're back.