Hello people, JNET people, the best people, badass jazz-funk-fusion fanatics, pop lovers, and rock-n-roll life-style and zany road hijinx addicts. Or if you’re just a non-descript dude who stumbled upon this blog: Hello to you as well. Or a dudess: charmed to have you on board again, or for the first time (what took you so long?).

My god, so much to talk about, so little time.

Before I get going on a JNET travel bulletin, please allow me to give quick vent to a recent bothersome development:

I discovered the other day that I have friends who do not think it’s cool to pee in the shower. What the fuck? They’ve seen the Seinfeld episode where Castanza explains how it all goes down the same pipe. And even though it’s now known that urine is not 100% sterile, it’s still probably pretty sterile. We don’t balk at spitting in the sink, do we?

Me: “Yeah, I pee in the shower, what’s the big deal?”

Billy: “It’s gross, you’re gross.”

Me: “It goes down the same pipe; it’s instantly washed away along with all the other crap that oozes off your body.”

Billy: “So you’re saying you’d lick the shower floor.”

Me: “I didn’t say that.”

Billy: “Would you?”

Me: “Yes.”

Billy: “OK, I will too.”

Me: “Do you want to do it together?”

Billy: “That’s sick.”

Me: “I know, just kidding.”

Billy: “No you weren’t.”

Me: “I know.”

Billy: “That’s sick.”

OK, thanks for hearing me out. I shan’t bring it up again. Moving on…

Two more quick news flashes:

NEWSFLASH 1 – Our dear bassist, Cedric Fritz, if you’ll remember back to our expeditionary visit to the nudist beach in preparation for the Billy Joel concert, is something of a sex fiend, only cuz he forgot to look at, think about, or have any physical dealings with women for his first few decades of life, owing to his all-consuming obsession with science. He even forgot to have dealings with himself. Anyhoo, as part of his desperate catch-up campaign, Cedric visited Dayton’s Romantic Depot adult store after seeing an ad in a discarded newspaper he found at the airport. Long story short: he got injured at the inescapably alluring demonstration booth. Don’t ask. The good news is, he can still play jazz-rock drums like a mofo. None among our legions of adoring fans will know that he’ll be walking funny for the next couple of weeks. Oh, unless you’re reading this.

NEWSFLASH 2 – Janice Tubman, our esteemed bassist, lost all her Jones Beach-ish gig earnings ($76) from reckless cow-tipping. Janice, a modern Jaco Pastorius on the bass and a brilliant research assistant with unparalleled experience in giant jellyfish-based global warming reversal, doesn’t know much, it turns out, about cow tipping. Does anyone? Has anyone ever actually pushed a cow over for fun? Regardless of the answer, most people understand the concept of cow tipping. Not so, Janice. She thought, for some reason, it’s a funny prank to descend on a small rural community, find the nearest dairy farm, and then start tipping the cows – with money, as if they’ve performed some service to your satisfaction. Paying cows money. Janice was cow tipping by stuffing $1’s, $5’s and even $10’s into the cowbells of unsuspecting bovines, and then snickering to herself.

As I said before, Janice is an excellent bass player.

OK, MOVING ON…

I want to tell you about the smash success of our Jones Beach-ish concert with Billy Joel (less than a half-mile from the well-known Jones Beach concert site), our Dayton, OH dairy farm concert tomorrow with the Dolores J. Stangaroni Elementary School orchestra, and how we were convinced by a travel agent to switch our next mega jazz-funk-pop extravaganza destination from Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region (we wanted to show the world we could be accessible to evil and demented people) to French Polynesia’s Bora Bora (Cedric wanted to have sex with Gauguin’s nudes).

But there’s no time at the moment. We’re playing in less than 20 hours and have to finish rehearsing 18 hits from 1971 to 2014, excluding 1987-1989. Plus I have to change guitar strings, do long stretches in anticipation of tomorrow’s heavy leg-kick demand, gargle with garlic salt water to loosen my pipes, and get a good, long, midwestern sleep. The 6 eggs, 12 strips of bacon, 4 flap-jacks, and 3 cups of artificial syrup at Denny’s tomorrow morning will no doubt boost my preparedness as well.

I don’t know whom or what I love more: my band, Taylor, my Fender half-stack, a good Long Island deli ham sandwich, Dayton and its cows and cowgirls, Nyack and its yoga instructors, Cedric’s charming and unbridled perma-erection … it’s all happening way too fast …

But that’s how I roll.

Love my fans = love Y-O-U