Doctor

Originally uploaded by Jeff.Simmermon

You know, there’s an awful lot of cancer going around. I’m not sure that it’s not catching.

Or, you know how people used to smoke cigarettes with asbestos filters and X-ray their feet at the shoe store to see if they had a good fit? I think we’re doing something like that right now, something our grandkids are going to find so shocking and appalling when we tell them about it. They’re going to say “well of COURSE you all had cancer.”

Maybe it’s plastics.

A friend of mine got diagnosed with breast cancer last week. And before that, other friends and other friends. The words that follow are for anyone that’s been diagnosed with cancer and is really, really freaking out about it. That should cover pretty much anyone that’s been diagnosed with cancer, period.

I’ve just found myself emailing versions of what follows out to a number of people recently, and I thought maybe I’d put it out here so strangers could read this and share it.

Here it goes:

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I’ll try to make this short and to the point:
Singer / songwriter Joseph Mulhollen makes music that I really really like. A lot. To provide a frame of reference: If you’re at all into stuff like Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Elliot Smith, and Beirut, then there is a VERY good chance that you’ll be into Joseph Mulhollen. I’ve dropped a few tracks and videos at the end of this post as a little Joe-sampler.

Mr. Mulhollen is just about finished recording his third album, Problematical Animals. And from what I’ve heard, it is excellent. BUT he still needs to get it mastered, pressed, and released, and pay the other talented musicians who contributed to the record, and the album cover artist. And this is where WE come in. Joe has set up a Kickstarter page to gather funds to get Problematical Animals out there, and to allow YOU to preorder the album. And the more support you pledge, the more B-sides and other goodies you get along with your copy of the record. He’s in the home stretch, with only a few days left to go. I’ll turn it over to Joe:

Now, aside from being a spectacularly talented musician, Joe is also one of my favorite human beings on the planet. In 1998, before we actually knew any-damn-thing about one another, Joe dragged me up onstage with him at the Old Main Inn in Fredonia NY, and asked — nay, told — me to play drums on a song of his that I had heard maybe once before. It somehow worked out not-too-terribly, and I’ve the honor of playing with him off and on for the past thirteen years. Nine times out of ten, one of us has just gotten into the town where the other one lives, and we have ZERO rehearsal time. And just like at the Old Main, it kinda works anyway. If nothing else, I have more fun playing with Joe than doing just about anything else. I would be super stoked to see Problematical Animals on many of your playlists in a couple of months, and trust me, you’ll be glad it’s there too.


As promised at the top of this post, here are some tracks and performance videos of Joe in action, to give you a kind of cross-section of his ouevre. Enjoy, and please help support this guy!

Link: HELP FUND & PREORDER PROBLEMATICAL ANIMALS ON KICKSTARTER.

I’d be lying if I said I knew Runaround Sue very well. I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t a huge fan. She’s a burlesque performer here in New York and all over the place, including Richmond, VA and a lot of other states and countries. She’s a mystery lady, a sweet enigma that sometimes lives with Cyndi and Brad and sometimes coalesces in the back of used bookstores in Manhattan.

That’s where I keep running into her.

When she performed at our show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, she brought a terrifying heat. She grunted and yelped and when she beat the floor with her breakaway dress and the kind of bra that can NEVER come off fast enough, she did it with an intensity that you just kinda recognize after a while. It’s one part Cramps and one part playground and one hundred percent the spirit of ROCK.

She’s going to be performing with us in Philadelphia and Washington, DC in the very beginning of November. Which is, sweet JESUS, next week!

To learn more about the DC show, go here.
To buy tickets to the DC show, visit this link: And I Am Not Lying: A Night of Storytelling, Comedy, and Burlesque

And to get a taste of what kind of an act Runaround Sue has, watch the video below. Tassels and their contents do fly freely here, so it may not be safe for work:

Wasn’t that just wonderful? My family’s minister reads this blog. He’s pretty great that way, to be honest, and I’m glad to consider him a friend. I’m also glad that maybe Sue and I made him sweat a little much.

On Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011, I am going to be performing along with my troupe of storytellers and burlesque performers at the Black Cat in Washington, DC.

It’s going to be me (Jeff Simmermon) as a storyteller, along with And I Am Not Lying members Cyndi Freeman and Brad Lawrence, along with additional burlesque by Runaround Sue and Cyndi Freeman as Cherry Pitz. Tickets are $12, show starts at 8PM.

You can get those tickets here: And I Am Not Lying: A Night of Storytelling, Comedy, and Burlesque

This is a cool trailer that our generous, warm and talented friend Tracy Rowland cut together for us. If you happen to write a blog or want to shout it out loud on any sort of social platform that you fancy, do please go right ahead:

And I honestly cannot believe that I just standing here in my office, typing this like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

We used to sneak off to the Black Cat in high school and college all the time, to pretty much see everybody. It was the beacon on the hill, the magnet in the big city that produced Bad Brains, Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses and God knows how many other bands — many of which contained my friends that I secretly admired but never told because I was so jealous — and sucked me right up there. I hung out there all the time in the years that I lived in DC, and now I’m thrilled and terrified to be a tiny part of the continuum that made me.

Imagine if you ate at incredible potlucks for your entire life, full of incredible, nourishing delicious everything you could possibly imagine and then found all these new things you didn’t ever know existed but blew your mind apart all the same.

When it comes your turn to put a dish on the table, you just really hope it doesn’t make people barf on the walls, is all I’m saying.

I am nervous enough to barf on the walls right now. I started this blog in Washington, DC as well, and it’s going to be a pretty weird homecoming.

I made this fun little flyer to promote the show, too. Just go right ahead and post that on your social platforms as well:

I sure hope you folks can make it.

Through April 15th, Baltimore-based independent clothing & accessory company Ex-Boyfriend (a.k.a. my pal Matt Snow) is donating 100% of the proceeds from sales of magnets and keychain bottle openers to the Maryland SPCA to help provide care & find homes for homeless animals. He’s also offering FREE SHIPPING for the magnets & keychains – which feature designs like Fuzz Aldrin, here.

Check out Matt’s wares and grab a few things if you’re so inclined. Who knows? Your contribution could help give a homeless kitten the chance to grow up to be an astronaut.
LINK: Ex-Boyfriend Collection’s SPCA Animal Fundraiser

My friend Tim Gordon (of Royal Quiet Deluxe) was released from jail out in San Francisco last Friday. He had been locked up in there since late September on a false testimony for crimes that he definitely did not commit.

That’s the justice system for you. They tried to break him, tried to get him to plead guilty to crimes he didn’t commit, and he stood strong. Now he’s out and I couldn’t be happier about it.

We have been writing back and forth like teenaged lovers at two different boarding schools since sometime around Halloween. As happy as I am that Tim is out, I am going to miss writing so often. I looked forward to opening his letters at my office. I’d shut my door and read them over and over throughout the day, keeping them in my pocket until I got home at night.

He’d send me little stuff from time to time, stuff that showed he was thinking about me — stuff that showed he was keeping his soul alive, too. He said it was okay to share some of these here, and I will be over the next few months.

I was supposed to be the one keeping Tim’s spirits up, but the picture and letter below really made me smile. My friend Xeni coined the term “unicorn chaser,” and I doubt she’s seen one as bittersweet as this one.

Before reading, you should know this: Tim actually did used to hammer a pen up his nose and make drawings for all takers on the streets of San Francisco. Trust me, it’ll make sense later.

(See the letter explaining this after the jump.)
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My grandmother’s name is Helen Abicht, but we all call her “Daro.” Today is her 97th birthday!

She and my grandfather helped take care of my sister and I when we were growing up. I feel so lucky to have lived close to them and had them as a constant, steady presence in my life for so long. Daro grew up during the Depression, and we always had so much fun with her without spending any money at all. She knows something that a lot of parents today don’t: it doesn’t take money or electronics to have a good time. Making ice cream, painting a picture and writing a story with someone you love is the deepest, best kind of fun you can have.

She’s full of all kinds of wisdom — and doesn’t think much of people who get bored easily.

I visited her in her apartment over the Thanksgiving holiday and asked her to share her secret for having such a long and happy life. Here’s her answer:

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I was all squirrelly last week leading up to last night’s show — wrangling machines, sending e-mails (so many e-mails) and in between the cracks, getting my own stories ready.

And it tickles me to no end that the show was a success. It was Tauntaun weather out last night, the first seriously cold night we’d had in New York this year. Anyone in their right mind would have been home under a blanket watching TV, but we had a full house. And they weren’t ALL our friends, either!

A bunch of people — total strangers — saw the flyer on BoingBoing and came on out to check it out, too. That’s so exciting to me, and that’s the Internet at its best: connecting people who never would have known about each other otherwise.

Everyone else’s performances were tight (say what you will about mine, I’m hardly objective) and the thing ran perfectly.

Here’s Brad Lawrence, hosting:

And here’s Cyndi, Magdalena Fox and Maggie (my girlfriend and a patient, helpful lady) waiting backstage:

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I have climbed a mountain of my own bullshit and started yodeling. The avalanche is picking up steam and it’s gonna get real on December the 5th.

Some time ago, I whipped up a bunch of big talk about turning this blog into a live show. I got D.Billy and Brad and Cyndi all excited about it, and then we went and made it happen. For real.

And I’m a little antsy about the whole enterprise.

Here’s a flyer for the show:

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Halloween 2010

Originally uploaded by chinese_fashion

I wore my least favorite work suit to my friend’s Halloween party, put in some contacts and painted my head blue and presto: instant Dr. Manhattan costume. Or so I thought.

The party was in the West Village, right at the heart of the annual Halloween parade. Traffic was so tight that the cab dropped me and my girlfriend off a few blocks away. Maggie’s costume was a magnificently form-fitting hot pink with a plunging (or awesome) neckline, but I got all the catcalls. “Blluuueeee MAaaaan GRooouuup” washed over us punctuated, oddly, with a rapid-fire “what’s up, dude-from-Arrested-Development?”

I thought the Watchmen movie was big enough that my lazy costuming wasn’t that much of a stretch. But that’s the mistake that nerds always make: thinking the rest of the world is tuned into their obsessions despite all the contrary evidence once we disconnect from the Internet. Now that I’m grown, it’s not that painful to find out that I’m as self-deluded as I ever was. But it’s still kind of a surprise.

We got separated at the party, Maggie happily practicing her Mandarin with a new Chinese friend. Speaking in Mandarin lights up her soul — and while it makes me really happy to see her happy, it’s not something that I can participate in very easily.

I wandered to the other side of the apartment, where my buddy’s charming alcoholic brother was doing some kind of a stumbling shamble-dance next to a tall Latin woman poured into a snug black dress. She was carrying a dumb little plastic club and had some fur around her neck in a head-fake towards “sexy-cavewoman,” but she could have dropped the charade and been La Elvira, Mistress of the Dominican Republic.

She looked me up and down and whispered with the guy in the corner. Then she looked over at me, her eyes lit up, and walked up to make some conversation. Just because I’m absolutely not available doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun to rap with a pretty lady at a party.

Like I said before, being that deluded nerd never completely leaves you.

She sipped her drink and smiled right at my eyes, showing two rows of teeth bright enough to stun a deer. And then she said “I can’t figure out what you are. Are you a faggot?”
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