Canadian Jamboree

I was a boy scout. I even got my eagle scout badge. That's what you do in Norman, Oklahoma in the 70's. It was great. Lots of drinking and driving drunk and wacky fun.

The cool thing about our troop was that we travelled a lot.

Summer of '77, we went to a Jamboree on Prince Edward Island, Canaduh. From there, all 40 of us and a few bewildered dads, went to Boston, where we got thrown out of a hotel because we threw paper airplanes out of the hi-rise hotel (we'd never really spent much time in buildings more than a couple of storeys high) and then to New York City.

We stayed at the Edison Hotel right in Times Square.

If you know anything about New York, you must now picture a bunch of Boy Scouts in Times Square in the 70's. It was, um... "eye opening". Sexxxxxxxx everywhere. And, you know, now that I think back on it, I remember that most of the dads were missing. Hmmm. Wonder where they were!!!!

We went to a baseball game between the Mets and the Cubs and, while we were at the game, there was a blackout. Turns out it was to be known as the great blackout of '77. We pretty much walked from the stadium back to Times Square. We caught a couple of bus rides but it was a lot of walking.

It was the first time any of us had seen:
1. lots of black people together in one place. Norman, OK was exceptionally white. There were three black kids in my graduating class.
2. gay men. full on leather fags. i mean chaps and all. thom of finland stuff.
3. poverty
4. looting

The Howard Johnsons where, years later, I would meet friends for pre-movienight dinner, was giving away ice cream and orange juice because there was no power for refrigeration. we ate ice cream and drank orange juice.

The point of all this is that at the Jamboree, I befriended a fellow named Peter. We became friends and for a bit were sending cassette tapes back and forth to each other. Because I am a lazy bastard, I dropped the ball sending tapes back. Peter was in to music and would include songs by bands he liked. One of them being "april wine". That would come in handy because a couple of years later, "april wine" was opening for rush and I knew who they were so that made me cool.

Apparently, he googled "dean eikleberry" and found me. And here, my four readers, is a picture of me in my boy scout uniform on prince edward island in 1977.

I'm the little geek on the left. Peter's the little geek on the right.

I still have that shirt.

Dig it.

Speaking of Canaduh (sorry, peter), I did an interview with a woman who writes for "the l.a. weakly of montreal", pimping spamscam. She managed to get a snarky comment about the U.S. in there. It was so predictable I laughed.

"what's funny, eh?"
"oh, my dog just slipped on the wood floor..."

I'm a wuss.

blog hack

i think someone hacked my blog or i wrote in my sleep. wow. that was amazing.

2006 mortgage

if you blink, you will literally miss me in the "Clinking Tops" spot.

http://www.manlaws.com/index.htm?link=vid&ref=3

however, between that and the geico spots which continue to run, we won't have to blow dogs for wine change for the rest of the year and I officially feel okay about leaving town for 2 months to do Love Tapes in Mini-Soda.

a seeming ramble

so... looks like august in mini-apolis mini-soda at the hennepin stages:
http://www.hennepintheatredistrict.org/hennepinstagesseating.asp

http://www.hennepintheatredistrict.org/planningevent.asp

we seem to be the bastard chillrens of the venue.

how will the happy leftie theatergoing folk of mini-soda react when "the hog" makes an appearance. as one blogger said "turns out dean cameron has a small part in love tapes"

get it? small part. tis to laff. fucker. A DICK JOKE!HAHAHAHAH

back in black

we had a tremendous run in new york with the big shoe. in spite of the fair amount of press, we didn't have a lot of people show up and that was a drag.

sorta good because it humbled us quite a bit for montreal. quite a bit. the work you have to do to make 10 people laugh is, well, work. the last few shows saw more butts in the seats.

the day before we left, i couldn't find the cord for the apex media controller, and it's not a standard cord, so I had to buy a 60g ipod video. it works great and it's easy. the itunes thing is annoying but, there are a million blogs about ipods. which is also the title of someone's novel, i'm sure.

a guy who works for a big time, big shot booker came to the show, loved it and sent at least one other person from his company to check the show out. they said they want to work with us, but one never knows if people are just being nice. they're exactly the type of people i'd like to work with. and, it seems, the perfect sized company.

so that could be cool if it actually happens.

saw bukowsical last night after the restaging by john. they moved the seats around in a different configuration, and i was out of town and, well, uninterested in restaging the show again, so john mitchell, producer and watergate conspirator, restaged it for me. he did a great job.

they seem to have drifted a bit. the conceit of the show is that they're a struggling company who never do anything good, but since, in reality, the show is a sort of hit, they walk out with a cockiness now and some of the cast have a little "wink" in the performance that makes me very sad.

if we expand and extend, there will be some whip cracking.

i'm reconsidering doing love tapes. i don't want to be gone for 2 months. on the other hand, change always freaks me out and 2 months in mini-soda is a huge change, eh?

speaking of reconsidering, i'm going to do the summer school dvd interview. they're coming to the house tuesday. so, you 4 people who wrote in convinced me. no lie.

i'm the heaviest and most freaked out i've ever been in my life so you fuckers are to blame for when people watch it and say "chainsaw is a big fat, bald pig... no wonder he can't get arrested."
thanks for that, my friends.

my dad is here for the weekend. it's always cool to spend time with him. he has a "thing" about people having "stuff" and standing out, and i realize that's where i get my schizo i want to be noticed/don't look at me shit. i'm also embarassed about having an ipod and more than one computer.

ah well. good problems to have.

i'm taking him to the cemetery screening tonight. cinespia.org do these awesome screenings of classic movies at the hollywood cemetery. i thought he'd like to go. one can take a picnic dinner sort of thing.

i went with jessie and andy lerner a couple of weeks ago and the preshow music was too fucking loud and everyone around us sucked. this movie isn't as popular so i'm hopeful that we'll have better luck.

that being said. it's time to split.

it's official

we're humbled. no tickets sold. no show tonight. don't worry; it's not a big college town.

bring on the schadenfruede!

start spreadin' the gnus

here we are in the big apple adjacent.

staying in the city and doing the big shoe in brooklyn. did two today. the first one was poorly attended and poorly performed so it all works out. we were rusty. hoo boy.

i'm using a video ipod to control the photos now. it works so much better. we're also using two ibooks, so i'm fairly certain we won't have to worry about computers dying in the middle of a performance.

i hope we get more people in.

been thinking about spending 2 months in minnesota and thinking i may need to revisit that decision. we'll see.

speaking of whining... my knees. oh my crimony. it is so humid here and i'm walking so much that my knees are killing me. especially after a shoe where i'm standing for an hour. my back... my knees. sheesh. i'm a hundred.

man, what would doing spamscam be without me whining about being in pain... oh right... missing jessie! she gets here on wednesday. yay!

so... rethinking going to minneapolis to do love tapes. it might just kill me. living in a hotel for 2 months. hmm. and i certainly don't want to be someone's houseguest.

i get anxious. that's what the shrink says.

wow. a blog and a shrink. and talking about the shring on the blog. wow.

what an asshole.