A red eye and a few hours of sleep later, I’m back from a great trip to San Francisco.  What a fantastic city.  Can’t wait to get back there again soon.  Once again, I have divided my trip into several important and helpful categories:

The beer:  As in Seattle, we tried to hit up only the local brews.  I’d have to say Anchor Steam was the clear winner, but I enjoyed the heck out of the Big Daddy.  Also, everywhere in San Francisco has a liquor license.  I got offered a beer at a coffee shop, a toy store, a pilates class, in the confessional at church  - it was fantastic.  Let’s get that going, Boston. 

The food:  After making sure my security needs were met, Vinny ate Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Thai, vanilla and caramel-filled cream puffs, croissants filled with chocolate, and of course the almighty McGriddle.  I, on the other hand, only ate raw tofu salads and did ab crunches the whole time.  Oh wait – I am still sweating cheeseburger grease out of every pore.  But, as Vinny said, “Thank God we got cast  as two fat guys in that movie coming up.  Otherwise, this sort of eating would be borderline irresponsible.”

The sites:  Our plan to continue our “Dumps Across America’s Tourist Spots” Tour was thwarted when the ferry boats to Alcatraz were sold out, thus eliminating my opportunity to drop a deuce in one of the world’s most infamous prisons.  I consider it a missed opportunity. We did go to the Museum of Cartoon Art for the awesome Batman exhibit.  It was so awesome I completely forgot to poop.

The rock:  My show at the Rock-It Room was a little more challenging than the Seattle stop on the tour, mostly due to the set-up of the room.  The stage area was by the front door, right next to the stairwell to the upstairs room in which there was apparently a very loud salsa dancing class going on.  Luckily, it turns out my songs of irony and heartbreak sound even BETTER with a Latin beat.

The crowd was small, but attentive and fun for my early set.  There was only one rude person who was oblviously talking loudly right in front of me during “I Still Love The Girl,” my quietest song.  Luckily, the gods of karma got him back, as it turned out he was the singer of the next band and the PA loudly blew for their entire set.  They were forced to do instrumental versions the rest of the night.  That’s what you get when you mess with Boston, friends.

Overall, a tremendous mini-tour.  Seattle and San Francisco have both shot to the top of my list of “Places I Will Move To When My Job As Mob Accountant Forces Me To Go Into Witness Protection.”  Lots of seeing old friends, playing fun shows – what a great time.  Can’t wait to get back out there again. Thanks for the love, West Coast!

Hello all,

I post this from the lovely city of Seattle, the Jewel of the Western Something or Other.  Accompanied by my head of security Vinny, we have eaten and drank a swath across this mountainy land.  We’ve had a wonderful few days in this lovely city, enjoying all the beer, food, and kindness that the people of the Pacific Northwest have to offer.  As we prepare to depart for our next stop of San Francisco, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on Seattle.

The beer:  Being from Boston, I likes-a the beers-a.  (Apparently, I’m an Italian cartoon character as well now).  Luckily, Seattle is a great beer town.  As I do whenever I travel, I tried to keep it local.  Luckily, there are tons of microbrews in the area.  My two favorites were Manny’s and Mac and Jack’s.  Although the area is also known for some good wines, I stayed away from the vino because I’m not a foppish dandy.

The food:  We have eaten a lot of it.  As we shoveled clam chowder down our gullets this afternoon, Vinny thought long, hard, and deep and said, “We’ve been focusing too much on drinking.  (pause)  We should try to eat three lunches today.”  He’s an American hero, that Vinny.  The seafood here certainly didn’t disappoint, but the star of the Seattle food scene is most certainly a Cuban sandwich joint in Fremont called Paseo’s.  This was, by a longshot, the finest sandwich I’ve ever had in my life.  Roasted pork, caramalized onions, some sort of delicious sweet sauce, awesomely toasted bread – I wanted to climb into the sandwich like a womb and live there for nine months until my gender could be determined and then I’d eat my way out and cry for the next eighteen years that the world is such a horrible place to live in compared to being in that sandwich.  It was a good sandwich.

The sites: We didn’t hit too many of the touristy things, but I did take a poop at the top of the Space Needle, fulfilling that gypsy’s prophecy from when I was ten.  (That’s right – I’m not afraid to repeat jokes from my facebook status updates).  Vinny and I were considering – what if for whatever reason, I developed a psychological problem in which I could ONLY poop at the top of the Space Needle?  Something about the elevation and the gravity’s effect on my bowels made it the only place on earth I could poop.  I’d have to move to Seattle, figure out a way to afford the $17 admission price three times a day – it’d be horrible.  (That’s right – I poop three times a day).

The people: Luckily, I have a few friends and fans in the Seattle area, so we were able to hang with some cool folks for pretty much our entire stay.  I found the people of Seattle very friendly, although there was a lot more “street people-style” yelling at random bystanders than I expected from such an ostensibly mellow town.  My friends who have lived here for a while used words such as “nice to your face,” “uptight,” and especially “passive aggressive” to describe the characters of their Seattle brethren, but I didn’t find any of those things to be true during my stay.  Of course, how could I?  If they were being nice to my face, I’d just assume they liked me.  Hmmm… what a conundrum.

The rock: My show at the Skylark Cafe was very fun.  I was warned that West Coast audiences could be a bit standoff-ish, so I wasn’t sure whether I could win them over.  But my fears were baseless – people were polite, attentive, and engaged.  I even got some sing-a-long action going on “Monica Monica.”  That’s when you know people don’t care if they’re coming off as cool or not – when they’re squealing high-pitched “Oo oo oo’s” at 8:30pm on a Thursday night.  People were definitely into it and wanted to buy CDs.  When my credit card swiper didn’t work, we worked out this very hippie “CD for pitchers of beer” exchange program.  It was groovy, man.

Overall, Seattle has been very good to me.  I look forward to visiting again soon, assuming Paseo’s hasn’t done enough damage to my heart that I’ll drop dead before my show in San Francisco on Monday.  Baby I hear the blues a-calling, tossed salad and scrambled eggs…

Hey beautifuls,

I’m preparing to leave for my big West Coast mini-tour tomorrow.  How can a mini-tour be so friggin’ big?  It’s one of the paradoxes that makes me such a compelling figure.

Here are the dates:

Thursday March 11 8pm
Skylark Cafe
Seattle WA
www.skylarkcafe.com

Monday March 15 8pm
Rockit Room
San Francisco CA
www.rock-it-room.com

Not sure what kind of internet access on my trip, but I’ll be hopefully giving updates as I go.  I’ll say hi to Frasier and Danny Tanner for you!

Happy Monday, monkeys.

Just got the line-up for the Seattle show on March 11.  And here it is:

BRENDAN BOOGIE  8:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Location: Boston, MA
www.brendanboogie.com

LEAFY GREENS  9:00 PM to 10:00 PM
www.myspace.com/theleafygreensrock

GOLDEN CITY RIOT 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM
www.myspace.com/goldencityriot

THE SHOTS  11:00 PM to 11:45 PM
www.myspace.com/theshotssave

S K Y L A R K  C A F E  &  C L U B
3803 Delridge Way SW
Seattle WA  98106
206/935.2111
www.skylarkcafe.com

Should be a really fun night.  I’ve never been to Seattle, so I’m going to be totally disappointed if I don’t see Frasier in the front row.

Just got this poster for my upcoming San Francisco show.  Should be fun and shit.

Big announcement, everyone:  I’m doing my first West Coast tour!

Okay, it’s really more of a mini-tour.  Well, it’s two shows.  Is two shows considered a tour?  I’ll have to check with the International Musical Fraud Association before I use the T word.

Here are the dates:

Thursday March 11 – Skylark Cafe in Seattle, WA

Monday March 14 – Rockit Room in San Francisco, CA

I’m excited to experience the rainy splendor of the Pacific Northwest in March.  More details for my Left Coast peeps as the dates get closer.