Hey! I wanted to post about this before I forgot, but I a really, really funny thing happened to me today at the Burbank airport.

I was waiting for my duffel bag at the luggage carousel and because my bag is red, whenever I saw a piece of red luggage.... I THOUGHT IT WAS MINE!!!

"Boy, you sure have a dumb brain," I said to myself (probably).

I should clarify: I didn't think ever piece of red luggage was my red duffel bag. Just certain pieces of red luggage (especially if it resembled a duffel bag from far away).

Like I said, it was really funny! Hey, I gave you fair warning, didn't I?

Hey, Iowa City friends!

I'm coming back to Iowa for the holidays and this Friday, my band DON'T STOP OR WE'LL DIE will be playing in Iowa City. Here's the info:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21
9:30PM
THE PICADOR (330 E. Washington St.)
(playing with The Puritanicals and The Brown Note)

Doors open at 9PM. We're the first to play. Please come out and enjoy the show (and maybe we can catch up afterwards?)

In addition to me, DON'T STOP OR WE'LL DIE features Mike Cassady (who also went to the University of Iowa) and the fantastic Joe Gallaro (as our IC replacement drummer). We're a piano-pop outfit and you can hear our songs on our myspace page:

www.myspace.com/dontstoporwelldie

Hope to see you there! Drop me a line if you plan on coming!

Hey, kids (between roughly the ages of 5 and 8)!

If you fall asleep on a long car trip (say, coming back from your grandma's house), but happen to wake up as your parents are parking the car in your driveway... here's a tip! Act like you're still asleep. That way, your dad will carry you from the car to the house and then your mom will tuck you into bed! You won't have to move a muscle!

(Plus, it's a gentle, reassuring reminder that your parents care for you)

The cool dudes at Metromix asked Neil Campbell and I to do their Ask a Comic this week. You can read it here.

KINDERGARTEN
When my name's called at role call, I hide underneath my desk and say, "Not here!" Class eats it up. Thank you.

FIRST GRADE
Above the drinking fountain, there's a Xerox-ed advertisement for Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, which the local movie theater has mysteriously taped to the wall. Weird? Not at all. It's called "viral marketing," folks!

SECOND GRADE
Teacher scolds me for misbehaving in class. I apologize by drawing her a picture of me crying. (This is basically how I apologize to people for the next 17 years)

THIRD GRADE
Teacher's son returns home from war in Iraq and visits our class to answer all our questions. Yes, he did know my friend Rick's sister in high school!

FOURTH GRADE
Female classmate brings father's nude playing cards to school and hides them in her locker. You can look at 'em, if you ask.

FIFTH GRADE
Dead bat found in aquarium.

SIXTH GRADE
Teacher always - always - says "approximate" when giving us the running times for videos we watch in class. Always. Weird.

SEVENTH GRADE
Over summer vacation, I enter puberty. I want my classmates (especially the girls) to know, but that's not something you can announce. Then on the first day of school, teacher says in front of entire class, "Paul, you look different." Yay, she did it for me!

EIGHTH GRADE
I return from Christmas break with a new haircut. It's one of those "Caesar cuts" like that guy from ER. I'm hot shit!

Sometimes I forget I'm living in Los Angeles...

The palm trees. The sunny skies. The ocean breeze.

I take them all for granted.

Then I see a bulldog riding shotgun in a convertible...


And I remember I'm living in Los Angeles.


Cherish these moments.

I bought a new car. I like it a lot, but the CD player doesn't work. It plays a song for about 30 seconds, then stops.

Tonight, I was driving in Los Angeles, listening to the song "Shady Lane" by Pavement. And a minute in, I realize, "Hey, the song's not stopping like it usually does. Yay!"

So, this is dumb, but I begin to reflect on the larger implications of my CD player (because I'm deep like that). Maybe - maaaaaaybe - this is a metaphor for LIFE?!! Y'know, you can get bummed out about stuff being sucky and not working out for you... and then out of nowhere, life surprises you and something goes your way. A SONG DOESN'T STOP PLAYING! And that's pretty cool. So maybe shit ain't so bad after all?

Then the song stops.

I was anticipating that, of course. As soon as I came up with the whole CD-player-as-metaphor-for-life thing, I instantly thought, "So if this song stops, I'm gonna' get bummed out because that's saying - what? - happiness is fleeting and it's our lot in life to be miserable and disappointed."

And guess what? When the song stopped, I got really really sad. Started welling up with tears? Weeeeeiiiiiiiird.

And then - woah! - the song starts up again. It's never done that before! Normally, the song stops, the CD player says "ERROR," and I switch to a radio station instead. So I'm genuinely, genuinely, genuinely surprised that the song resumed. Why were you almost crying, Paul? This is awesome.

Yay! Take that, metaphor! It's NOT our lot in life to be miserable and disappointed!


Then the song stops and the CD player says "ERROR."

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I don't want to think about it anymore.


NOTE:
It wasn't until writing this blog that I realized the song "Shady Lane" is all about this sort of stuff. Except Pavement does it in a much better, more artful and affecting way. So listen to the song (it's really good and I linked to the video below) and enjoy it and have a nice day, okay?