One week from today (Jan 18) is the Filth comedy show in San Marcos at the Wake the Dead Coffee House.  This weekend is the Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival here in Austin.  Two weeks from now, I will be hitting the road, along with the incredibly funny Joel Keith, to play dates in DC, NY, & IL.  Shortly thereafter I will be doing shows in Norman, OK and Farmington. MO.

Advance sale tickets are available for some of these shows and they are cheaper than getting them at the door day of show, assuming they are even still available - some of these are small rooms & expected to sell out.  You can get advance tickets for the DC show at half-price if you act now!

Links for tickets, information, etc. can all be found at http://www.thelizardman.com/

We currently have a ferret named Kabuki, sometimes we just call him by the abbreviated 'buki or 'buke.  Roaming the internets this evening I happened upon someone referencing bukake as 'buke porn'.  My mind, being what it is, took this cue to provide me with a vision of some random porn starlet having dozens of ferrets drop onto her face.  I was not aroused but now I really do want to see a bunch of ferrets covering some chicks face.  Where is rule #34 when I need it.

A week ago I spent an evening as the greeter at a private party in Chicago.  It was a surreal experience that included live reindeer and watching Ron Jeremy play xmas carols on the harmonica while backed by a disco cover band in full costume glory.  The following day I was in Rockford, recording three new songs for Lizard Skynard ( http://lizardskynardband.com/ ).  I thought I'd share a preview of the lyrics here.

The first song is one that we have performed live a few times but has undergone a lot of tweaking, the working title has been Yazzmaster but it might now be known as Citizen Slave:

Citizen is just another word for slave
Electing your masters won't make you free.
There are no rights.
You're nothing but an exploitable resource to them

The patriots reward is death.
There is no freedom for the fallen.
The lives of the loyal are ground up into lies for the media to force feed the masses

You are a digital serf toiling on the cubicle farm of a modern aristocracy
and this will go on forever
if you let it

The next one was an adaptation of Ballad of the Billy Goats ( http://thelizardman.posterous.com/ballad-of-the-billy-goats ):

Reason failed me long ago
Centuries submerged within the pit
Madness became more than refuge
Insanity a welcome friend
Lost in a forest of days
Shrouded in despair
First, we heard the bells
For the goats made not a sound
We followed them for days
That they should lead us to their home
Led into the mountainside
We thought for shelter from the rain
Descended into blackness
A chamber thick with scattered bones
Dripping down thick from their beards
the blood drained into the pool
A sanguine mass congealed
Horror of concept and form
Those consumed envy the dead
Engulfed by worlds end

Finally, I did a number of readings of Pernicious Purple Parakeets ( http://thelizardman.posterous.com/pernicious-purple-parakeets ) in different styles which were overlayed on one another for the last track.

There is a commercial (which I will link to below) for Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012 which features a man and a deer sitting on couch, the deer is playing the game gleefully shooting virtual deer, and the man's reaction is to comment "that's messed up..."  Contrast this scenario with a person playing any of a plethora of other video games wherein humans are killed with equal glee & disdain and you would probably find such a reaction to be nonsensical.  Call of Duty would never run a comercial showing one gamer telling another that his in game actions were "messed up" if he just racked up a killstreak gunning down virtual people.

Just in case someone ends up reading this who doesn't know my background, I am a gamer and I am not criticizing game violence.  Like so many other people I revel in the cathartic opportunity to gun down my fellow man in virtual settings.  In fact, I doubt I would be so well adjusted and I know I would be less happy if I were not regularly afforded these gratuitous furloughs of violent fantasy.   The reason I am singling out this commercial is that I find it strange, especially given my own reaction to it (laughter).  The humor is derived from making an anthropomorhic deer and then being shocked when said deer acts exactly in the manner common to man.

If there truly is a trait unique to man among all the animals it is probably the conceit of placing ourselves above other animals based on our capacity to act in a 'civilized' fashion.  Isn't it a bit odd then that when we portray animals as our equals that their human behaviour is shocking or surprising to us for its lack of civility?  This is either the unintentional pulling back of some strange psychological curtain or Cabela has suddenly shifted from mediocre game company to first rate cultural critic using games as a medium.

Commercial link: http://youtu.be/xXYIeHC8D20

     After years of public rejection and critical dismissals as an actor Alan Watson sought solace in the refuge of many a failed artist; black magic.  Making meticulous studies of ancient grimoires he soon discovered that his tendency for what one reviewer had described as an 'over-commitment leading to clumsy portrayals devoid of subtlety' made him especially adept as a medium for the manifestation of long forgotten entities from other realms.  Still desperate for fame, Alan began presenting occult rites and rituals as performance art and alternative theatre.  Audiences unaware they were witnessing the actual crossing over of demons from other worlds were baffled and amazed by what they took to be spectacular special effects.  Critics lauded his innovative use of interactive techniques like having the audience serve as the choir and were stunned by what they now took to be fantastic interpretations of a mind riddled by madness when Alan would enter into his trance state as vessel for the horrors. 
     Alan's masterpiece was a performance entitled Pyli.  Over the course of four hours, six hundred and sixteen audience members were enthralled by Alan's marathon monologue wherein his mind crossed over to another plane of existence sharing its visions and then returned to our reality.  After the show, Alan locked himself in his dressing room and refused all callers.  Hours passed and eventually, fearing for his well being, the staff broke down his door.  The dressing room was in complete disarray.  Hanging in the center of the room above an overturned chair laying in a puddle blood was Alan Watson's body.  He appeared to have slit his wrists and hung himself.  Smeared in blood on the wall a final message read, "The doorway is open, now and forevermore." 

     "The stone doorway dates back to at least 1000 BCE and the inscription is at least that old as well, possibly older.  The door was constructed to seal off the only entrance into a system of natural caverns which we believe were the original home of the order.  According to tradition the door is opened every 500 years on the anniversary of the founder discovering the caves and taking shelter within them.  In all that time, the inscription has never been translated.  That is why you were invited here.  In one month, we will open the doorway and enter the caverns but this time we will know what it says."  As the head monk finished speaking, he turned away from the door and began leading Jack back through the catacombs and up several levels to the main floor of the abbey.
     For the next thirty days Jack was afforded every resource the monks could provide as he worked tirelessly to produce a solution to the riddle of the inscription.  On the day of the opening he was still without an answer but felt as though he stood upon the precipice of success.  Obsessed with this puzzle he begged the master for more time.  Disappointed that he would not have the lost knowledge before entering the caverns the head monk allowed Jack to continue working in hopes of securing the translation as a lasting legacy for future members of the order. As the monks made their way into the underworld, Jack toiled in the library.  He could hear their chants echo up from below him as they performed the ceremony.  Their ancient calls reverberating from the hollow chambers, through the halls of the catacombs lined with the dead, and finally into the abbey itself.  When the sounds suddenly stopped he barely noticed as before his eyes the words finally made sense.  Hastily he snatched up the rubbing which he had been staring at blankly for so long and took off running as fast as he could.  Stumbling over his feet out of desperation, Jack fell against the wall beside the now open door.  With a final effort he grabbed the door and started to force it closed only to feel it stopped by the hand of the head monk.  The master's eyes were dead as he looked upon Jack and spoke in a hollow, unnatural voice the words which only moments before had finally become clear to him in the library, "The Consumed shall envy the dead"

      Lost amidst the ancient forest we followed the goats through the night.  Drained of any hope of finding our way home we had been preparing to make camp when they came walking out of the brush.  Certain we were about to face the final horror of this strange land which was sure to take our lives, our screams could not be held back any longer but they soon turned to howls of laughter upon seeing that we faced not some unknown demon beast but rather simple farm animals.  The goats stood and stared at us until we regained our composure and then began walking ahead of us.  Every so often they would stop, look back, and bray at us with an insistence that we follow.  We convinced ourselves that it was an omen, that these creatures would be our saviors.  With dawn came an ominous thundering overhead.  The goats led us to the entrance of a cave just as the deluge tore free of the clouds.  At first we thought this was further proof of their beneficent demeanor but they were not leading us to the cave as a shelter but as a destination.  Sure footed they led us deep into the the bowels of the earth, their hooves never slipping on the loose gravel though many of the men lost their footing during the descent. After countless hours we came upon a large chamber with a pool at its center.  Desperately thirsty, I threw myself down at its edge to drink only to find it thick and brackish more like blood than water.   It was then that I saw that it was blood and that gravel we had been slipping on was a thick layer of crushed and ancient bones.  The goats fell viciously upon the men tearing them to pieces but strangely ignoring me.  I had only a few moments to reflect upon my seeming good fortune before I felt the first tentacle wrap around my waist and the hot breath of the creature on the back of my neck as I was pulled into the pool.

Once upon a time there was a robot.
The robot lived in a tree.
One day a small boy saw the robot and asked, "Why do you live in a tree?"
"Because I like the view.", replied the robot.

THE END

The birdbath was not my idea, it was hers.  She said that the yard seemed empty and it bothered her that we never saw any birds.   We found the bath at an estate sale, a disregarded relic of a nearly forgotten era when people gathered in gazebos and sipped cocktails to disguise their mutual contempt for one another.  I wanted to have it restored but she preferred its aged charm.  Filled with only pure, filtered water it would cloud with filth and slime would nearly form before your eyes.  The birds never came, they manifested.  Lilac and magenta colored demons never seen in flight, never coming, never going, simply appearing and only at dusk.  There was just one at first but soon they were a swarm more murderous than a million crows.  When the last light was extinguished and we retired to bed their beaks could be heard pecking at the window but at the first sign of light they would be back sitting around the edge of that fetid, swamp of a bath.  Not so much as a discarded periwinkle feather was left behind to betray their assault.  After a week I vowed to smash their marble portal to a thousand pieces but she would not hear of it, she claimed I was going mad.  That night the pecking was louder than ever before and then suddenly punctuated by the sound of shattering glass.  I lept from bed and threw on the lights to find the window pane still whole and those birds at their perch in the yard.  Turning back to our bed I saw my wife's corpse, her eyes had been pecked out.

Jellyfish fossils are quite rare but in the 1930's intrepid explorer Jean-Jacques Paquin discovered a specimen which has since defied all explanation.  In one of the most remote deserts of the world Jean literally stumbled upon a rock exposed by the relentless winds which had tortured his expedition for days.  Upon the surface of this rock was visible the perfectly fossilized remains of a jellyfish more than 50 feet in diameter with tendrils approaching a quarter of a mile in length.  The unusual size and perfect detail of the fossil immediately led to suspicion that it must be hoax.  Subjected to rigorous testing by experts from around the globe, the artifact withstood all claims against its veracity.  It was described by Charles Fort, an expert in just such matters, as "a damned thing among all damnable things".  The most perplexing aspect of its nature, however, was that it came from a period when the region had clearly already become a desert and not from an ancient time when the land was undersea.  Some esoteric biologists have suggested that it was not in fact a jellyfish, but rather an airborne creature carried aloft by internal gasses which trawled the surface for prey with its massive tendrils.  After some research I have found myself to be in agreement with these rogue zoologists and now every night when I lay down the creature stalks me in my sleep.