HALLOWEEN!

A few short notes...

Saturday night, I was very happy with my "Greatest American Hero" costume. You can only get it at one place in the world, a relatively obscure little website based in PA or MA somewhere. "No one else will be this," I thought. The costume was a big hit everywhere we went on Saturday night, and we saw a lot of other awesome costumes... more on that to come. Anyway, we were crossing the street in Oldtown ato one point when across the street appears... The Greatest American Hero. Same exact costume, wig and all. My doppelganger and I both shouted a surprised expletive, then discovered we'd both bought them at the same place with the same idea, that no one else would.

It was the Saturday night before Halloween, and however I may've been feeling I wasn't going to miss out on the pre-Halloween revelry. At least to some extent - at least I could make an effort join some of my friends.

Thing is, it was like 70+ degrees in Oldtown Saturday night. Now, I'm not up to doing THAT much, but we do plan to at least go to a party or out to eat tonight. As much as I like the costume, the tights... not very warm. Wearing a coat over my costume and wearing that wig... I'd look like Harpo Marx. So I have a backup costume and you get a huge no-prize if you have any idea who I am. Really, drop me a line if you think you know. There IS a hint in this paragraph... nearby...Yes, it's another costume I'm probably going to have to explain and not nearly as good as TGAH and it doesn't even really look like much of a costume. *Shut up.

So the other night... you might remember I was already a sort of Clark Kent/Superman for the superhero party on the ship. Nevertheless, I was thinking about getting one of the very available, really nice Superman costumes that are out this year and going as Superman. Again. Yes, some of you remember I was already Superman in 2004. See *, above. I reconsidered when I realized everyone and their dog is either Superman or a pirate of some kind this year. On Saturday, I saw a guy in (what I thought was) one of the really nice Superman costumes, the higher-end sculpted ones. This was at Liquid, the same place we ran into the Boba Fett guy from last post. A group of ladies got this Batman guy, the Superman, and I together for some pictures, and at some point Batman quietly pointed out that Superman wasn't wearing a costume, really. I had no idea what he meant until I saw... that's not a costume, that's body paint. Really well done body paint, plus a red speedo, Superman belt, long red cape, and red Superman boots. You couldn't even tell up closem at first, that it was paint. Needless to say, the dude won the costume contest.

For those who've written, thanks very much for your concern - this is a minor thing and according to all accounts will have no long-term effects. I'm knocking on wood as I write that. The whole thing is healing up nicely - the pain in the arm is much mellower and I'm no longer taking a destructive amount of painkillers and/or muscle relaxers. I can now sleep through the night with no problem and the doctor says I'll be fit to get back to work... "good as new..." around the 20th of November. Thus, it looks like some turkey with the fam on Thanksgiving and then I head out once more into the great wide open.

Believe it Or Not, I'm Walking On Air

The Greatest American Hero and The Most Fearsome Bounty Hunter In the Galaxy.
Happy Halloween!

Injury update: Last night, for the first time, I slept through the night, and once I did wake up I didn't immediately have to take something for pain. I am actually mending.

In MySpace, Everyone Can Hear You Stream

Yes, as some of you have noticed, I have given in. The links on the sidebar indicate my having joined... MySpace. I have a professional page I haven't spent much time on (here) and a plain old personal page (here.)

Still recovering, and getting frustrated with that. It is getting noticeably better, though.

ebay is not freebay

So I'm laying here. Staring at the TV and watching things that have been DVRd by DG for my R&R. Knowing my pinched nerve is getting better, slowly. Ordered pizza for the first time in months. Exciting.

Reading. Finished my book. Bought some comics. Read them.

Bought a couple of DVDs. Watched them.

Wrote a good bit - letters, worked on ...something I've been working on...

Went online.

Puttered around on myspace. Yawn.

Thought, hey, I'll look around on ebay. I did... and I spent some money. See, I have this amazing tricked-out xbox I magically acquired last year. It contains thousands of games - really - every game in every language for every system made up til and including the Genesis, and it can backup DVDs and Xbox games to its harddrive as well. It's smarter than the average xbox. I.... left it on the ship. I played it so much with people in the cast, and Jamie played it so much, well, I figured I could get it back later or whatever. I think in my mind I was preparing to do what I did a few days ago. See, remember when the Xbox 360 came out last year, and you couldn't get them? I would look at them on ebay then and think, wow. People are fortunes reselling these things. I almost bid on a few of them, just because they were going cheap and I thought I could resell them for more. I didn't, though. I couldn't justify paying RETAIL for something like that, much less a scalper's price. So in the intervening year or so, they're more commonplace. You can walk in almost anywhere and buy one. I went on ebay and found a good one with some extras for a really good price, and I won the auction. Paid far less than retail. I can justify this... It will,,, assist me in my convalesence, that's my excuse.

So I bought an xbox 360. Some of you will roll your eyes at that, others will be envious, others still don't read English and can't comprehend any of this. Then there are those of you that I know HAVE this little machine in your homes already, and I am here now to ask... do you have any recommendations as to games / etc. i should get?

UPDATED: "Your Mom" is not actually a game. It should be, though.

Discovery

I forgot to mention this, some short time ago. I'm going to be on the Discovery Channel, but there's a catch...

See, I was interviewed and filmed a bit in the shows, along with another singer, about the demands of performing for "demanding, six-star audiences" on such a high-end venue. Ooo, ahh... blech. The host of the program is named Angus, I think, and the episode itself will focus on the Voyager being named as the top luxury ship in the world. I should get a nice spot, and some good exposure, but, thing is...

I don't rememeber the name of the show. It could be "World's Best" or something like that. If you happen upon it, anytime in the not too distant future, please let me know. I have no idea when it's going to be on. I'm a moron. Thanks!

The Journey, Not the Destination

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

Finishing the hat

I am repatriated.

My next entry, maybe I'll even do it today, will include lots of stuff about the arduous nature of my trip home. For now, though, suffice to say that I am doing exactly as I've been instructed.

I stepped off the final plane of the trip last night around 11:15pm, and luckily one of my best and oldest friends in the world, Dusty, waited for me at the airport when my flight (like most during my 20 hour journey) was an hour late. Who'm I kidding, he's more brother than friend - we've been best friends since we met at the pre-kindergarten "round-up" at age 4. Anyway, he helped me with my luggage and he's graciously allowing me to crash at his funky bachelor pad. Of course, I will reciprocate with copious amounts of delivery pizza and... well, they don't deliver beer, but we can find that. I'm very excited about my first delivery pizza since May. That's later tonight.

There are a myriad of reasons why I'm resting here rather than at the farm, and none of them are familial estrangement. It's just easier in many ways and I think I'll recoup quicker. The trip was a big strain on the whole injury, which had fairly well settled into a pattern of waking me up at night, saying hello, subsiding, hen being mostly fine aside from the numbness until the late evening when my arm would get sore. Yesterday I stayed dosed up with ibuprofen and was okay, considering all I was having to do, except for once on the initial trans-atlantic flight and then on the drive from the airport to here.

By all accounts, doctors and my own online research, all signs point to it healing up on schedule and my being ready to work again by Thanksgiving. That's my goal.

For now, I take it easy. More on the trip, with photography to prove I DID wear Sup's silly hat on the journey, in my next entry. . . at which point I'll probably truncate this one severely.

"Hear this now: I will always come for you."

In 24 hours the ship will have left me behind in a hotel room in Nice. I have already said goodbyes, so longs, and a few see you soons to several of my friends here as a matter of needing to not do it all at once.

I'm flying out at around 11am Frenchy Standard Croissant Time, I think, on the 15th. It's a long trip to make on my own. I think tylenol PM will be my best friend on the plane.

Don't worry, anybody, I am hopeful the doctors are correct and I'll be fine with rest and I'll be back to work within a month or so. Thanks for the emails and the concern, it really does help.

Medically Disembarked

UPDATED: Okay, the earlier version of this post was a cheap ploy akin to the 11 o'clock news teaser that tells you "Three things with you in the room right now could kill you... find out which later. Now, here's Berf with Sports!"

So here's what's happening... or first, what happened, in screenplay format:

FADE IN ON DON, PARTNER DANCING TO "OH WHAT A NIGHT" WITH SCANTILY CLAD FEMALE DANCER, FLANKED BY DANCER COUPLES MIRRORING ON EITHER SIDE.

THERE ARE APPARENTLY SOME MINOR BUMPS IN THE SEA, ALL OF WHICH ARE EASILY DEALT WITH AND CAUSE NO PROBLEM.

CLOSE UP: AS DON'S PARTNER TURNS TO DO A QUICK DIP, THERE IS A MOVEMENT OF THE SHIP WHICH CAUSES HER TO FALL. A PIT OF POISONED SPIKES AND DEADLY LASERSNAKES OPENS IN THE FLOOR BENEATH HER.

DON SWOOPS IN AND STOPS HER BEFORE SHE HITS THE FLOOR, KICKS AN ERRANT LASERSNAKE BACK INTO THE PIT, THEN CONTINUES THE PARTNERING DESPITE THE GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS. THE HELICOPTER ARRIVES AND ALL ARE TAKEN TO SAFETY. DON PULLS A GRENADE FROM WITHIN HIS TIGHT BABY BLUE POLYESTER PANTS, PULLS THE PIN WITH HIS TEETH AS HE HANGS OUT THE SIDE OF THE DEPARTING AIRCRAFT.

DON
And that's how they do it in NORWAY, Senor Texiera.

That is entirely true, sans the added element of civil war on the ship. It's for dramatic effect, you understand. See, that happened, nothing was wrong, didn't hurt, but the next morning... twinge. Morning after that, yewoch. Following morning...good lord. Went to ship doc, got injections and pills. More injections each day following doing seemingly nothing. Lots of pain. Cancelled show last night because "THE BARITONE IS DOWN."

Finally a shoreside doctor today. This is an entry to come later, an entry of its own - being sent, alone, to a doctor in France. I had a taxi to take me and a taxi home, but in between - on my own. Fun. Only the doctor spoke English. He sent me for x-rays in another place, which I had to find, and again with no reciprocal English. I returned, he checked me out, and sent me back to the ship with the diagnosis: 15 days of rest, herniated disc. The ship decided to send me home rather than lay me up confined to my cabin for 2+ weeks. More to come, but... I'm heading home.

This is not (knock wood) a major injury and I will be fine, I'm told, in 15 days, a month at the outside. All is well, except I'm leaving many good friends behind. That sucks.

Why am I still hurting?

Today's mood: itchy.
Today's news: injury. Seriousness yet to be determined. Thought it was nothing, but it's gotten worse.

Concert "highlights"...

I put together a little video reel of my recent concert for friends and family, and you can view it here. It's a small file, for ease of the dial-up crowd and those bandwidth-hogging Dutch.

Today's mood: Hrmph.

My Little Pony, The Acropolis, and My Pants

I have taken to quickly writing posts, then coming back a day or two later and rewriting them a bit. Not editing, just rewording, adding missing details, and maybe making them less offensive to specific religions, ethnicities, or nationalties. Except the French, to whom I say "Où est la soiree? La soiree est dans mon pantalon."

Vive la revolution, indeed.

The above photo was taken from video shot during my headlining show of a few weeks back. I was floored by all the work so many people went to help make it a success. I am truly humbled and thankful for the efforts of Phil Torres and his band, who worked with my charts and made me sound great, to Scott, Chris, and Randy, our tech guys who helped make it look great (and then went above and beyond to help us add all the previously-mentioned effects at the Hero Party a week or so later), and to my really supportive cast and other friends from around the ship who came out and shouted and were generally just ...smurfy.

Below is a photo snapped of me yesterday, in front of the Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens. Or it might be the Temple of Athena. Or, the Temple of Athena might be IN the Parthenon. Or it might be the Hall of Justice from the old Super Friends cartoon. I don't know, and apparently it's the only place I've ever been I think I actually know LESS about, having visited, than I did before I was there. Last year, we hit Piraeus/Athens, but we never made to the Acropolis because of time and schedules and miscommunication as to how far away from the port it was... so this time it was a priority to get there.


The other night the spa folk threw a party, whose theme is too generic to mention. It was nice, but was of course nothing approaching the party that Jamie and I threw. They did hand out squirt guns filled with various shots, which is a bad idea with Jamie and I around. FYI, do not shoot mixed vodka drinks from a squirt gun into someone's eye. On a ship, that's what's called a "code blue." Kusadasi again tomorrow... and I haven't written about Kusadasi the first time yet. Santorini today.
Oh yeah... This morning, I heard some exciting news:
Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. will be playing Iron Man.

That's not it. True, and I heard it this morning, but not nearly as exciting as:

An Australian scientist with too much time on his hands discovered that Neil Armstrong was misquoted on the moon landing, and his actual first words upon the moon landing were "Though it's cold and lonely in the deep, dark night, I can see paradise by the dashboard light."

That's not it either, and is only partially true.

Ths news is: My good buddy Matt Jones has started a blog. No, this one will be good. See, he has recently accepted a yearlong gig on the MY LITTLE PONY LIVE National Tour. His blog will chronicle his adventures in and out of L'Equus Petit. Click here for Matt's blog. Personally, I think that could be a book in the making.