Mike Fourth Lad is an anagram for The Formula Kid.

I bought a CD player for my car today…one of those portable deals. I haven’t owned a CD player for any of my vehicles in about ten years. I listen to cassettes. I’m keepin’ it real. I went through my CD collection and picked out the CDs I thought should be in the car. Here’s what I chose for those of you interested in what influences my stellar songwriting ability.

Jellyfish – Spilt Milk

The Zombies – Odessey & Oracle

Beck – Mutations

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

Jeff Buckley – Grace

Jonatha Brooke – Steady Pull

Sheryl Crow – The Globe Sessions

The Maxtone Four – Go Steady

Jason Falkner – Author Unknown

Jellyfish – Bellybutton

Gladhands – la di da

The Move – Best of

King’s X – Gretchen Goes to Nebraska

The Six Comforts

Sunny Day Real Estate – How It Feels to Be Something On

The Story – The Angel in the House

The Posies – Frosting on the Beater

Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones

Wilco – Summerteeth

The Kinks – The Village Green Preservation Society

David Lee Roth – Skyscraper

The Drew Johnson Band – Invention of the Wheel

The Shazam – Rev9

The Shazam – Godspeed The Shazam

If you don’t read my wife’s blog, you should. Her post from today reminded me of a similar type of incident I had a few years ago. I was trimming the hedges in front of our house…ok hold up…I know that doesn’t seem like a very punk rock thing to do but just so you know, I always drink whiskey, smoke Pall Mall’s and make rude hand gestures to the passing cars while I do my yard work. How’s that for punk rock, bitches?! So I had my back to the sidewalk when a couple of kids rode by that looked like they were about 10 or 11. I heard one of them say something that sounded slightly confrontational…and I’ll be damned if it didn’t sound like it was directed at me—the Iggy Pop of weed whacking. I looked over my shoulder to see who was begging me for an ass kicking and one of them said something to the effect of “Yeah that’s right bitch, what’s up now”? Of course the first thought that popped into my head was “Aww no you fuckin’ well didn’t”. The second thought was that this is the opportunity I’ve been looking for to scare the shit outta some kids that are less than half my age. Right on!!!

The one thing I knew would really sell the intimidation was the massive shears I was holding in my hand…my hand that was now sweating in anticipation of its first kill. They had grossly underestimated me. They would now pay for their youth. I took off in a dead sprint after them. God this is gonna be hilarious. I’ll tell this story for years to come.

The smarter of the two noticed me first. He gave a loud “Oh shit” and took off. One down—one to go. The second kid saw me and (I shit you not) threw his bike down in the middle of the sidewalk and assumed some sort of power stance. “Come on mutha fucka” he said in his tough-guy voice that was pitched higher than my wife’s. “Come on bitch…I’ll get my dad”.

Now, truth be know, he probably didn’t have a dad…which was actually a good thing…one less person to mourn his pending death. I froze. He called my bluff. What a prick. I yelled something really pussy sounding…I don’t remember what it was…probably something like “My dad could kick your dad’s”…you get the idea. He got back on his bike victoriously and slowly rode away. I was able to get in one good kick of his back wheel though. That was my homicide consolation prize.

When I got back to the house my wife was standing on the porch. “What are you, twelve years old?! Get in the house!”

The next morning my front window was broken. I’m still plotting my revenge.

Happy Birthday Kristopher Curtis!

Kris can be seen alive and dead in a few of the pictures from my last post.

Gina Nicastro (that’s our drummer’s wife for those of you who suck) turned old today. So here’s what we did.

I played 41 songs about Gina

My wife and Jill posed nude for Gina…except they had some clothes on…that sucked…Gina was pissed.

Gustave bit his tongue in half for Gina.

Kris thought about Gina naked.

So did I.

I showed Gina my hot crack. The girl with her hand on my hot crack is not Gina.

Kris turned into a zombie for Gina.

Twice.

Gustave pretended to be blurry for Gina…while thinking about her naked.

Angel stared at her own boobs and thought about Gina.

Somehow (just for Gina’s birthday) we didn’t take any pictures of Gina.

I bought a membership to a gym yesterday. Part of the reason is that my knee hasn’t been getting any better since I finished my physical therapy and I know I need to continue with weight training to get it all the way back to normal. The other reason…the real reason is that I need to tend to all the requests from my female fans for nude or semi-nude photos of myself. It’ll take me a couple of months to get back the bod I’m so famous for but when I do, you’ll thank me.

A belated thanks to everyone who came out to The Billy Goat last Friday night. I had a lot of fun. I know that I’m going to hell for covering Al Green, Bon Jovi, The Beatles, Black Sabbath and Spinal Tap all in the same set…I thought it was funny…me and like…two other people there. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been if I had honored the request for Milli Vanilli and NKOTB. This request was not a joke.

It looks like The Billy Goat’s popularity has grown since I played there last year. The place was pretty much packed. So it’s either their popularity or mine…of course this was my triumphant return. Yeah…it’s probably me.

It’s 10:30PM…it’s time for bed…I’m going to check my inbox at MySpace…yay…I have messages…four of ‘em…they’re from my wife…she’s sitting six feet from me…what the hell…here’s what they say…

Subject: hey

stfu noob kthx

Subject: hey(2)

let’s go have butt-sex kthx

Subject: hey(3)

I’M TALKING ABOUT MY ASS

Subject: hey(4)

I’M TALKING ABOUT YOUR PENIS IN MY ASS

If you haven’t seen the SNL skit that she is spoofing then you must think my wife is a freak…that’s fine.

The guys at The Billy Goat asked me if I’d play this Friday so come check it out. It’s free. I’ll play from 5:30 to 7:30. It’s usually about half covers and half originals. Always a good time.

We’ve been busy trying out various bass players recently. I’ll let you know something as soon as we know something.

Damn I got to see an awesome show last night. Angel and I went to Blueberry Hill and saw Robbers on High Street and Brendan Benson. This was one of the best shows I’ve seen in years. Very exciting stuff. It made me want to be in a band. I got to hang out with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. Caution—name dropping and link whoring ahead. We went with Brian and his wife Kim….some of the coolest people ever. We also saw Donnie…Derek…J. Christopher Hughes and Sarah…great night.

There were two girls there that looked like they were about 21 or so. They thought it’d be cute to faux fuck each other right in front of the stage the entire night. This was extremely annoying. Brendan Benson wasn’t impressed. Neither was I. If you’ve seen one fat chick rub her gut on an ugly girl’s tits then you’ve pretty much seen ‘em all. This is not prom you fuckwits. Take your nasty asses and flap them together someplace where the bands suck. Not at the best show of the year. Bleh.

I found a couple of gems today for any Jellyfish fan…and if you know me at all, you know that I think Jellyfish’s “Spilt Milk” is the holy grail of pop music. First, I found out that Roger Manning Jr. has his own site now. –www.rogerjosephmanningjr.com– Roger was half of the brains behind Jellyfish. I also found out that Roger and Jason Falkner had a short lived group called T.V Eyes. –www.tveyes.net– Jason Falkner was the original guitar player for Jellyfish.

I figured out that I’m almost related to the guys in Jellyfish. Here’s how. Roger Manning Jr. was the keyboard player for Jellyfish. After Jellyfish broke up, Roger formed a group called Imperial Drag. Imperial Drag recorded their album with engineer/producer Brad Jones. Brad Jones also produced all of The Shazam’s albums. The singer for The Shazam is Hans Rotenberry. I used to work at a record store with Hans. He introduced me to my (now) wife. I figure that makes me a co-producer of “Spilt Milk”. I’m very proud to have been a part.