4/28/04 5:30 AM: Too much ... going on ... must ... blog ...

So I'm minding my own business, getting ready to go to the chiropractor today, and UPS shows up with a package. I shrug, not remembering ordering anything. I bring it in ... and it's the Oxygen 8 keyboard I wanted (and for $30 more than I was gonna pay for it). But I didn't pay for it, which makes it a gift, which is a huge surprise (a good one for a change). I'm ecstatic, dancing around my apartment and cackling at the great GarageBand music I'm gonna be able to make. I still haven't figured out how to properly do vocals, but now I can at least play every instrument myself.

But nowhere in the box is a note about who sent this to me. I'm ninety eight percent sure I know who it is, as very few people are spontaneously nice to me on this scale, but I'm gonna play coy until I'm sure. In any case, it's another thing that's made my mood damned near giddy in the last two days (a surprise, given the events of yesterday. I'm super grateful to my benefactor, who I'll thank properly once they make themselves apparent.

Sunday I got a last minute reminder that I had tickets to go see Mamma Mia. I didn't have many expectations from a show rife with Abba songs ... but damned if it wasn't the best musical I've seen since The Producers. It's not as funny, but as a stage play it's infinitely superior. The writing is like fine Swiss clockworks, seamlessly integrating seemingly random songs into a complex storyline. Plus the set design was a miracle, a veritable transformer creating various locales with very little seeming effort. As a writer, I'm often able to see how things will happen, and while I was able to pick out one major plot development by intermission, the way it happened threw me for a loop. As well, I've been singing, "you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life/ see that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen" non stop. Wild, wacky stuff.

I went to my singing class at West LA College tonight, and it again briefly infuriated me. I am singing "Get Me To The Church On Time" from My Fair Lady (why is my life dominated by Broadway musicals these days?) and I loathe it, in terms of content and arrangement. However, at the end of class, one of the teenage ne'er-do-wells walks up to me and asks where I work. I tell him, and he tells me he's actually read my paper and stuff I've done, complimenting me. Considering I thought everybody in class thought I was either a pompous asshole (possibly true) or beneath notice (I thought the young people sneered at me, seems they're secretly in awe), so that was a pleasant little surprise.

In another odd twist, I decided to skip class last week on a lark, as I was just sick of it. Turns out the whole campus had a black out that night, so there was no class anyway. That was strange, but satisfying, as I really needed last Tuesday off (I'm locking myself in the house this Thursday after my haircut and the chiropractor).

Speaking of odd surprises, turns out I was quoted in Reuters, which ended up in The New York Times among other places. I also responded to an email from a CNN staffer who was looking for the creators of the comic book mentioned within, one of whom I worked with aeons ago at Rap Pages. Strange serendipity abounds.

Even in bad situations, I seem to be making it out OK. My homeboy Jon says I'm "even Steven," like Jerry on Seinfeld. It always evens out for me in the end. Case in point: Sunday morning I had to drive to Brentwood to do some marketing work for my karaoke job. However, as I was sleepy as hell, I left the flyers (fliers?) I copied next to my recliner. Cue me at Brentwood Kinko's replacing them in a stupor, hot from shlepping two blocks back and forth, and wasting all my cellular minutes trying to find my sometimes zany bosses. The "stage" at this festival was way smaller than I expected, as my boss Pete sang Sinatra songs for an hour and a half. A DJ showed up at 1, which was a surprise, as we were supposed to do karaoke (we thought), but said DJ had been hired to spin. Vogon poetry at its finest. So my bosses go off while DJ plays and I babysit the equipment (did I mention the festival neglected to have their own sound, so my boss Nigel had to use his set?), almost falling asleep and finally reading every disk cover in the book to keep myself awake. After three hours of this madness, Pete slips me a fifty (which means his Sinatra singing gig must have gone really well) and I headed home. Even though it was a dumb waste of my time (I ended up handing out two fliers, and we never gave any shirts away as we talked about), I got a pretty penny for my time, which is kosher in my book.

I was again watching The Bernie Mac Show and I'm constantly shocked by how crappy a wife and mother Wanda is. She's fine. She's paid. That's really all there is to her. She's a pain in the ass, a retail whore, lazy and petulant. It makes Bernie look dumb for being with her (although she had some really great moments early in their relationship). It bugs me, somehow. Still watching, but I don't like the Wanda character at all.

Whch brings me to a funny point about my homegirl Dana. Dana, I've noted, is "uncrazy." Whereas many females obsess and trip, Dana is cool with people she dates and doesn't stress it at all. She claims she can distill this "uncrazy" in limited amounts, and when she sprays it in the air, I have a better time of things in general. We've now suggested that she bottle it and married men will pay her to bash their wives over the head with it, which will provide comedy and some "ackrite" all in one felled swoop. She says she's gonna refine the process so she can mass produce ... but I somehow think it'll blow up in her face! *Hannibal smirks*

Lessee, what else is in my notes here ... ah, the "self-deprivation" girl issue. I've fended off some emails and calls lately from sisters I don't like. I liked them at one point, but now they're just irritants looking to take up my valuable time and resources with no return. What's wrong? Glad you asked.

These three sisters have all told me they're attracted to me, but for one reason or another ("I was raised a Jehovah's Witness and I'm very slow at getting romantic," "I don't know how we'd work out romantically" and "I'm an ardent Christian looking for a husband, and you're not it" in order) don't wanna make out with me or what have you. Which is fine. Say no, cool, I'm fine with that, and grateful they find me attractive. However, when they wanna hang around and get invited to stuff and say, "can't we be friends?" -- that's when I cut 'em off. Besides, I always think, you'd rather be unhappy and alone than at least having fun with somebody who treats you well and who you're attracted to? Crazy talk.

My friends will loan me rent money. My friends will shoot people for me if the need arises. My friends will obstruct justice on my behalf. Sitting up on the phone with some doofy sister who can't figure out what she wants, and wasting my money, gas and free tickets on that sort of person when (as my new keyboard shows) some people really appreciate having me around ... it's just bad business. I can't have that.

"You're wrong, Hannibal" I hear sometimes. "I just wanna be your friend," or "that's a cold way of looking at life." Take it up with your congressman -- I'm evil, I'm happy about that, and we're full up on "friend" and "crazy" around here.

I've actually said all of this to these people, and more like them. Somehow it's not driving them away like it used to ... mmm ...

Crap, gotta chase down my lawyer. More drama -- now they say they don't have my policy number on the photocopy of my policy. Right. I'ma have to go down there, I know it ...

Monday night I was at Bar Melody (which some believe is a front for a drug operation -- I don't know and I don't care, as long as the chicken strips stay as tasty as they are). I ran into this healthy sister who sings really loud. Anyway, she goes to a bunch of Black karaoke places I've never heard of (and she has the JTG disc with Jill Scott's "It's Love," which is cool). Anyway, we talk about our KJ beefs (singing one song in a four hour period due to host favoritism) and favorites (she has a phenomenal soul collection). She talked about starting her own karaoke business, but the cost of CDs started kicking her butt (she doesn't know how to eBay like I do, nor does she have the hook ups I've found). Anyway, thinking about that and the strange crowd the contest has drawn at my show made me wonder about the whole karaoke "scene." Most of the businesses are run like hobbies. Many of the adherents are lonely, sad people with little else in their lives. Most of the people who work in it are sick of the owners and the customers. It's a strange scene to have become involved in ... but hey, it's cheap and I have a blast.

Most of the time, that's all I can deal with.

Which is about all I have to say about that.