Dear Chris

Subject: Postcard from Hell

Dear Chris,

This past Saturday I played my first gig with KMX Musica. It was a lot of fun. The leader of the band, (I think he and I are the only two members, at least at this moment, although there might have been other members before) is Kevin McKeon, a.k.a Rainbow, a.k.a The Ghost of Christmas Past. Since it's just he and I, what he does is record backing tracks -- bass, drums, keyboard, and samples -- on his iPod and plays guitar and sings the lyrics along with it all. Actually, the iPod is considered a member of the band. I believe his name is Vanilla Jones, or something like that. There's a story behind the name, but I can't remember it. But how he does it all, it's very impressive, and his songs are really good. I think he's a musical genius.

Anyway, I can't remember who came up with the idea, but we decided that I would pretend to play keyboard, even though my Casio Concermate 670 would not be plugged in -- Oh, and he decided to dress metal and so I, since I don't have any of my old metal T-shirts, decided to go for the opposite and wear khaki pants, a button-down polo shirt, a tie, and a navy-blue blazer. I wanted to look like a kid (a late-twenties kid) who just got out of prep school for the day, or like I was about to go, or just came back from, a semi-formal high school dance. I was successful.

Now, my stage name was Marc Farfal and I did my darndest to appear as though I was playing the keyboard as if it was plugged in. Some people commented during the show that they couldn't hear Farfal, so we turned up the iPod and made the amp on my side louder. One guy, who's cool, was pretty sure that I was faking it, but he waited to tell me this after the show. To my credit, I did scream along with Kevin on one of his songs and then switched to a falsetto opera attempt at a harmony. And, during his guitar solos, I took out a calculator -- I believe it’s scientific, although I forget what constitutes a scientific calculator -- and pushed buttons, the idea being that I was calculating the awesomeness of his solo.

Getting back to the gig, it was planned that about three quarters of the way through the show, Mckeon would catch me and expose me and then we would have a war of words over it. He kicked me out of the band for a few songs then let me back in. Man, oh man, it was a hoot and some people dug it.

Enough about me, how's Europe? Are you still listening to all that sitar music? I hope so.

Sincerely,

Kentucky Fried Chicken

P.S. I hate to put people down, but I saw this terrible silent film on TV last night. Just terrible.