Chan and I went down to Makor last night to see Nellie McKay. You may remember her from last year's New Year's Eve neverending rant. She was really good live. Funny ("you think because you're older you shouldn't steal anymore, but you should"), left-wing (talked about animal cruelty and whatnot, anti-Bush stuff, etc. Plus, the place served vegetarian food, which is key for me. Maybe that's why she chose to play there), and human (occasionally forgot words and had to stop the song, but was totally cool about it and made fun of herself.) And the songs are good, which is kinda key. One was a tune she sent to Bob Dylan to see if he'd do a duet with her, but he refused. So she just plays it anyway, imitating Dylan during what were supposed to be his parts.

If you care, you can read this review from some message board of her show in LA last week, to get more of an idea of what she's like.

But one thing about the audience. At one point, people were yelling out requests. For some reason, someone thought that doing the oldest joke in concert history would actually get laughs in a smart New York audience. That's right, "Freebird" was called out, and, I shit you not, people did laughed. Like, 40% of the crowd! Genuinely laughing, as if they'd never heard that one before! Not as smart as I thought, I guess.

I blame society. Everybody's working so hard that they're completely hooked on alcohol and coffee...and bad jokes! "Oh, my god, I worked 60 hours on the Penske file this week, give me anything that will relax me...what's that, Freebird? That's hilarious! Anything's better than this job I choose to work way, way, way, too hard at." All I'm saying is, stop being stressed out over unimportant crap, and suddenly you won't need coffee or other drugs anymore, you'll become healthy, will be able to get off your anti-depressants, and you'll find yourself a happier human being, who won't stand for shitty jokes like "Freebird" thrity fucking years after it stopped being funny.

If only it were that easy, right?

0.1 to 0.3 per cent of you are asking, "But what about that other female musician you kept blabbing about last year?" That was Joanna Newsom. I haven't talked about her because she didn't release any music the entire year, and every show she played, save for two in the midwest and one in Seattle, was outside the U.S. But believe you me, when she comes back around or puts out an album, I'll be a-talkin' 'bout it.

Oh, and to wrap up last night, Chan and I got to walk home through Central Park in the snow. Snow is cool.