Been to Oklahoma.  Very much liked Oklahoma.  Good people in Oklahoma.  Sending all my love to Oklahoma.  Just saw a video of parents reuniting with their children after they were located and are OK.  The cries and screams were so pained, so human, so primal, it brought me to tears.  But these were the lucky ones. I cannot imagine the cries and screams of the unlucky ones.

This is the last Saturday night I have free until October.  I'm spending it at home alone quietly with a nice seafood dinner and my 19 "women."  This is the closest I'll ever get to Polygamy.

"I'm not a big fan of American culture - when I think of America, I think of fat people on scooters in Walmart." - high school student in Germany. I was about to differ with her, when I suddenly thought of all those...fat people.

On scooters.

In Walmart.

 

Dammit.

Now boarding at Hamburg Central Station.  Hmmm,  that could be a song...http://jeffersonthomas.com/gcs

"Hello, Hamburg!   I'm Jefferson Thomas from America and I'd like to offer you something besides MacDonald's and fucking Beyonce.  I hope you enjoy it. "  Yeah,  that sounds good.   I think I'll go with that tonight. 

I have never lost a wallet in my life. Ever. That said....on the way home from Providence RI last night my headlight bulbs died; only the high beams worked, so for three hours on I-95, I was THAT guy with the high beams on. When I got home I noticed I’d left my backpack with my WALLET inside at the club in Providence. So this morning I was on my way to the bank to have new cards issued and I blew a tire, so I couldn’t drive back up there to retreive it today if I wanted to!  After all this, a European tour is going to be just TOO EASY.

I walked to the bank, got new debit/credit cards, got the van fixed, have my passport safe at home, and the club called me this morning and confirmed that the backpack is indeed there, wallet inside, so I’ll just deal with that when I get back. If I don’t get hit by a bus on the way to JFK tomorrow night...

It's taking its sweet time getting here, but springtime appears to be on the way.  As I write this I'm seven floors up, sitting in a lawn chair with a bottle of malbec on the roof of my building in NYC enjoying the view and NOT dressed in a parka.

EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
I've harassed this great nation of ours from Burbank to Bensonhurst, and from Milwaukee to El Paso.  So it's time to take this thing across the pond!  We'll be doing two overseas legs this year; UK and Germany dates in April and May, then we'll invade other distant lands in the fall.  In between, of course, is another healthy dose of summer dates in the good ol' USA.  Enough down-home debauchery to leave you re-bauching for weeks… 

NEW VIDEOS
We got a lot of video from the 2012 summer/fall shows (although there is no known footage of Amy Winehouse's dad getting onstage and doing an impromptu version of "Georgia" with us. If you were there and held your phone up for that, we need to talk).  We'll get to the live stuff, but in the meantime, I'm really enjoying the "un-live" videos we're doing for some of the new songs.  In January my van was diagnosed with a terminal illness after 211, 000 miles of dutiful roadwork, so its final act was to appear in the video for "Transmission".  Having dedicated its life to commerce, it died for art.  I don't think I've ever had so much fun.  Check it out...

IN THE PRODUCER'S CHAIR
I spent the winter producing Matthew Foster-Moore's second record.  We finished it in late March, and he'll be sharing the bill with me on some of the European dates.  Matt is playing it smart; he's in no hurry to release it just for the sake of having something new out.  He's got some labels sniffing around, so he's waiting to see who's going to do the best job with it.  He'll keep working his first record for the European shows, but including a lot of the new material.

2013 is only a few months old, but it's already gearing up to be the best one yet!

 

CNN is reporting that AP is reporting that Fox has it on the best of authority that PMSNBC has heard from some very reliable sources at the Huffington Post that NBC re-tweeted something from an ABC Facebook viewer post that CNN is going to release breaking information on...something. Any minute now! Stay tuned! Morons. We have now officially reached the point where the most credible news source out there is The Onion.

Or you could be like me - stop concerning yourself with the FIRST report on something, let rescue personnel and law enforcement do their jobs, let some things shake out, then buy a paper in the morning and sit and READ it. You'll get OLD news, but it might actually be ACCURATE. You won't be "trending" or "breaking", but you also won't be an IDIOT.

OK, I thought "Instagram" was a cocaine vending machine.