Adventure #102: Lexington, Kentucky

He was an older man, impeccably and fashionably dressed (except for the sandals) with two bags and a sign that just said "OHIO." My trip to Kentucky had been, at best, a waste of time. I was headed back to Ohio anyway. The least I could do was take him with me. "Anywhere in Ohio?" I asked. "Anywhere." "Is Cincinnati OK?" "That's perfect." He got in the car.

Here are the things I can be reasonably sure are true that Star told me:

1. He had hitchhiked from California to Lexington, Kentucky in about 5 days.
2. He was a disabled Vietnam vet with a gnarly foot injury.
3. He was well-read about history and knew a lot of obscure facts about the Founding Fathers.
4. He once had a dog named Awesomest, but doesn't anymore.
5. He's sixty years old.
6. He's part British and park Cherokee and maybe descended from a Mayflower passenger.
7. Obama doesn't know who he is.

Here are the things that Star told me that are probably not true:

1. He's never consummated his marriage to his wife of 4 years, and she told him that if he hitchhiked to Ohio, she would fly out to meet him, and they would be married at her parent's house in Dayton in front of a Rabbi.
2. His wife is a model who actually owns QVC and is one of the richest people in the world.
3. His wife is going to let him on QVC to spread his message of peace and love.
4. His wife bought him a 75 foot yacht that is currently anchored off both Martha's Vineyard and the San Francisco Bay.
5. He once gave away $15,000 in $100 bills at a Walmart in California around Christmas.
6. His wife is descended directly from Mary Magdalene and is a shipping magnate because Jesus told her ancestor to go into import / export before he was crucified.
7. His wife has a long-term girlfriend named Tracy, but he doesn't care because he loves her.
8. His wife is buying him a new dog which he will name “Awesomest Two,” but call just “Two.”
9. He and his wife will buy all the world's debt in order to force all the world governments to declare world peace, at which point Obama will finally have to publicly recognize him.
10. You shouldn't call someone a “Jew,” they prefer to be called “Hebrews.”

I want his whole story to be true (except the Jew bit. I bristled every time he insisted on calling us Hebrews...). I want to believe that after I dropped Star off at a truck stop north of Cincinnati, he called up his wife, who was waiting patiently at the airport. She took a cab like she promised and met him. And they lived happily ever, after enforcing world peace by controlling all world debt. But mostly I just hope he finds someone to take him back to California.

This is Pen Pen and a random castle in the middle of Lexington, Kentucky because why not?

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #101: Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE

I'm continually amazed by the transformative powers of music. I can spend an entire morning driving in a terminally pissy mood; tired, sore, frustrated, homesick, and then suddenly a radio station in West Virginia plays Living Colour's “Cult of Personality.” By the end of the intro I'm a person again. By the end of the first verse I'm singing along at top volume. By the end of the first chorus I'm re-energized and invincible. This is Pen Pen, future cult of personality.

I was undecided about Philly at first. The last show I'd played there was disappointing at best. Plus I lost a mic stand at it. Bah! Driving around in search of a coffee shop to finish some work, I ended up on a street so covered with cherry blossoms that it was slippery. Philly's not so bad. The show that night was actually pretty solid. It was a small crowd, but warm. Everyone there was participating, shouting out random covers, singing along. Interrupting my rambling stories with their own. Though many of us were strangers at the beginning of the night, the power of a Tom Petty singalong and a poorly executed impromptu Queen cover transformed us into friends. Fun fact: Queen sounds dumb on an acoustic guitar. Todd from the Susan Drangle House showed up. In all my years of touring, exactly twice has someone I've approached about a show said “we can't do it, but let me know if you get a show and I'll come check it out and you can crash with us!” It was seriously humbling. Maybe it doesn't sound like much to people who don't tour a lot, but it meant a lot to me. This is Pen Pen warming up to this whole Philadelphia thing.

Delaware, on the other hand, I had no preconceptions about. I've never gotten out of my car in Delaware. Sure I've driven through a bunch of times, but always on the way to somewhere else. It turns out Delaware is pretty great—or at least Wilmington is. I ended up talking to a store owner for almost an hour (his son discovered Norah Jones, apparently!) before one of the other patrons started telling me all the places I should play next time I'm in town. When I got to Mojo13 it was totally empty. “I'm the featured artist tonight. I was told to show up around 7:30.” I explained to blank stares. By 9, a few folks had started to trickle in. By the time the music started, this group of strangers and acquaintances had become friends. I finished my set backed up on congas by a bassist who had snubbed me earlier in the evening and against whom I had nursed a foolish but short-lived grudge. I don't really understand how playing music together can turn people into friends without a single word passing between them. I don't understand how the right song coming on the radio at the right time can transform you from a cranky tortoise into a real live human person. And I guess I hope I never do. Magic tricks are diminished when you know their secrets. The world needs all the magic it can get. This is Pen Pen crossing the Delaware.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #100: Belchertown, MA and New York, NY

I'm not a superstitious person. I don't think that the position of the stars when you're born have anything to do with who you are as a person. My quasi-observant Jew-hood has more to do with respect for tradition and the comfort and sense of place I find in ancient customs than any faith in a divine whatever. But I do believe in the serendipity of the radio. As I pulled out of the house in Brewster, the radio was playing Tupac – Changes. I took it as a sign from the tree peeper I befriended the other day and named Treefrog Shakur (my childhood pet frog was named Biggie. I'm a fan of themed names...) that this was going to be a good tour. This is Treefrog Shakur being fucking adorable.

The last few months in Brewster with Marisa and Jack have been probably the longest period in my adult life that I've gone without either having to pack my suitcase and leave the state for a project or suffering some terrifying medical crisis. It's been a period of some stress and upheaval, sure, but also one of relative stability. Daily routines and habits. My life has changed in such huge ways since my last tour. Suddenly I'm part of a family. I'm charged with being an example for an impressionable tiny person. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm trying my damndest to do it well. This is the first time leaving for tour hasn't been a relief. This is the first time I've ever been homesick on the drive to my first show. And I have a beard. I should have led with that. I have a beard now. I'm undecided about it. This is Pen Pen with a beard.

I got to the venue and discovered that my tiny trusty netbook had finally kicked the bucket. So much for good omens. Treefrog Shakur works in mysterious ways. But seeing as my good laptop was dead for 24 hours earlier in the week before inexplicably rising again like the hologram of a beloved performer, I'm not worried. Plus, there's not really anything I can do about it from the road. The show was a lot of fun, and I guess was only the second show they've done in their space. I haven't performed a full set in a while. And I've never performed with a beard. The crowd indulged me as I fumbled my way through a few new songs. I'm hoping to test out a lot of the material for my new album on the road before I finish recording it. So far, so beardy. This is Pen Pen: Time Detective.

My Brooklyn show was canceled last week after the space got noise complaints, and I decided that instead of scrambling to find a half-assed show that I wouldn't have time to promote, I'd just spend time with my friends. Besides, I had a few meetings and rehearsals that I needed to make. I'd hoped to make it to New York in time for court support for Cecily McMillan, but traffic rules us all (radio update: Looking Glass – Brandy, and Notorious BIG – Mo Money Mo Problems). I didn't know Cecily McMillan well. As far as I can recall we'd only ever really spoken once. But I witnessed her assault on March 17^th 2012, just moments after I'd been beaten myself by the NYPD. I pulled into the city just in time for the guilty verdict to be announced. How any twelve members of the human race could find her guilty is beyond me. The Puppet Guild met in Zuccotti instead of our usual Monday in the Secret Puppet Lair. I showed up and was immediately put to work making signs and cards. It was wonderful to see so many people in the park. It's been far too long since I've sat in Zuccotti Park with a Sharpie mass producing signs for a demonstration. The crowd was lively, mostly respectful, and tried their best to be constructive. An assembly was held in which we brainstormed ways to continue to support Cecily and hopefully influence her sentencing. We all laughed as we dusted off the old OWS process. Do we need to mic check? There's only like a hundred and twenty people here. I don't miss New York. I've been gone for 3 months, and I don't really miss it. I miss my family far more after just a day apart. But I do miss this stupid awful park and the amazing conversations it inspires. This is Pen Pen demanding #Justice4Cecily.

This isn't a song I wrote. This is the greatest song in the history of music.

Adventure #99: Jackson, MI

The big problem with Superman as a character is that he's basically perfect. The only way to create any dramatic tension whatsoever is to incapacitate him in some way; hence the proliferation of every possible kind of Kryptonite magically showing up all the time on Earth, despite the general improbability of any showing up here due to the size of the universe, let alone so many chunks. I like a fair fight. Maybe that's why I'm such a sucker for those places where the constant battle between humanity and nature actually feels matched. Abandoned buildings are the manifestation of nature coming up from behind. Bridges and tunnels those places where we've conquered nature but only just barely. One massive storm and nature could still win this one. So after a few days in the ruins of former industrial centers, I needed a little nature. This is Mario and a bridge (not pictured: Birdo.)

About 20 minutes south of Flint, maybe an hour east of Jackson, I came across a state park. Trees. Lakes. Hiking. This would probably be my last chance to experience nature until the spring (or at least until I tour the South again...). This is Mario taking only pictures, leaving only footprints, and the discarded turtle shells of a million Koopas (truly, Mario is history's greatest monster.)

It was overcast as all hell, and a little chilly (still no jacket), but the 2 hour hike around the lake did my soul (and probably lungs) good. I sat for a minute on the edge of the lake reading William Gibson; maybe the least pastoral possible reading choice, but whatever; books don't just grow on trees. The paper does. But. Then industry happens. Anyway. By the time I got to Bird Alley, it was dark. Anthony and I sat around watching terrible 80's movies on VHS while we waited for the other acts to show up. Foragers for the discarded remains of our own culture. Are we America's termites or it's vultures? This is Mario and the last display of breathtaking natural beauty for a little while.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.

Adventure #98: Detroit, MI

In the 2 months since I last visited Detroit, a book has started to take shape in my brain. A collection of interviews, old articles, photos, song lyrics, and letters documenting the stories from the neighborhoods that are vanishing. Primary sources presented with little commentary. Detroit is in a period of change. What it's changing into is up to debate, but as the warehouses and factories and houses continue to be razed one by one, the history of it's neighborhoods threaten to be buried over in grass themselves. This is Mario posing for a very sad, yet optimistic postcard.

I headed out from Justin's a little later than I'd hoped. Drinking till 4 am will do that to you. Who knew? I went down to the neighborhood on the east side that I'd explored last time. 2 short months had already taken their toll. One of the houses I'd come across—an experiment in off-the-grid sustainable living it seemed—had it's garden overgrown; it's rain collection cisterns gone. Was this a failed experiment or merely preparation for the winter? This is Mario and the ravages of time and neglect.

The air felt like winter had come early as I wandered around. A woman came up to me. “I'm 5 months pregnant, and just need to get something to eat. Do you have a dollar?” “Sure,” I said. “Can I interview you in exchange for 5?” We talked for a few minutes. I realized that if this is really for a book, I'm going to need legal releases and all that stuff. But I was utterly unprepared for the look of gratitude at being asked to tell her story. As she talked, her face lit up. She was talking about her friends and relatives that had died in fires—started by Detroit police, she said—but she was beaming. I'm realizing I have a lot of prep work to do to make this book happen, but I'm also realizing that it might be more necessary for the interview subjects than it is for me. It's going to be a huge undertaking, and probably will take a year or more, but it's something that I think I have to do. This is Mario and the future of dentistry.

Around 5:30 the sun was starting to set, and it was getting a little too cold to wander around without a jacket. I still don't have a jacket. Don't judge me. As I got in my car to head up to Saginaw, I got a text from Alex. “You still in the D?” I turned around and headed over her house for tea and catching up. “Detroit is the Wild West,” she said. “Anything is possible.” She had just moved back home a few weeks ago from Brooklyn and is determined to be a part of the rebirth of Detroit. Before I hit the road, she loaded me up with a bounty of home made kettle corn and Vernor's ginger ale, which is apparently the Moxie of Detroit. This is Mario feasting on the best Detroit has to offer (other than Alex's hot sauce, of course.)

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends.

Adventure #97: Wyandotte, MI

A few years ago I called Rosy from the road. In a manifestation of her permanent state of exasperation with me, she declared “I just don't know how to talk to you when you're on tour. It's always either the best night of your life or the worst and I don't know how to talk to you.” And I had no response, because it's true. Driving 6 hours, singing your heart out for an hour, (not to mention the hours of booking, planning, and promoting that go into every single show) and then being greeted with stunning indifference is devastating. But then the opposite-doing all that and seeing people sing along with your songs; connecting on a very real and personal level-there is nothing better. Those are the nights like last night in Wyandotte that remind you why you do this at all. This is Mario doing this at all.

As I stepped up to the mic, The Rockery was suddenly swarmed with a gaggle of ska kids (specifically of the CBJ variety) and I couldn't have been happier. It's funny how after only playing one show together this summer, I've come to consider Mike and Mark and the gang good friends. But this is a world that breeds fast friendships and faster rivalries, I suppose. Then an hour talking with Marc Blur about the different varieties of anarchism and revolutionary politics, interspersed with memories of what Detroit used to be. Then what seemed like an hour, but turned out to be 3 talking art and sincerity with Justin, the manager of the Rockery, and Jon-Mikal of The Idiot Kids. It was a conversation that I think all three of us needed pretty badly. This is Mario talking realness with noted 80's video game icon, E.T.

Touring can be a lot of things to a lot of people. I guess to most it's a way to become successful. But as I continue to get older and continually redefine “success,” the pretensions of being a famous musician have faded away leaving only the joy of being able to share my art with people who wouldn't have otherwise heard it, excitement for adventure, and gratitude for the unexpected and unexpectedly meaningful conversations at 4 AM; long after the bar has closed. As long as I can continue to do that, I will continue to be the most successful damn musician on the planet. This is Mario defining success by having all the pickles in the world!

This is Jawbreaker's tour song because it sums up all the contradictions about as well as anything.

Adventure #96: Rochester, NY

About 30 minutes out of Brooklyn I started going through my mental checklist. Guitars? Check. Newly pressed copies of A Life In Transit? Check. A vintage suitcase full of anti-capitalist zines? Check. Jacket? Uh. Well it's been unseasonably warm. I'll be OK without a jacket. Sleeping bag? Check. Multiple kinds of pickles? Check. Pen Pen? Oh crap. Maybe I should turn around. The jacket was one thing. But going on tour without my travel penguin? We're doomed. But never one to be discouraged by the slings and arrows of outrageous forgetfulness, I remembered that among the many totems of my perpetual travel is a tiny stuffed Mario. I don't remember where he came from. Only that he's been in my backpack at least since January 2008. This is Mario being selected for this journey.

I got to the Meddlesome Lab about an hour after Seth asked me to show up, but the opening act hadn't gotten there yet either, so everything was fine. We are not responsible adults. None of us. In fitting with the game of “One Degree of Greg McKillop” that is my life, Maya, who was doing merch for Wood Spider plays in Speaker for the Dead. Because obviously. It would honestly be weirder if there wasn't someone at the show who didn't play in Speaker. This is Mario and a Gnome who may or may not play in Speaker for the Dead.

The show was a pretty great start to this final leg of my tour. I've been coming to Rochester periodically because there's been this legend of the Great Rochester House Shows. I've never actually experienced one. Usually it's been Mediocre But Well-Intentioned Bug Jar Shows. Seth kept apologizing “usually there's more like 50 people at these things...” I don't know where you'd fit them. Everyone fit that rare spot in the Venn Diagram of both being great musicians and great people, and the reality is as I begin this final stretch of shows before I cross the boundary of Don't Trust Anyone Over 30, it was incredibly encouraging to perform with artists older than me who are still touring, still playing and organizing DIY shows, still staying true to their ideals. Maybe growing up punk is possible. And then, immediately after performing, I got the text from my dad: my sister went into labor, and I have a new niece. Life can be pretty great sometimes. This is Mario with teeth.

This is the theme music to Mario 2. It's 10 hours long and seemed like the appropriate choice.