I'm in Toronto. It's 12:30 AM. I wish that I could say that I'm doing something super-edifying, like reading poetry or writing songs. But I'm not. Not really. I'm in the final stretch of this funny online competition where I'm voted hot or not by teenage girls (see last post). Fabulous. My competitor (his name is Dawson. I mean, come on) cheats, but I've got a lot of good friends watching out for me. I'm still in the running.
I put up a new track for you all to listen to. I've got an album shaping up here. Anybody want to do cover art?
Toronto! Once apon a time, a friend (his name is Tom) and I were trying to get from Montreal to the hamlet of Potsdam, where we reside(ed?). But starting in Montreal, all of the highway signs pointed to Toronto. "Toronto, 400 million km" and the like. Toronto... Toronto... Toronto... But no United States. It's like they don't want you to find it!
But once you're here in Toronto, it's agreeable enough. My dad has a wonderful apartment in the super-nice part of town, so I feel privelaged simply by walking out of the front door. Been spending my time taking in movies, lazing about, coolin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool and all shootin' some b-ball out by the pool. There's a spa. And a gym. Boo-ya!
Thanks for votin' in this contest, to those of you who did. Congrats to Kjerstin, who's getting married!!! The first, the trend-setter. Way to go, lovely. You guys are awesome.
And that's our show for the day. As it says on the lid of the mayonnaise jar, "Keep cool. Don't freeze."

Battle of the Boys

The States, baby! Yeah! I'm back. And, actually, I'm not techincally in the States. I'm in Canada. You know, the *other* country in America the North. It took me going through Utrecht, Amsterdam, Boston, and New York to get here. Not to mention Potsdam, which is the ol' home town, through which I passed yesterday to get to Ottawa, where I am now. I'm going to Toronto on Sunday and then back to Potsdam to work like a dog and eat like a king.
Boring! Let's see... what's not boring?
First off, big fat props to friends Theo Marks and Mintje Whose Last Name I Do Not Know and Pascale LaFountain amd Ryan Greer for letting me stay in their places along the way. Without you wonderful people I would have starved and frozen and generally been uncomfortable and tired all of last week.
I made a couple of calls to the States from the Amsterdam airport and it cost me over $100. Watch out for making credit card calls anywhere at any time. You will be violated, in a quite uncomfortable way. Fortunately for me, I just found out that it wasn't $200 (!), because apparently some of the exceedingly large charges made to my card were fraudulent, which is rockin'. But not too rockin'. I'm still hurting.
Big news! I've been entered into CosmoGIRL's (a magazine for young teen girls, naturally) Battle of the Boys contest. It's like one of those hot or not contests, where you choose between two guys and decide who's hotter. But if I win, I get $1000. So on march 28, every one of you need to go to:
http://www.cosmogirl.com/guys/battleoftheboys/competitors/0,,,00.html
and vote for me, so that I win. That would be sweet in so many ways.
Anwyay, more stories will trickle out later, as always, but I wanted to put something down now that I'm home and the internet's stable.

Today worked out pretty well. We slept until around 11:00 (which is unusual for me, almost entirely unheard-of for Anna). After a breakfast of sweet condiments (jam and nutella) on toastie breads, Anna went to the gym (she signed up there a couple of days ago to combat the eventual boredom when I leave town), and I went to get emails with the computer. I sat myself in a good spot in the sun close to home and thought "wouldn't it be great if I got the internet here?" and I checked and I did! Score. So I figured out how I'm going to get back to the States, precisely. I leave in a week.
!
A week! Crazy!
And I uploaded a couple of new songs.
It was such a beautiful day we decided that we couldn't spend it indoors. We made up some chorizo sausage-and-gouda-on -baguette sandwiches, got a bottle of wine, I grabbed my guitar, and we went to sit in the park. Some wine and sandwiches later, I pulled out my guitar and I'm strumming and singing, and this group of three people about our age come over and just sort of hang around while I'm playing. This happens often, so I payed it no mind. Then they started humming, at first softly, so that I barely noticed, then louder. I offered them some wine and we sat there and I played and they sang and we drank wine. It was so warm that I was wearing sandals, and I had to take off my overshirt.
Since then, I've been sleeping. Chili for dinner and now off to a friend's to watch a movie. Worked out pretty well for a Wednesday.

Hey, this is pretty cool.
My friend Paulo put up some of the Ugly By Now stuff on a web site called ccmixer.org, where people can trade samples. Then some other guys took samples from my guitar and put them into their own tracks. There's this one and this one. I'm so flattered right now.
Also, I'm appearing, apparently, in the June/July American edition of CosmoGIRL! See if y'all can spot me.
cheers,
Donald