Monday, December 29, 2008

The upside of hightimes.

Today,
has been a good day.

First off, thank you
to all the wonderful ladies
and boys who have responded
in kind to the donation email I sent out.

If you didn't get the email,
it went something like this:

I moved out to LA,
on a whim, and I forgot
how important a job and
a place to live can be,
and they have both been
extremely difficult to find,
so I've set up a donation page
that allows you to purchase two
never before released MP3s,
the Get Low cover by Lil Jon,
and a recording of Spanglish
that I did at a full studio with a full band
that I wasn't happy with at the time.

the link is this:
www.nicepeter.com/donate.html

you can donate anything you wish,
and you'll be sent to a page that
let's you download the songs.

That's that,
enough of that.

Today!

I got an email from a man who works
for NORML.

the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

He wants to do an interview with me tomorrow.

how cool?
very cool.

I responded to his email,
and went to go check out the site.

It turns out, they are having a video
contest, with a grand prize of $3,500,
to make a video about the horrible
consequences of marijuana laws in the US.

As it turns out, we're approaching
the 20 Millionth arrest for marijuana.

That is pretty fucking ridiculous.

So...
inspired by my friend, Happy Joel,
whom I mentioned earlier and you should
definitely check out: www.happyjoel.com

I am going to enter the contest.

I'm already writing the song,
it's going to have a music video,
with lot's of mexican guys and street bums from Venice Beach.

fantastic!

And I'm going to win some money,
and I'm going to be able to afford...

weed.

So, after that,
I went to the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art.

It's free after 5 pm.

Actually...
it's based on donations
after 5 pm, anything you can afford,
which I found hilarious given my present situation.

I went to see the awesome art,
it was awesome.

I also went to see the William Hearst collection.

Now that, was incredible.

William Hearst was an incredibly rich man
who collected an astounding number
of incredibly cool pieces of art.

I saw a Roman vase from 500 BC,
and I saw a painting that I've seen in books.

like.. a lot.

"whoa!! that's that painting from all the books.... right there!"

I found out what that painting smells like.

I saw suits of armor and tapestries
and all this fantastic art that was
collected by William Randolph Hearst...

who was also!

A major player in the instatement
of the marijuana laws that I am
going to help fight to change.

What a beautiful world.

don't believe me?

http://www.illuminati-news.com/marijuana-conspiracy.htm

i love you.

-p

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Twitter and Happy Joel

My friend Happy Joel wins contests for a living.

no kidding.

I met up with him last night,
had a blast,
and learned about something called Twitter.

I have no idea what twitter is,
I've heard about it,
and it sounded silly to me,
but he said some people love it,
and you can send updates to your
blog from your cell phone.

now that,
to me,
sounds kind of fun.

the ability to write,

"I am smoking weed with
a fat guy in a bear costume
in Wyoming."

that's nifty.

So, I set up a twitter page.

If you're into twitter,
by all means, join me.

it's at
www.twitter.com/nicepeter

I still don't understand exactly
how or why it works or who likes it,
but it's not up to me to decide what
people enjoy or don't.

I figure, I'll tell some silly
stories about fat guys in bear costumes,
and if it makes one person happy,
I'm happy.

by the way,
I'm pretty happy out here.

it's hard,
and a weird time of year,
but things are looking....

sunny.

-p

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

California, continued

Holy shit, dude.

This town is crazy.

Last night,
we went to an
open mic in Hollywood.

It was at the Kibitz Room,
next to Canter's Jewish deli.

A 24 hour deli
that serves Jewish food
to people like Slash from Gun's and Roses.

There's a picture of him eating
corned beef on the wall.

The open mic itself was pretty cool,
I played Fuck Guitar Center,
that's usually my song of choice
at a room full of musicians.

We only got one song each,
I'm starting from scratch here, remember.

There was one dude who
looked, sang, and behaved
exactly like the guy from
"Chocolate Rain" on youtube.

exactly.

like, so much
that I had to look
up the video when I got
home to make sure it wasn't really him.

It wasn't.

But this guy sang
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,
A Cappella,
in a deep ass voice,
for no reason.

and no one even blinked.

it was no surprise,
no big deal,
nothing novelty.

just that crazy dude
who comes in and joins
all the other crazy dudes
in Hollywood.

Like Artie Vegas.

He is the lead singer
of the Artie Vegas review.

A seven piece band,
fronted by Artie himself,
who was dressed in a sequin
vest with musical notes all over it,
and a long black cape.

I smoked a joint with him outside.

I just had to, right?

So we stuck around after the
open mic, to see a country band,
and then the Artie Vegas review.

There was a hot chick
who was dancing all over the place,
a beautiful girl named Amy
who was doing a photo shoot
with an old Jewish man,
and a crackhead lady
asking everyone if they
could smell her vagina.

crazytown.

That was last night.

Tonight,
we went out to a comedy show,
so I could meet the girls who book it,
and then we crashed my friend Scott's
party at a big, big place in Santa Monica,
ate the rest of his free food,
saw Scott, met his friends,
and convinced a guy that
he should move to Chicago.

I do miss it,
but this is one hell
of a crazy town.

And I'm going out every night,
meeting people, playing a song
here and there, and things are going...
well...
I'm not sure yet,

but they're going.

-p

Friday, December 12, 2008

California

I didn't really tell anyone,
I didn't really plan anything,
I just kinda left.

and moved to California.

I don't have a job,
an apartment,
or a plan.

but I'm happy...!

Let's see...
what to tell you?

Well, for starters,
last night I slept
in a King Size Suite
at a Casino in Northern California.

It had a Jacuzzi tub,
and the biggest shower I've
ever seen.

I had a gig there,
it came with the room.

the gig kinda sucked,
but the bath was cool.

I laid out in the bathtub,
with company,
smoking a joint,
drinking a beer,
and not even touching her legs.

It was that big.

I got the weed
for the joint from
some hippies I met
in Sebastopol.

This one is hard to explain,
I didn't steal the weed,
and they didn't give it to me.

I brushed it off the couch,
and figured...
well...
there's no sense wasting that.

that's right.

I brushed loose
pieces of weed off the couch,
so I could sit down,
next to the jar of weed
that was bigger than my head.

That was separate from the
tupperware container of weed
in the kitchen.

I think that was for cooking.

Let's just say,
these guys had a lot of fucking dope.

They all had the prescription.

Legal.

Weed.

I love this country.

We met these guys
at an open mic we
showed up to.

We had nowhere to sleep.
didn't know anybody,
and we are quickly running
out of money.

So we found an open mic,
I played,
I told the audience I
was looking for a place to crash.

and this cool, funky dude
in dreadlocks came up
to me and asked if we
wanted to sleep in his treehouse.

that's right.

treehouse.

It was the most deluxe
treehouse I have ever seen
in my life.

It had insulated windows.

so that's where we slept,
high off our gourds.

We woke up
with mountains in the background,
and a dude juggling in the backyard.

It was fantastic.

I hope I explained this all right,
it's been quite a crazy few days.

talk to you soon,

-p

Monday, December 01, 2008

Updater-a-doodle

I'm in Van Horn.

Texas.

From my calculations,
I haven't written you any stories
in a long time.

I'm sorry,
I have a lot to tell.

Also from my calculations,
since I last wrote you anything,
I've played within spitting distance
of both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's a quick recap:

I finished up my England tour,
it was awesome, lot's of crazy shit happened,
lot's of gigs happened, I almost puked onstage,
which was, in it's own way,
awesome.

I finished up six weeks
on the road in the UK
on Monday night,
I flew to Chicago on Tuesday,
landed,
slept,
woke up,
got my car,
played a gig
in Chicago,
on Wednesday night.

That night,
I slept at a stock
broker's apartment,
that had an elevator
that opened up right into
his apartment,
that was fucking cool.

On Thursday,
I picked up all my stuff that
was stashed at Pauly's,
Jamie's, and the recording studio.

Then I hit the road again
with my girlfriend.

She and I drove to Buffalo,
New York, where I had a gig.

That sucked.

The venue,
which I shall not name,
but it starts with a "B",
and ends with a "roadway Joe's",
fucked me.

I've played there three times,
never had a problem,
but this time they gave me
all kinds of hassle over the money.

I ended up calling the owner at home,
waking him up, and telling him
I'll never step foot in his bar again.

It's about time I got that kind of balls.

Standing up for myself,
at least a little bit,
I learned that from Ed in England.

Anyhow,
I left Buffalo,
went to visit my parents in Rochester, NY,
rested for a couple days,
and then hit the road again.

We went down the coast,
played an open mic in Pennsylvannia,
where.... low and behold,
a dude in the crowd knew my songs.

That was awesome.

We kept heading south,
to South Carolina, for three gigs,
one at a naval base,
one in front of 300 people,
that was also awesome.

We met three cool bands,
and had a little mini tour.

They are:
Enter the Era,
One Way Out,
and Framing Hanley.

All cool guys.

Then we hit Daytona Beach,
Florida.

And stayed with my friend Flood.

Lead singer of the one and only White Trashistan.

I love you, guy.

He manages a hotel...
about..... fifty yards from the ocean.

We stayed there for free
for three nights.
and played a gig at
an Irish Pub with the
best damn beer selection
I have ever seen.

That was fucking awesome.

Then we drove across to
Mobile, Alabama, to spend
Thanksgiving with the lady's
family, ate food, slept,
and hit the road again.

This time headed for Texas,
where we stayed last night
with my cousin, George.

He is seventy something years old.

and I haven't seen him since I was nine.

And he is awesome.

He owns a 25 acre ranch,
three sheep, a cat,
and a donkey.

This morning,
I shot a gun at a cactus.

I've never fired a gun before,
I was very careful.

and I fucking nailed
that cactus.

It was awesome.

I love you,
I miss you,
and I'll try to write
you more, I promise.

Oh...
and by the way,
I'm moving to Los Angeles.

-p