Dream Granny Reprise!

Sometimes, when all I really want to do is remind you to buy tickets to the Laughingstock show on Sunday, August 25 (they only cost $12, you lovable cheapskates), I will seize the opportunity to re-post your favorite Foz the Hook dreamscapes from years past.  So here is my dream about my vulgar artist Granny’s Funeral!

"I was preparing to go to a funeral in Springfield, and I had rented a really swell car. Initially I was pretty put-out because it looked like I was going to have to drive a bunch of people I did not know, which would kill the buzz of having a swell car, because, you know, they were all going to a funeral.

It is like when you have to drive to the office picnic, and that weird guy from accounting wants to ride along, even though you were hoping the slutty girl from marketing or the H.R. lady who is always having office affairs would be in your car. And then you can’t even drink, because you are driving.

Yeh, it was like that.

So finally everything is ready and we leave for Springfield. Dad is driving and I am sitting in the passenger seat. No one else is driving with us. Dad drives like a maniac, and since we are driving through Illinois, there are tons of huge mountains with narrow roads and switchback curves. I told Dad that I had made this drive before, and I would be happy to drive. He said he was doing fine. He was doing fine. He was also doing about 95.

Here comes the only “psychological” part of the dream. Even though Dad was driving like a maniac, I felt totally safe, because I was riding with Dad. Thanks Dad!

Anyway, we got to Springfield, which was a small Baptist church in the middle of Kansas with wheat and sunflowers everywhere. When we pulled up and parked in the gravel parking lot, NPR was just finishing a story on the radio, and for transitional music for the next story they played a song called Sound Chaser by the 1970’s prog rock band, Yes. They played the whole 9 minute song. This might have been the most impressive part of my dream: during my dream last night I listened to Sound Chaser all the way through, with all the parts and changes and breakdowns. Nothing weird happened (so to speak). I just sat in the car listening to the song, and really enjoying myself.

Then it was time to go see Granny. Granny wasn’t dead. Someone else was dead. Granny was sitting in the undercroft of the church sipping tea. I asked her how her 'outsider art' project was going, and she said she had thrown the whole thing out because it was so Goddamn derivative of 1960’s hippie bullshit, and she was sick of all the hipsters and hangers-on bothering her. She was still confident that she could cough something up before the deadline though.

Now it was time to see the dead guy. We went into the chapel and the coffin was up by the alter, of course. There was reedy organ music, actually a bandoneon, playing in the background.

Here comes the part you have been waiting for, the musical set up of the church.

The bandoneon player lay on his back on an organ bench, playing the squeeze box up in front of his chest. On his chest sat a decorative kind of brace. There was another brace on his legs, and sitting on top of the braces, the coffin. So you would walk up to the coffin (closed) to pay respects, and down below your waist, beneath the decedent’s head, was this old guy playing a squeeze box. You would walk up to the dead guy, and there’s this old dude down by your belt buckle saying 'Hi. How ya doin’?' I wanted to ask him about the coffin sitting on his chest. Was it heavy? Did he do this often? Was he the regular bandoneon guy for this church? But you can’t ask those sorts of questions at a funeral.

You have to be respectful.

OK, see you at Cole’s tomorrow. Buy me a drink. Bring a psychologist.

Love you, Granny."

Until then:

Buy Your Laughingstock Tickets Now!

Let's Go To a Donkey Show!

Hey!

Do you remember last night when we were discussing Playtime With Sad Banana, the music and comedy showcase we had just seen? 

Sure you do!  It was after the show and we were drinking bathtub gin at a cockfight in Cal City.  The Stripper said that Sad Banana’s song about pepperoni pizza tummy was funny, with intriguing commentary on gastrointestinal issues.  You said their masturbation song made you see the world in a different way.  I said to The Stripper, “Eeeeewe!  You said gastrointestinal issues!”  Well one thing led to another, and there was that knife fight in the alley, and The Stripper jumped into the cockpit to rescue one of the roosters, and now the rooster lives in my apartment because I can’t say no to The Stripper.

You remember that, don’t you?

(Ugly AND Delicious!  Those are eels.)

Anyway, the point I wish to make is that last night I went to Playtime With Sad Banana, and they put on a great show.  Their guests were three veterans of Foz the Hook’s quarterly pageants, Maria Wojciechowski and the Ugly and Delicious duo, Nick Casilini and Muriel Montgomery.  Maria did a number of fun new tunes I had never heard, and, as usual, killed on the uke and accordion.  U & D made up a musical comedy show about eels and penguins and the end of the world, as usual.  It murdered.

It was the first time I saw Sad Banana, and they are a fantastic comedy music act.  You will get to see them at the Laughingstock Festival in a couple of weeks.  Oh, and you’ll get to see Maria Wojciechowski there too.  Also, you will see FtH.

(Maria with Josh Paloma from Sad Banana just before they made you go crazy by playing The Liver, by Maria.  You don’t remember any of it.  Do you?)

Then, after the festival, we will all go to a donkey show in East Chicago for drinks and blood sports. 

Buy your tickets to Laughingstock now!

Trololo Song From 2009 Revisited

A few months ago Your Pals in FtH were overwhelmed with positive feedback when Foz posted this video of that Olde-Timey Red Russian crooner, Eduard Khil.  I know you know who Eduard Khil was (he died last year after you saw his Trololo video 3,000,000 times and liked it so ironically).

Actually, there isn’t a damthing wrong with Khil’s version of I Am Glad, 'Cause I'm Finally Returning Back Home, by Mikhail Ostrovsky.  It is a Russian notion of what an American cowboy ballad would sound like, which actually makes it even more hilarious.  If Khil were still around I have no doubt that the good folks at LaughingStock would invite him to be on their bill on August 25.  Foz the Hook would have gladly provided back up. 

I almost feel a little bad to learn that Khil was worried that people were trying to make a fool of him.  The song is way more awesome than it is foolish, and his performance is sheer brilliance.  I can’t do that!  Can you?

Still, the reason I bring this up is not to protect Khil from being made fun of.  Rather, it is to make fun of him.  I have said clearly that the Trololo song is awesome.  However, even more side-splittingly awesome is this dub made of the song by some guy who I don’t know who he is.

So, as usual, get your tickets to LaughingStock!  Then we can listen to the gut-buster together.

You’re welcome, ladies.

The Best Things!

Lola Balatro has long been identified by scholars and philosophers as The Best Thing*. 

According to press accounts, “hook-laden earnestness proves the trademark of these enigmatic troubadours, whose lyrical imagery skillfully melds the profundity of a poet laureate with the libido of a longshoreman.”  -- Longshoreman Quarterly, 2010.

We at Foz the Hook do not challenge this assertion, but rather celebrate it!  We have had the privilege of playing with Lola away back in October of 2010 at Foz the Hook’s Freakshowcase.  You will remember that show because that was the show – a show that also featured the Killer, Ever Mainard – that was the show where you finally learned to have faith in America again, after two long years of recession.

Did Foz the Hook, Ever Mainard, or Lola Balatro demand payment for ending The Great Recession?  Of course not!  We are patriots!

But now it is time to pay FtH and Lola Balatro a solid.  Get on out to the Laughingstock: The Chicagocomedy Music Festival on Sunday, August 25. Buy your tickets from this guy!  Bring your Mom.  Foz has a thing for your Mom*

*Define Thing in comments section below.

A LaughingStock!

Hello, Princesses! 

The wonderful people at Laughingstock have given Your Old Pal, Foz, plenty good reason to reinvigorate this moribund blog.

Why?

Because on Sunday, August 25, 2013, Your Pals Foz the Hook will be featured at the Double Door Lounge in Chicago as part of the 2013 LaughingStock Festival!

This magnificent festival aims to bring together all of the best acts in the area of comedy music, but they also focus on the magnificent genre of comedy bands.  As you may know, FtH is a comedy band, or so we gather, since you always laugh at us when we play.

So keep an eye on this space for updates on our upcoming show at LaughingStock.  For now, it is enough that you clear your calendar on August 25. 

You have a date!  Also, bring a date.