A Night by the Fire

So, after the embarrassment that was the Jonathan Coulton interview, Saturday couldn't really get a whole lot worse. That day, I was scheduled to play Paul Schreiber's house concert. Paul works as a programmer at Apple, and he hosts these house concerts every month or so. He's earned quite a reputation as a tastemaker, previously featuring artists like The Weepies, Kyler, Adrianne and our very own Samantha Murphy.

He's also earned a reputation for being a ridiculously hospitable host. Paul spent the day preparing chocolate cake, donut holes and banana bread from scratch. This guy's not kidding around.
He set up his bedroom as the green room, complete with tea, magazines, paper and pens for my set list -- you get the idea. I felt very much at home.

And the place was packed. I played two sets of 45 minutes each. It was great fun to play for so long, because I was able to pull out some songs I don't often play, like "The Road" and "Ferris Wheel."

I got a great response from the audience, who were a great bunch of listeners. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a crowd is diggin' it, but they seemed pretty into it.

Jumping Through a Series of Fiery Hoops

Okay, here's what happened.

Wednesday

I lugged my (surprisingly heavy) MacPro into the Genius Bar. The Genius (in name only) looked through the error logs on my computer. He pointed out to me several lines that referred to the processor, and said, "Wow, see? It looks like your processors are the problem." He continued to scroll through lines and lines of errors.

Minutes later he showed this to another (much more knowledgable genius) who said, "Those aren't errors. Those just show that the processors are enabled."

Genius #1 said, "oh." And I started to see what I was in for.

They tested, poked and prodded my ailing machine until Genius #1 said, "Well, here's the thing. It looks like there are problems with the hardware", (absolute duh), "but we can't really figure out what those are."

I asked, "Can you just replace the whole machine then?" To which he replied, "No. Your machine is custom," (just because I added an AirPort, which is a very common part that comes in all their laptops, just not usually in the desktops), "so you'll have to take it home and mail it to AppleCare."

So I dragged the stupid heavy thing back out to the parking garage and called AppleCare from the car. After about 15 minutes on hold, I spoke with a kind man who thought it was so sad that I got such a troubled Mac. However, he couldn't help me. He had to transfer me to his supervisor. After another 35 minutes on hold, Mr. Supervisor Adam picked up.

He was not as nice. In fact, he was downright passive-aggressive, and actually seemed angry I was even inferring there was a problem with a Mac computer. Instead of trying to help me diagnose or fix the computer, he was extremely defensive throughout, and kept trying to convince me it was a "software error." I said, "so you're saying that every single program I run on this computer, all of which are made by Apple, are just randomly having errors? You're not willing to consider that it might be caused by an underlying hardware issue?" He gave me a diagnostic test to perform, and told me to email him the results in the morning. He was tired and was going home. So I did that.

Thursday

He woke me with a call me at 8am. The results? Guess what -- it was a hardware issue. After reviewing my email, he declared the machine an "out-of-the-box failure." I love this term. The car was doomed before it ever left the garage. All of a sudden, Adam was very apologetic. He knew I was leaving town for San Francisco on Friday. So he said they were going to email me shipping labels, and he guaranteed I'd get them in a few hours so I cold send that sick puppy out.

Well, after waiting all day, those shipping labels never arrived. Around 3pm, I decided to raise hell. I called Apple and spoke to an employee, who said that the labels need 24 hours to process. I said that Adam promised them to me today, and that I was headed out of town. So I had her transfer me to her manager, who told me the same and passed me off to another department. I spoke to an employee there, then his manager. This went on. Seven transfers and an hour and a half later, I was told flatly and definitively, "you will not get your shipping labels today. Adam must not be informed as to our policies here. It is an automated system and it takes 24 hours to process these labels."

So I went off, saying things about how I would never buy an Apple product again, how this is a terrible way to run a business, etc. It wasn't pretty and it didn't really get anything done. Or did it?

The phone call ended. I wanted to throw my new Treo at the wall and see it smash into pretty pieces (Don't kill the messenger!).

Minutes later, I received an email with shipping labels.

I set up a home pickup with FedEx for the next morning (because I wasted the afternoon on that marathon phone call). They had a box to check for time of pickup, so I specified that they had to get here by 10:30am at the latest. We were leaving for San Francisco at 11:30, and I figured this was enough time in case they were late.

Friday

We were packing gear like madfolks. Once everything was ready, I checked my watch. FedEx never showed. 10:30 at the latest, and it was almost noon. Nothing.

I called my sweet parents, who live a few streets over, and asked them to take the computer to a drop off location, since we had to get out of town now if we were going to be on time for the Jonathan Coulton show. Lovely people that they are, they agreed.

We hit the road. Around 1:30pm, when we were in the middle of the desert on the 5 freeway, I received a phone call. It was the FedEx guy asking, "where are you? I'm here to pick up a package."

Are there competent employees? Or is that an oxymoron?

The Highlight of Your Week Is Coming Up!

Do you live in or near San Francisco? Well, lucky you! I'll be playing Paul Schreiber's house concert in San Francisco on Feb 23rd. Who's Paul Schreiber? Well, other being a programmer for Apple (which is pretty cool on its own), he happens to host the coolest house concert in San Francisco. He's previously had amazing artists like Adrianne, The Weepies and yes, even the fabulous Samantha Murphy.

Your mind will be blown. You'll eat tasty food. You'll hear old songs, new songs, maybe even crazy Willie Nelson cover songs performed blindfolded and drunk. But probably not the last one. If you'd like to attend, please RSVP at http://concerts.shrub.ca/

I hope to see you there.

Oh, and if you don't live in San Francisco...well, lucky you! I'll be playing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 27th. Some chick named Miley Cyrus. Never heard of 'er. Hope she's good.

The World Goes Round

Despite the fact that this blog has been exclusively Bioshock posts as of late, there's been a lot going on. (I have managed to squeeze in some sweet Bioshock time though).

Samantha and I have been shooting crazy quantities of footage for the upcoming Samantha Murphy Show. I'm very excited about it. Sunday night we went to Inara George's annual tribute to benefit the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. It featured Inara, Eleni Mandell, Mike Andrews (composer of Donnie Darko and Me And You And Everyone We Know (one of my favorite movies) Priscilla Ahn and Tom Brosseau. It was a lovely evening, and we got some great interviews.

Hopefully I'll have more announcements about the show soon. We're headed to San Francisco tomorrow morning to tape a backstage interview with Crowded House (psyched to meet Neil Finn and the guys!). While we're in town, we're also slated to each play sets at Apple world headquarters. Very exciting.

I've been working on a brand new VH1 show called "With A Bullet." It's a hilarious mockumentary show about a has-been singer who makes a comeback. I wrote the song that the show centers around, "My Retarded Heart" (their title, not mine). Samantha sang it. This morning, we visited the set. We just missed Alanis Morrissette, who apparently loved the song. We watched a bit of the shoot it and was a blast. Everybody had the song stuck in their head. I felt like I should apologize. I have to say though, my favorite moment was when we met Jane Lynch (I'm a big fan) and she couldn't stop singing it. Hopefully the pilot will get picked up. More news soon.

An offer just came in for me to backup Hannah Montana on her upcoming tour. I'm not really familiar with her music, but I know she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter, a huge Disney star (the tour is stadiums only), and mostly aimed at teens. It's not my demographic, but it sounds like a fun gig. The tour runs through January. I'm still deciding.

Also, my new album is almost done and will be released this fall.

So whew! Lots going on.