Art of the Odd

Tod A., if you don’t know, is the brilliant singer/songwriter/bassist/mastermind/fantraztico (okay, I just made that last word up) of Firewater, a band I discovered when eMusic recommended them as “followers” of Tom Waits. Within a few days, I’d downloaded all five of their albums and gone looking for more. I found the website for Tod’s prior band, Cop Shoot Cop, and through the message boards on Firewater’s site, I was introduced to Gogol Bordello, a great gypsy punk band also available on eMusic. But I didn’t find any more Firewater, because Tod’s in Asia, paying his way with his command of the English language and blogging his adventures on “postcards from the other side of the world.”

This is where I come in. I commented on one of Tod’s posts (have you gone and read them yet? Go read them. I’ll wait.), and got an email from him a few days later. My mouth dropped open when I saw the name. I opened the email. I read it. I got up from my computer. I walked slowly into the living room, and calmly (oh, so calmly) told NovySan, “I got an email from Tod A.” His mouth dropped open. We stood there, staring slack-jawed at each other, until I started to giggle.

It took me three days to formulate a reply that struck the right cool tone — because what I really wanted to write was, “OMG, OMG, I love your music, and I love your writing, and your voice is amazing, and everyone I’ve introduced to you loves you too and my friend Keili, he’s a musician too, and he loves you, and OMG I think you’re so so so so cool,” and to maybe make my voice break on the word “cool,” the way Lady J’s did on that episode of G.I. Joe where Cobra Commander turned some of his henchmen into a rock band called “Cold Slither,” whose music was subliminally enhanced to create an army of zombies enslaved to C.O.B.R.A. But obviously I couldn’t do that, because I’m an adult, and of course I wouldn’t want to make a complete idiot out of myself online. (Except, of course, that I just did…)