Happy Birthday to me (and Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Mae West, and Tom Saunders) and a treat from Chris Opperman

This is a piece of artwork created by keyboard wizard Chris Opperman, called Yes "Star Day" which I thought would be a perfect virtual birthday card. You can take a look at some more of Chris' artwork, even purchase some, listen to his awesome music, etc. at his website right here!

Speaking of Chris, I'm on his mailing list and yesterday I received the world's best birthday gift -- he sent out two links to film clips of the New York show in which Eric was his drummer and which are posted on his site, but I will make it easy for you and post the links here. They are so, so awesome...and of course so is my son!

Link One

Link Two
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These are incredibly enjoyable and it's pretty obvious Eric is ready to move beyond Rock School now.

Speaking of Rock School, hopefully a lot of people got to watch Queer Eye last night and saw Eric, Julie, Madison, Stevie, CJ, and Teddi. They only showed a few seconds of them actually on stage, but I got to see glimpses of them throughout the entire second half of the show. It was bizarre. Seeing them in the documentary was crazy enough, but seeing them on TV in that situation was insane!

The most surreal part? Hearing Eric utter four words beforehand I would never expect to experience in my life. At 10:00 p.m., just as the show was about to air, he called his father.

"DAD! QUEER EYE IS ON!"

Hahahahaha - if you know or have ever seen Gary, this is one hell of a macho guy and I laughed for the first fifteen minutes of the show.

Anyway, I know I'm prejudiced, but the camera loves my daughter. I don't know where she got that gorgeous smile (not from miserable me, that's for sure) but it seemed to linger on her more than just a few times. Eric, too. The funniest part, and I think I may have mentioned it here before, was that after the taping of the show in June, the producer of the show came up to Eric, handed him her business card, and wanted him to be a contestant (is that what you call them? A makeover, maybe?) on the show. Like Eric would do that...he was embarrassed enough watching last night as it is. This is a serious musician who worships Zappa and Miles Davis!

Ah well, it was a nice send off. Friday's smashing of guitars at Times Square, Saturday night's final All Star show at the World Cafe (for this group of All Stars, anyway), and then watching Queer Eye last night and laughing my ass off. As I said, the end of an era for sure.

Queer Eye reruns all week and last night's episode will be shown again this morning at 11:00 a.m., tonight at 5:00 p.m., and well, check with www.bravotv.com for the rest of the schedule. Oh, what was also great was that the Queer Eye fellows remarked several times on screen how fantastic and unbelievably talented the Rock School kids are and Madison even got to promote the New York Rock School! Way to go, Madison!

Speaking of my birthday, this time last year I was getting off the Rock School tour bus in Wyoming, en route to Fort Collins, Colorado, about to have breakfast at a gas station cafe loved by truckers because they serve fried chicken and congealed creamed chipped beef for breakfast. Yes. A gas station cafe. I remember being so, so stressed and sleepy; dirty and in need of a shower, and feeling very sad that I didn't have cards or a birthday cake. My son went to the gas station gift shop and presented me with a keychain that said "Robin" on a Wyoming license plate (which I use and stare at all melancholy every day) as well as some cassette tapes of 80s music (har har). My daughter gave me a folded up piece of notebook paper on which she had written "Good for one trip anywhere in the world".

At the time, I almost threw it at her; I was so homesick and so overtired. Heh. Wait until dinner tonight. I'm gonna tell her I'm cashing it in and want to go to Paris.

Anyway, you will note that I also wished Happy Birthday to my fellow Leos Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn (poor ex-wife Madonna...heh...did you see how she spent her birthday yesterday? She's so busy trying to be an aristocratic English country woman she rode a "new horse" (they are all "new" to her, laughed the Brits in various newspapers in the UK) and was thrown, breaking a whole bunch of bones and wounding her ego for sure). You may not be familiar with the other name I mentioned -- Tom Saunders. Tom is a writer friend of mine from the UK and he is brilliant. He has a collection of short stories you can purchase here and a very, very cool blog which you can read here.

When I first met Tom, we became instant friends because of our mutual taste in music (Tom remarked that John Lennon is the closest thing he has to a hero which of course echoed my sentiments exactly) and our mutual birthday of August 17. So Happy Birthday, Tom!

Okay, then. I think that covers everything for today. I'm off to celebrate!