Oh my. Now that’s a hideous picture. 

I’d love to blame it on my new buddy Paul’s ratty hair and unfortunate choice of clothing, but the truth is simple: he looks way cooler than I do in that getup. I look like a troll. Danny DeVito demanding the troll toll. But I digress. These posters are getting a bit out of hand.

So, yes, Chad and I will be at the AllGood again tomorrow, reprising our G-funk bit. This time we’ve got so many songs, we have to divide it up into two sets. With all those amazing tunes, we found we really didn’t want to cut any, so we’re just gonna play them all. Hope you guys will stick around, cause I’m not sure when the next time will be.

You may have noticed that I referred to Paul as “my new buddy.” What, you want to hear the story? Well, okay then. Chad and Dave and I went to the Paul Simon show a couple weeks ago. We made the wise decision to stick to the plan and see the show, instead of canceling to watch Game 7. Paul was fantastic, and the show was amazing, but the real highlight came afterward. Our old friend Mike bumped into us on the way out, and asked if we wanted to go backstage. He’s tight with Paul’s wife Edie, and managed to get us all past security and into the backstage area to meet Paul. I won’t go into all the longwinded details, but we did get to meet him in an intimate setting, and spent about twenty minutes hanging out with him.

We talked about a variety of things. Among the highlights was Paul asking, “So which one of you is Garfunkel?” after Mike spilled the beans about our tribute act. He gave Chad a funny look, then deadpanned that he felt sorry for me. He was remarkably friendly, and very funny. We talked about his gorgeous, spine-tingling performance of “Here Comes The Sun” from that evening. He explained that he had no perspective on the quality of his own vast catalog of songs, but as an outsider, he could say without any doubt that George’s song was among the best ever written. After reminding him of the lovely rendition he and George played together on Saturday Night Live some 35 years ago, Chad stunned the room by announcing that he’d been born that very same night – November 20th, 1976. Paul took in the moment, and then with a mischievous smirk, cracked “wow, you look much older.” He had us in stitches, and not because we were kissing his ass – we weren’t. He was just being genuinely funny.

I thanked Paul for playing “The Only Living Boy In New York,” telling him that it was my all-time favorite of his songs. He thanked me back, and said he was also quite fond of that one. He lamented that it’s “really hard to choose songs from that catalog,” before blowing our minds with the revelation that his own personal favorite is “The Sound Of Silence,” the song that single-handedly put him and Artie on the map, 46 years ago. We talked a little while longer, before parting ways. It was too fucking cool. Thinking about it afterward, I thought to myself, “Wow, who would be bigger than that? McCartney? Dylan?” It took a while to sink that I’d just enjoyed a friendly, humorous, and revealing conversation with one of my top five musical heroes of all time, probably even top three. It almost made me forget the Rangers altogether.

Anyway…enuffa my yackin’…let’s boogie! I hope you will all come hear me and Chad paying tribute to the songs of Simon at the AllGood Café tomorrow night – that’s Saturday, November 19th.

We’ve got a groovy thing going, baby.

CH 11/18/11