For those of you who just can’t get enough Diggz, here are some upcoming dates you can catch me playing at Howl at the Moon in Orlando:

March
17 Wednesday Happy Hour 6-8pm St. Patrick’s Day!
23 Tuesday 8pm-2am

April
1 Thursday 9pm-2am April Fools Day!
3 Saturday 7:30-2am
5 Monday 8pm-2am My Birthday!

So I’m into day 4 of my Twitter exile. Sometime late Sunday I was actually on the Twitter website, logged into my @johnnydiggz account and the website logged me out mid-session.

When I went to log in again it said “Wrong Username/email and password combination”

This struck me as odd because I hadn’t changed my password and my browser was set to auto-log me in. I retyped my username and password several times to no avail. So I tried the next step: Twitter’s password recovery tool.

I went to that page, filled out the form and got this message:

Ok, we’ve sent the instructions to your email. Go check it!
You can keep this page open while you check your email. If you don’t receive the instructions within a minute or two try Re-sending the instructions

The problem is I never received this email. So I waited a day and tried it again…no dice. I tried logging into ANOTHER Twitter account…worked just fine.

Then I noticed this post on PCWorld Twitter Password Resets Linked to Torrent Sites. Was my account somehow part of this reset? The timing seemed about right, but I don’t belong to any Torrent Sites. This made little sense, but it was all I had.

THEN I went to Twitter’s support page and saw this: Reason #4132 for Changing Your Password. Okay…so something’s going down with Passwords. I get it. Whatever. Can I have my Twitter account back now? Where’s my password reset email???

Now it’s DAY 4. I’ve tried resetting my password, I’ve tried contacting Twitter Support (there’s an oxymoron for ya!) to no avail. I did find this post Unable to receive password reset emails that seems to describe maybe what’s happening.

Finally…after many attempts, I finally got some support from Twitter, in the form of an email (see…I told you my email was working!). Here is what they had to say…after 3 days…

Hi JohnnyDiggz,

Thanks for contacting us about your login issue. We have received your message and will respond as soon as possible.

Thanks!
Twitter Support

—–

I really wish I could Tweet my frustration. Perhaps someone would listen. If you’re out there in Twitter Land, please RT this.

*** Update DAY 6 ***

I’m still locked out. No additional responses from Twitter Support. I enlisted the help my friend @JeffPulver to see if he can help and I’ve noticed a bunch of people have been retweeting this post and even started a hashtag #lockedout. Thanks for your help…especially @PurpleCar @pfmonaco @Jfavreau @JadoreAlmore @pfmonaco

@PurpleCar Know anyone who has been and is currently locked out of Twitter? Let’s start a hashtag, maybe Twitter will notice. http://is.gd/7NEeX #lockedout @johnnydiggz

*** Update DAY 7 ***

I’m back in! I just tried the password reset tool for the umpteenth time and this time I received an email! I’m back in Twitter. Still no word from Twitter Support.

Last Friday at Howl at the Moon in Kansas City, someone requested a song I had never heard of called “Pants on the Ground”.    One of the other players called out the name of the song and half the room went nuts.

Well, apparently it all stems from this clip from American Idol with General Larry Platt singing his song “Pants on the Ground”  (see it while it’s still available)…

YouTube – Pants on the ground.

Another player learned it and performed it the following night (along with some choreography…I was backing him up on drums) and it went over HUGE.  Certainly one of the bigger songs of the night.

Well,  yesterday we got word from Howl at the Moon Corporate that we’re not allowed to perform the song “Pants on the Ground” anymore.  I would have to assume that it would be off limits if someone requests the Jimmy Fallon AS Neil Young’s PARODY of “Pants on the Ground” as well:

It’s censorship, yes.   And despite the fact that  I firmly believe that an individual has the right to play or perform the songs they choose,  I also firmly believe that right also extends to a company.   If they don’t want a song performed it in their club, for whatever reason, that is their decision.  There are thousands of other songs we CAN play.  Let’s not split hairs over this one song…yesterday was, after all, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

But it’s a slippery slope.   What if Google started removing this song from search listings?   What if a law was passed banning public performance this song?   What kind of precedent does this set?

For me, it says one thing…keep my pants off the ground.  Word.

Not too long ago my friend Andrea dragged me into her bedroom…

Wait, that didn’t come out right…let me try again…

Not too long ago, my buddy Dave’s girlfriend, Andrea (who also happens to be my friend as well), dragged me into her bedroom to show me something she had recorded on her DVR.   A performer she had seen on American Idol…one “Lady Gaga”.   Andrea had gone goo goo for Gaga,  and really wanted me to see her…presumably because Andrea knows I appreciate a good entertainer (that’s what I’m sticking with, anyway).

It was a memorable performance, and I remembered it well.  Twice remembered, in fact.  Two times, once before and then a second time after the first time.  Remembrances in all totaling two.

Fast forward.  The year is 2010.   Where is Lady Gaga?    Everywhere.

Amanda Palmer recently held an entire web chat discussing Lady Gaga which culminated in a song which Amanda Palmer called “Gaga, Palmer, Madonna”.

So I finally started learning a Lady Gaga song, a ballad called “Speechless”:

I was setting up for my gig at The Red Fox Lounge this evening when I discovered a single golden glove nestled in one of the zipper pockets of my keyboard case.    It certainly does not belong to me.   But I think I do know who it does belong to…the last person to use this keyboard, Amanda Fucking Palmer.

How do I know that Amanda Fucking Palmer was the last person to use this keyboard?   You can read that story here -> Wherein Amanda Fucking Palmer dubs Diggz “a nice man”.

I would imagine someone like Amanda Fucking Palmer has many pairs of these fingerless gloves, but I also know that when you pack for a gig, you don’t always check to see if you have BOTH of your gloves (unless you’re Michael Jackson).   And I would hate for the lovely and talented Amanda to be getting ready for her big New Year’s Eve show with the Boston Pops and be freaking out for lack of one golden glove.

But if she DOESN’T want it back, I am seriously considering taking the glove on tour with me.  Johnny Diggz and Amanda Fucking Palmer’s Glove.  This is exactly the kind of thing that could go Gaga global.

Or I might just take it home to introduce the glove to my family on Christmas.

“Mom, Dad, Merry Christmas.  I’m dating Amanda Palmer’s glove. ”

I’ll be performing at the legendary Red Fox Lounge in Winter Park, Florida

Tuesday and Wednesday December 22nd-23rd.

Hope to see you there.

What is love?  Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.  Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more. I swear this is NOT me.

Man in a Chicken suit plays “What is Love” on Pianica from Ring Mod on Vimeo.

So last Friday @mixiemoxie calls me up as I am driving home from playing the 15th Annual Police Charity Ball.  She was practically hyperventilating when she asks if Amanda Palmer (or, AFP as she’s lovingly referred  to) can borrow my keyboard for a few days.

A.F.P. Amanda. Fucking. Palmer.   Of the Dresden Dolls.  Anyone who’s heard me play more than once has heard me play “Coin Operated Boy” (the guys at Howl poke fun at me to no end anytime I play it)…that song was written by Amanda Fucking Palmer.

My ex, Mixie Moxie, is a SUPERFAN of AFP.  She gets text alerts anytime AFP farts.  I am a fan, but I opted to turn off her fart alerts, and while I was aware AFP was coming to Orlando for a solo show, I was unaware of her need for a keyboard to practice on while she’s on holiday with her boyfriend, Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) in Melbourne (Florida…not Australia).

Mixie Moxie and AFP in my living room, eyebrows and all

So in exchange for an autographed “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” book, a couple of tickets to her show, and fortune and fame of incalculable amounts, I agreed to let her borrow my Roland FP-3 for a week.

Unfortunately I wasn’t here when she came to pick up said keyboard with aforementioned boyfriend…the very reason that I own a keyboard of the sort that AFP would deem appropriate to practice on for her big shindig with the Boston Pops on New Years Eve (how about a couple tickets to THAT that show, Amanda???)    is that I play professionally and I was fortunate enough to have had a paying gig that night  (or unfortunate, from the perspective of NOT being home when AFP and NFG were in my F’n house.)

But they were here, and they left me a very nicely signed copy of the printed third of their first collaborative effort, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (also an album and a series of videos), and tomorrow when I go see her perform at her sold-out show at The Social, she will be playing my FP-3.   And I will be wishing I was on that stage with her and my keyboard, but I know I have been on that stage before and I know I will be again…it is, after all, the Social.  And Amanda Palmer certainly needs no help from the Diggz in the entertainment department.  Heck, you should see her “living statue” act.  To. Die. For.

Today I logged on to Twitter and noticed AFP had posted a new blog from her working vacation wherein she wrote:

i twittered for a piano and was graciously lent one by a nice man, @johnnydiggz. thanks, @johnnydiggz.

See?  I am a nice man.

Because Amanda Fucking Palmer fucking said so.

Here’s some video I shot of AFP performing Creep (on a ukulele) with Vermillion Lies in Atlanta last year.  You can hear me singing along, so TECHNICALLY, I think this qualifies as our first co-collaboration.

blog « amanda palmer.

“Gobble, Gobble!” said the Turkey, “I’m the fairest of the fair!”
“Gobble, Gobble!” said the Turkey, “I am wanted everywhere!”
“Only this morning Mr. Farmer came to say he is having me for dinner on Thanksgiving day!”

When I was in 2nd grade I played the Turkey in our class Thanksgiving musical play. Those were the lyrics of my big solo (don’t ask me how I still remember them)…I sang them right before a big black kid named Tyrone, (Mr. Farmer) dressed as a pilgrim and armed with a surprisingly realistic looking fake musket, shot me dead, threw me over his shoulder and carried my lifeless turkey carcass off the stage.

It was my first big role. Gobble, Gobble.

Happy Thanksgiving.