I ate dinner at a local Orlando restaurant called “The Loving Hut”.   It’s a vegan restaurant.   This is what happens when you date a vegan:  suddenly you find yourself dining at places called “The Loving Hut”.  My buddy called me while I was there, and after I told him the name of of the joint, he exclaimed, “Oh, are you hugging yet?  Should I let you go?”

But I digress, because the name of the place is not even the beginning of this story.  The place is empty, save for a 20′s-something hipster with a laptop in the corner.  The decor looks like any EXTREMELY BRIGHT asian-ish?…Pizza Hut??

I actually haven’t been inside a Pizza Hut lately, so I’m not sure what they look like…but this place certainly looks like it belongs near a food court.    Maybe it’s the white chairs…or the big flat-screen televisions…

I notice that the flat screens are all Broadcasting the same thing: Supreme Master TV.

Supreme Master Ching Hai International is the corporate entity behind Guanyin Famen/Quan Yin. It is affiliated with World Peace Media, Oceans of Love Entertainment, Supreme Master Television, and several cable television series…all groups and businesses established by Ching Hai.

She also owns the Loving Hut.

I am now her servant.

Peace.   Love.   Be Vegan.

Don’t be afraid.  Just buy her food (which was pretty tasty, I might add)

I gotta give the full back story to this one:

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to play at Howl at the Moon in Orlando with 3 of the most amazingly talented guys in the dueling piano business.   These guys are true modern day musical vaudevillians.   The two guys in this video combined represent over 25 years of on-stage experience.

It was early in the night…shortly after 8pm..  The 4 of us had already been there since 5:30 for a quick rehearsal, afterwords we ate some Thai food and then came back to an open club with a completely empty room…save for 2 women who said they had tickets to go see the Blue Man Group.

Ken and I sat back as Joe and Brian took the stage and asked the women if they had any requests.

They didn’t.

Then, after some coaxing, one of the women said, timidly, “Do you know Brown Eyed Girl by Bobby McFerrin?”

This what they got: (oh, and they never made it to the Blue Man Group show)

Oh, and in case you can’t make it out, the back of  Joe’s shirt says : (withheldoforpayment)

YouTube – Howl at the Moon Orlando – Joe and Brian Brown Eyed Girl Acapella.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has thrown our city’s hat into the ring of cities courting Google to test their new fiber network with the launch of a site, a Twitter page and a Youtube video.

“Google’s “Fiber to the Home” experiment would deliver the Internet at speeds 100 times faster than what most people now have access to, with blazing download speeds of 1 gigabyte per second.”

His YouTube pitch is a bit dry, but the last part is actually very cool, utilizing a bit of Google Earth video.

Get Googling Orlando.

Orlando Jai Alai has a new champion, and it appears the venerable gambling establishment where grown men bounce tiny balls against walls will remain open, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Slated to close last December, shortly after the new year I started to hear this buzz about Pelot Políte reporting on the goings and comings of the Orlando Jai Alai with such helpful advice as:

If you are a visiting Jai Alai player, from Spain perhaps, please feel free to mingle with Americans. Many Americans appreciate a good joke about one of its icons, like Fred Astaire, Phil Spector, Rita Hayworth, Charles Brown (comic strip) or Andrew Warhol (artist). Fifty percent of all American jokes involve the word…”ass.” And if you bring your kids, don’t forget to go to the Circus across the street from the FRONTON. Fun for all.

Shortly after I started seeing these strange messages…suddenly the Jai Alai is back again with a new season!   Coincidence?  I think not.

You can follow Pelota via Facebook:  Jai Alai Manners by Pelota Políte.

I received the following email from Steve Goldman, who as many of us geeks know, was CEO and founder of DPT in Maitland, helped create several computer interface standards for ANSI including SCSI, and is a huge patron of music and arts in and around Central Florida:

Friends:

We NEED your help to get the word out to all young musicians in the central Florida area who could benefit from the FREE Young Composers Workshop being held at the UCF Center for Emerging Media on Saturday, March 13th. This is a unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for young musicians between the ages of 13 to 18 interested in learning how to write music for orchestral instruments.

This year, the Young Composers Challenge is now open to young musicians nation-wide.  Workshop seating is limited and available on a first-come-first-serve basis. We want to give our Central Florida young musicians an opportunity to register first, so please forward this email to everyone you know who may have a connection to a young musician between the ages of 13 and 18.

For more info, see this video or visit the YCC website:

Young Composers Challenge

I’ve heard quite a bit of ruckus, both positive and negative since Obama’s State of the Union announcement that Central Florida would be receiving $1.25 Billion in Federal funding to connect a high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando.

Initially I thought this was awesome…but as the details unfold, I became less enthusiastic about the project.   Primarily because it doesn’t really connect Tampa to Orlando…it connects Downtown Tampa to the Orlando International Airport (stopping in Lakeland, Disney and International Drive).

Downtown Orlando, which is a good 25 minutes from the Orlando International Airport is not part of the equation.   This troubles me greatly…. because that’s where I live.

AND, there are no plans to connect the recently approved SunRail Commuter train to any of the stops on the proposed HSR line.

Hopefully this is just a temporary disconnect.  I don’t think the SunRail designers knew that the HSR would be approved.  But is it too late to do anything about it?

High-speed rail: How will downtown Orlando fit into high-speed rail – OrlandoSentinel.com.

I swear I don’t go looking for this stuff.

Once again the Orlando Sentinel website has outdone itself, this time a story by Amy L. Edwards where some porn people are suing other porn people.    Amy Edwards is the “Breaking News” reporter for the Orlando Sentinel.   She apparently filed this gem at 6:26pm on January 18th….JUST AS THE STORY BROKE…

“Photos on male escort Web site at center of lawsuit”

Forget about whether or not this is BREAKING NEWS, HOW IS THIS NEWS AT ALL???????

Newspapers are crying about how they are losing money?  It’s because their reporters are busy writing about civil cases involving PORN.  That’s right…go for the cheap clickthroughs, Amy.  Tight work there, hun.

Photos on male escort Web site at center of lawsuit – OrlandoSentinel.com.

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.

During a book signing in the private, gated community near Orlando called “The Villages”, Glenn Beck announced plans to do a tour to divide the country into 7 parts and conduct re-education camps.

Beck plans to teach ethics, history, finance and political science.

I’m not kidding.  He says the first city on that tour will be Orlando on March 27, 2010 at UCF.

Glenn Beck rallies at book signing in The Villages.

It happens every year.  Someone drives down my street in a white van, and somehow, while I’m not looking, drops a couple of phonebooks on my front porch.

A phone book?  Really?  In 2009?

And I’m not the only one.   In fact,  according to Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org, the collective telephone directory distributors distribute 540 million books per year in the United States.     That’s about 2 books for EVERY MAN, WOMAN and CHILD in the country.

EVERY YEAR this translates to:

• 19 million trees
• 1.6 billion pounds of paper
• 7.2 million barrels of oil (not including fuel used for delivery)
• 268,000 cubic yards of landfill (less than half of directories delivered are recycled)
• 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity (about the same amount of energy the entire country of Sudan used in for ALL OF 2007!)

The madness needs to stop.    Advertisers need to stop advertising in them.  Consumers need to stop using them.   Small businesses, large businesses,   STOP FUNDING IT!   Ban unsolicited phone book delivery!

Here are some websites that are promoting banning phone delivery:

http://www.banthephonebook.org/

http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.com/

Hey phone book companies…if we want a book, we will call for one.  The amount of natural resources being used is almost criminal in this age of technology.   Not to mention somehow they keep getting away with littering my doorstep.

This video is from the UK, but you get the idea: