Tonight I am appearing at Steam in Portland, OR. There is supposed to be snow there so I’m excited about that since it was seventy degrees in Cleveland for Christmas.

If you’re in the Portland area, come on out and see me. If not then just have yourself a very safe and fun New Year celebration and my best wishes for 2009.

This is where it began to get sticky. I had just enough time to get my stuff on the hotel bed, take a piss and get downstairs to meet my ride to the “event”. I was feeling way overextended, emotionally, and I was beyond hungry, not a great combination. As I walked into the “athletic club” I notice a pool table covered in plastic….”it can’t be” I thought to myself as I was walked to my quarters.

It can be and it was. I knew I had to do a small strip tease prior to the blessed event, but I did not know it was going to be on a pool table. To make matters worse the music, or should I say lack of music was painful; it came from a source beyond my ear shot and spat out indecipherable pitches and beeps and was no where near danceable. As I began to reluctantly move and sway to the beat in my head, I began to move down the table only to nearly have my head impaled by a sprinkler head hanging out of the ceiling, directly dead center of the pool table. The other end was where the lube and towels were so I couldn’t dance there, oh yeah, he added some strawberries as well. I don’t know if he hoped I would use them in some naughty antioxidant-rich sort of way or if he put them there because I had nearly fallen over from a severe glucose deficiency 20 minutes earlier. I forgot to mention that not only was there a sprinkler jutting out of the ceiling but as it was, if I were an inch taller, this little show would not have happened. I literally had about an inch between my head and the ceiling. You can say that my space was limited but it would be like saying Global Warming is really nothing more than longer summers.

After that was done I retired to my room before the next and final installment of Johnny Does Toronto. I was fetched from my room shortly thereafter and just as we walked out of the room, the “promoter” if you will, mentioned casually that he had some really good classical music for me to dance to. I laughed suspiciously while telling myself “it can’t be.”

I walked in to the small room and got up on stage and looked over to see a small boom box sputtering sounds of strings. I really thought this was a joke and even said, as I stood there in my underwear, “you’re kidding right?” The patrons found this to be very humorous and laughed heartily, I think though, they laughed more out of embarrassment and pity for us than amusement.

I never get bitchy and I am always, always accommodating, but this was not going to happen. I told him he had to change it. He told me that was all he could find. He had a month to prepare for this, he had all day. HOW HARD IS IT TO GET A CD OF DANCE MUSIC? I had no idea how this happened. I stood there with my hands in my head clearly and intentionally showing my frustration, aggravation and extreme irritation as the knobs on the boom box were being turned. It wasn’t even a CD….it was the fucking radio. I was supposed to dance, and masturbate, to the sounds of quartets, commercials and announcers.

So there I stood as he turned through the channels, Spanish, metal, talk radio and lite rock squeeze out from the bright orange radio annoying me further. Finally I told him to just shut it off and leave the room. He left me in the silence of my irritation and the sounds of the audience; I pulled my hat down further and thought of how this was going to happen. I decided then, that the strings were the best it was going to get considering the alternative of silence. I called him back into the room and told him to put the classical station back on.

I looked at my audience… sort of… and told them that I knew they had paid to watch me dance before the deed, but it was not going to happen. With that I pulled down my underwear and began to do what it was that I was inevitably supposed to do. I went to that place in my head that all good “performers” have. It didn’t take long before I was through; another really good skill one must possess and thank God, I do very well. I wiped off and told the gentlemen that that was by far, in all my years, one of the most difficult things I had to do. They applauded and cheered. I bowed, left the stage and ate pizza.

Did some cleaning up this weekend and came across some of my DVDs that were originally stock for the shop. Outraged that precious space was being used unnecessarily and that I forgot about them in the first place, I put them on super sale to liberate my closet!

That’s right, you heard me, I have marked down many of my DVDs to the low, low price of $35 American. So if you’ve been on the fence about one of my movies and didn’t want to fork out retail, rush right on over to the shop and see if it’s one of the buggers taking up space in my bedroom.

For a very long time that doesn’t really need to be defined here, I have been talking about making custom shirts to sell. And then there would be no mention for a while, and it would crop up again until finally I was forbidden from mentioning anything about it until I was ready to back up my statement with the goods.

That time has come.

After many trials and tribulations there is a batch of custom Hazzardized shirts available for purchase in the Johnny Hazzard Shop. Most of the shirts were individually customized by yours truly in the relative serenity of my stylishly appointed sitting room. And they can be further treated in a similar fashion if you so desire. Each shirt features a lovely Johnny Hazzard label I had made some time back so you get the full effect with any shirt you chose.

Due to the extremely unpredictable nature of Hazzardization no two shirts are alike and when this batch is gone I will make another similarly distinctive one to take its place. There will be no monotony on my watch!

There is a page on the shop dedicated to the items currently available that will reflect changes in the near future. You may access it directly by clicking here.

Thank you and good afternoon.