Some of you have asked for pictures of the awfulness of my tree hugging, so for you with queasy stomachs I gave you tiny thumbnails. For those sickos who want full-blown gore, click on the small pictures.

Silly people.

Listening to: Walking Wounded - Everything But The Girl (no, not a joke. I swear it’s currently playing. iTunes definitely has a sense of humor.)

P.S. See? I have GREEN eyes.

• The Beginning
• Prank You Very Much
• Update
• The Re-enactment
• Attack Of The Bacterium
• Re-enactment Wallpaper
• The Bumper Sticker

Combine the talents of Jack White of The White Stripes with the power pop sensibilities of Brendan Benson (very Matthew Sweet. Check out his song, "Spit It Out" and you’ll see), add Greenhornes as an actual band and you get what the music world has been needing for a while — a super group.

The Raconteurs’ first single and first song White and Benson wrote together is the catchiest song since Katrina And The Waves’ "Walking On Sunshine" except "Steady As She Goes" adds a dark backbone with lyrics about someone who never meets the person of their dreams and is too emotionally scarred to change it: "You found yourself a friend that knows you well/But no matter what you do/You always feel as though you tripped and fell/So steady as she goes".

The combination of the simple guitar/bass/drum arrangement and a melody that refuses to leave your head make for the first song of the year that yearns to be cranked maddingly loud. You know, all the way up to 11. It combines the best of 70’s crunchy guitars, 80’s melodies and 90’s grunge attitude all written and performed by some of the 00’s (I like to call them the Naughties) songwriting elite. I’m sure the album, Broken Boy Soldiers (May 16), will not come close to the pop genius of "Steady As She Goes", but with White and Benson writing together for the first time, it will certainly be worth the price of admission.

Today’s quote is from Cartoon Network’s "My Gym Partner’s A Monkey".

JAKE SPIDERMONKEY: Today is the dawning of the age of monkey butts!

Listening to: Promises - Eric Clapton

No, I mean I literally ran into a tree last night. The tree gave me several lacerations across the left side of my nose, opened up my lip in two places, bruised the inside of my mouth and gave me a fat lip so I look a stroke victim. It was obviously dirty, too, because I had to get a tetanus shot.

I now have 8 stitches in my upper lip.

And I was stone-cold sober at the time.

I was doing sound and lights for the Rodents Of Unusual Size last night and we were going to hang out afterwards to discuss the show. I went to put my bag in my car and get my jacket when I saw Deletta, her husband and her friend walking up the sidewalk when I thought I’d be funny. Isn’t that just like me? Screaming ’shit’, I turned to run away from them like a hooker about to be pimp-choked, but little did I know that a tree had snuck up behind me and I immediately smashed into it much like every comedy you’ve ever seen. The problem with comedies is there is rarely any pain and blood associated with bouncing off a tree. I now see comedy for the lie it is and have decided to vote Republican.

No one had yet realized that I had hurt myself. In fact, Deletta went so far as to compliment me on my physical comedy when her husband pointed out that my nose was bleeding. Thankfully the Rodents is full of women comedians and a couple of them hand me tissues as I stood over the sidewalk dripping blood ("Run! Fag bleeding!"). We walked down to a bar a block away from Avenue Theater and I immediately went to the restroom to clean myself up. The mirror was the last thing I wanted to look at, but finally got the courage up to see what had happened to my puss. It was ugly. There is a scar from a motorcycle accident mere millimeters away from where two other gouges are bursting forth with meaty carnage, so I thought, "Nice! More sexy scars to drive the guys wild!"

Now is the part of the story where you need to know about Shari. She is one of my favorite people and an extremely talented improv comedian who has guest starred with Monkey’s Uncle on several occasions. Shari lives up the road from me, so we car pooled. In my car. It’s a stick. She can’t drive a stick. Holding a big wad of paper towels to my face, I drive myself to the emergency room while Shari and I cracked jokes about me driving myself to the emergency room with a healthy passenger in the car with me. Frankly, I have never laughed as much as I did last night. Shari is a godsend.

And thusly ends the first part of our story. I just noticed that a giant flying jack-o-lantern grabbed an anthropomorphic fire truck on some show on Cartoon Network and flew off with it. I want to see if it was part of the plot or if the pain medication is working again. Part two of the story will be about the visit to St. Joseph’s Hospital (I’ve had the best experiences there) where Shari and I made more jokes than I’ll ever remember, but they certainly took my mind off things.

Listening to: When I Fall - Sam Phillips (you do not even know how tempting it is to put that I was listening to Dave Matthews’ "Crash Into Me" but I don’t own it)

• Intermission
• Prank You Very Much
• Update
• The Re-enactment
• Attack Of The Bacterium
• Re-enactment Wallpaper
• The Bumper Sticker