On A Segway

I have a good friend who likes to append the phrase "in bed" to every fortune cookie message she reads. That's fun, but I now prefer adding "on a Segway" to my fortunes.

Speaking of Segways, here's a Nov. 14, 2004 photo of a quite rotund Pat DiNizio riding one in Pearland, Texas. DiNizio is an excellent songwriter and the frontman for The Smithereens, who have such great songs as "Blood And Roses," "Behind the Wall Of Sleep," "Only A Memory," "A Girl Like You," "Blues Before And After" and "Top Of The Pops." The group released Live In Concert! Greatest Hits And More earlier this year, and it's highly recommended to all power-pop fans. The Smithereens will also put out a covers album called B-Sides The Beatles through KOCH on Sept. 2.

From Segway to segue (which my stream-of-consciousness way of thinking comes up with frequently, as you'll find if you read this blog regularly — and I hope you will): On the topic of fat people, tubby but definitely effective former Major League Baseball pitcher David Wells stood in front of me at a Smithereens show in Toronto about a dozen years ago. I had to move over to see the stage and DiNizio, who was a much smaller visual target back then.

Okay, here's a segue back to Segways. The Kings Are Here was a great 1980 album best-known for its monster one-two punch, "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide." The Toronto band never matched the success of that combo, but they still play from time to time. In fact, The Kings will be on stage at the Kee To Bala in Bala, Ont. on Aug. 16, the night that Elvis died — and the occasion of one of the Odds fucking Wendy under the stars. The Kings are pretty anonymous, so when I drunkenly left the MuchMusic Video Awards a few years back and went to the Horseshoe Tavern to have more drinks with my friends and spotted The Kings' Mister Zero on the patio, I had to tell everyone at the bar that they were in the presence of "should have been more than one-hit wonder greatness." Mr. Zero was amused and grateful and bought me a beer.

I'll leave you with this Jan. 10, 2005 photo of Mister Zero riding a Segway in Galveston, Texas.

You're welcome.