hi from moody annapolis, maryland, in the heart of historic anne of arundel county!
i'm down at the harbor in a bookstore, been examining the old slave docks, souvenir shops and the starbucks.... real estate agencies...you wouldn't believe what you pay for a three bedroom house down here, five times what it would be in tours. i guess the bush years have been good for somebody, after all.
came here with meshell ndegeocelo's band, as soon as i landed from europe. one day i'm at the national radio in france, meeting the incredible riccardo muti, director of la scala (he allowed me to attend his rehearsal of cherubini's mass, which was so beautiful i cried, and very edifying too... the maestro, in addition to singing the choral parts and playing some killing piano, fine tuned the already fantastic vocal performances, switching languages incessantly in the rehearsal, so i couldn't follow it all, but my favorite english bit was when he addressed the soloists about the 'agnus dei (?)' - pardon my latin - section of the mass, which he said is usually made very optimistic, but in cherubini's mass instead of "everything being ok" at the end it's "maybe everything turns out allright.....maybe not"
i really value this kind of direction in performance - the singers were awesome, and the tenor, herbert, an opera star from vienna, came to the black session and stayed the whole time, and astounded jennifer by telling her he loved her voice!)
and the next day i'm in annapolis, playing a one of america's "revitalized main streets" in a brick and glass restaurant with waitresses wearing ties and carrying around pitchers of beer and cobb salads, and then waking up to find a sea of dogs: a pet massage convention going on in the lobby and courtyard of the hotel.... they were massaging a "five year old male cocker spaniel" on the dais, while people milled around getting danishes and grazing on a brunch for "people and their pets".... there was a little pen with a bunny in it, very frightened with all the dogs around. lots of retirees with pet fancier slogans on their t shirts.
the pet masseuse was going through her little rap: "...and what kind of dogs can benefit from a massage?" (older dogs, but also younger dogs with growing pains, it turns out, and don't use the size of the dog as an excuse either, because both your smaller and your larger dogs can use a massage, plus your working dogs, like seeing eye dogs, do suffer workplace stress) and "how l long should the massage last? it's up to your pet...after all, it's their massage"> (but we're shooting for half an hour.)
i didn't stick around long enough to see if she massaged the bunny, but i hope she did, the bunny was looking pretty stressed.
want to thank everyone who came out for the france/benelux tour, it was great to see you - we'll be back in september - keep an eye open for us. love o

no, silly we are not scabs! we played for free at this sweet pub. we support the strike in the big venues and all the workers. it is so wonderful how everyone here is so dedicated. Richard from Vendome (amazing great music lover) called his pal Jan in Tour and arranged everything. Jan and his crew were all sweet as pie, Claris an actress, Mathilde a student, Sebastian, who works in film in Paris, and William, a photographer with a gorgeous mouth, all helped out. Jan arranged for a last minute radio show as well on Radio Beton, it was a covers show, so they played our versions of a Dylan tune, a Bolan tune and a Gainsbourg tune. Shit, the cognac here in Angouleme is amazing, guess we are close to Cognac. I have just been informed that everyone is waiting f or me to go back to the hotel. I am always last to get to use internet. more soon, i hope xxx jc

hey there everyone from oren
we're wrapping up our night in angouleme, south of france. it was nice, great crowd, they were completely attentive and enthusiastic for our set as well as the very hard and loud band that came after us, which i thought showed a lot of range on their part.
it's very hot here.
last night we ended uo playing a surprise gig in tours, france, instead of toulouse, on account of a nationwide strike that closed down all of the shows all over france "even johnny halliday"; so i guess we are scabs which pains me but it was wonderful of the people that helped us to get the gig, richard, lionel, and especially yann, who owned the lovely venue and fed us

hi everyone. we are in Gent, Belgium. about to play the Kinky Star. and let me say we're all feeling pretty kinky. We just had dinner at friends of the promoters house, and they made a lovely dinner for us. George is busy smoking and quoting Snoop Dog. Thomas and I have been sampling chocolates. Last night we played at the Soundstation in Liege. We were all dreadfully exhausted (all but Shazad, who arrived the previous day after playing in London with some Sugar Cubes). Chris from Bang picked us up at CDG in Paris, the ride to Paris was cramped to put it lightly as his car was too small, and he had his girlfriend with him. I had to sit on Oren's lap in the front seat, in something of a fetal position. Liege is beautiful. O? Thomas and I took an amazing walk through winding streets of cobble stones? up hills? beautiful old wooden doors. amazing trees. well they say we have to play now. pardon the typos. these keyboards here.... more soon. xxx JC

well we just heard from Shahzad, he's already in Brussels, he was coming from Iceland. It's been a mad week and a half. The rest of us fly tonite to Paris. I have yet to pack. My yoga mat takes up most of my suitcase. I usually put off packing to the last minute. I'm just savouring my lapsang souchong. more soon...

ok they fixed this thing so i can leave stuff here again. did you miss me? i missed you! going to europe tonight for tour - will leave some diary stuff as we go! see you later- oren