If LA did one thing for me, it certainly kicked my butt back into the 3-4 (5-6 if money, time and solid artists permit) times/week show regimen. I guess, you could say that I had a big "you idiot" epiphany with all the shows I went to out there and as Shakespeare wrote in the first lines of "Twelfth Night": If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.

Bob Schneider (for the myspace junkies) was first on my "to do" list and I happen to have a wonderful friend who works for his label, so this was a great way to welcome my long-lost lifestyle back.

Now, Bob has many talents, but it's never quite clear to whom he's trying to appeal. His heavy fan base is crazy about both the soft melodies filled with incendiary lyrics about life as well as the frequently inappropriate hits such as "Ass Knockin," "Fist City," and my personal favorite, "Fuck All You Mother-fuckers"... and for whatever reason, it works! His self-described "Steven Seagall" portion of the show oddly works as the yin to the "Tony Bennett" portion's yang. Hooray for paradoxical unity!

As Ayappa said, "Bob's relationship with an audience always surprises me. There are songs he writes that move me, inspire me, and make me tingle. And then he can have a roomful of women singing the most ribald words imaginable." Annnd you know what I have to say?

That. Rocks.

However I would like to raise a final point. I misquoted Bob the other day in a line from "Captain Kirk" as "wanna be like Mr. Spock, I wanna kick out the jams and rock the block"... which I thought was awesome until I realized he said, "don't wanna"... and I was annoyed. I get it, Spock can be an overly-logical, emotion-purging stick-in-the-mud, but I mean he's a Vulcan, that's what they do! BUT ... you get him off the Enterprise and he is one crazy humanoid when he skips meditation. I guess I can't fault Bob for not being in the know, but Spock was by far the most rockin' dude until Worf in "The Next Generation," so I think he deserves a little respect.

P.S. - Star Trek (the original series) is now remastered and available in HD.