I'm up in San Francisco right now. It's 2 AM and I just got back from playing the open mic at the Hotel Utah. It was my first time there but definitely not my last; I will for sure be coming back to play shows. The room is great, the crowd was incredibly enthusiastic, and I got to listen to good new music all night.

So after my set, I'm sitting on one of the wooden benches in the corner and a man approaches and tells me he wants to buy a CD. I never sell a record to someone without first meeting them so we exchange greetings and he says his name is Klaus. My brain has this game where it holds on to key people from the annals of my mental and emotional development and shouts out their names whenever it hears something similar. "Klaus Flouride" my brain shouts. But of course...I stared at the back cover of the Dead Kennedys' album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables for endless days in middle school trying to figure out who in the picture was Klaus Flouride and who was Jello Biafra. (The best part? It wasn't even a picture of them. It was a picture of an old lounge band called The Sounds of Sunshine!).

He hands me 10 dollars, I hand him the CD, he says he liked my performance, and my brain says "Klaus Flouride". Later I pick up my guitar from the floor..."Klaus FLOORide". On the way to my car I pass a bike rider..."Klaus FlouRIDE". Okay, okay, brain, enough, all ready.

But by the time I get back to the house where I'm staying, I'm completely unnerved. I look up Klaus Flouride to find a recent picture and right there on his myspace profile page is a picture of the Klaus who bought my CD.

I can't believe I just sold my CD to Klaus Flouride from the Dead Kennedys. I started playing guitar because of the Dead Kennedys. I started my first punk band when i was 14 because of the Dead Kennedys. I got through high school because of the Dead Kennedys. My album wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for the Dead Kennedys. Klaus Flouride is entitled to take as many of my CDs as he wants

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[GF Trivia Tidbit 1]: When I was in high school, I had my own Dead Kennedys style logo that I would put on everything. Something along the lines of:

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