As you can imagine, I’m very proud to make this major announcement that I stole from Chris Strub’s blog on pressconnects.com which he stole from Melissa Bykofsky’s article on bupipedream.com:

Third Eye Blind is coming to Binghamton.

You remember Third Eye Blind, doncha?  Their bubble-gum-punk-pop-sounding singles got oodles of radio play because it took three or four listens before anyone realized that the songs were actually about suicide, blow jobs, and crystal meth.

Yes, Third Eye Blind is back with a whole new album: “Ursa Major”.  You can listen to their latest single, “Don’t Believe a Word” below.  Just make sure nobody with epilepsy is in the room while you watch the video.  And when you figure out why one of the band members changes outfits on-screen at 1:38, drop me a note and fill me in.  Thanks.

PS: You should actually all go support Third Eye Blind because they graciously agreed to do the ribbon-cutting at the 2007 Southern Tier AIDS Walk in Rec Park.  And A LOT of bands wouldn’t have done that.

Two "interesting" facts about Third Eye Blind:

• During concerts in the mid 90s, they would drop candy from large piñatas above their mosh pits.
• Lead singer Stephan Jenkins decided to swap out the candy for live crickets when they played a showcase for record execs.  (Not sure what makes this a good idea, but hey, they got signed.)

Tickets for the October 11th show go on sale to us townies on September 15th (for 29 bucks).  Students can now buy tickets online too because—and this is the actual stated reason—they won’t have to cut classes this time around to make sure they see the show.

Third Eye Blind last played Binghamton in April of ’07.  You can check out a review of their Magic City Music Hall performance from the Pipe Dream.  I especially like how it highlights the “intense muggy heat” you could feel in the venue that night, as if the air conditioner actually worked most other nights…

*Sigh* I actually really miss that place.

Yeah, OK, Melissa Etheridge is a gay icon.  And an environmental awareness icon.  And a breast cancer survivor icon.  And a rock chick icon.  And a songwriting icon.

Jesus Christ, Melissa, leave room for somebody else to have a cause, would ya?

But more than all of these things, she’s a brilliant live performer.  I had never known that till last night, and I suspect I’m not the only one who discovered it at the Anderson Center in Binghamton.  Well, OK, Vestal; but she said Binghamton.  “Are you ready to rock, Vestal?!?” doesn’t have the same ring…

See, what’s unique about going to a concert in the Bing is this: we get so damn few of them; we’re a lot more willing to go see a show from an artist that we maybe kinda liked just a little bit in college because their single was stuck in our broken CD player.  So Bing concerts are filled with the unconverted—not the hooting, hollering, crying, shrieking, (maybe even) tripping concert-goers you’d find in the “big city”.

It took me a while to realize this; beforehand, I just thought that we were all f*cking lame.  And I’m not convinced that some touring performers don’t feel that way when they show up here.

BTW, I heard one set of concert-goers last night scream at another set of concert-goers to sit down because they weren’t as excited about the show and they didn’t think that anybody else should be either.

On another BTW, I pretty much suck at listening to new music; what do you want from me?  I work in radio.  And if a lyric hasn’t been drilled into my head every four and a half hours before being used as the underscore for a Toyota commercial and the theme song for an Amy Adams romantic comedy, I have a difficult time sitting through its live performance.

But that’s what separates a really really really great live performer from, well, Britney Spears.  Because while we all want to have sex with Britney (even the gays; it’s OK, you can admit it), we pretty much just tolerate her singing on the off chance that she may lose her sh*t on stage and rip her clothes off for no particular reason.

This is not true for Melissa Etheridge.  (OK, maybe it’s true for some of the lesbians reading.)  I, for one, am not sure quite why I liked her live show so much last night.  More than 70% of the show was tunes I didn’t know.  But it didn’t matter.  It might have been her voice—which was in perfect form and didn’t sound any different from what you’d hear in a studio recording.  It might have been her laid-back vibe: you felt like she could have been playing a bar as small as Frankie’s or a space as big as the Broome Arena, she’d be having a ball either way.  I actually think, more than anything else, it was her chemistry with the audience.

She’s an engaging storyteller, and every lyric seemed vitally important when delivered live.  Message songs like “I Run for Life” (her breast cancer anthem) and “I Need to Wake Up” (her Oscar-winning environmental anthem) which before seemed to me like “charity jingles” when they first came out, suddenly just worked.  It’s impossible to deny that’s she’s genuine when you see her in the flesh.

I can’t tell you for sure if I’ll buy Melissa’s next album—I’ve never been blown away by her CDs; but I can tell you I won’t miss her next concert.  Unless Britney Spears is in town.  And having a breakdown.  Half-naked.

Now that’s entertainment.

PS: We interviewed Melissa on the Star Morning Show.  She was just as cool to speak to by phone as she was live in concert.

CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

OK, so look: I’ve got a message for all you haters claimin that the Bing isn’t a “real city”.  Does YOUR hometown have its very own troop of supernatural ghost-hunters?  Huh? Huh? Well?

I thought not, bitches.

That’s right, Binghamton does; and don’t you dare call them “Ghostbusters”, or they’ll go paranormal on your ass.

Apparently, the “Binghamton Area Paranormal Society” is a bit snobby about that sort of thing—at least snotty enough to pooh-pooh the very idea of “proton packs” and “ghost-sucking”.  They seem so worried that the 80s hit film destroyed ghost-hunting cred forever that they open up the “What Is a Ghost Hunter” section of their web page with a short but disdainful rant about how they’re NOTHING like those slapstick frauds.

No, they don’t have proton packs or special uniforms with cutesy little Casper logos.  But they do have EMF meters (because electromagnetic fields tell you where the ghosts are), non-contact thermometers (because “cold spots” ALSO tell you where the ghosts are), and flashlights (because, um, it’s really, really dark where they work).

And if there’s “something strange in your neighborhood” or “an invisible man sleeping in your bed”, just understand that they’re going to assume you’re full of crap if you call them.  That’s part of their ghost-hunting philosophy: normal until proven paranormal.  But the good news is, they’re so devoted to the art that they’re willing to come investigate your home or business totally free of charge.  Act now, while supplies last!  If they DO discover some sort of creepy crawly troublemaker, however, it is NOT their job to remove it.  For that, they rely on some local “religious power” for help.  “Think of us … as counselors who … help lessen the supernatural load.”  Right.

Don’t believe in ghosts?  Well, they’ve got the photos, video, and audio to, er, “prove it”.  Supposedly.  I listened to an audio clip—uh, sorry, an “Electronic Voice Phenomena”—of a disembodied voice saying one word—“Leave”—about ten times just to decide if it was an actual communication from the afterworld or just the guy holding the tape recorder trying to screw with his buddies.

They’ve also got a handy dandy ghost dictionary on their site, which tells you all sorts of useful things—like that a “demon” is a “hostile and resentful enemy”, an “entity” is a “disembodied consciousness,”, and an “anomaly” is “anything weird, abnormal, strange, odd, or difficult to classify”.  I feel qualified to hunt ghosts already.

And these hunters aren’t libel to sit on their ass and wait for the ghosts to come to them.  They’ve already investigated paranormal reports in a number of sites all over the Bing aread: The Bunn Hill Road Cemetery, Chenango Valley Cemetery, Ingram Hill Road Cemetery, Port Crane Cemetery, Morgantown Cemetery… Uh, yeah. They like cemeteries a lot.  Well these ARE ghosthunters.  And I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt in assuming this isn’t just an excuse to romp around amongst graves in the middle of the night.  Thought I would point out that if the dead people are STAYING in the cemeteries, it can’t be that much of a problem.

OK, fine, I’m a cynic.  But I’m willing to be turned.  If a BingPop reader wants their home ghost-busted, I’ll come along for the ride.  Just as long as they let me hold one of the electromagnetic field detectors.  And let me pretend it’s a tricorder.  You just let me know.

BTW, my e-mail request for an interview was not immediately returned.  Too busy exorcising the demons, I suppose.

OK, so imagine you took BRAVO’s reality show “Project Runway”, merged it with the Build-a-Bear Workshop, and then filled it with 20 or 30 screaming 11-year-old girls; and what you’ve got is two things, really:  1) a massive migraine that even a mallet to the head won’t cure & 2) an average day at the new make-it-yourself fashion workshop in Vestal: “NuWaka”.  OK, I’m lying just a little.  The screaming throngs haven’t yet descended upon NuWaka; but believe me, they will. Because this idea is just too freakin’ adorable to fail.

The front room of NuWaka is deceptively plain.  You walk in to be confronted by rack after rack of unadorned solid colored T’s and pants.  YAAAAAWN.  But this is why I’m not an 11 year old girl (or fashion-conscious boy, for that matter).  Because while I think “booooring”, they’ll see the possibilities.  At NuWaka, you start from scratch and design your outfit from the ground up.  Start with a T, choose some clip art at the computer workstations in the back, add a few rhinestones, and your tween daughter just got started on her long road to Fashion Week.

But it doesn’t end there.  For the advanced budding fashionista, owner Brian Cupp has hired design students to help with your look.  Want a layered shirt with the sleeves a different color from the rest?  nuWaka will sew it for you.  Two colors not enough?  Patch together a skirt from more than two.  Pick fabrics off the wall, choose a pattern, and design your own pants.

But really, that’s not the coolest part.  This is: even my 25-year-old friend Marissa couldn’t contain her 12-year-old girl enthusiasm when she realized that she could jump up on nuWaka’s mirrored runway and strike a pose.  This makes me feel like the only obstacle to attracting throngs of women older than 21 to the store is that it doesn’t serve cocktails to loosen them up first.  Marissa, on the other hand, is just high on life.

And although they might eventually form its fanatical core audience, NuWaka isn’t ONLY for the tween set—in fact, owner Brian Cupp proved he could also fill me with an embarrassingly giddy sense of delight.  When I arrived at the store last Friday, a BingPop T design was already waiting for me at one of the computer workstations.  Within moments, I was already wearing my own piece of NuWaka.  And didn’t take it off till bed time.

Will some of these outfits turn out to be WRETCHED?  Absolutely.  But even Pierre Cardin wasn’t Pierre Cardin the day he first touched fabric.  (And now he’s designing things so ugly, an 11 year old would sneer.)  But it’s the chance to create—even something mildly ridiculous—that makes this place so cool.  And it’s true, NuWaka could use a bit more glam up front, considering it’s target clientele, but it’s a damn good start.  For Vestal, for Brian Cupp, and for the kids that might go on to work for Chanel and Versace.

(Or, ya know, at the cash register of the Oakdale GAP.)

INTERVIEW: Brian Cupp.

Can you remember the spark? The minute you thought of NuWaka? What was it that made the idea happen?
I do remember the moment we thought of NuWaka. Roughly two years ago, my daughters (Jenna now 14 and Taylor now 11) and I were riding back from Syracuse after spending the day at the Carousel Mall. One of our stops during the day was Build-A-Bear and of course they had a great time but I dropped a hundred dollars on two bears that I knew would sit in the corner until Rylie (our dog) got a hold of the bears and ripped the stuffing out. I said to the girls wouldn’t it be great to do something similar to Build-A-Bear but make something you could actually use every day. Jenna said "How about clothes?". We then brainstormed the whole way home and I couldn’t sleep that night because ideas kept running through my head!

So before you did all this fashion stuff, you did. um, was it COMPUTERS for a living? Seriously?
Yes, I’m a Computer Science major and was a Software Engineering manager at Lockheed Martin for twelve years and was Vice President of Operations for Verticalnet (now BravoSolutions). I headed up software development, customer support and Infrastructure Technology (IT). So yeah, this is quite a change from what I was used to. I also have owned some Subway franchises for the past 15 years however I have a great partner and managers that keep those running well.

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Oh, baby.  It’s Pancake Day again.

Sure, sure, you might be heading over to Number 5 for a fancy Mardi Gras din-din.  And I’m gonna be grabbing drinks tonight over at the Kilmer to see how their big Fat Tuesday bash goes down.  But before you do, you damn will better stop by the Vestal IHOP for your free short stack.  It’s goin on till 10 tonight.

Why pancakes, you ask?  Clearly, you have not heard of Pancake Day—you poor, poor fool.  It’s the Irish/British/Australian equivalent to Mardi Gras.  It’s actually called Shrove Tuesday—but I’m really very focused on the Pancakes.  The idea is that you gotta get rid of all the fat and eggs before Lent.

So eat up, people.  That buttery syrupy blueberry goodness ain’t gonna eat itself.

OH: PS. Lori and I called in to the Vestal IHOP during the morning show earlier today to see if they were drowning in boysenberry syrup.  Sounds like things were entirely under control–thanks to their manager D-Dawg.  Who hates that nickname.  The call’s below.