So…

I’m sitting here thinking about the fact that in a short month and a half I’ll be cruising around the Caribbean with a bunch of new friends.. not to mention the fact that i’ll get to take in a lot of great music.  Some of which I’m already aware of.. and other music that I’ve not heard, but I’m sure will be good as The Rock Boat (TRB) has historically seemed to pick the good stuff.

I’ve been hearing about TRB for years and I am so honored to be a part of the roster this year.  We’re from the West Coast so I’m looking forward to meeting more artists that are from the eastern side.  I’m definitely more aware of the acts up and down the Westsiiiide.. so it’ll be cool to see what kind of music the eastern states are churning out.

As I’ve been touring around these last couple of years, I have been meeting quite a few Rock Boaters.  I have to say that I haven’t met an A**hole Rock Boater yet… It seems that those who might naturally attend The Rock Boat are pretty hip… (pause and recognize your hipness… for if you’re reading this… you are probably a Rock Boater)  Now, for those of you wary of my attempt to flatter you so that you’ll buy a CD and t-shirt on the boat, I’d like to express my sincerity here… on the road, I’ve met some cool down to earth folks that I am looking forward to seeing on the boat.

So, here’s to several firsts for me.  My first time on a cruise ship. My first time on the Rock Boat.  My first trip to the Bahamas.  My first time getting laid on a cruise ship.  (I don’t have to guess if this will happen.. my wife’s coming with me and so it’s almost a 100% certainty…  unless I manage to really piss her off somehow…)  My first time playing a rock show while also floating in the Caribbean.  On a side note… I did play in Cuba once with my old band.  We played for the armed forces at GTMO back before all the scandal with the P.O.W.s happened there… but we played on the base… not floating on the ocean… so it’s totally different.

Anyways, looking forward to meeting you and hopefully rocking your sun tan lotion off…

Peace and chicken grease,

Tyrone Wells

I was with my friend Cherie Weinstein this weekend and she said something that made me think.  We were talking about the different personality profiles in her office and how Carnival has made it a priority to educate their leaders about themselves and their associates to improve their working relationships.

Cherie said its no longer the Golden Rule of “Do onto others as you would have done unto you,”  but rather the Platinum Rule of “Do onto others as they would want done onto them.”  It’s so true.  In the last year my wife and I have had a million laughs about the (Five Love Languages) and the staff at Sixthman and I have had just as many laughs about how we are either Red, Blue, Green or Yellow (Kolbe).

In both environments, it has become very clear that we all want to be treated differently.  For example, my wife’s love languages are Acts of Service and Quality Time and mine are Encouraging Words and Physical Touch.

What does that mean?

It means that every night when she makes our family amazing dinners or when she gets a babysitter for us to go out alone, she is saying she loves me.  It means that when I tell her she is a great mom or rub her back, I am saying I love her.  Problem is that neither one of us can hear the other because we have different languages.  She would prefer that I keep the nice words and hands to myself and take out the trash and leave my laptop at work so we can talk at night.  I would prefer that she make sandwiches for dinner and tell me I am a great dad while rubbing my shoulders.

It’s a perpetual dance but I can’t tell you how enlightening this exercise has been for us.  What is your language?

Find out by clicking this link and…..you must share.

-Andy

How do you do it, John?

You tour the country, write and perform incredible music, stay in close contact with your thousands of fans, and still find the time to create, write, film, and star in a video that has us laughing like crazy.  Thank you.  What’s the video you ask? Read on…

Out of the blue, just in time for the holidays, John’s management told us to expect a video from John that would be shown for the first time at his acoustic performance out in L.A this past weekend.  We asked what the video was about, and their response was “Um, the mankini has shrunk.”

Wait, what?

For the uninformed, John decided on the last day of the inaugural Mayercraft Carrier to put on a green mankini (think Borat).  Little did we know how brilliant this really was.  Within hours, it was all over the press, and gave the event months and months of free publicity in publications that would have otherwise cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It was viral marketing at its finest.

Fast forward to December 6th, 2008: the birth of yet another viral video masterpiece courtesy of John.  Along with 7000 Mayer fans, we witnessed a video that had it all: action, drama, suspense, intrigue, and a neon green mankini.  What more could you ask for?

He’s done it again.  Kudos to you, good sir.  Never did I think a tiny neon green bikini would make me excited for a cruise, but here I am.  I can’t wait for the Mayercraft Carrier 2.

There I said it.

-Steve

This week my friend Tempest—a fellow rollergirl and new mom—took her 3 month old son in to see his doctor due to the alarming number of times he was throwing up during the night. Yes, she’s a new mom. Yes, babies vomit. But does that mean it was really necessary for the doctor’s only response to be “you know babies get sick, right?” This doctor’s lack of bedside manner was the last straw after a string of bad experiences with her office and lead Tempest to immediately begin a search for a new doctor. As with most things in today’s information age, the doctor’s bad attitude did not result in her just losing one patient. Tempest shared the doctor’s name with on our little roller girl community forum with a viewer-ship of 100 + current and/or future moms in the intown Atlanta area.

While I have been known to say “it’s okay, I’m a doctor” when accidentally and sometimes non-accidentally brushing up against friends at parties a bit inappropriately, I am not an actual trained medical professional. Everything I know about being doctor comes from watching episodes of ER and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I do however, like to think I know a thing or two about good customer service. I do not say this as someone whose job title is “Customer Service Representative,” because I venture to guess that the majority of working America works in some sort of customer service, I say this mainly as a consumer of goods and services.

Tempest’s story has me wracking my brain to think of any professions or businesses exist whose ultimate success or failure does not in the end boil down to how well they understand their customers. The only ones I can think of are people who work for government agencies. If the post office, the DMV or the IRS really pisses me off, it’s not as though I can really take my business elsewhere, is it? That would begin to explain why the DMV has such a bad reputation. Can anyone out there think of other businesses or organizations whose success is not ultimately affected by customer service?

-Joy

There’s a danger when making choices. Simply by making the choice to get out of bed in the morning, we are taking our lives in our hands!

Maybe today is the day a bus will run me over. Maybe today is the day my house finally burns down (more on that in another blog!) Maybe today I step on a used needle and contract some disease they haven’t even heard of yet.

But we still take that risk, and choose to leave the house, with faith that we will return relatively unscathed.

All my friends made a choice to expand their minds and see a play I was performing in. It was Choose Your Adventure: The Play. The premise is the same as the Choose Your Own Adventure books you may have read as a child – the main characters come to a crossroads, and have to make a choice. However, in this instance, the audience makes the choice for them.

The play also had a few other differences from the beloved children’s series- First off, it was not suitable for children. Take into consideration my list of characters played: A siren in the mythical city of Atlantis. A dead prostitute. (She started out alive, but then was stabbed in the neck, and spent the whole scene dead.) A Nazi. An Amazon woman. Satan. And this was a comedy. There was even a (VERY historically accurate) scene where you could see how Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge with his secretary, Mary Joe Kopechne, in the car. And you could also learn how the ancient Aztecs used chocolate frosting. And yes, that is Jesus in the front row of the picture.

In true procrastinator fashion, the majority of my friends showed up on the last day at the last show. I was ready to give it my all and show them a great time, so I started getting ready for the first scene I might be in. That one wasn’t chosen, so I spent the next few scenes in my underwear, not knowing which scene would be chosen next. Then my scene got skipped again, so I put on the costume for the final scene I might be in, and started thinking about how funny it would be if all my friends showed up, and I wasn’t even in the play! And then, when it happened, it wasn’t so funny any more. Those are the chances you take when you decide to rehearse 30 possible scenarios.

Friends, that’s what you get for choosing not to decide, even though you still made a choice.  And I hope they returned relatively unscathed. Time will tell on that one…

-Barb

Who says you can’t change your mind? Who says you can’t cook a big meal, then decide to eat cereal? Who says you can’t get all the way there, then go back home to change your outfit? Who says you can’t decide to name your cat Oliver, then Pascal, then Pickle, then Lucky? Who says you can’t decide to have your wedding in Colorado, then six months beforehand, move it to Chicago?

Um…..what was that last one again?

Yup, that’s what I did. I had my entire Steamboat Colorado mountain wedding all planned out. We had the ceremony site, the reception venue, even the rehearsal dinner location all reserved. We had contacted florists, photographers, wedding bands, and wedding coordinators. We signed contracts and put down deposits.  We flew out there for the weekend to meet with the wedding planners, and even have another trip planned in a couple of weeks. It was all going to be perfect.

But then I changed my mind.

You see, it took a trip home for the Thanksgiving holiday for me to realize something very important- this wedding is not just about me and Benjamin (finally) tying the knot. And when I went home I was finally able to grasp something that I hadn’t been able to before; my parents just weren’t that into it.  I know they were trying to be excited, but Colorado is far and unfamiliar to them. Plus, with economic times being how they are, it wasn’t looking like many of their friends were going to be able to make the trek out west. Steamboat isn’t exactly the easiest place to get to, you know. My extended family wasn’t particularly thrilled about the idea either. One of my cousins is planning a Denver wedding which would mean two trips to Colorado for them, two weekends in a row. Then the icing on the cake came when I discovered that two of my best friends from growing up, both newly pregnant, were likely not going to be able to make the trip either.

So yes I had the perfect dress, the idyllic location and everything else in place, but what would that day mean without my family and friends to share it with?

I finally realized that this day is not just about me and Benjamin. It is about our parents and our siblings; our aunts, uncles and cousins; our friends and everyone else who has touched our lives in meaningful ways. No matter how perfect the day and how perfect the place, it would not be as special without the people who mean the most being there to share in our most important moment.

I wish I could say that my realization was priceless, but actually it cost $4,000.

-Nora

It seems like I am always telling my wife and friends about crazy ideas I have for  an invention and then a year later, I see something that resembles my idea.  Part of me feels like an idiot for not acting on it and the other part feels like those people probably had it before me and it took years to bring to life.

Most recent, it was the “CODE BLUE” Coors Light program where the mountains on the bottle turn blue when the beer is cold.  I remember talking about some sort of temperature gauge on the side of a can or bottle of beer similar to the strips on the side of batteries that tell you how much life is left in the battery.
So before another idea slips away, I want to share some of the things in my head at the risk of sounding like an idiot, and encourage you to share some ideas of your own.

#1 – Wetnaps for Cheetos
I loved Cheetos as a kid and would eat them more now during the day, but the orange food coloring gets all over my hands and clothes.  If they put a little wet nap in each bag, I would eat them with confidence.

#2 – Curb Side Grocery Service
Going to the grocery store is a dreaded task for most people.  Men dread it because they don’t know where anything is and can never find the exact brand that their wife wants, and moms must drag young children through the store strategically avoiding the balloons, candy, and other items that incite tantrums and dreaded pubic disciplining situations.

So, what if the grocery store allowed us to keep our preferences on-line of what we purchase the most and we can make our order on-line that morning and schedule a time to pick it up that day? We could even put notes on our produce order as to degree of ripeness for our bananas.  The grocery store could also source recipes from the types of foods we buy to give us creative meal selections and expose us to new items.  Then when my wife is wiped out at the end of the day and has the kids with her, she can pull up and have them load the car up without missing a minute of Oprah on XM. Or she can put an order in and I can grab it on the way home without the anxiety of buying Cream of Chicken Soup instead of Chicken Broth.

I am sure people would pay a percentage, flat fee, or purchase a minimum dollar amount for the service.

You guys have any things that you think would make your lives easier?

-Andy

Ok, so I know you have heard a lot from me this week, but alas, here I am again.

But this time, I’m focused. I have learned from the hair chopping experience and am feeling energized. Which is a good thing, cause this weekend is sure to be something a little different.

Steve and I are venturing to L.A. to help promote the Mayercraft Carrier at the John Mayer show.  The way we see it, there are going to be 7,000 people there – who for the most part will be coming from LA and the surrounding areas.  Since the ship is leaving from L.A. – it should only make sense that those people know about it, right?

Well, here is the kicker.  About 3 summers ago, Melissa and I toured with Skynyrd for 13 shows promoting the first ever Gimme Three Days Cruise (now, called Simple Man).  Although it was a great opportunity to become engaged with their fan base, and help spread the Simple Man word, the efforts for the most part were unsuccessful as far as our tracking could tell.

So, when this show, and promoting on site was brought up, I was hesitant.  But as always, Andy, our fearless leader, took me aside and more or less, told me to get a grip (in a nicer way of course).  He challenged me to not only be optimistic about this opportunity, but be determined to spread the MCC love, convinced we can find future guests at this show, and inspired to figure out how.
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Well, here we are. Getting ready for the show tomorrow night at L.A. Live, where we have put together, for the first time since I’ve been a part of the company, a unique promotion for one show.

And as I sit here this morning and type this, I have a huge smile of my face and am listening to my music really loud. I  can already feel that this will be a good weekend.

Andy, thanks for keeping me on my toes.
Steve, I couldn’t pick a better partner for what we are doing Saturday night. The girls will LOVE you!
Mayer team, can’t wait to see you guys! It’s always a great time.

And Sixthman guests, please come say hi to us if you are going out to LA Live.  We’d love to meet you!   How will you find us you ask? I have a feeling we will be hard to miss…

-Ape

So I guess it was about 4 months ago when I let the cat out of the bag about my pregnancy.  Well the time is drawing nigh, and our little girl will be here soon, so this will most likely be my last blog until I am back from maternity leave.

Pregnancy has literally been the most amazing experience I have ever gone through in my life.  All the things you read about it… well for the most part they are true.  It’s exhilarating, frustrating, uncomfortable, all consuming and a myriad of strange emotions (and physical symptoms you never thought could be for real) all at once. The thing is though, I think some things you read are a little out of date and there are some topics no one really covers.

For instance, all the advice you get about people touching your belly… I really haven’t had that many strangers come up and do that.  I think people know better in this day and age.  Mostly friends and family want to touch it and really, I get it.   I mean for god’s sake my belly looks like a beach ball and it moves like a massage chair!  Who would not be tempted to touch that?!

The one thing I haven’t found yet in a book is how to handle this question:  “What are you going to name the baby?”

First and foremost – we don’t know yet.  We have a list of names we like and are hoping when we see her that one of them fits.  If not, I hope that I see her and the name just comes to me.  But let me tell you… people DO NOT like this answer and most will inevitably follow one of several courses of action once they hear it:

1.  They will list all the names they love and ask what you think of them. Nothing is worse (for someone as brutally honest as me) than hearing a barrage of names you most likely don’t care for and having to act like they are pretty.

2.  They will make sure you know all the names they hate.  Inevitably, they will include a name you have been considering in this list of repulsive monikers, making you wonder what exactly is wrong with this name that you loved enough to add to your choices.   FYI – nothing… NOTHING is wrong with that name and if you really like it, you should use it… maybe just for spite.

3.  They’ll look at you like you are crazy and brag, “Well I’ve had my baby name picked out since I was seven.”  Well good for you.  But almost every pregnant woman you will talk to has done the same and as soon as you find out you’re pregnant, you wonder if that name still applies… and you start looking at others.  You may very well find out that you still love the name you loved when you were seven… but you also might find out that it just doesn’t seem to work for you anymore.  And that’s OKAY.  Really.

4.  They think you are lying and spend all night trying to guess what name you’ve chosen.  They get really upset that they can’t guess.  Actually this reaction gives me a real chance to mess with people’s heads, so I kind of like it.  There are currently a handful of people out there who think I am naming my baby after any number of household products like Panteen or Jiff.

5.  Another tried and true method is either “You can have my baby name!” or, “Let me name it!”  Thank you – I would love for YOU to name MY baby.  The worst is when they actually (again!) list a name you are considering and now if you use it, that means they will forever think they named your child, taking all the joy out of it for you and your partner. Thanks for that.  Really.

6.  Last but not least comes the list of people who literally want you to name your baby after them.  Seriously!  Maybe I can understand friends and family here, but I have met total strangers who upon hearing that I am pregnant will say “My name’s Louise.  Louise is a good name!  Name her after me!!!”  WHAT!!!! Why in God’s name would I name my baby after you?  In what random universe do you think that request is appropriate, total stranger, LOUISE??!!

So, as I take my leave… I implore you on behalf of all pregnant women (and their long suffering partners) everywhere.  Just let us name our babies in peace.  It’s one of the more important (and fun) decisions we get to make in our babies’ lives and in the end… it’s really no one’s business but ours.

Besides, as soon as you hold that baby in your arms, she looks at you with those big eyes and grabs your finger, I could tell you her name was “Dirty Kitty Litter McAllister” and you’d still think she was the most adorable thing in the room.

Have fun cruising everybody.  Little what’s her name and I will see you in a few months!

- Jill Mac

PS – For my friends (and co-workers) who know you fall into one of the reactions mentioned above…it’s okay.  I still love you.

ok guys, i did it!!!

i know, it has taken me a while to update with photos etc, but here is a link a friend of mine (whose camera i borrowed) gave me with them all in there.

view the shutterfly album here!

i feel great, and although it still doesn’t look like me in the mirror, i wouldn’t trade what my sister and I did for the world.I included photos of her as well… cause ultimately she gets all the credit. it was her idea.

Have fun viewing, and thanks so much for the support!

-Ape