I WILL NEVER DO SOMETHING THIS STUPID AGAIN!

I am exhausted.  I'm bruised.  My throat is shot.  I can't lift my shoulders - my neck and traps are sore, stiff and killing me.  My fingers are still throbbing.  My legs are wobbly.  I've got a four inch contusion on my right quad where the costume and the guitar pressed my keys into my thigh all day long. 

Here's a little journal of my day as a singing penis:

4:15AM - Alarm clock sounds. I wake up so early because I feed myself and pay my bills (as well as a lot of Sensitive Johnson bills) by working as a fitness trainer.  The night before was spent burning CD's, printing signs and flyers to Friday's Crooked Bar gig, putting together investor packages, and packing SJ t-shirts, Valentine stickers, business cards, and everything else I might need.  I finally got to sleep around eleven.  Poor me.

7:12AM - After finishing my two training sessions in the morning I head home watching the sky, praying it doesn't open up like it did the past three days.  The weather channel gave me 40% chance of showers. I get home and stuff the car with all the equipment: two guitars, an amplifier, the costume's body, the costume's top, the super size condom in case of rain, the large duffle bag stuffed with shirts, another bag filled with CD's, and another with everything else I packed.  I head to the supermarket to pick up some power bars, water, and skim milk.  Stop at the florist's to buy roses for my beautiful assistants.   Speed off to the audio rental house.

9:22AM - The guys at Hollywood Sound are having trouble getting the headset microphone I'm renting to work properly with my amp.  Oh no.  Please hurry.  I have to get my penis out on the sidewalk by ten.  This plea amazingly sped up progress and I was off, about 30 minutes delayed.

10:01AM - I park my jeep in front of the Wells Fargo bank on Santa Monica Blvd.  My first assistant is waiting there for me.  I hand a bouquet of flowers to Brendali, who is also a few other things to me including my Valentine (lucky girl, huh?), and shove her off to work.  First we set up the amp and attach the microphone to my waist and head.  We organize the flyers, stickers, shirts, etc.  We get the body of the costume on me.  As she locks the back, I pour the skim milk into the pump and load it under my armpit.  We attach the top of the penis to the costume as I pop the pump's tube through the squirt hole.  She hands me the guitar and I struggle to maneuver the strap through the arm holes and around my head.  I'm basically in a twenty pound straightjacket with gadgets inside and this twelve string wrapped around me.  She plugs me in and hits the power.  The guitar works, but not the mike.  Oh crap, I forgot to hit the 'on' switch on the mike's phantom power which is attached to my belt.  Brendali, could you reach around through the back of the costume and find the switch?  I'll pull the costume open.  As I reached back and pulled, my right deltoid cramped then felt like it ripped.  OW!  Oh shit!  I can't move my arm!  Great start, Chris, Charlie horse in the strumming arm.  At least the mike worked.

10:10AM - Lots of turning heads.  Lots of laughter by the passers-by.  The bank manager comes outside with the security guard.  Brendali gives them Valentine stickers.  They're really cool about it.  They laugh, put on their stickers, and they each put a couple dollars into the bucket.  Soon the other bank employees come out, as well as the workers at the other local businesses on the strip.  We're a hit.  It doesn't look like an angry store owner is going to try to shut us down.  I thought that would be the first problem we'd encounter and one that would end the marathon quickly.  No one called the cops.  And I even had a security guard keeping an eye out for me.  

10:33AM - A producer of some sort of internet streaming show wants me to go down the block and up to his studio to play some songs.  I told him about the marathon and that I couldn't leave the street.  I promised a ten hour street performance, I was going to adhere to it.  He said he'd send over a camera crew.  Man, this was going great.  I was belting out the songs with the same over-zealous energy I have in my shows.  Potential problem: my shows only go about 50 minutes, and I'm always completely spent after that.  Should I conserve energy?  Nah, the couple at the ATM are watching!  Happy Valentine's Day!  Have a sticker!  "I am your Penis.  I am your Peter, your excreter!" I belted out to the Bananarama tune.  Cops drive by.  I waved.

10:41AM - The largest crowd must have been only about eight or nine people at any one time, usually it was two or three with more people watching as they walked by.  I figured that the crowds would grow at lunchtime, so I would wait to use my secret 'ejaculating' weapon until I had a good size audience.  Many cars were honking.  Two visiting teenage girls jumped out of their cab to have their pictures taken with me.  A couple guys with a video camera and mike asked if they could interview me.  The guy said he wanted it for his reporter's reel.  Sure thing!  I answered his questions and played my version of David Bowie's "Little Gina Girl".  That should get him a job.

11:17AM - The manager of Wild Oats sent me down a liter of water.  Cool, thanks.  I sold two CD's.  Awesome.   And the employees at 24 Hour Fitness across the street said they were taking up a collection for the cause.  Wow.  This is really cool.  The crowds were still smaller than I expected - there just wasn't as much foot traffic as I had hoped for, but it was going well and I pushed strongly through the second hour.  Also a few supporters stopped and drove by to verify that the event was really happening and encourage more mayhem.  (Many people stopped by through out the day.  Thank you to everyone who was able to.)  

12:15PM - Lunchtime came, but the more dense pedestrian traffic didn't.  Neither did Brendali's replacement.  Brendali was sweet enough to hang in there for another shift.  (Thank God I remembered the roses, huh?)  But, now I had played most of my penis songs three or four times, the better one's like Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Hard Life" even more.  Frankly, they were starting to grade on us a little.  I started playing some of my other material.  The first thing I did was face the amplifier towards the immensely franchised coffee shop across the street (that wouldn't let me play in front of it), and jammed to my "Starbucks" song.  

1:34PM - Almost four hours through the marathon, my voice was starting to hurt.  And not just the people listening.  I had gone through my entire repertoire a couple times now, including many of the cheesy ballads I wrote in high school.  Less people were coming up to us, the songs weren't all that entertaining.  The costume was getting really heavy on my shoulders and my legs were fatiguing.  All the store owners and employees had gotten used to us, so they no longer watched or listened.  And both Brendali and myself were grumpy and tired.  In my not-at-all enthusiastic state, I started playing real cover songs, trying to make them sound somewhat decent, like a legitimate street performer might.  That only showed how tired I was and how shot my voice was.  It was pretty evident I couldn't come close to hitting any notes remotely high.  My voice was gone and I wasn't at hour four yet.  This could be bad.

1:58PM - My two o'clock to four o'clock assistant, Nori Jill showed up with the energy, pizzazz, and cough drops I needed.  Brendali took off, but offered to come back at six since my assistant for the last slot never confirmed.  (It must be more than just the roses.)  Now Nori has never heard any of the penis songs, so not only did I have cough drops, I had an eager audience ready to laugh heartily at every damn clever lyric.  I was revitalized and jamming once again.  Dollars started flowing into the contribution pot again.  Mike, from my acting class, came down to help Nori hand out stickers.  We're back in business, baby.   

3:24PM - I was asked out a couple times by a few of the boys passing by.  I don't know what might have given the impression I might be something other than heterosexual.  Sorry fellas.  Besides, I got the feeling you might want me for something other than my personality.  My friend Brian gave us Starbucks vouchers so Mike went over and got us some drinks, apparently he was a big celebrity in there with a lot of people asking what we were doing.  Too bad they wouldn't let us perform over there.  We'll just entertain the ATM line.  For the most part, the time between 2 and 4 was uneventful.

4:35PM - Caroline took over for Nori at four.  My voice was now truly gone.  And my feet and legs really hurt.  I could hardly stand.  Unlike Nori, Caroline had heard all my penis songs at the Halloween performance, and she wasn't all that impressed with them then.  My new one, Chumbawumba's "Dump the Bed Pan, I filled it up Again", didn't sway her my way either.  Caroline had a tough time handing out flyers and stickers, because by this point I was so tired, I also hated the dumb ass songs I had to sing.  I hated the thought of playing any song, especially one that supposed to be cute and funny.  I was sure my fingers were about to burst open and spray blood all over the sidewalk.  Holding down the strings was even less fun than trying to sing the lyrics.  So you could imagine the fine tuned performance the pedestrians were receiving.  Poor Caroline was trying to hand them hearts as they walk around us.  They probably would have gladly accepted ear plugs.

5:17PM - The first patrol car pulled over and asked me to come over.  I went as far as the cables from the amp would let me, then I asked him to meet me half way.  'What are you doing?'  'Just celebrating Valentine's Day'  'Do you know what you look like?' 'What?'  This cop just laughed.  He said he'd just been transferred to West Hollywood three weeks ago and he sees something crazier everyday.  He went back to the squad car, got his camera and asked if we could take a picture together, his wife wouldn't believe this one.  He said he came over because he got a noise complaint, but he thought it was funny and harmless and said that I could play as loud as I wanted.  That was the closest I came to being shut down.  Now I just had to play through the pain and exhaustion.  Or so I thought.

6:00PM - Caroline finishes her shift and heads off to her evening class.  The unconfirmed six o'clock person doesn't show, nor does Brendali. (She must have counted the dozen roses and realized I took three out to give to the other assistants.)  I'm all alone.  And not mobile in the suit at all.  The bank closes, as do all the other shops on the strip.  It's dark.  There's still plenty of car traffic, but the sidewalk is pretty empty.  Except for the homeless.  This is an element I didn't expect.  Throughout the day I gave everyone stickers and flyers, homeless passers-by too.  Why not?  They might appreciate the Valentine more than most.  But, the friendlier I was, the more they hung around.  They liked the music.  A few of them started howling some tunes of their own.  One guy told me I didn't know who I was with - he was bad, baddest on the street.  And right when I was sure he was going to push me down and take the money in the bucket, he broke into some Marvin Gaye.  I didn't know what else to do so I joined in.  An extremely smelly and insane homeless woman started strumming my guitar with both hands.  After our chorus about the grapevine ends, she decides she wants a shirt.  She grabs one that's sort of out on display and starts crinkling it in her hands while she asks if she could have it.  I try to explain that they cost me a lot of money and I can't just give them away.  While she asks me how much money it would cost, she rubs the shirt all over her body - armpits, chest, neck - as if it were a wash cloth she was using in the shower.  The very persuasive lady got herself a new shirt.  At this point I spot a shopping cart not too far away from where I'm standing.  The cords stretched far enough so I could grab it.  I do my best to squat and put my things on the ground into the cart.  I can't actually get down to my knees - I'd never be able to get up anyway - but if I held on to the construction sign while squatting and leaned myself over to one side I could manage to get my middle and index fingers about an inch from the ground.  It took me a good 10 minutes to get the amp, shirt, CDs, bucket, and mailing list into the cart.  Right as I finish, Brendali shows up.

6:45PM - Brendali's pushing the cart, I'm playing as we walk.  My legs are shot.  My voice was finished hours ago.  I've acquired the smell of my homeless friends and I'm scared to think of what else I may have acquired from them.  I just want this last hour-plus to hurry up.  Time hasn't gone this slowly since study hall.  I haven't been able to complete a whole song in a couple hours.  We meet up with my friend Jim.  He strolls with us down to The Rage to see what the action is like down there.  I never thought I'd be on a Valentine's Eve stroll to The Rage with Jim. On our way we stopped and played for a gang of young runaway, punked out, street kids - I don't know what you'd call them.  Once again I felt very vulnerable, but once again I won them over with song.  For what ever reason they seemed to especially like 'Stuck In The Zipper With You'.  We moved on.

7:37PM - The Rage was very disappointing.  It wasn't very busy.  And I couldn't get the boys there interested in me.  Walking back in the last few minutes I realized that I hadn't used my secret weapon yet, and that it was probably curdling in  my armpit.  We passed a Coffee Bean that had a couple tables of what appeared to be lesbian couples sitting outside.  Alright an audience, finally.  I asked if they minded if I sang them a Valentine's song.  They were cool with it.  I asked if they wanted to hear an Indigo Girls song.  Absolutely.  Well, this one was rewritten about my girlfriend and I simultaneously losing our virginity at the high school prom. They laughed at the story line and really were enjoying the song until I got to the payoff lyric, "the closer I am to hymen".  They all kind of cringed at once.  I guess I said something wrong.  Maybe I'm not all that sensitive a johnson after all.  I won their hearts back with the explosive finale.

8:00PM - "Thank you very much.  Good Night."  I said to the empty street.  I took off my penis.  Packed it into the back of the jeep, along with everything else I could stuff in there, then drove away.  I took Brendali to a quiet Italian restaurant for Valentine's dinner.  She deserved it.  Who needs roses when you can spend quality time together on Valentine's Day like we did.

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