I know, this album has already been out for around 15 years, but there’s no new one yet. So this is the official Artificial Heart tour, I just decided it.

Listen, as much fun as it was traveling with and opening for They Might Be Giants, the 30 minute set created a lot of rockus interruptus for me and the band. We’re really looking forward to getting back out there with luxurious amounts of time on stage so we can play all the songs we know. And then I will also play some songs solo that only I know, perhaps on the acoustic guitar. IT WILL BE A REAL SHOW AND WE WILL DO A GREAT JOB. You should come. (There will be some sort of opening act too, details soon I hope.)

Hey, look at all these dates! Tickets on sale now!

The Paradise – Boston, MA
Friday June 1, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-boston

Gramercy Theater – New York, NY
Saturday June 2, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-nyc

German House Theater – Rochester, NY
Tuesday June 5, 8 PM
Tickets: ticketf.ly/art-heart-rochester

The Mod Club – Toronto, ON
Wednesday June 6, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-toronto

Rex Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
Thursday June 7, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-pittsburgh

The Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
Friday June 8, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-alexandria

World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA
Saturday June 9, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-philly

The Ark – Ann Arbor, MI
Friday June 15, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-ann-arbor

Double Door – Chicago, IL
Saturday June 16, 9 PM
Tickets: ticketf.ly/art-heart-chicago

Guthrie Theater – Minneapolis, MN
Monday June 18, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-minneapolis

Great American Music Hall – San Francisco, CA
Wednesday June 20, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-sf

The Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR
Thursday June 21, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-portland

Showbox at the Market – Seattle, WA
Friday June 22, 8 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-seattle

Venue – Vancouver, BC
Saturday June 23, 7:30 PM
Tickets: bit.ly/art-heart-vancouver

Oh my, am I tired. This year has had a crazy beginning, in a very good way. It’s taken me this long to post about the cruise because I’ve had my head down doing things, but also because it’s taken me this long to process HOW AWESOME IT WAS.

Whoa daddy! Success! Victory! Being on a giant cruise ship in a sunny place with a bunch of great people is obviously a recipe for a good time, so that part did not surprise me. We all knew we were going to laugh a lot and have fruity drinks together and hear great music and meet wonderful people. That’s assumed. The thing that I wasn’t prepared for is the extent to which all of you Sea Monkeys have simply begun to OWN this event. Again and again I was struck by this notion that you were primarily there in order to be with each other. You assembled yourselves into a Voltron of fun. The open mic night, the a cappella group, the ukulele fest at Molly’s show, the insanely great sand castles on Half Moon Cay, and the many other numerous things that I DO NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT because I couldn’t be everywhere all the time, much as I wanted to – they are proof of what an amazing bunch of people you are. Two years in, and JoCo Cruise Crazy has this wonderful community-fueled momentum to it that we never in a million years could have created ourselves. Thank you.

We had a fantastic bunch of performers of course, a couple of whom were relatively new to this scene, and they were similarly impressed with everyone. Many thanks to all of them for their time and talents. Everyone looked really great in formal wear! I ate too many tacos from the taco bar, and somehow failed to have free ice cream EVEN ONCE! I drank too many pina coladas at JoCo Karakaoke! And I do want to give a special shout-out (Yeep!) to Paul, Storm, Dammit Liz and Scarface (not to mention all the Sea Monkey volunteers) who put in an amazing amount of work – the cruise simply could not happen without them.

Oh also, some people got married.

And oh yeah, some other people got engaged.

WHAT?!

If anyone got conceived, I haven’t heard about it yet (and don’t want to).

We’ve put a read-only archive of Twit-arrr up so you can what, read it? Do data analysis and word clouds? Whatever, knock yourselves out! There is also an enormous Flickr group filled with too many great shots of too many great things. We are already planning JoCo Cruise Crazy 3, and as you may have heard by now, are offering this fantastic pre-registration discount to those folks who pre-register for it by the end of today. We hope to have actual dates and itinerary for you very soon, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you one and all, I have the greatest job in the world.