Groundhog Dean Hey Gang,

Yeah, I know it's been a while since I've sent one of these electronic missives your way, but, well, you know how life is - really BUSY!

Everybody's doing fine here in the Friedman household, now that we're all over our family flu. I feel a little guilty knowing we're responsible for the decimation of a dozen acres of forest, given all the paper kleenex we went through. But we're all better and back in the swing of things.

My recording studio's been fired up. I'm still in pre-production and I still have a lot more writing to do, but I am gradually gearing up to doing the Next Next CD which, as I recall, is due sometime in September. (Just in case you were afraid it had slipped my mind ;-)

I'm very disappointed at the recent hiccup in the Dean presidential campaign. Not because I particularly prefer Howard Dean to any of the other democratic presidential candidates, but because I get a huge kick out of seeing my name splashed all over the newspapers and magazines with headlines like: GORE SUPPORTS DEAN, DEAN AHEAD IN POLLS, and more recently, DEAN IMPLODES!!!. (That last one was my favorite.)

Anyway, it's probably not the wisest voting strategy to support any candidate who just happens to share your name, but it beats having to sit through all those tedious debates.

Besides, I realize at least half the people on this email list could care less about who becomes the next president of the United States; as long as he doesn't lead both our countries into another dubious war.

So, even though I've been incommunicado for a while, that doesn't mean that rest of you have been lying around like a bunch of layabouts. For example: those of you that have had occasion to visit the 'chat' room of the deanfriedman.com website already know that programmer extraordinaire, Andrew McAuley, has created a dedicated webpage for the folks that frequent the Deano 'chat' room to get to learn a little more about each each other. Andrew's page includes photos and brief bios plus email addresses of those folks who might want to get in touch with each other to plan bank heists or overthrow the government or some such.

It's populated by the 'usual suspects', you know a group of 'apparently' normal citizens who 'seem' perfectly sane but share an unusual affinity for the rhymes and melodies of a certain New Jersey bred singer-songwriter whose name does NOT rhyme with Goose Stringbean.

If you'd like to meet some of the gang, just check out Andrew's 'Dean Fan Photo Gallery' page at:

http://home.btconnect.com/Sprezzatura.com/dean_photo_gallery.htm

And of course, if you'd like to chat right along with them, pay a visitto the 'chat' section on

http://www.deanfriedman.com .

Most of them are quite friendly. And It's my understanding that the remaining few are heavily medicated and, thus, relatively harmless.

Speaking of harmless relatives, allow me to wish all of you a happy and peaceful Groundhog's Day.

For those international listeners among you, who may only be familiar with Groundhogs Day from the popular Bill Murray film... Groundhog's Day is a curious American holiday in which families gather together around the dinner table dressed up as groundhogs, sing groundhog day songs (in groundhog dialect) and partake of a nutritious meal which consists mainly of leafy vegetables - the groundhogs staple diet.

Legend has it that if, on Groundhog's Day, a groundhog emerges from his burrow and sees his own shadow, he will become frightened and high-tail it back into his underground home, thus assuring us of 6 more weeks of cold wintry weather. If, on the other hand, it's cloudy and he sees no shadow, it means we can expect an early spring.

For more info on Groundhog's Day visit http://www.groundhog.org

Anyway, the idea is to spend some time with your friends and relatives and eat lots of vegetables. For obvious reasons, this holiday holds particular appeal for those folks who happen to enjoy dressing up as large, soft, fuzzy animals. Harmless enough. Although I suspect the groundhog himself (Punxsutawney Phil being the most famous) is not too pleased about getting woken up so early in the morning and having to face hordes of press and popping flashbulbs. Ah... the price of fame.

Meanwhile, never fear - Spring is (eventually) on its way; even if global warming threatens our seasonal weather patterns and the Earth's magnetic pole is about to flip.

I'm also in the beginning phases of booking a summer tour leading up to another appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, so I should have some dates to announce in about a month's time. I'll keep you posted.

Take care everybody. As always, thanks for listening and keeping in touch.

Happy Groundhog's Day,

Dean

If you would like to be removed from Dean's email list please reply to this email with the word 'remove' in the subject heading. You can also use the unsubscribe link below.