During football season, or "Fall" as jazz lovers call it, Joe and I are usually spotted wearing black, "Block O" baseball caps.  This is a tribute to our hometown Ohio State Buckeyes and their never-ending quest to avoid shameful humiliation at the hands of the dreaded Michigan Wolverines.  This is also the style of cap made famous by the late, great Woody Hayes, who also happened to be our first manager.

Anyway... We were playing a Halloween gig at Frankie's in Toledo, OH, when somebody got the bright idea to let the drunken members of the audience paint our faces throughout the course of the show.  Needless to say, sweat-based, ragin', running make-up got all over everything.  By last call, I guess I sorta resembled Paul Stanley, but mostly I had black make-up on my hands, arms, guitar, and all over the inside of my "Woody" hat.

Months later, we were enjoying a healthy bender in New York City cruising the bars around 57th Ave.  Saturday night was our only night off from recording so we took it pretty seriously.  We were actually drunk enough that we ended up in the bar at Planet Hollywood looking for Bruce Willis.

At this point, a wealthy looking gentleman (looking not unlike Thurston Howell III, I might add) approached with his attractive daughter.  I must admit, I found it a bit odd that he kept stroking his daughter's ass, but this was none of my business,

In a thick German accent, he says to me, "I want buy hat.  I give you forty dollars for hat."

My reply: "Fifty bucks or no hat."

"What so special about hat that you not sell for forty dollars?  Is not a ten dollar hat?"

"Buy hat and find out."

Look, normally I wouldn't think of selling out my team, my town, or my integrity for a lousy $50.  Money can't buy everything, ya know.  But then again... money can buy drinks, and those five-dollar Buds do add up.  So, when that old bratwurst-loving, Maginot-line-crushing, cradle robber broke out fifty bucks for my worn out, make-up stained hat, I screamed, "SWEET JESUS!  This is the greatest night of my life!  Drinks for my friends!   Biggie, here is five for the jukebox.  Make me proud."  ...and he did.

Months later, we had just finished playing a show at the Elbow Room in Columbia, SC, and I was sitting on an "Out R Inn"-style back deck enjoying a warm spring night.  I was wearing a replacement "Woody" hat when a guy came up and asked me what the big zero on my hat stood for.  I could have easily said that it stands for "O, you sure are a jackass," but instead I said, "Actually, it is an 'O' for 'Ohio'," and I proceeded to give him the lowdown.

He explained that he only stopped over because he collects hats and that he had found one like it in the back seat of a cab in N.Y.C.

"Really, do you have the hat," I asked him.

"I live right around the corner, I will grab it and come right back."

Sure enough, I turned the hat over and there was the black make-up stain.  Small world.  Go figure.