December 13, 2010
"An Atheist Christmas Song" Now Available for Download!
Hello all,
If you're planning to burn a Christmas CD or looking for a laugh to put on your iPod, my new song "An Atheist Christmas Song" is available for download through CD Baby. If you think it's funny now, wait 'till to comes up on your iPod when you're mowing the lawn next July. It costs me a few bucks to get it on there, so I figure I'll need about 20 folks willing to spring for the .99 cent download to break even. Should I make a profit, I could put it towards the making of my next CD, "Kinda Pregnant" (or next months rent).
Here's the link:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/danmargarita
If you haven't seen the video, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCLlGr96dcM
Thanks,
Dan
Posted by dmargarita at 4:31 PM
January 1, 2003
An introduction to "Margaritaville"
When an editor at The Stoneham Independent approached me about having my column published weekly, I said, "Sure, whatever. I'm still getting paid, right?"
When he told me he wanted to use the "Wasting Away in Margaritaville" title, I cringed. For over twenty years I've had to live with people coming up to me and singing Jimmy Buffett's Wasting away again in Margaritaville and thinking that it was the first time I had heard it. However, I understood that it was a natural connection and after suffering at the hands of Mr. Buffett all these years, I figured he owed me, and if he wants to sue me, it'll be good publicity.
Unfortunately, columns prior to 1999 are not on floppy disk and I'm not able to retrieve them at this time. So, welcome to my website. Please browse and (hopefully) enjoy.
Thanks,
Dan Margarita
Posted by dmargarita at 6:33 PM
About Dan Margarita
When the comedy boom erupted in the 1980's, Dan Margarita decided to fulfill a lifelong dream. Venturing to the Stitches comedy club in Boston, Dan appeared at an open mike night, and a career was born. His initial success led him to be invited to perform at the first WBCN/Stiches Comedy Riot.
The Boston Globe's Steve Morse declared that Dan had "a promising flare for the absurd." After developing and honing his act, Dan soon began getting paid work in the Boston area and before long at clubs and colleges all over the country. Dan made a number of television appearances including The Good Day Show (Boston, Ma.) and The Late Shift with Kevin Stevens (Ft. Wayne, In.). Dan has performed with such notable comics as Sam Kinison, Lenny Clarke and political satirists Jimmy Tingle and Barry Crimmins.
He was also a member of such sketch comedy groups as Cross Comedy, led by David Cross of HBO's Mr. Show and The Sketch Society.
When the comedy boom began to subside in the 90's, Dan, tiring of the road, put pen to paper, writing occasional humor columns for his local paper, The Stoneham Independent. By the late 90's the column had become quite popular in Stoneham and the paper asked Dan to make it a weekly feature, thus was born Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville. It has appeared in other publications including, The Wilmington Town Crier, The Wakefield Daily Item, The Stoneham Sun and the noted Editorial Humor magazine, which features editorial cartoons and humor from around the world.
Posted by dmargarita at 6:31 PM
January 6, 1999
What's in a Name?
I have to get this off my chest. The idea for calling this column "Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville" wasn't mine. A former editor thought it would be cute and asked me if it was OK, and I said, "Yeah, sure, whatever. Am I hired?"
The truth is that I have wanted to kill Jimmy Buffet for about twenty years now on account of that song. I don't like his music anyway, so him having a huge hit with it has hardly gotten me to write him into my will.
In the last week alone about five people upon hearing my last name have said to me "Boy, I could really go for one of those now." I chuckle politely as I do whenever someone starts singing that song to me, thinking that they're the first ones ever to do that.
Unlike the drink, the name is Italian and may have originally spelled "Margherita" or "Margerita" or "von Schuschnigg."
The reason I bring all of this up is because the big mini-series (that's an oxymoron) on TV this week is Cleopatra. I didn't see it, so here's what my encyclopedia has to say about the woman.
The daughter of Ptolemy XI, at seventeen she married her younger brother Ptolemy XII. (How come my spell check doesn't go off for "Ptolemy" but does for "Beatles?" How often did the programmers of my word processor think that "Ptolemy" was going to come up?) Her brother-husband Ptolemy XII drowned in the Nile, so she then married her even younger brother Ptolemy XIII. (Jerry Lee Lewis had nothing on this woman.) At this time she was having an affair with Julius Caesar and bore him a son named Caesarian who later changed his name to, you guessed it, Ptolemy XIV. Had she lived, she may have married him too. Perhaps all these Ptolemies were the inspiration for George Foreman to name his five sons George.
Oh yes, my point:
All of this and my high school reading of Julius Caesar have me wondering why ancient Rome never had a guy named "Vinnie."
Being of Italian lineage with an uncle named "Tilo" and high school friends named Tom Minghella, Jeff DiTullio and Rocco Zizza, it seems weird to hear of Romans named Ventidius, Trebonius and Decius. Nor do I recall any of my high school conversations with my friends remotely sounding Shakespearian. Listen to how deep one of our get togethers might have sounded had it been scripted by the Bard of Avon and ascribed to the ancient Romans:
TREBONIUS: I am taxed by the games. Let us repair to the fields where we shall refresh ourselves with libations.
VENTIDIUS: Popilius hath promised to join us and provide merriment. Doth anyone know of where he roams?
DECIUS: Am I Popilius' keeper?
LEPIDUS: Popilius is but vermin.
Now here's how it would sound in modern English:
TOM: I'm wiped from the football game. Let's go to Broadway and have a couple of beers.
JEFF: Kell was supposed to come by with a case of beer. Where the hell is he?
DAN: How the *%$@#!& should I know?
ROCCO: Eh, Kell's a maggot.
Well, I missed Cleopatra but next time I watch The Godfather or Goodfellas, I'll pay closer attention to see if anybody gets "whacked" by a guy named Trebonius.
Posted by dmargarita at 11:49 PM