Wyclef, Preacher's Son, Ichiban

This morning I woke up a few times. The party last night was a real treasure, and I thank McGovern and the lovely Ms. Alex for their hosting. Old friends, new ones, and the promise of a few new fans for tonight's Ryan James Ponies comedy show (featuring me AND FREE BEER! Tonight at 9:30 PM at the West Side Comedy Theater in Santa Monica on the 3rd Street Promenade) made it a vastly unforgettable evening. But as is often the case with fun parties, especially ones tucked away in the needlessly confusing hills of UCLA, I awoke this morning feeling slightly dehydrated, more than a little groggy, and fully willing to return to bed.
What a mistake.
When I finally leaped out of bed and pulled the ripcord on my Saturday, I saw my phone blinking. There was a text message from Sprint demanding that I pay my overdue phone bill, which as you might imagine is a really unpleasant way to start the morning. I saw that I had a voicemail as well, and assuming it was probably Susie from Sprint I prepared myself for a few minutes of evasive maneuvers and excuses before buckling down and finally handing over my credit card number.
Man was I wrong.

This is the message I received: "Hey, Matt, what's goin' on? My name is Jay. I work with Wyclef. He actually wanted me to hit you up while he was in LA. Gimme a call back at..."

That's right. Wyclef. As in @wyclef. As in Wyclef Jean, international musical superstar and member of the greatest all-time hip-hop collaboration, The Fugees.

I'll allow you a minute to say WTF.

Perhaps I should explain. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Twitter. A few months ago I sent a message to my followers promoting da Clef that read: "Also, I highly recommend you follow @wyclef . If you've ever wanted to see a hip-hop legend misspell many things, this could be for you." Pretty innocuous, barely funny, but kinda true. A few hours later I received the following response from Wyclef: "@Shorester hah lollll lov it!" Not only was it awesome that Wyclef read my @message and responded, he was also kind enough to prove my point by misspelling both LOL and Love at the same time! Thanks Clef!
It was a fun little exchange and I appreciated that a musician I respect so much took the time to respond to me. It was one of those moments that really proved how wonderful and serendipidous Twitter can be sometimes, that it's more than a Facebook knock-off, that it's actually a new technology worth venerating. I didn't think much more about it after the initial shock wore off, but I kept up with Clef's tweets just to see how the dude was doing.
In the past few days Clef tweeted that he was headed to LA and that any "Warriors" (Clef fans) in the area should send him a message with their phone number so he could contact them. On a whim, I sent Clef a message asking him how I could join up. He started following me on Twitter and I DM'd him my digits and thanked him for all the online entertainment so far. Then it was off to the party for an evening of fun. I literally had zero expectations for a response.

And here we are today. After being stunned into shock by the message from Jay, I waited a little bit to cool down and rang him back. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Jay, what's up? You called me earlier..?
Jay: Yeah, you said you were in LA and Wyclef wants to bridge the gab between the fans and the internet.
Me: Yeah, that sounds cool.
Jay: Cool, then I'll see if I can get him on conference call.
(This is where I paused to steel myself. I had no idea I'd be talking to the man directly. After a thirty second pause, Wyclef came on the line.)
Wyclef: What's up, Matt? This is Wyclef. How's it going, my Warrior? (Sic: This may be a little innacurate as I was still dealing with the shock of speaking to him. At first I was so stunned that I was worried I was being tricked by a Wyclef impersonator, but after a few brief moments listening to the lilt and cadence of his voice it was clear that this was the timbre of the man I'd been listening to on albums for years. Needless to say I was amazed.)
Me: Hey, Wyclef! What's up? Whag'wan, my brother? (I am an idiot.)

Wyclef went on to explain that he sees the internet as the future of everything and especially communicating messages on a global scale. He seemed excited about the prospect of being able to interact with his fans in a new way. After briefly telling him how much I appreciated his posts on Twitter that shared his new music and videos, he told me that he would pass me back to Jay but that he would see me tomorrow at the SECRET MEETING LOCATION at ten.

Me: Ten PM?
Wyclef: Ten AM. Warriors never sleep.

He passed me back to Jay. Jay let me know about the secret location (which out of respect for the man's privacy I will not divulge) and told me that Wyclef will be working with the BET Music Awards on a tribute to Michael. Jay and I shared some sorrow for MJ's passing, and since it sounded like Wyclef would be busy working on more important matters I resisted the temptation to invite Wyclef to play an accoustic set before our improv show tonight. (That would've been a much better use of the opening five, right Jeff?)
In any case, the meeting will go down tomorrow. I recommend that if you're interested in becoming more involved with Wyclef's warriors you head to his new fan site: http://wyclef.ning.com/ I'll keep you posted on what happens and if/when I get to meet the man in person. Hopefully he'll be there tomorrow morning, but I'll fully understand if something comes up. He is an international music star after all. In any case, you'll be the first to hear about it. Cheers. (And come see my show tonight! Free beer!)

P.S. If you know anything about Wyclef's secret meeting place, please keep it to yourself. There's no reason to make this a media frenzy when the guy's being so cool about it.