Tentacle Session #7 was supposed to feature internationally acclaimed musician, performer, raconteur and deadbeat dad Jean Poulet [bio below]. But he couldn't make it, so instead it starred CHICKEN JOHN!!

Chicken told the audience about every dumb job he ever had and read aloud out of some strange woman's lost notebook.

In case you don't believe us, here are some mp3's of Chicken's session (caution, they were recorded LOUD):

Chicken John is notoriously in-famous for many things including his stint as a member of GG Allin's band, his founding of Circus Rediculiss (the world's first punk rock circus), his invention of here.

Jean Poulet's performing career has stretched over 40 years from sideshow oddity to minor spelunker of the New York punk sub-terrain to notorious gadfly of the L.A. fringe. His career has proceeded against the norm, against the grain, and against the odds. Poulet is known for "stand up" comedy and storytelling, songwriting and composing, prestidigitation, mime, folksinging, and celebrity impersonation (McCauley Culkin, Sandra Bernhardt, Keanu Reeves, Walter Mondale, etc.). He is also known to play a mean set of spoons.

In his Tentacle Session performance, entitled "Shuck and Jive", Poulet explored his more sensitive side. Expect poignant and compelling stories about his deprived childhood, jive talking rapper riffs on subjects ranging from registering farm equipment to appliance fetishism, never before seen takes on life in the bike lane. This is a very special Tentacle Session not to be missed--a chance to see a well-seasoned International pseudo-star of the first water: Jean Poulet's San Francisco debut.

Opening for Jean will be Alex Yashkin and his astonishing accordion. Alex will regale the Session audience by playing a varied program of music of the world.

Jean Poulet's performing career began auspiciously with a role as an extra "child" ape alongside Roddy McDowell in Return to the Planet of the Apes. As a young man in his native Ontario, he worked as a barker and performer in travelling carnivals and gained noteriety for his compelling Gordon Lightfoot impersonations. After several late night television appearances however, he decided that the life of a Canadian ham was not what he was after. When the English rock band Atomic Rooster played Ontario, Poulet, on a whim, affected an annoying British accent, claimed a distant relation to the lead singer and soon found himself as AR's underpaid and barely fed roadie.

The Rooster abandoned him, eventually, in the Bowery, NYC, when a drunken Poulet let his true Canuck accent slip. Poulet was taken-in by the burgeoning punk scene in New York, who also gave him the nickname 'Nuck, for his Canadian vocal inflections--a moniker which to this day he tries to downplay. Poulet took to punk like a baby alligator to a toilet bowl and soon founded in rapid succession the bands: Hissy Fit, Blecccchhhh, and Long Island Whitefish. Each of these bands became famous in their short tenure on the New York scene and broke-up quickly at the impending threat of a recording contract.

As Punk phased into Bunk, Poulet fled New York for the warmer climes of Southern California. It was on Muscle Beach that he first offered his comic and musical variety talents to an American audience. That went over very badly. But he fared much better in various indoor venues around the Los Angeles Metropolitan area, including The Sunset Strip Club, Bozonia, Al's Bar and the Cuhuenga Laundromat and Juice Bar. Fame again gestured at Jean when, answering an ad for "Bass-Synth Player Wanted", he served a brief stint with pop rock phenomenon Right Said Fred. The royalties from their #1 hit "Too Sexy" were enough to assure that Jean only needed to work when he wanted to. On his own terms. So it is a great honor that he will be gracing the Tentacle Session stage this month.

Awards and Accomplishments:

Poulet was the 1993 recipient of an NEA "LIfe as Art" grant. He is a past president of the Canadian Comedians (besides John Candy) Association. He was also voted most likely to spontaneously combust by his middle school class.

IN PRAISE OF Jean Poulet:

"Like a low-flying rocket, Poulet simultaneously transfixes you and scares you senseless. His is a brutal but brittle art, which illuminates both the beauty and the practicallity of padded walls." The Pawtucket Examiner

"Rarely has one man spoken so much about so little and made this reporter laugh so hard. If there are country club comedians, Poulet is a putt-putt comedian. And you end up chasing the ball all over the parking lot. I think that I liked it [a lot]." The Truckee Times-Dispatch"