Unemployment Polka Music Video

I had fun this weekend with found footage from the copyright-free Prelinger Archives: I've posted a music video today for Unemployment Polka as featured in my musical in progress Wrecking Ball. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LzL4jvF3q4

New York City rules

Flew to New York to play some songs for BMI Musical Theater Workshop. Afterwards, I walked from Word Trade Center neighborhood north to Washington Square Park, site of an LSD trip I'd had several years earlier. The parade of humanity, needless to say, was overwhelming and fizz-popping reminder of what I miss the most, living in Los Angeles: people, walking

Dog bite, BMI, Car Dent, Big Wired Traffic

August update: I got bit by a dog - - my own sweet Huck - - the other morning. A rival dog off the leash came racing over to attack us. I got between the two, and Huck accidentally took a piece out of my calf. Ouch.

Oh, then I had an allergic reaction to echinacha. I've been taking it ever since a great Method actor (Sopranos) told me it prevented colds. I forgot to shake up a new bottle and choked, eyes tearing, coughing, all that. So, no more echinachea. I supsect it of being a placebo type thing anyway.

Then I posted Wired.com's most popular "gallery" story in July, and took the Amtrak down to Comic-Con and had pork chops with my editor at a restaurant that supposedly used to be Wyatt Earp's whore house. On the train back, I sat across from French director Michel Gondry and his girlfriend.

Last week I found out from BMI in New York that I'm a finalist for their musical workshop. I go there Sept. 8 to audition.

Watching "Mesrine" tonight, about French criminal. Gripping stuff. The guy channels young robert De Niro.

Songs and Blow-Out Preventers

I had been picturing the month of May as a chance to wheel out 30 of my tunes online. I did go ahead and do that with my 30 Songs in May page. But mostly, I obsessed over Container Domes, Blow Out Preventers and Top Kills. I used to live on Pawley's Island, South Carolina, so I know first hand about the hypnotic beauty of the wetlands. Responding to images of the Gulf oil spill, I yelled at the TV so much I got hoarse. I called all my "representatives" and ranted to their poor phone-handlers, and sent emails, and twittered about the government's Katrina-like sluggishness.

Anyway, I've spent Memorial Day Weekend with a cold. Whee!

Bummer: Talented "Wire" Writer R.I.P.

David Mills died this week from a brain anuerism. I interviewed him a few years back when he was producing a TV series called King Pins. On his cluttered office in Burbank, California. Nice guy, smart and loved music. He had a blog which will give you a good idea of his interests.

It's weird when somebody I've done stories about kick the bucket. Heath Ledger, gone. Had a really funny bunch of stories from Jon and a few months later, he drops dead. Allen Ginsberg, over the phone, always a high point as was Frank Zappa.

Rockin Video from the Archives

Okay, uploaded my first YouTube video this weekend. Ex-ODD guitarist sent me a DVD of the band in Chicago, i figured out how to use this iMovie editing software, onverted a clip into a movie file and threw it up there under the desparately named flamewidget channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/flamewidget

Fairfax Feedback

Got some useful feedback today from Alice and Norman Tulchin this afteroon after they listened to my 16-song Fairfax CD over the weekend. They've produced a ton of Broadway shows including Kristen Scott Thomas' Seagull couple years ago. I'm also awaiting a critque from Rokko Jans, composer for the Tony Award winning troupe Chicago Shakespeare Theater. wrote a few songs for one of Rokko's musicals a few years ago.