My grandfather used to go on all the time about how fascinating America was. His chief fascination was, “all the ways one can make money!” He didn’t just revel in the idea of the bazaar (a thousand shops, Sahib!). No, what got his juices really going was the creativity. He thought that when a guy came up with a particularly unique business idea? His quote: “Now that’s creative!”

(OK, so he didn’t live to see derivatives trading. I wonder what a guy without even a high school education would’ve thought of that kind of “creativity”. (My rule of thumb? If you don’t understand this kind of derivative? You’ve got no business dealing the financial kind.)

But that sub-rant aside, there are a ton of creative ways to make a living. But what my grandfather really meant was not so much the execution as much as coming up with the idea. “He thought it up and figured out how to get people to pay for it!” Right. […]

The first time I heard this word; the first time I heard that sentence, was the last time I wanted to hear that word or that sentence. My understanding is that the word came into being in the 70’s and I believe it. It is not a word created as were so many by Shakespeare or Milton. It is not a word of mercantile necessity from the 18th century. It isn’t even a word of 19th century commerce and business. It is a word of pure marketing and thus purely post-modern. Blechh.

OK, so how can I incentivize you to buy an album before December 24th, 2012? 😀

On December 24th I will be switching the ‘processor’ that connects my music to the various e-commerce sites. This is not the same as a ‘credit card processor’. Rather, this is yet another machination of the music biz. To keep out the riff-raff (get it?) every artist not linked to a major label must go through one of these ‘brokers’ in order to be […]

Three years in the making and available now! A collection of songs from the opera Detroit, with all new arrangements and performed by JC Harris. Get the details here.

PS: I May Have Something In My Eye…

Or, maybe it’s just another infection. 😀 Seriously, I can’t thank you all (fans and music companies alike) enough for your support. In this day and age, I really had no right to expect anyone to stick with me after so long away from touring—especially to do something so insane-o as ‘grand opera.’ These past three years have been, in many ways, the toughest of my life. And as I’ve noted here, I had no idea when I began how writing Detroit would affect me personally. I used to scoff at journalists and authors who bitch about ‘getting too close to the story.’ But I get it now. Thankfully, my drinking days are over or I’d be in trouble, buddy. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s […]

Forget Neuromancer, Global Warming and that Maya End Of The World Thing. Here are my predictions for the next 40 years.

1. Use of the internet will be a lot like driving: Citizens will be required to get a license to use it (except for kiddie sites) and be subject to fines for abusing the privilege.

2. Everyone will be required to have insurance of two kinds:
a) Liability for hurting others
b) Protection against damage you suffer

3. Since there will be no paper records, there will be an FDIC or FEMA like organisation which provides insurance to everyone for data loss as a result of outages, disasters or crimes. ISPs and Big Data will pay into a super-fund to cover this, just as banks currently do for investor deposits.

4. There will be a national ID; embedded in your cell phone, which you will be required to carry at all times.

5. You will not expect to have anything like privacy because every transaction you do on-line (which will be basically anything from a phone […]

To compensate for the aforementioned (and frankly inexplicable) lack operatic income, I’ve been playing with some local funk and blues groups which were quite well paid but I found myself repeatedly self-destructing. (More on that in a separate rant.) So I’ve been begging, borrowing, stealing work for various local pit bands—community theatre, dinner theatre, etc. Since my various maladies, I sure ain’t the picker I once was, but thank goodness there are still gigs where reading is a pre-requisite; and thank goodness all the jokes about guitarists and sheet music ring truer than ever. It’s a living.

And it’s given me a chance to watch all the low budget ways that you can stage various gags. I kept getting hung up on ‘impossibilities’. There are so many events in any staged production which defy believability if you think about it too much. But it seems that I have to constantly remind myself the very thing I love about the theatre: people want to suspend disbelief. I don’t have to worry so […]