I have to remember who I am.

 Here is the back story. 

In March I went back to Nashville and shot a pilot for a game show I had the idea for in October. It was a one thing led to another thing that ended up being finished.

I came back to Los Angeles and gave it to a friend that does editing and he did an excellent job on it. 

I was going to start pitching it at the beginning of Q2. 

The first week was Easter. I had told the church I attend that I would help with the Good Friday and the Easter services. So there went the first week in the quarter.

My son had started to do Drum and Bass shows (EDM) in San Diego and NAMM was having their yearly event the second week so there went that week. So much fun though.

The next week I was able to pitch another show. Thinking I would be all creative I created an awesome page-turning pitch deck with deeply moving music and made a youtube video out of it. Not only did they pass in 30 seconds but later that day I mysteriously received the new Guidelines and Standards for Pitch Decks. I decided to take the rest of the week and book a room in Thousand Oaks and work on making 20-page decks out of the 180-page guidelines. Goodbye, week 3.

 Week 4? The WGA decided to strike. So now I am out on a picket line every day. Meeting some of the most awesome writers of my favorite shows. It is really a blessing I believe.

It reminds me of when I first moved to Nashville and was able to use my superpower of Volunteering to help the 2MNC conference and over a weekend met just about every Lable Head, Producer, Attorney, and person involved in the Music Industry in Nashville,

So now to today. There is a person I see often at the library in Burbank. He is never working and his car has expired tags from Florida. I asked him what he does and he said he was a producer. I told him I believe I will have to become a producer if I am ever going to get my movies made. I asked him how he learned and he said he was;t the guy to ask.

My mentor Darren Hardy has a 5-3-1-30-30 plan to learn anything new. When he said it I realized that I did about the same thing for everything I have ever learned. Here it is.

Get 5 books on the subject.

Get 3 Podcasts or books on a recording.

 Schedule 1 conference or training.

Spend 30 minutes a day reading

Spend 30 days practicing.

You will be able to learn any new skill in just 13 weeks. One quarter.

I realized this is what I have done my whole life. I learned to be a musician and have had five record deals. I have played music on every content except Antarctica. 

I have become an Actor and have been in over 100 Movies and TV shows. 

I have been a writer and had two shows in acquisition and three in production. Including one in production right now, three in development, three I am actively pitching and one I am writing.

I learned to be a manager and help so many people achieve their dreams.

Now I have decided to become a Producer and produce my movies. 

Wish me luck, pray for me, watch me, or get out of my way. I will do this. 

When Crazy Shows Up

My partner and I live in Nashville and work in Los Angeles. Both cities have their share of interesting people. 

Once in Nashville, we went to the movies. It was to see Speilbergs version of West Side Story.

Most of the seats were empty. But we had reserved seating. A gentleman in his late thirties walked in and sat beside my partner. He had a big tub of popcorn. I thanked him for bringing food. 

He stood up and screamed at her that he had PTSD and some other mental problem that stemmed from a food incident when he was a child. Then he stormed out.

5  minutes later he came back in. Then every 5 minutes he would leave and come back in 5-minute intervals.

Ruined the movie for us.

We couldn't believe it. We just sat there and watched it happen.

Now in LA, we have a saying. We are now and in the future going to do it in Nashville also, When crazy shows up we leave.

No questions, no explanations, no heroism. Just exit as quickly as we can. Get the heck out.

I cannot tell you how many times I have left an event because crazy has shown up.

Watch the hand

 My partner was telling me a story about the difficulties she was having talking to members of the Gen Z generation. She asked why I thought they were the way they are.

I said look at moms now days. They push strollers, and carts. Go to parks and swing the kids on swings. All the things that were done for us. But now, all the time, moms are looking at a devise in their hands.

They are not communicating with their kids. Missing the laughter and joy of their children. They are not paying any attention to their kids so their kids have no frame of reference to communicate with others. They have to scream and yell to get any attention at all. I don't know if it is sad. I guess only time will tell?

Rememer we all learn primarily with mirror neurons in our brains. Kids may not always listen to you but they are always watching. You are their cues on how to deal with the world.

I do know that people today. all people today are just looking for anyone to give them recognition. Respect. Acknowledgment. Just the simple I see you and I understand your need for respect is enough to stop most disagreements.

Now in age that people a shooting their neighbors for having a ball in their yard or tuning around in their drive way I think letting people know you value them is as important to your life as it is to theirs.

All Things Are New Again.

It's amusing to think that my life began as a songwriter. I remember once asking my brother why he had never read any of my screenplays, to which he replied that his earliest memory was of me playing him a "stupid" (his words) song I had written when he was around five years old.

This means that I've been writing for more than fifty-six years now. It's quite a long time!

I often share the story of how I met my partner, and we went to the Post Office to collect royalty checks for my earlier songs. When she found out, she suggested that instead of writing short rhyming songs, I should write longer stories without the need to rhyme and cast her in them. This led me to become a screenwriter.

Although I now write short stories again, I no longer feel the need to make them rhyme. Thanks to the internet, I can easily share my stories with the world.

My Blood is Boiling

 I love my brain. 

I love hacking my brain.

My mentor describes the brain as having three parts. A robot, a monkey, and the controlling center.

Now the controlling center thinks it is in control, but it isn't.

The robot is the habitual part of the brain. It controls all the mechanical parts. Blood, breathing, repair. Studies have shown that the brain is more active when you are asleep than awake and it is precisely this part that explains why. 

My partner is taking a class right now and she said this morning that she doesn't want to miss a class because she doesn't want to forget all she is learning.

I told her she DOES want to forget everything. Really what she should do is work on it so often that the robot takes over and she doesn't actively have to remember any part of it. Remember learning to drive anyone? Same thing. Now we drive for a large part of the day and don't even think about it.

Think about this. Most people on the road are driving by robot also.

Now the monkey part. That is the emotional part. The ADD. Oh look some thing shiny, some thing fun. It will take you down rabbit holes all day long if you let it. 

You think you are in control but it is really like you are a rider on a elephant and the elephant is going to go where it wants to go. 

Everything you do is by emotion. You just rationalize it to think you have some control in your life.

The best we can hope for is making a game out of our tasks so our monkey brain doesn't get bored and wonder what it's missing on social media.

Now for a game. 

Ina moment close your eyes and think of a lemon.

Smell it. Look at the color. Imagine the weight. 

Now take a big bit out of it. In your mind.

Is your mouth watering? Is your face puckering?

Are you having a physical response to a totally imagined thought?

Now what if you could hack your brain for other responses? 

That is what happened to me today. A totally unreal, thought made me upset and got my blood to boil. In the end though it did cause me to write new blog. 

The Jesus Revolution.

I went to see the Jesus Revolution the day it was released. I thought it was awesome. It reminded me

of the times I was able to work services for Chuck Smith and Greg Laurie. Fine people.

It also reminded me of my little part of the story.

Let's go back to when I was seven years old. My babysitter let me stay up to watch Don Kirchner's

Rock Concert one night. Alice Cooper was on. I thought he was really weird, but his guitar players were

so cool. That started a cycle of asking for a guitar for Chirstmas, then my Eighth Birthday. Then for

Christmas. Then my Ninth Birthday. Then For Christmas again. 

I am sure I wasn't the most pleasant of children by then because my brother, who by the way, didn't

even want a guitar got an electric guitar and amp, and I received a cheap plastic acoustic with plastic

strings. We both got 32-page Mel Bay beginning books and I got a book of twelve Christmas Songs.

On a side note by 5:00 PM that night I had learned all 32 pages and I held a, I'm sure crappy, concert

of the 12 songs. 

I was so happy with that little guitar. There were a couple of Nuns at the school I went to that played.

They would teach me different picking patterns. I remember them asking me if I wanted to join them to

play at nursing homes, soup kitchens, and orphanages after school during the week. 

My Dad at the time was converting Latin Masses to any one of the dozen or so languages he spoke.

I often stayed at school from 8:00 AM till 9:00 PM.

This went on for years. In Seventh Grade, as I was told, The Roman Catholic Church wanted to develop

a Guitar Mass in response to this thing called the Jesus Movement. I remember hearing that a lot of

High School and College students were leaving the church and joining it.

They asked a Nun who was staying at the convent to perform the Mass. Her name was Sister

Bernadette and there had been a movie about her called The Singing Nun about her 1963 hit called

Dominique. I remember her saying that she had enough popularity but there was a group at the

convent that performed all over town and that she was sure we would do a fine job.

Well after, I'm sure, weeks of practice the day came. We were to do three Masses. The morning mass,

a specials performance after school for the parents, and the big show, The Evening Mass. Like people

from Rome and from all over the world were going to be there. 

The morning Mass went perfectly. I thought we did a fine job. I remember being nervous but not as

nervous as the Sisters I was playing with.

The afternoon performance for the parent was a different thing. 

I couldn't tune my guitar. I kept trying and trying but it went out of tune on each song. After the third or

fourth song my Seventh-grade teacher. I will not state her name here even though I know she is long

dead, came up to me and started yelling that I was an embarrassment to the Church, an

embarrassment to my family, an embarrassment to my school, my friends, and to GOD!

I still remember looking at the faces of the parents. I can still see her face yelling at me. 

She said there was no place for a guitar in church.

I did what any twelve-year-old would do. I threw my guitar down and ran crying out of the building.

Outside of the school, there was a pavilion and then a parking lot up a hill. At the top of the hill you

could go left to soccer and baseball fields or to the left to a cemetery.

The cemetery had a giant Crucifix and on days that I was having to stay late, I would go there. I always

wondered about a Crucifix but a dove would fly over and circle three times and land on my right side

and I would talk to it. To my young brain that was the Holy Spirit and I knew he was real.

That day I threw myself on the ground and cried out to God. "Why am I alive?" "I am such a waste of

breath." A waste of time." "An embarrassment." "Lower than a worm."

About thirty minutes passed and one of the Nuns found me. She said the whole school was looking for

me. She said that my teacher should have never said those things. That there were a group of people

that didn't want things to change. She also told me that when they looked at my guitar they could see

where someone stepped on the neck and cracked it. There was no way it would hold a tune, but if I

wanted to play that night I could borrow her guitar.

Now the funniest part happened about thirty years later. 

I was driving down a road and I saw a church with a sign that said Catholic Evangelical and I thought,

that’s a contradiction of terms. I noticed that the start time was in about five minutes so I quickly parked

and went in. 

The service was the same as I remembered. Lots of standing and kneeling at certain times. Call and

response. They did have guitars playing music. There was a man and three women and only three

guitars.

After the service, I approached the group and spoke to the man. I asked about the instrumentation.

He explained that three women and one man with three guitars was the preferred tradition for a guitar

Mass. 

No, I didn’t tell him why it was the tradition. I am still amazed it became one.

In the movie they stated that the Jesus movement lasted from 1966 till 1972. The year I played that

guitar Mass. But I don't think that it has stopped yet.

Oh, I still talk to doves.

Rain Rain. Bub Bye.

 I am pretty excited right now. I am leaving tomorrow to drive back to Nashville for 10 days.

I am shooting a Pilot with my GF and starting to record Season 3 of The Underground Gospel Show.

I will go to church and head out after the first service. I am going to go through Phoenix AZ. then cut up to Gallup NM.

There is a ton of snow and the 15 is closed so I am going South before heading East. There are Costco's in Phoenix and Albuquerque so I'll be able to get tier 1 gas. Then it's cheap gas from Texas to Tennessee.

I have so many great books to listen to on the way out there. I was walking by the library computer and I saw a recommendation for Julie Soloman's book. Get Everything You Want. Now I am not much for clickbait but I downloaded it and have been listening for the past couple of days. Last night she started talking about her website. PitchItPerfect.net. Of course, I started laughing out loud. The number one skill I am developing this year is Pitching. Pitching is what you have to do after you write a screenplay. Somehow my inner librarian knew that I needed to her what she had to say about the subject.

I am getting a lot out of it and can't wait to develop a killer Origin Story and Pitch for each of my shows.

I have also been compiling a list of Creative and Development Execs using IMDbPro. People I am going to call to set meetings before I return to LA in a couple weeks.

Anyways back to my list of Vital Priorities to get done today before I leave. 

Anything you would like t see me cover on The Underground Gospel Show? Drop me a line.