Movie Star - A hate filled drama with much hope  

 

Not facing our fears causes trouble. But if we confront our fears our life can get better. That is the message of this song. 

 

This song is about confronting our fears. 

It is about the dangers of trying to make everything in life about our self. 

It is about the benefits of confronting our problems and yet moving on. 

All in 4 minutes :) 

 

The story is in 4 parts: 

1> She was going to be a movie star but she got pregnant. And she blamed the baby for the death of her dreams.  

2> He grew up into a young man.  What for others came easy was hard for him. He decided to end it all, to take his life 

3> And his momma finally saw… her chance in the spotlight. 

4> He was gone the very next day. Now he can fly. Now he can soar. 

 

This song came to me all at once one morning.  I woke up and in a semi dream sleep sat down at the piano and wrote this. I wrote 90% of it all at once from start to end.  10% was tweaked later. 

 

The woman blames the man and her child for the death of her dreams…and refuses to see her role in this.  

The young man's father left one day and never came back.  The young man is afraid if he confronts his mother, she will also leave.  Then he will be all alone. When the boy was young, his survival depended on having someone to care for him.  So the basis of his fear is very real. But the fear no longer is a threat to him.  He just doesn't know that yet.  The stress threatens his life.  It ultimately makes him suicidal. 

Even with her son being suicidal, about to jump from a building and kill himself, his mother still tries to make it all about her.  She tells everyone that will listen about her story.  How this has caused her pain....she belittles the pain of her son who is fighting for his life.  And she still refuses to see her part in this horrible story.  This is so shocking to the young man that he finally sees things like they are. He comes down off the building and he leaves. 

The young man is now feeling the full force of his fear - the rejection of his father and his mother. But now he realizes he will be ok. 

 

"Frequently we bring about what we fear." says Judith Viorst in Necessary Losses. She says "I do unhesitatingly embrace Freud’s conviction that our past, with all of its clamorous wishes and terrors and passions, inhabits our present, and his belief in the enormous power of our unconscious—of that region outside our awareness—to shape the events of our life. I also embrace his belief that consciousness helps, that recognizing what we’re doing helps, and that our self-understanding can expand the realm of our choices and possibilities." 

 

My unconscious brought this story to my attention.    

If you have read this far the story has your attention too. 

What fear do I have that if I confront it and change, will help me? What fear do I need to confront that can open my life to new and wonderful choices? 

What new and wonderful choices may be awaiting you...if you confront your fears.

 

 

You can watch Movie Star here

Movie Star

 

 

I know saying Facebook is requiring my passport because of my song sounds crazy...but they are 



Facebook has identified my song "Beautiful Way" as being of "National Importance". 

In a way it is flattering. But mostly it is wrong.

As an artist I strive to deal with deep issues.  This includes dealing with issues of national & international importance. 

The song "Beautiful Way" is on "hold" until I provide my passport.  (It is not Tax id information Facebook is demanding.) 

I highly resent being required to show my passport in order for Facebook to approve my artistic expressions. 

Because it sounds so crazy here are details from what is going on if you want to see it... 

DETAILS 

SUBJECT: 

Requiring me to scan my passport and send it to "Facebook" is very concerning. 

(It is not Tax id information Facebook is demanding.) 

SUMMARY: 

Facebook has identified the song "Beautiful Way" as being of "National Importance". 

The song "Beautiful Way" is on "hold". 

I must follow a 20+ step process that includes: 

> Facebook requires me to scan my Passport ( or Driver’s Lisc.) and send it to Facebook 

> Facebook then investigates me. 

> If I am approved, Facebook mails (not emails) authorization to me. 

This is a new "control" process. 

Again, this is not Tax id information Facebook is demanding. 

My music page is advertised via Facebook, newspapers, and other media. 

A newspaper nor any other media has ever required us to show my passport or similar non-tax info to promote my music. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

From the process: 

> Select the type of identification you'd like to use. US driver's licenses, US state ID cards and US passports are accepted. After selecting, click Next. 

> Your answers are reviewed by trusted partners. You must answer a sufficient amount of questions correctly. 

> After receiving your letter in the mail… 

You can read more here… 

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/208949576550051 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

I highly resent being required to show my passport in order for Facebook to approve my artistic expressions.

iTunes and horses and a great way to work 

Checking on the new album as it goes on sites; horse stuff; lunch with Wendy... nothing better 

October 5, 2018 is when the new album will be available world wide on these sites and more. 

      

                   

 

We use TuneCore to distribute the album to all these places. We load the music, art work, and info to Tunecore. Tunecore puts it on all these other places and tracks the sales. 

That is the kind of stuff I’m checking on for the album. 

Horse stuff I’m checking on is about what’s going on at the ranch.  How the horses are doing, how many visitors we had to the ranch’s website yesterday, what horses are being sold, jobs that are being done like fences built. Stuff like that. 

Somebody asked me when I was going to retire?  I said well I do horses and music. What would you have me stop doing? ? 

It’s a great way to work. 

Then as a super bonus….there’s lunch with Wendy ?

 

 

What are replicators you might ask? 

Wendy’s been working away with the replicators. 

What are replicators you might ask? 

You give them one copy they give you bunches back. 

But first, boy is the devil in the details in this process. 

Type setting, fonts, credits, bar codes, spacing, printing, packaging, insertion….tons of details. 

Here’s a pic of some of the twilight zone replicators at work. Not really a sexy part of the recording process ... but yeah i guess maybe it  is  :)

 

 

Travis

What song goes where? 

What song in what order on the album? Does it even matter these days…with playlists and ripping? 

I think it does. 

We're thinking: 

  • Cry (If We Were Vampires), 
  • then get emotional ? ( Towns Van Zandt’s Tecumseh Valley ) , 
  • then get really sad (Maybe), 
  • then do a few songs that are sweet sad stories, 
  • then say yeah but nobody really knows about life anyway so just sing along to this final happy little sad song ? 

This is Wendy working with George to finalize the songs orders.

All this thought seems a waste because when people get the album they will just put it in whatever playlist order they want anyway. Oh Well. 

As long as they don’t rearrange Willie’s “Red Headed Stranger” Album.  That would be a sacrilege ?

 

I think we’re going to use a photo of silence... 

 

Album covers. What to use. I think we’re going to use a photo of silence...

Or at least as close as we can come to a photo of silence.

That's kind of a funny thought for an album cover :)

 Wendy took the photo and beautifully captured the silence and feelings we get when we are there.
 

There’s a place on the land where Ute Mountain comes down, 

Where a man can stand and not here a sound. 

And it’s there, 

I can hear my soul.
 

Travis

I think she likes what she hears… 

Wendy is listening to the songs from the CD Image of the next album.

The person mastering the songs, George, sent them to us. 

These are the actual images that will be sent to the CD manufacturer. 

This is where we are in the journey of getting a song to a CD: 

  • Write It 
  • Learn It 
  • Play It 
  • Record It 
  • Mix It 
  • Master It 
  • CD Image <<<  we’re here 
  • CD Production 
  • CD 

Course you have to live thru stuff and then be hard wired in a weird enough way to have to write it in the first place.  If I didn’t write it and tell my stories I’d be crazier than I am now. ?

 

One more Wendy, because she's not only talented, she's pretty...

 

"I've got a woman I love, she's crazy paints like God..."  

At Lunch today I had one of the best views in the world....and the view of the church was pretty too ? 

That’s when Guy Clark's line “I've got a woman I love, she's crazy, paints like God", came to mind. 

    Alfred Stieglitz thought that of Georgia O'Keeffe. 

    Guy Clark thought that of Suzanne. 

    I think that of Wendy. 

This view started this whole "woman I love, paints like God" thought...

 

Alfred Stieglitz thought "the woman he loved painted like God" of Georgia O'Keeffe.

See the church from our lunch?

 


Guy Clark thought "the woman he loved painted like God" of Suzanne. He wrote the line in "Stuff That Works" that also has:

    "I got an ol' blue shirt 
    And it suits me just fine 
    I like the way it feels 
    I wear it all the time"

 This is one of Suzanne's paintings of an old blue shirt of Guy's. 

Get the beauty in the connection of  an "old blue shirt" and "the woman I love that paints like God" ?  Guy and Suzzane did.

 

I think "the woman I love paints like God" of Wendy. This is one of my favorites of Wendy's paintings....

Guy wrote… 

    “I got a woman I love, she's crazy, paints like God 

    She's got a playground sense of justice, She won't take odds  

    I got a tattoo with her name right through my soul  

    I think everything she touches turns to gold” 
 

Yep…and I’m a lucky man because of it.

Great music comes from the imposters... 

Stressful times. Good times. 

Success and failure.

The “imposters” according to the poet Rudyard Kipling. 

"If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;    

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;    

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

    And treat those two impostors just the same; "
 

These imposters will bring out the beauty of life and music if we look for it.

Here’s family and horses at our ranch which brings out the beauty for me.

 

 

 

When I was in Jr High I wanted to play Wildfire and have a cool girlfriend...  

Michael Martin Murphy playing Wildfire was on the radio everyday and it had that cool piano part.  I thought it would be great to do that one day. 

Of course I also wanted a cool girlfriend. 

Well.... 

Last night at his show, Michael Martin Murphy asked me to sit in with him and play the piano part on Wildfire. 

I have great memories of that song. Quite an honor. 

And Wendy, my wife, has been my cool girlfriend for 41 years. 

It doesn't get any better.

 

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