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Biography
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I was born below the Mason-Dixon line in the last year of the first half of the twentieth century.
I was bom with extra bones in my feet - in the place where the arch is on most people. This made me an
outstanding swimmer, as my feet were large, flat, and shaped like swim fins.
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My competitors at swim
meets envied those feet, and frequently whined that they afforded me an unfair advantage. Started
playing the ukelele at six, guitar around nine. Wrote my first song at around seven, and recorded
it in a recording booth on the pier at Atlantic City, N.J, It was about an octopus getting its arms blown
off, one at time; and I remember each verse including the expostulation, "Boom!" followed by a lyrical
recounting of how another arm or tentacle was being severed from the body. I realize now, having
absorbed Freud, that this was undoubtedly a song about castration anxiety - just read "testicle" for
"tentacle" and you'll see what I mean. It must have increased my anxiety to realize, that as a male
of the human species, I had only the requisite number of such appendages, as opposed to the lucky octopus who
possessed "tentacles" to spare.
I left college on receiving a high draft number during the Viet Nam War, and went to Nashville where
I wrote songs and met and played with many great songwriters. I also worked, washing dishes and pulling
beer in a place that was famous for its traditional steak and biscuits (that's an old Southern specialty, like
grits and intolerance). I remember there were signs on many businesses reading, "NO HIPPIES ALLOWED;"
and the telephone company would refuse to install a phone if you listed your occupation as "Musician."
Those were the good old days along Music Row, before lap-top computers, when songwriters were still carving their
lyrics onto stone tablets. I left Nashville to go back to college when my music publisher's wife
ran off with my publisher's business partner, and their publishing company, ironically named "Uniforce
Music," collapsed.
I graduated Otium Cum Dignitate from a small college in upstate New York; then went to Los Angeles and
got a job as an assistant film editor. My first week on the job I worked a hundred and three hours
at a flat rate of three dollars an hour - for a week's paycheck of $309.00. This seemed like a small
fortune at the time. I sometimes had to sleep overnight on the floor in the editing facility, which
was overrun by rats and located just across from the street from the Hollywood unemployment office
(whether by happenstance, or as a subtle inducement to the overworked employees of said facility to
keep banging away, I don't know). Incidentally, George Lucas's sound editor was editing the sound
effects for the first Star Wars movie, just across the hall from me, in that same rat-ridden facility.
On this first job, I managed to get one of my songs, "My Heart Is Just A Retread In That Tire Sale
Called Life," into a movie called, Skateboard, starring Leif Garrett. The movie was terrible, but my
song received excellent reviews in England, including one from the Manchester Guardian that said it was
the best thing in the movie (I really believe this was meant as a compliment). I had recorded the song
on four-track tape in one or two takes, with musicians from upstate New York; but the song made it onto
the RCA soundtrack album, along with others by the Jefferson Starship and Dr. John, thereby making me,
if for only a short time, a genuine RCA recording artist.
I then subsided back into musical obscurity for the next twenty-odd years, assistant editing on such
movies as Coal Miner's Daughter, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Back to the
Future, The Last Married
Couple in America, and Teachers. I actually wrote a song for Last Married Couple in America which I never
submitted, but can now be heard at last, on my album, Brave New Heart. It's the song called, "The Last
Married Couple in America," in case you were wondering. I am currently recording songs for my album, Steamboat A-comin',
which will feature other performers including Bob Frank and Jana Anderson singing the songs. The album will attempt to recreate
an actual performance on a showboat on the Mississippi River, circa 1920, from the moment the showboat arrives at the levee to
the final curtain.
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