Today on Music Row
I saw The Evil King just in from The Big City
He’s an entertainment attorney
*
Andy Byrd takes me aside, in the lobby of Warner-Chapell writer’s room,
to tell me they had a staff meeting. The decision: Though I’m welcome
to keep my share of publishing rights for songs I have written
with Warner-Chapel writers, they are not interested in signing me
I cancel the day’s writing appointments. Go back to Madison Massart’s
house and vomit.
“It’s a blessing in disguise,” Jodie from BMI says. “Don’t take it as rejection. Five of seven writers I work with aren’t getting deals renewed.”
He says, “The way it used to be, was publishers had three tiers of writers: Top Guns, Up and Comers, and Newcomers. Each tier working off the other, refreshing the ranks.
That’s how it was until five years ago. Now they only sign Top Guns. And some Top Guns do their own publishing ’cause they’re tired of dealing with publishers.”
I’ll have to refigure my time frame for success
*
I buy a second-hand guitar, a 20 year old Guild, mahogany red top
Don’t know how to play it, but I’m gonna learn
O, poet’s guitar!
Gonna eat homemade noodles and sing the blues
From Nashville to California
From London to Ukraine
I’ve seen those sunny days
And I’ve seen, icy rain
Oh, my guitar!
Power outage
Another ice storm
Last night Nashville skyline flashed green
In retrospect:
Nashville’s brand of southern
hospitality is patronizing
They say, I’m wonderfully brilliant
Then they pick my pockets
and steal my shoes
When I first came ashore,
a starry-eyed gambler, I said,
“Nashville’s the only American city
that respects the writer.” I was wrong
Nowhere in America respects the writer
The writer is obsolete
Dream Dealers wire our brains
and dole out prefab hypnotic beats
on Monopoly Radio
That song they want, is a song they already now
If they know it already, it must be great
“That’s artistic genius!” They say
“I killed Tin Pan Alley”
Bob Dylan couldn’t have known
what he said
Pop culture as art is an illusion
The poet is in exile
Will I ever wake up?
Icy fingers, runny nose
This might be the world, who knows?
Oh play, guitar!
3.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck outside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again
— Bob Dylan
Plan Z:
1) Watch the sun come up
2) Move out of Madison Massart’s house in 5 days
3) Catch up with Dolly Jones at Rotier’s
4) Call Great Cumberland/ MCA/ Starcatcher publishers
5) Pitch a song to an A & R Lady at MCA
6) Meet Jim Sherradan at Hatch Show Prints
7) Write with Philip Russell, Dennis Knutson, Judd Erickson,
Lee Bach, Tommy Lee and Michael Woody
8) Look for folks in San Francisco to write songs with
9) Work on The Drums of Grace
10) Continue research on Langston Hughes, the famous songwriter
11) Watch the sun set when that time comes
and don’t think about becoming anymore
*
Massart’s getting divorced
Selling his house
I have nowhere to go
Dolly Jones’ offers me
her penthouse on the West End
I am thrilled and grateful
When I arrive at the penthouse
The toilet is on the floor
Plaster peeling off the walls
A stained mattress droops on the decomposing carpet
I call Dolly, polite but freaked out
“I told you it wasn’t fixed up,” she says
I watch a red sunset from the penthouse balcony
Somebody must have died here
Full moon
Full moon
I’m leaving this crazy mess
*
You don’t know what you’re doing! You could make it!
Thank you, Mr. Asshole
Now if you don’t mind get off my shoelaces
Ya wanna be star don’t ya?
