Tom Writes a Song. One reason that I'm so hard on new songwriters is that I've been writing music since I wrote my first song in 1964. Since then I have written as of this week #1200 songs/compositions/works. And since playing in a box office is only getting me limited exposure, I thought I'd offer any musician interested some of my songs. IMO they are very good, well crafted with quite a variety. I've written pieces in all these TYPES of music: pop, autobiographical songs, rock and roll, protest songs, country, blues, Rockabilly, 50's classic rock and roll style, 60's classic rock style, children's songs, heavy metal, rock guitar instrumentals, Bagatelles (short piano pieces in a classical type style) long piano pieces, short orchestral pieces, classical guitar, jazz improvisations, bossanova style, sing alongs, peace songs, surf music, 50's style instrumentals, a song based on pi - where numbers = musical notes, 100's of songs in 10+ illustrated short stories (rock operas) children's songs, fractured Beethoven and other songs that mix part of my music with other composers works, hymns, movie theme songs, incidental music, love songs, circus music, music for bells in bell towers, music for kalimba, folk ballads based on old lyrics, dance music, waltzes, bluegrass, and even one autobiographical waltz called "The musical history of TMH aged 14-31). Anyone interested in playing or recording them - get in touch.
Bagatelles. Most people who know me as a musician think of me as one who plays my Silvertone guitar in the box office of the Inwood Theater. But I also write short piano pieces in a more classical style. I call these 'bagatelles". They are usually 3 part pieces with an opening major part, a middle minor part, and a repeat of the opening major part. It's a musical format that seems to work well. My friend, Scott Loehr, got me started on this. I knew him as a pop piano player, songwriter - but the music he showed me one day, was orchestral and very Beethoven-ish. I thought to myself, can rock musicians write classical? Is that allowed? So first I imitated something both Bach and Chopin had done. They each wrote assorted keyboard pieces with one in each major or minor key. I tried that. I liked it. It was a fun challenge. Then I began to do more of these bagatelles. To date I've written well over a 100 with some quirky titles such as "A Mathematical Calculation", "Index Fingers" and, "Fractured Beethoven". To hear some of these (or if you prefer some jazzy keyboard pieces too - but that's another story) go to our website.
Tom Visits the DMA. Last week on a day off I went to the Dallas Museum of Art to see the exhibit of turn of the century paintings from the Smithsonian.
Favorites were the first painting you see, Sargent's elegant portrait of a socialite; and the last, Thayer's moving painting of an Angel based on his daughter. While there I looked at the other exhibits and the rest of the museum and took these notes. It now costs $6 to enter. It used to be free. That's sad that it's come to charging an entry fee now. The photos in the hall were badly displayed. There needs to be a separate room for the best photos they own. The museum doesn't open till 11 AM. I'd like to see it expand its hours. They own a Twombly - a modern artist that I think is a real goof. I saw his painting from across the room - its huge and looks like a blackboard with handwritten connected cursive chalk 'o's all over it. I began to laugh out loud and the guard just looked at me wondering. The room for Texas artists is too slim and small - perhaps 10-20 works total. I mean it is the DALLAS Museum. It should have Dallas and Texas works and lots of them. But all of that is minor compared to my two main complaints. The Wendy Reeves exhibit is absurd. They've recreated her home in the Museum, but you can't see the paintings across the roped off rooms. Reeves is a nut. A nut that should have donated her art without the idiotic restrictions. And finally this most important complaint of all - There was sunlight falling on the right bottom corner of an Albert Bierstadt landscape!. Do you know what direct sunlight does to 150 year old oil paintings? Of course you do - everyone knows. It hurts the paintings, fades the colors, damages the art. I was really shocked that this was going on. This is a major error of a major museum. It should not happen. And I told them so - and they agreed. Let's hope it is as quickly fixed as I was assured it would be.
Tom Muses on the Ft. Worth Modern. The new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opened (12/02). It houses a growing collection of modern art and is in the same area as the celebrated Kimball and the Amon Carter. The Dallas Morning News did a puff piece on it and I'm responding to what they said. I first have to qualify this because I have not seen the museum in person, so this comment is only from the numerous pages and photos in the article.
The museum is designed by architect Tadao Ando and Associates. It cost $65 million. And 154 works are displayed out of a total of over 2,750 owned. But I've got problems with all of this. First the design is cold and minimalistic, boxy empty frigid architecture. It is also a massive space - most of it empty. It seems that like many architects today Todao seems more concerned about showing off empty space than art. And looking at some of the photos, it looks like a museum of empty spaces with some art thrown in as an afterthought. It seems like ego architecture - where the designed spaces are the star. It has 153,000 sq. Ft with 53,000 of that, for display. With only 154 art works on display, that comes to 344 sq. ft. per art work! And because the museum cost $65 million to make, that means over $400,000 was spent to show off every piece of art! There is something almost obscene about that.
I am a painter myself that sometimes does abstracts and assorted 'modern' art; yet I would suggest that a better use of this money would be to do a 'conceptual art' piece that gives a poor country the $65 million to keep from starving - rather than house these 154 art works in a minimalistic silver palace. I've fought hard for the advancement of art for the last 10 years of Musea's existence, but there are also priorities. And I wonder if housing single art works - in vast spaces of 344 sq. ft. each, at the cost of $400,000, each is true culture or just crass.
Tom asks the Media 5 Questions. 1. Why don't the main TV news departments allow any viewer to publicly question their policies? 2. Has it become mandatory that every female correspondent look like a model? 3. On Sat. Nov. 24, NBC did a story on what film had the best box office for the week. Is that really a major news story? 4.The Arab-Israeli conflict (and its always the conflict not the good aspects of either side) has become the biggest continual news story of all time. Why is this regional conflict more important than all other news stories? 5. TV News seems to suggest that only when consumers buy more will the economy improve. Aren't there other ways just as valid? Ex. Execs not taking excess and unfair salaries.
Tom Says Post Slanders Zines. I'm mad at theWashington Post (article on zines) It's the same slanted story. In every article about zines, they portray zinesters as weird; "..a celebration of the weirder fruits of the 1st Amendment" and "...goofy-do-it yourself lit renaissance." Yet more truthful is "zines devoted to every conceivable subject." Something the mainstream media hasn't done in years. I think they HAVE to trivialize and marginalize zines or their coverage would look mediocre by comparison.
Tom Calls for Better Star Trek Scripts. I love sci-fi, but I'm not a big fan of Star Trek or most other TV sci-fi shows. They all seem to use 20th century human behavior for the personalities of 21st century spacemen... and their alien foes too! All this with the same confrontational dialogue for 45 min (that seems straight out of a bad 19th century western) then a shoot-um-up at the end. Yawn.
Anyway here's what I would LIKE to see - Star Trek The New Generation of SCRIPTWRITERS!:
1. Where's the photosynthesis that's supplying all the food for the ship? Lets see the gardens and look at the fruits and vegetables and pollinating insects. 2. I'd like to see the bathroom decor - still fuzzy rugs? 3. I'd like to tour the galley and see how they prepare their food and what 'out of this world' spices they use. Do they still like chocolate or is there now something better? 4. I'd like to tour the ship - that's a two partner right there - see the storage room, the engine room, the sleeping quarters, the captains cabin, etc. 5. I'd like to tour the weapons room. Is there a firing range? 6. Is there a ship library? What kind of 'books' are there? 7. How about some art on the walls. What paintings do the crew use to decorate their quarters. Is there a gallery on the ship? Well you get the point. There is so much they COULD do with a little imagination. I say dump the format scripts and try something really spacey!
Tom Visits the Jungle. Book Review: For the last few years I have been getting into biology - specifically evolutionary biology in a big way. I can talk alleles, RNA world, GAIA, and junk DNA with anyone for hours. I've also found that some of the best of biology writers are just fine writers period. One ex. is Edward O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life. And its diversity that I want to talk about. Did you know that as you go toward the equator the number of species increases drastically? And that the reason the tropical rain forests are so important to biodiversity is because they have almost 50% of all species of all plants, animals, fungi, etc. It's that important. And as Wilson points out - the rich countries have low biodiversity, and the poorest the richest diversity. Ex. "One Peruvian farmer clearing rain forest to feed his family, progressing from patch to patch as the soil is drained of nutrients, will cut more kinds of trees than are native to ALL OF EUROPE! " That means that all the good that all US and Europe, etc. do in conservation is outweighed by a handful of hungry peasant farmers! And what they do is slash and burn. The slash kills the biome, and the burn adds CO2 into a warming atmosphere. 50% of our food is one of 3 kinds - rice, wheat, corn. Another book quote," A mere 20 plant species supply 90% of the world's food." A dozen temperate zone species - apples, peaches, pears, strawberries, etc. dominate the northern markets. "In contrast, at lease 3,000 other species are available in the tropics, and of these 200 are in actual use.
"The forests that are being destroyed, house not only new and wonderful foods but: sweeter sugars, drugs that'll cure cancers, better cotton plants, corn varieties that you can grow year round, even alternative meats such as tasty turtles and lizards, and who knows what else! It's time to listen and take note. A section of the rain forests about the size of the state of Florida is lost each year. Let's stop the slash and burn farming, stop the poverty causing it, stop the excessive logging, and help these countries turn this nightmare of neglect into a gold mine of opportunity for them and the rest of the world. "