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Thanks both. 

Kajima, I think $1000 is about 667 pounds at the current exchange rate. 

- Zurf

I hang out on a site called RiverSmallies, which is RS for short.  There are a lot of musicians on that site whom I have invited to Chordie.  I was wondering if that was one of my buddies from RS playing with me.  It cracked me up whoever it is. 

- Zurf

1. Jaques Coustou - Livingston Taylor
2. Rusted American Dream - I forget
3. The Hey Song - Doug M. Bailey ( I think it's Doug )
4. Chloe - Jack Bond
5. Route 66 - Asleep at the Wheel
6. Rocky Mountain High - John Denver
7. River Morning - Dirty Ed
8. Three more to be reserved for the draft

- Zurf

Pick a topic that is trivial, look at it sideways or top-down or from perspective that is a bit unusual, pull out a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary to give yourself a challenge, and then write a song.

I have written two songs, one was about cleaning pee out of carpet and the other is about my buddy Herschel burning himself lighting a campfire while others sat by and drank beer.  These are not heartfelt songs.  Johnny Cash's first big hit, Cry, Cry, Cry was based on him being done with a gal who had mistreated him (which is serious) but his next big hit was about a shoe shine boy (Get Rhythm) which definitely is not.  Tom T Hall had a good song based on the premise of him liking beer (I Like Beer). 

While shoe shine boys aren't trivial, as no person is, getting a shoe shine surely is.  And an adult having a beer (unless one is an alcoholic) is trivial. 

The one thing I haven't been able to do is capture any meaning about my father-in-law in a song using his last words "I'll Be Fine", which is a testimony to his faith.  Too close to my heart.  So, I guess it goes both ways. 

My hypothesis is that you should write what intrigues you, but also challenge yourself with stretch goals to do things outside your comfort zone.  The stretch songs may not wind up being any good, but you will never improve unless you stretch yourself.  So I would challenge you to stretch yourself with a sideways perspective trivial song. 

Here are some possible topics:
Ill tempered mooses
Mowing the lawn
Apple pie (a la mode if you want to it to be more heartfelt)
Wiping your shoes off at the door
24 hour conveniece stores with locks on the doors
Overhead bins on aircraft that cannot hold regulation size carry-on luggage
Amateurs doing whatever you do well
Being an amateur doing what others do very well
Going to your boss's birthday party
Taking a walk (James Taylor turned this topic into Country Road, which is one of his biggest hits, not to pressure you or anything)
Lifting the lid/remembering to put the lid down
Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake (Jimmy Buffett had a hit with this topic on "Trip Around the Sun")

- Zurf

I would recommend an appointment with an Occupational Therapist, especially one who understands the needs of musicians.  They specialize in fine motor skill dexterity and movement, especially post-trauma. 

- Zurf

Some pictures are available in the "Alaskan Fishing Adventure 2009" album on my picture website www.picasaweb.google.com/halffastpaddler/.

- Zurf

I recommend surfing around in CDBaby and seeing if the samples get your interest.  If they do, then start buying some CDs from iindependent artists.

- Zurf

It's all about genre.

Life's too short to worry about it.  Play the songs you play them. 

"Never Be One" by Alabama usually makes me cry.  I pull it out every once in a while and torture myself with it.  I was pretty much too busy to connect well with my eldest daughter until she was close to two, and while there were good reasons for it and that's what it meant to be who I was at the time and I'd make the same decisions again knowing where they've lead me today.  So, my 'busyness' wasn't a mistake, but there were nevertheless consequences for it.  One of the consequences is that "Never Be One" makes me cry. 

That said, while emotions are (nearly) always legitimate, the display and especially the excessive display of them may not always be. 

Difference between display and excessive display.  Jimmy Buffett has a song that includes a line about a buddy named Ruby.  The lyric goes "Ruby tells the waitress that the chicken died in vain."  Well, he did a concert just a couple days after his long term friend and road companion Ruby died.  When he sang that lyric, he stumbled on it and it's obvious he was persevering rather than performing right at that moment.  Totally acceptable and appropriate.  Had he stopped and broken down and curled up on the stage wailing and bawling and pounding the ground screaming "Why? Why? Why?", that would have been excessive. 

So, keep it within the realms of normality (which can be a fairly wide realm) and I think you'll be fine. 

- Zurf

We were on the Nuyakak River in the Bristol Bay region (though not at all close to the coast - the lodge was based on a river that drains to Bristol Bay eventually).  The drinking during the fishing day was certainly limited with so many fish to catch, but would resume promptly upon our return to the lodge.  Each night there were appetizers and happy hour (providing our own booze) and lies told by the other fishermen who had been on different adventures that day.  I can drink beer anytime.  I cannot get 30+" salmon on back to back casts anytime (several times three casts in a row).  Suffice to say there was prodigious groggery when the fishing was done and the waders were drying by the fire.  We took a little beer with us on the river each day, but with the cold wind, the rain, and the vigorous exercise, we generally permitted discretion to be the better part of valor and saved the booze for the lodge (and the sauna - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh). 

We flew out on Dehaviland Beavers (the best adventure float plane ever built and ever likely to be built) all around the place, fishing many rivers and lakes over the course of the week. 

I'll post the pictures once I've downloaded them, sorted them, and put them into a slideshow/album on my photo site. 

- Zurf

I think you would find that not all prisons are so comfy.  Probably not many at all.  Yes, it might be better than freezing to death on the street, but they are overcrowded, violent, and incredibly loud as well.  If you ever want to feel more grateful for your freedom, involve yourself with some prison ministry.  Or any kind of outreach to prisoners. 

- Big D

I've warmed up a bit and am ready to head over.  It'll be interesting to see what comes of it.  I think I've figured out the difference.  All my adult stage experience has been with a bass backing someone else up and there has been limited to no singing.  This will be my first ever solo experience with me responsible for the singing and the accompaniment.  That is, aside from campfires which don't count as performance so much as an interactive opportunities for mutual humiliation and entertainment.  I remember my first campfire.  I did "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" and even with that simple waltz time song, I was terribly nervous, until one of my mentors started singing along and seemed to be enjoying himself.  That loosened me up enough to try "Take Me Home Country Roads", and a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice joined in and carried the lyrics and all I had to do was strum a little and mumble the lyrics under my breath.  This won't be like that.  This will be me, front and center with no young, tall, blonde and slightly inebriated beautiful women and no balding, fat, advanced middle-aged mentors.  There will be a bald, fat, middle-aged person in attendance however...

- Zurf