#33: Beatles Moment, AI & Animated Gulf of America

Saturday May 3, we were scheduled to busk at 5pm.

Phone rang at 3:15. It was Gavin. "Dave asked us to start early at 4."

I had just showered so I threw on my clothes and my costume, hit the subway uptown to 72nd Street.

We performed for four hours straight. I do all the lead vocals and all the talking. Still, by dusk, I still felt vocally okay but I was tired.

Finally, at dusk, I stood up, walked over to the IMAGINE mosaic and invited people to join me in a circle. I had never done that before. Hesitantly, they came, then reached out and held each other’s hands and I said, “This is what John was singing about. When we stand together, strangers from all over the world, there is no rich nor poor, no nationalities, no religion. Just human beings singing a beautiful song.”

We were living out the song in real time. It was beautiful and they were believers.

(Unexpectedly, there was a man with a video camera. He documents all the people who sing at Strawberry Fields. We just popped up on his channel for the first time! https://www.youtube.com/@stuartm.6828)

MY NEW VIDEO
You might have listened to the satirical song I wrote a couple weeks ago called "Gulf of America." I got obsessed with turning it into a video, so I spent three or four days hunched over my laptop doing this. It's silly and funny, while not being so silly and funny.

https://youtube.com/shorts/65tylF-ARhQ?feature=share


For you nerds who want to know the process:
I made the Gulf of America video by conceiving the scenes first in my mind and describing them in plain language to ChatGPT. Then ChatGPT refined the prompt that would give the best results which I used in Sora to generate the images. Then got a new prompt from ChatGPT to describe what action I wanted from the still image. I put those images into both Kling and Hailuo to animate them after inserting the new animation prompt.


https://youtube.com/shorts/65tylF-ARhQ?feature=share


And that's it for this week! I have appearances coming up as well as my new show on June 19th.


I'm encouraging everyone to support Urban Stages, where we debuted our new "Steve and Friends" concert series. Benefit on April 25. https://www.urbanstages.org/benefit2025


I'm honored to perform again this year for the Renewal Summit 2025. It's a fantastic day of presentations, food, drink and me! May 16.


https://www.thethreetomatoes.com/renewal2025

New Show on June 19th at Don't Tell Mama!
https://tinyurl.com/steve-dont-tell-mama


You are free to stream the songs below but purchasing them is the best way to support independent artists such as myself. Or if you have the means, you can make a small donation through PayPal or Venmo using my email address: steveshack@gmail.com.


And please share this with friends!


[This is the hand-crafted, no-AI, non-bot newsletter of Steve Schalchlin. If you wish to be removed from the list, send me an email. If someone sent you this and you want to be added, write me at steveshack@gmail.com]--



Steve Schalchlin

Living in the Bonus Round







Spotify Links

2024 Songs https://tinyurl.com/3su9t85m

Love Songs by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/stevelovesongs

Personal Songs by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/stevepersonal

Comic/Humor Songs by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/stevehumor

Inspirational Songs by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/steveinspire

Meditation Music by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/stevemeditate

Political Songs by Steve Schalchlin https://tinyurl.com/stevepolitics

Rebel Nerd Songs - lyrics by Steve Schalchlin

https://tinyurl.com/steverebelnerd

#32: AI, Stress & Music

My friend JD wrote me about a question he posed to an AI program about how to "fix" America. (Not his word). And the AI wrote a reasonable and progressive answer about wealth inequality, voter suppression, corporate capture of government, and what was needed was civic awakening, empowering technology, a new movement, public financing of elections, universal education, etc.


He asked me what I thought about this and also the rational fears of AI. This was my response, and I want to share it with you.


JD,
I love that you're embracing new technologies. Those are the tools by which we will be able to lead, participate in and effectuate any changes we want to make in society.


But for me, when I sing my Beatles songs at Strawberry Fields, I tell people, as we sing Imagine together, that it starts with us putting that positivity and love from the music into our hearts -- then spreading that love and good vibrations to everyone around us. It's the one thing I can do -- that I feel is my primary mission in life.


What I caution everyone -- you included -- to remember that it is self-destructive and self-defeating to allow the ills of the world to become tangible stress on and in your body. The things I cannot change -- Trump ain't calling me for my advice -- must remain in their proper place, below the things I can do.


Worry is not action. It can lead to action, but stress defeats our bodies and our minds. I should not stress over that which I have no control.


I always tell the story about the moment, after I came back to life in August 1996, when I was still in the glow of rebirth, I suddenly had this tangible worry about the national debt. Like a bird had flown into the room and dropped this on me. And I thought, why am I suddenly worried about the national debt? What can I do, standing here vacuuming, about the national debt and then I had a realization, "Oh, is this what it was like before? And what other stresses am I carrying that I'm not even consciously aware of?"



Up until a few weeks previous, while we were doing our first workshop of The Last Session, I was expecting to die. I had a new drug, but there were no guarantees. It was unknown. Experimental.


As we reflected in the character of Gideon in the musical, "knowing" I was going to die had completely freed me. I realized I had no control over it so I just allowed myself to surrender (while still fighting) to the acceptance that my time was coming soon.


It was so freeing, I was powerfully engaged in just trying to eke out every last bit of LIFE.


I was still in that glow when that thought, that absurd thought, about the national debt dropped into my head, spoiling the party.

But the point was that it was nothing more than a thought.


That thought changed my body chemistry. It twisted up my stomach ever so slightly. It gave my brain something to fry in. I've spent all these years since reminding people that everything in our body can change with a single thought. We don't have to live in stress.


So, yes, embrace the tools. Don't be fooled, however, into thinking there is a "person" doing any "thinking" in that computer program. It's a word prediction algorithm. Perhaps, in the larger media, the good news is these principles about how to make change are so pervasive, that the AI reaches for them first after someone asks it these questions. It could just as easily have spit out Fox News propaganda.


It's a confusing world, but what you and I can do is put out music, love, positivity, energy, inspiration and the knowledge that you are not alone.


But I will be using every tool I can find to do it.

#31: News and a Revised Song for Dad in his passing

I almost didn't write a newsletter this week because, since my father passed, I've felt unfocused and a bit lost. I had one big crying jag but it happened in my sleep in the middle of a dream. I woke up sobbing and said to myself, "The dam broke." I had taken his death without a lot of emotion since I was ready for it, but I guess there are larger feelings going on way deep beneath my calm exterior.


Also, I took a look at the song "My Daddy's Room," which I released after we moved him into that assisted living facility. I decided to rewrite the last verse to bring the song up to date and celebrate his passing with a little humor along the way, of course.


I haven't had time to release it as a single, but I revised the video I made of the first song and included all the family photos -- and him and the cat that fell in love with him. Maybe it'll only be meaningful to my immediate family, but here ya go:


https://youtu.be/sAEG7Hg4tVA



MY DADDY'S ROOM 2

©2022 SCHALCHLIN




THE GIRLS HUNG UP THESE PICTURES OF HIS

NOW-DEPARTED WIFE

ACROSS THE ROOM HIS SHIP MATES

FROM HIS CRAZY NAVY LIFE


CHURCHES AND MY BROTHERS

FROZEN SMILES IN BLACK AND WHITE

MOM THERE IN THAT POLAROID

THE LOYAL PREACHER’S WIFE


IN MY DADDY’S ROOM


THERE'S A MENU, SOUTHERN COOKING

DEEP FRIED OKRA ON TONIGHT

DOWN THE HALLS ARE WIDOWS

HE’LL AVOID WITH ALL HIS MIGHT


THREE SCORE AND TEN YEARS

WHERE TWO HAD TRULY GROWN AS ONE

SITTING HERE AT NINETY THREE

A NEW OLD LIFE BEGUN


IN MY DADDY’S ROOM

MY DADDY’S ROOM


HE DROVE US 'CROSS THE COUNTRY

BACK WHEN I WAS BARELY FIVE

ON ROADS THAT EISENHOWER HAD JUST

BUILT FOR FOLKS TO DRIVE


HOT BALONEY SANDWICHES

MOM BUILT RIGHT IN OUR FORD

DESERT HEAT WAS NOTHING

WE’D BEEN CALLED THERE BY THE LORD


TWO YEARS ON, THE CAT LIES

NEAR HIS BARELY BREATHING CHEST

SURROUNDED BY THE FAMILY

TELLING HIM HE WAS THE BEST


NOW HE’S DREAMING OF HER

THAT SHE’S WATCHING FROM ABOVE

THE TWO OF THEM COMMUNING

BY THE POWER OF THEIR LOVE


WE WAIT AND WE WONDER WHEN HE’LL

TAKE HIS FINAL SIGH

TRYING TO CALL DIBS ON ALL HIS DRUGS

AS THEY GO BY


THINKING WHEN IT’S MY TURN

THIS IS HOW I WANT TO DIE


IN MY DADDY’S ROOM

MY DADDY’S ROOM


WE DROVE HIM DOWN TO TEXAS

WHERE MET HIS YOUNGEST KIN

LITTLE GIRLS ALL GIGGLING

AS HE WATCHES FROM HIS CHAIR




NEWS: I'm encouraging everyone to support Urban Stages, where we debuted our new "Steve and Friends" concert series. Benefit on April 25. https://www.urbanstages.org/benefit2025


NEWS: I'm honored to perform again this year for the Renewal Summit 2025. It's a fantastic day of presentations, food, drink and me! May 16.


https://www.thethreetomatoes.com/renewal2025