Questions About "Pantheon Bar & Grill".

As a writer I am always living in more than one world at once, and I've discussed this before. But there's the world, the physical world that I and everyone else must live in, but then there's the World of the Song. Or, lately, the World of the Cantata. The World of Pantheon Bar & Grill.

Because the songs are finished, and the score 99% written out (I have one short piece, a epilogue to finish), I've been writing up author's notes. There's a practical reason for this, the main one being to help the promotion people of the chorus have some material to work with in terms of publicizing the event.

Pantheon Bar & Grill has never been performed -- and it will only be performed once (so far). Yes, Kathleen (McGuire, who's doing the arranging) and I definitely plan to make the piece available for other choruses, but, for now, I'm thinking only of December 1st.

So, the people connected with the SF Gay Men's Chorus don't have any other productions to judge it by, or to compare it to. I have to find a way to tell them what it is they're promoting. The more I write, the more I understand it myself. It's like being in therapy, except the "patient" is a piece of music.

Since I haven't really discussed "Pantheon" in any depth on the blog, I thought I might take this moment to answer questions I've been receiving through email, beginning with "What's a cantata?"

Er, ah, um, good question. Funny you should ask. I was telling everyone I had a cantata long before I actually looked up the definition. Classically, it's a piece of music utilizing singers that told a story from the Bible. Bach, for instance, would write a cantata and insert it into a church service. Cantatas consist of choruses, soloists, recitative, etc.

I don't write in a classical style, of course. I'm more of a troubadour, telling little stories that add up to a larger whole. And I use the music that I know, what I grew up with -- a combination of pop, gospel, country, folk, jazz, and some blues. Rootsy, rural American music. Hopefully, a little swamp works its way in around the edges.

"So, what made you decide to write this?"

I didn't really "decide" to write it. It began writing itself. Ever since I began my blog, though it was initially focused on health issues, it was Rev. Dr. Mel White whose synthesized collection of Soul Force principles, as was taught by Jesus, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King that grabbed my attention early on.

The more I read about the effects of violence, how it never achieves the result people think it's going to, creating only resentment and a backlash, leading to more violence down the line, the more I began to embrace the concept of "relentless non-violence."

IOW, "non-violence" is not about lying down and letting yourself be trampled.

It's about aggressively confronting an oppressor and convincing him to sit down with you at a table in order to find a third solution acceptable to both parties. It also means you cannot enter into a negotiation assuming the "enemy" is "evil." Rather, he or she should be considered misguided or ill-informed. You must also consider that you might be misguided or ill-informed.

Learning to view your opponent as human is the first step toward true reconciliation and progress.

Those larger themes have been circling inside my head for a number a years, and I found myself putting into practice these principles, but on small scales. Then, one by one, these principles began to physicalize themselves in the form of lyrics and music.

There was no set plan. No road map. Not even a realization that I was writing anything in particular. But as the songs came into being, I could sense them falling into a pattern. This is not unusual for me. It's exactly how the scores for "The Last Session" and "The Big Voice" were created.

In a way, it's exciting and in another way it's maddening. It's as if someone or something knows what the piece is before I do, and is doling it out to me piecemeal, making me suffer with anticipation.

One day, I'm sitting there at a piano with a bunch of songs, and the next day I'm telling someone I'm writing a peace cantata.

It's that simple.

"So, does this 'cantata' have a plot?"

Well, yes and no. It's more accurate to say that it has a theme arc. Divided into three sections, Part One is "Violence at Home." Part Two is "Violence in the World." And Part Three is called "The Awakening Suite."

If I were writing a storyline, you might say that it's about a person who observes violence in his or her community, steps out into the larger world to see that violence is everywhere, and then has an epiphany -- a kind of rational or even spiritual awakening -- on how to make a peaceful world.

But it's not a plot-driven piece. It's a series of stories, observations and experiences in song that each stand alone, but together, create a larger picture.

And as I was writing notes for the piece last night, I began to realize that these random stories, thematically connected, also felt like a reflection of my own personal journey and awakening, though it's not a story about me. It's about being a Lazarus person. It's about being gay, but it's not a gay piece.

I never intended for it to feel this personal. I honestly believed I was writing objectively about a subject that, while it interested me, wasn't really ME.

But what could be more boring than a disinterested observer writing dispassionately about something? Of course it's personal.

Well, I don't know if that gives you much information, but I'll come forth with more as we get closer to December.

If you have any more questions, please ask.

Another terrific "Zero" review.

Rush to get 'Zero' tickets

By COMI ZERVALIS NEUBURG

July 10, 2008

In the spirit of Jim Brochu's portrayal of entertainer/legend Zero Mostel, imagine the following proclamation as a shout: "Zero Hour" is a masterpiece!

Immediately you are transfixed by the eccentrically boisterous spirit of Brochu as Mostel. A teapot-shaped man with bright, intelligent eyes explains that he had a dream in which he was a baked potato. Such is the quirky, funny, poignant and engrossing world swirling about in "Zero Hour," a smashing one-character biographical drama.

Brochu, who also wrote, "Zero Hour," comes directly from the off-Broadway stage.

In "Zero Hour," Brochu's Zen approach to scripting delves deep into the spiritual core of Mostel. It is purely through the emotional being that we learn of the man's accomplishments. Brochu's storytelling is so expert that, in the end, you are a child listening to a fairy tale.

Brochu's accolades include a 2005 Los Angeles Ovation Award for best actor in a musical for "The Big Voice" and an Oscar Wilde Award for "The Last Session," an off-Broadway hit that he wrote and directed. He is also a television actor whose roles include Father James on "All My Children" and Judge Julius Weyburn on "The Young and the Restless." (Brochu also was a dancing raisin in a Raisin Bran commercial and a lemon for Palmolive, thus the spiritual connection to Mostel's dream of being a baked potato.)

But who, precisely, was Zero Mostel, the Jewish New Yorker whose humble beginnings imitating a butterfly at the Café- Society in Manhattan led to a career as a professional comedian and later to stardom?

Eccentric and driven, compassionate and zany and proud of his roots, Mostel was the kind of man who could initially scare or cajole acquaintances into psychological conundrums or good naturedly tease as he does a New York Times reporter whose portrait he madly paints during an interview about his life. ("I see you've had a human bypass!" is an introductory greeting.)

As a child, Mostel was a painting prodigy.

He would copy the works of the great masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the play, he dubs himself a "Mosteletic" painter of 10,000 works who performs comedy to finance his art.

Mostel's persona lingers in the psyche of baby boomers and their parents as the Tony Award-winning actor who, in the early '60s, starred as Pseudolos in the Broadway musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." He also played Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," popularizing the sounds of a cantor in the iconic song "If I Were a Rich Man."

Part of what makes "Zero Hour" so funny is the way Brochu, reminiscent of the late comedian Sam Kinison, peppers his impersonation with choice words, delivered at high volume to evoke the comedy and the pathos of Mostel's life.

Directed by Oscar-nominated actress Piper Laurie, "Zero Hour" is full of suspense, sorrow and hilarity. It scores 100.

"Zero Hour" runs through July 27 at the Stage Door Theatre, 8036 W. Sample Road in Coral Springs. Call 954-344-7765, or visit www.stagedoortheatre

.com.

Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Birds in the Backyard.

There were a couple of long beaked birds in the backyard here in Ft. Lauderdale. It's an American White Ibis.

New York Songlines

My friend, Gabi, pointed me to a fascinating and well laid-out website called "New York Songlines." (The title is based upon the method aboriginals found their way around the outback, by memorizing songs based upon land features.)

The website doesn't feature songs, but what it does do is look at each block of Manhattan, building by building, detailing the history of each corner -- and it's laid out so you can go from block to block, north, south, east or west. You can read how each section was named, and what buildings were there, how the current buildings were built, named and who occupied them.

Here, for instance, is the Brill Building:

Brill Building

1619 (corner): Built in 1931 by developer Abraham Lefcourt, it was soon taken over and renamed by the Brill Brothers clothing store. In 1932, Southern Music Publishing Company moved here, starting the building's role as a center of music publishing that would last until 1974. (Buddy Holly met his soon-to-be wife, Maria Elena Santiago, at Southern Music, where she was a secretary.) Almost a third of the songs played on Your Hit Parade from 1935 until 1958 were published by Brill Building companies. Songwriters like Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond and Neil Sedaka got their starts here. Big Bands like the Dorsey Brothers, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway were also headquartered here. On the ground floor, the Colony Music Center, with vintage vinyl and a great sheet music collection, is a reminder of the building's glory days.

Now, someone needs to mash this up with Google Maps so one could take the virtual walking tour and see what it all looks like as its being described.

An Online Soap Dealing with HIV Education

LA Times today features an article about a new online soap opera about young gay men which features HIV education.

From its opening scene, the online soap opera "In the Moment" pulls no punches -- because, its creators say, it cannot. The show, which has drawn tens of thousands of viewers in the last few months, is a racy, unvarnished portrait of gay L.A.

It is also, at its core, about HIV and AIDS.

Recent years have brought a wave of new programs designed to reinvigorate outreach in the gay community, as well as a dialogue about men's sexuality.

There are colorful trucks that take rapid-response HIV testing to the streets. Government-funded "POLs" -- popular opinion leaders -- scour the town for other socially influential gay men and women, give them risk-reduction training and send them back into the community to spread the word. There's even a proposal to design jeans with built-in "condom pockets" to promote the idea that condom use should be a routine part of gay culture, not an afterthought.

But more than anything, said Susan R. Cohen, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's director of health education and prevention, "we needed to be where the guys are" -- on the Internet.

LINK TO "IN THE MOMENT" EPISODE ONE.

Hemo2Homo Reviews The Happening

The Hemo2Homo Connection Movie Review

Hemo: He has done it again: my generation's Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. M. Night Shaymalan, has delivered another masterpiece with The Happening.

Homo: WHAT??? Are you losing your mind, Hemo? Hitchcock would have never produced a turkey like this thing, which I only went because you said we should review it. What's worse is that I had heard it sucked, but my friend Ernie and I decided to go see it anyway because we were in the mood for a good/bad movie.

Hemo: Don't be a hater- you're just mad because you didn't see the end coming.

Homo: You mean I couldn't wait for the end to come. And not just of the movie. Everyone in the theatre, we were making a suicide pact. This might be the worst movie I've seen in a decade. And not "good" bad.

Hemo: When did you lose your sense of humor?

Homo: Stop it. It's tediously, boringly, amateurishly, laughingly, stultifyingly bad. One of those that's more fun to talk about later than to have to sit through.

Hemo: Worse than Indiana Jones?

Homo: It was worse than a night of summer reality TV.

Hemo: Worse than Big Brother?

Homo: Yes. I was stunned, thinblood.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS

Hemo: Stunned in shocked silence by the surprise twist ending?

Homo: Surprise? You mean that ending I could see coming a mile away? No, I was stunned because someone had the balls to charge money for this unintentional comedy. The first laugh occurred when they were evacuating Manhattan because they think terrorists have attacked it with poison gas.

Hemo: There's nothing funny about terrorism, Steve.

Homo: Or, apparently, scary. Picture this, thinblood: NEW YORK CITY IS BEING EVACUATED! Are the people rushing? Are they running? Are they in a panic? Nope. They're all leisurely strolling through Grand Central Station, casually getting train tickets.

Hemo: Maybe they all had bleeding disorders? Toxic gas is nothing compared to a bad bleed, especially one that's easily avoided with a modicum of caution.

Homo: Even if there was a Thinblood Convention in New York City, that doesn't mean the rest of the New Yorkers would be polite enough to not trample them. Trust me- I lived there. The calm demeanor of the public is tempered by Mark Wahlberg's wife, who is upset at him because he told their friend that she's been a bit distant.

Hemo: I thought that was a very moving scene.

Homo: Are they putting heroin into your blood products these days? The city is being attacked! People are dying left and right. But what she's really upset about is that their friend has been told that she's been a little bit disengaged?

Hemo: Welcome to my world, Homo. That's how the ladies roll. Remember, sexual preference is a choice, and it's not too late to switch teams. (note: Shawn Decker knows sexual preference is not a choice, and has gone on record as saying such.)

Homo: No thanks, Hemo. But I am rethinking this Movie Reviewer business.

Hemo: I hear ya, lately these bad movies are making AIDS seem like a cakewalk. Wait, you look like you are about to rant... are you about to...

Homo: You'd think these folks were on an AIDS Walk, without the passion! No, they're casually walking to the train, but global terrorism isn't enough drama for Marky's wife! They could all be poisoned already, but she petulantly decides to sit in a different train car so she can cool down.

Hemo: But what about...

Homo: Naturally, in this evacuation, there are lots of cars and seats to choose from. She finds the seat and gets a phone call from a guy. She picks up the phone and says -- I kid you not -- "Stop calling me! It's like you've become a stalker! All we did was eat some tiramisu!"

Ernie and I screamed out loud, laughing. At that point, we went all MST3000 on this thing, delivering new dialogue all the way through. Luckily, there were only four other people in the place... Hemo, are you still here?

Hemo: I'm back. I just googled "Eating Tiramisu", just in case it's a new phrase for an old sex act: it's not. :O(

Homo: Sex couldn't even spice up this movie, which would have been the high point of the entire badly written script. This movie ran out of ideas after five minutes. See, trees and grass are really pissed off at humans, so they're spraying gas or pollen into the air which makes people commit suicide. Once we learn this, the movie becomes a series of people killing themselves in every PG way possible. Gun shots, jumping off buildings, stabbings, lying in front of a giant lawn mower, etc. And what do you do when you are being attacked by trees, thinblood?

Hemo: Climb up a bear?

Homo: Even better: THEY RUN INTO THE COUNTRYSIDE WHERE THERE'S NOTHING BUT TREES! At one point Marky says, "Quick, get ahead of the wind!" How do you get ahead of the wind?

Hemo: You've never had Thanksgiving with my family. If you hear a certain sound, and you don't get ahead of the wind, you don't live to enjoy a second serving of mashed potatoes.

Homo: In this movie, it was the Earth that was farting. Or God. Or Muhammed. Whichever God had beans for dinner last dealt it. This whole thing was a bad imitation of a 60's rip-off of the Twilight Zone series.

Hemo: No, Steve, no. It was an homage! One master paying tribute to another.

Homo: Shawn. No. And I'm scared sick that you are standing behind this movie. And what exactly did you like about this movie, anyway?

Hemo: Well... uh... you have to admit it was kind of cool when Wahlberg started blowing up the trees and chainsawing them down and stuff.

Homo: What are you talking about? You did go see The Happening, right?

Hemo: Actually, I heard a lot of bad things about this one, too. And, since we're in a recession and all, I figured it would be wise to save the old beans, if ya know what I mean.

Homo: What?! I only went because you told me to!

Hemo: I was going to email you about my change of plan, then I thought: "How cool would it be, in the great tradition of M. Night, to have a surprise ending to this review?"

Homo: I hate you. I'm re-abandoning you as a Godchild. How's that for a surprise ending?

Hemo: Homo? Homo?

WILL THE HEMO2HOMO CONNECTION BE BACK TO REVIEW BATMAN? IS THE DYNAMIC DUO FINISHED? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT!

The Hemo2Homo Connection are Shawn Decker and Steve Schalchlin.

The Hemo2Homo Connection's creators met online in 1996, and posted their first movie review in 1998. Both have been living with HIV for over twenty years, and have annoyed their friends and loved ones for longer than that. Steve Schalchlin resides in Los Angeles, CA. He is an award-winning musician, singer and songwriter. Shawn Decker lives in Charlottesville, VA. He is an HIV/AIDS educator and the author of My Pet Virus.

A New "Last Session" Cast Album!

I didn't even know they had recorded one! But apparently, Brett Bernardini at the Spirit of Broadway Theatre in Norwich, Connecticut pulled some resources together and created a brand new cast album of "The Last Session" from their superb production earlier this year starring Kevin Wood.

Happy am I!

As soon as I have ordering info, I'll post it here and on the TLS website.

You Might Be A Redneck Artist If...

Play with your food!

Top Chef Carlos!

Me and Ralph.

Jim and I went to dinner with our friend, Ralph, at a really nice restaurant called Hi-Life Cafe which is run by "Top Chef" contestant Carlos and his partner, Chuck. So, I thought I'd post a few pics. I liked this restaurant because it had a nice, clean menu of food I actually recognized, and because the prices weren't outrageous.

Chuck (Carlos' partner), Ralph, Carlos, Jim, Steve.

Carlos and me.

And our adorably flirty waiter, John, was a highlight of the evening.

Made it to Ft. Lauderdale.

Took the red-eye to Florida. Slept most of the flight, but it wasn't a good sleep. By the time I got here this morning, I was dragging badly. So, I laid down and slept until 2pm. Ah, blessed sleep.

It's really good to see Jim again. I'll update with photos and stories as soon as, well, we do something!

The GALA event is this weekend, too, so I'm going to try to get down to Miami for that. If anyone reading this wants to hook up for lunch or something, let me know.

More Bleeding.

Went back to the doc this week to find out my blood test results. He said:

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the blood tests revealed no irregularities (except for the thick blood). The bad news is that that means we'll have to start doing more tests."

And the reason, I have figured out, that this is bad news is that the farther up the test ladder we go, the more painful and drawn-out the tests will become. Hello, bone marrow test.

He immediately sent me to the infusion center for more "phlebotomy," meaning more draining of the blood. Then, again on Thursday, where my main vein gave out and they had to repoke me twice. And then again on Sunday.

By the time I get to Jim on Tuesday -- yes, I'm finally flying out there! -- I'm going to look like vampire.

Mark and Me.

I've been preoccupied this week because my friend, Mark Janas, has been staying here with me. He's musical directing a new show here for the L.A. Theatre Festival about Lucy and Desi, and it's been fun being his host -- especially because he's been helping me a bit with the cantata, playing through some of the music I've been writing out.

Yesterday, I decided to take him on the L.A. Subway into Hollywood, where we dined at Hollywood & Highland, watched all the tourists around the Chinese Theatre (and the cute guys playing Batman and Robin), and then trained over to Hollywood & Vine to catch a matinee of "Hancock," which is a very strange movie.

The best part, though, was that he sat playing through all of Chopin's Preludes and several Etudes while I cleaned the kitchen to a spotless perfection. (There was a note on the door that they were going to do a general cleanliness inspection on the 10th -- can they do that? Just barge in and look around? I guess they can).

Next up is the bathroom. I wonder what composer works best for the bathroom?

Congrats to Amy Shapiro.

As I mentioned in this earlier blog post, something I have enjoyed throughout my career, beginning with my time at National Academy of Songwriters, is helping young songwriters learn, and discover within themselves, the passion and art of songwriting.

Only a little over a year ago, I began teaching my friend and poet, Amy Shapiro, about the art and craft of creating lyrics. Generally, poets struggle with songwriting because even though poems and lyrics look similar on the page, poems usually make terrible lyrics and lyrics are usually terrible poems. This is because a poem is designed to stand on its own. But a lyric is designed to be half a message, the other half delivered by the music it's married to.

I worked with Amy daily as she wrote lyric after lyric, sometimes one a day. And she never wanted to hear how good something was. She only wanted to hear how she could make it better. It's a difficult relationship because genuine trust has to be built up, and the new writer has to endure a great deal of disappointment as the lyric they are sure is the greatest thing since sliced bread ends up getting a thumbs down. Or the one they tossed off easily ends up being the one that gets the most praise.

It can truly be maddening because one of the first lessons you have to learn is how to discern the good from the bad. I write bad lyrics all the time, but they don't escape the confines of this apartment. And they don't upset me. I know another will come along.

Anyway, after only a few months of intense training, she submitted to the heralded BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York and was immediately accepted. Now, at the end of her first year, I'm so proud to announce that she won one of the the 9th BMI Foundation Jerry Harrington Awards for Creative Excellence. (One is awarded to each level of class. She's in the first year).

Above: Pictured (l-r): Librettist, Susan Murray; artistic coordinator of the Workshop and co-moderator of First and Second Year groups, Pat Cook; Advanced student, Stephen Sislen; First year student, Amy Lynn Shapiro; co-moderator of First and Second Year groups, Rick Freyer. Not pictured is Second Year student, Raymond Bkhour, who is currently in the Broadway show Chicago.

I would love to take credit, of course, but the real credit belongs to Amy, who focused and worked her butt off to get to this point. I'm a proud papa, to say the least.

And I want to make a note here. I don't teach people how to write "theater" songs any more than I teach them how to write "pop" songs or any other style or genre. For me, when someone approaches me to learn how to write lyrics, I focus on the transcendent things that cannot really be found in a book and which stand outside genre.

I don't have a set plan. I don't have a curriculum. It's all instinct. I dig into the aspiring songwriter's heart and make them listen to their own inner voice where concepts and meaning are found. We focus on storytelling and digging beneath an obvious subject to get to something deeper and more resonating. This technique can be applied to theater or pop music or any other kind of songwriting.

The technical aspects, such as form and function, rhyming schemes and patterns are things we more or less pick up along the way. (Those things you CAN learn in books).

It always makes me happy when a songwriter hears something special that I might have to give, and then inculcates that and brings it to the next level.

I used to watch the great songwriting teacher, Nik Venet, do essentially the same thing. The one thing a songwriter will never say to me is, "Well, it's as good as anything on the radio." Because that's irrelevant. What matters to me is whether the student is uncovering the things that make him or her unique.

You see, there are tens of thousands of songwriters who can construct a lyric. But what separates the good from the great is each person's own individual voice. Good or bad, it's the one thing you bring to the table that no one else can: Your own voice.

In my own songwriting, people love my work or they hate it or they're indifferent to it, but they always know "it's a Steve song." And that's why I've endured. And when I mentor a new student, it sometimes can be disturbing to them because I make them dig way deeper than any psychiatrist, but they will learn that they have a voice, and they will learn to express it.

Congratulations to Amy and to the other recipients. This is only the beginning for them all.

Zero Hour, The New Set.

Jim was having some connection problems in Florida and wasn't able to send a picture of his set until just now. The theatre's designers, Dave Torre and Ardean Landhuis, there did a terrific job with this. And it looks like Jim has a hit. After the review hit, the box office plus word of mouth has really set the phones ringing. They've extended his run until August 10. Congrats, Jim!

Free Musical Score Library Re-Opened.

Wow. What a great site. This library contains thousands of musical scores of the great composers.

IMSLP/Petrucci Musical Library. It is an online library of classical music and was shut down last year by legal threats from Universal Edition (a large publisher). The issue was differing copyright laws. Some works were public domain in Canada, where the site was hosted, but under copyright in other countries. They worked out the issues and the site is back up.

When The Past Comes Back.

Last night, I signed up for the Open Mic at Kulak's Woodshed. I got there first so that I could get to the front of the list since it can get very long. But what I didn't know was that they throw all the names into a bucket and draw them randomly.

In fact, I got there with another first-timer named Fernando. We put our names in at the same time and the rule is that the last name drawn goes first. Sure enough, it came down to the two of us. He got chosen and I was put on last, with the host saying, "I think there'll be enough time to get you on." (The open mic is broadcast over the Net, so it has a time limit.)

I didn't really know anyone there, but I recognized a name, Julie Chadwick. Wasn't sure where I knew the name from.

The night began and the songwriters and singers all took their turns -- everyone is allowed one 3 to 4 minutes song.

Finally, just before 10pm, they mentioned that my name was coming up. I was standing in the little waiting area when this woman came running up to me. "I know you! I sang in Alan Satchwell's choir back when you were first creating 'The Last Session.'"

Indeed, if you listen to my Bonus Round Sessions CD or the cast album from NY, you will hear them singing background on "When You Care."

She said, "I'm just so happy to know you're still around and playing music!" We hugged and she went back out to the room.

I got up and sang the song "Holy Dirt," from the upcoming "Pantheon Bar & Grill."

After I finished my number, I got a message to visit Paul Kulak, who runs the Woodshed. He was in the booth doing the live switching for the Internet feed. I know Paul from way back when he fist started the Woodshed and it was half the size it is now. It has always been a labor of love, existing on donations.

As we were chatting, someone walked in. It was Julie Chadwick. She looked me right in the eye.

She said, "You changed my life!"

"I did?"

"Yes. It was back in the days when you were running the National Academy of Songwriters. I had sent a tape in and you called me into your office. You told me you loved my singing and playing, but that I needed to work on my lyrics. You told me to stop explaining things and use pictures in my words."

"Right. Because people think in pictures. Endless lines of plot and explanations are hard for the mind to follow."

"I have told everyone for years that you changed my life. I can't believe I'm actually seeing you again."

Then, another guy came in and Paul said to him, "I want you to meet Steve Schalchlin. He is the godfather of the entire modern acoustic music movement in Los Angeles. Everything we do here is based on what he did at the Acoustic Underground shows at the Troubadour."

Back in the late 80's/early 90's, the last acoustic club had shut down. The only music playing on the strip were "hair bands." So, in my capacity as managing director of the National Academy of Songwriters, I (along with Paul Zollo, Dan Kirkpatrick and Blythe Newlon Brown) created the first acoustic music industry showcase.

And, slowly but surely, the record labels in Los Angeles started listening to actual songwriting again, and signing artists with music based on actual songwriting rather than noise making (not that there's anything wrong with noisemaking, mind you, but there should be room for it all).

So, I was completely taken aback by the recognition and the praise, especially because it comes from a period in my life before "The Last Session." I was a tireless advocate for great songwriting. Just about everyone in town knew who we were and what we were doing. And then, I got sick and, to them, disappeared off the map. (The music industry has a very short memory).

So, it felt amazing to walk back into a place and to be remembered.