Untitled No. 3

It’s 6 p.m. ET, and I’m about to crawl into bed.

I have the good fortune of being able to drink a cup of coffee, and still fall to sleep quickly. I woke up this morning, went to Starbucks and D’Ags, wrote a song (‘Untitled No. 3’), then went back to sleep. After breakfast, I met Chris in the park for Ethan’s first bike ride, hung out with the ‘lil guy a while, came home for lunch, and watched two things at once: Spaulding Gray’s ‘Swimming To Cambodia,’ and PBS Frontline’s special, ‘The Way The Music Died.’ Both make me consider giving everything up, but for very different reasons.

Spaulding Gray was a tortured genius. His monologue on his bit part in the film, ‘The Killing Fields,’ is inspired. With just a microphone, a notebook, and a couple of maps straight out of high school geography, he tells a compelling story with wit and wisdom and whimsy and all the ingredients of great art.

Then there’s this great little PBS show on the music biz where all the usual suspects (Toure, Nick Harcourt, that cross-eyed chick from Billboard) talk about the 3,000 CDs released a year and the millions of dollars of promotion spent to make hit of 100 of ’em. Music attorney Michael Guido says, “My first piece of advice for anyone wanting to get into this business is don’t get into this business.” Then he indicts — for good reason, to be sure — my day job: “I think MTV was the beginning of the end for the recorded music business.”

Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t lost hope in my ability to create great art, or to sell a few records. Heck, ‘Almost Home’ was added to the iTunes Music Store just this week — get clickin’ (and it’s already made its way onto a few iMixes!). And ‘Untitled No. 3′ ain’t so bad. At least it’s hella’ optimistic.

I’ve never seen the sky so blue
I’ve never seen you look so beautiful
The day is yours to run it through
The day is yours to make your dreams come true

So, get goin’! Run it through.