http://www.regiehamm.com Commentary and thoughts from recording artist and songwriter, Regie Hamm Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:53:17 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com As we were exiting the bus and preparing for our flight, one of the people in our diverse, American tourist group asked the young tour guide a poignant question. This young man had been our guide for four days and nights, led us throughout the city of Beijing and shown us all its attractions. He had shown us the Great Wall, Tieneman Square and The Forbidden City, as well as many other places of lessor iconic status. He was a proud Chinaman and certainly a proud communist. So, the question asked by this soon-to-be new parent of an adopted Chinese girl, brought a quick and terse response from the young communist. The question posed by the woman in our group was this; "with two thousand Chinese girls a month being adopted by Americans, do you think one of those little girls could one day be a catalyst for improved U.S/Chinese relations?" The young man laughed without even thinking twice. "Of course not," he replied instantly. "To make a difference in the world requires large groups of people. There aren't enough girls being adopted to affect that kind of change." Then he said something that made us Americans all smile at each other knowingly and defiantly. He said ..."one person cannot make a difference." Can masses of people do big things? Sure. They can build walls and cities and wonders of the world. But I believe God also values the individual. The bible itself is a map of individualism and a testament to the fact that whether you're a shepherd boy with five, smooth stones or a pregnant, teenage girl who can't find room in the Inn, anyone can change the world ...and everyone should try. Here's something to think about - out of all the sperm cells that could have made it to the egg ...you did it. We are unique and important ...every one of us. My daughter was born with a rare genetic disorder that affects one in fifteen thousand people on planet earth. Even though she cannot speak or perform some of the most basic human routines, she has changed the world for so many in so many ways already. That one little Chinese girl has helped raise the national awareness of Angelman Syndrome and introduced many people of note to the special needs community. Yep ...one special person. This Thursday night at the Loveless Barn, in Nashville Tennessee, she will be doing it again. The 4th annual Bella Bash kicks off at 7 p.m. Becka Brown, The Martins, Bob Carlisle, Gary Mule Deer and Amy Grant will all be on hand to entertain. They will all be backed by the amazing Smoking Section. This will be one amazing night of and for individuals. Special people of all stripes. The children who struggle with Angelman Syndrome have their own personalities and gifts and on Thursday night we will celebrate them and the fact that we are all here for a reason. Sometimes the reasons are hard to see and it takes us a while to find our true purpose. But I believe we're all fearfully and wonderfully made and if we keep walking, one day we'll see that purpose. Can one person make a difference? Come to the Bella Bash on Thursday night and see for yourself. R Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:53:17 GMT Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:53:17 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com It started with a violinist on a session last week, then edged its way into a breakfast meeting with a novelist friend of mine, finally culminating in a blog sent to me by my manager. It's the conversation artists love to have and hate to have. It's the "why are we all crazy?" conversation. Authors, songwriters, musicians, artists, performers, actors, etc., all seem to have this "narcissistic wound" from which all of their art flows. This is a classic concept. The blog, from a famous blogger who continually extolls the singular virtues of music made in his era, took six paragraphs to talk about this concept in terms of rock and roll, and how all the best artists were the craziest (or the most broken) and how nobody's good anymore because corporations run the world and suck the life out of art because they refuse to work with difficult people, blah, blah, blah. Nothing bores me more than this narrative, and yet it is discussed constantly. So, I felt it high time I commit my stance on this to public record. No one really knows where the "wound" comes from. Some wounds are clichés - alcoholic father, abusive mother (or vice versa), homeless as a child, ridiculed in formative years, etc. But prevailing wisdom stipulates that to be an artist of any import, one must have a severely wounded formation. Damage is the key to greatness. The Japanese sentiment for this is, "from the darkest clay the most beautiful flowers grow." We get it. Messed up person means you'll be a great artist, and the more messed up you are, the bigger and more important you'll be. It has been called the "fine madness." I'm certain I possess this madness on some level (I wrote a whole book about it) but I just happen to believe it shouldn't give one license to act like a 3-year-old all the time. When I played House of Blues, years ago, my runner told me I was the nicest artist she'd ever met and then began to cry talking about the abuse she'd endured the week before, at the hands of an up and coming rock band. You would know who they are ...and they're not really good enough to treat green room runners like slaves. Still, this is what today's artist thinks is acceptable and maybe even expected. I could tell "crazy" stories for hours. I know creative people who have done things so insane I can't write about them in a public forum. Were I to empty my personal knowledge vaults into the world, marriages would be destroyed, drug cartels would be alerted, parents would hide their children's eyes and cover their ears and legends would be de-throned. I run with a deviant bunch to say the least, and some of it I wish I could un-know. I told someone recently, "there's almost no kind of crazy I haven't seen," and it's true. Do you need a certain cockeyed world view to create great art? Probably. But I challenge the notion that it must produce unacceptable behavior. Let me explain ... I think the artist who shows up at a record executive's office and pees on the desk to make a point (something that really happened to a record executive I know ...and the artist in question was a WOMAN), is complete and utter affectatious nonsense. The genius artist everyone hates to be around but who creates something so beautiful we will tolerate them is an archetype dating back to Beethoven. Bach, on the other hand, was a church composer who lived a fairly uneventful life. We really have no stories of his madness yet he is considered the most perfect composer of the Baroque period and arguably the greatest ever ...maybe even more important than Beethoven the madman. You see, I think some of this behavior is our own fault because we will tolerate it and even glorify it. The unstable creative genius is a uniquely western creation and has become an extremely tired stereotype in the rock era. I've seen amazing works of art in other parts of the world, where I know there are clearly NO ROCK STARS ALLOWED. In my opinion, art can bloom without neuroses on parade. We foster the crazy behavior because in a twisted kind of way, we like to watch it and hear about it and probably wish we could act it out ourselves. It's like watching porn, or a car wreck. Living as an unruly child all the time is enticing. But I'll guarantee you no one in China is peeing on anybody's desk - yet there is art there so stunning you almost can't believe it was created by humans. We in the west, on the other hand, love our crazy rock stars and cultivate them. I personally like the old school guys, Sinatra, Baisie, Berlin. Were they screwed up? You bet! But they had the grace and style to keep it to themselves. Creatives who continually buy into the "I'm a crazy genius ..see how crazy I am?" thing are like that obnoxious woman who insists on showing you videos of her baby's birth. The old school guys understood that people pay to see the baby, not the videos of it being born. Those guys all came from poverty and working class immigrant families and knew that making a living as an artist was a privilege, not a birthright. Therefore, they checked their demons at the door, tied their ties, combed their hair and went to work. They drank like men and didn't make a big deal out of it. They didn't go to rehab every six months or become basket cases in front of the world. They kept their insanity private. That's why they're legends. The other side of the issue is this ...I know many completely insane people who have no talent whatsoever. I personally know people who've lived in their pajamas for years but didn't write Good Vibrations or God Only Knows. The current cultural climate finds everyone on earth with a neurosis of some kind, and most likely with a horrible family background as well. That doesn't guarantee great artistry, just like having a scruffy beard, weird bohemian cap, funky obscure poet quote tattoo on your wrist and a cup of designer coffee (purchased at the "local brewery" because you refuse to support corporate greed) in your hand doesn't make you the voice of your disaffected generation. I've come to the conclusion, after all these years of studying this issue, that what makes a great artist great is ...drumroll please ...being a freaking great artist ...period. It's the ability to create and impart something compelling and to move people with a sacred resonance. A culture that thinks only mental and emotional disturbance can spawn great art doesn't understand either thing. Some of the people who create art are a little twisted. Some are a lot twisted. Some actually may not be ...Tony Bennett anyone? I don't think anyone in recent memory has proven to be more bent than Charlie Sheen. If conventional "fine madness" wisdom held, Mr. Sheen's antics would translate into him being the greatest actor of his generation. Still, I don't think he has enough years left in his life to become as great an actor as Jimmy Stewart. Mr. Stewart might have been screwed up on some level, but we didn't see it, and I'm glad we didn't. We see Jimmy as the man who walked the dog every night and read the paper every morning after a shave and a balanced breakfast. He was as clean cut as they come (at least he appeared to be) but also drop-dead amazing. He was an icon who elevated his art to new heights. He also flew combat missions in WWII, wore suits like your grandfather wore, probably smelled like Old Spice and I'd bet the farm he showed up to work on time. That's class. That's old school. That's grace in the hurricane of creativity. As I age, that's what I aspire to and those are the people I want to celebrate. I'm pretty over the strung-out artist thing. It's just boring and I've seen one too many guys overdose who were mediocre at best. Artists who can do it clean and sober and who can at least show the appearance of dignity are the standard for me ...and if you disagree ...I'll trash your hotel room. Mon, 4 Apr 2011 07:36:25 GMT Mon, 4 Apr 2011 07:36:25 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com It is said the Roman emperor Tiberius, in his retirement on the island of Capri, regularly abused children (even babies) sexually. He had an entire troupe of children who were trained sex slaves for his own amusement. It is also said that once he tired of them he would occasionally throw some of them off the 500-foot cliffs surrounding Capri, to their deaths, for sport. How can such things be tolerated or even protected by other human beings? It all comes down to people deciding what kind of world they're going to be a part of. If you are raised and oriented to believe the king (or Caesar) is deity and can do no wrong; and if you further believe that slave children aren't really children at all because of their station in society, it will only take a nudge here and a push there for you to turn a blind eye to such horrors. History tells us that most Romans didn't approve of Tiberius' atrocities ...but they didn't stop him either. How is your world oriented? What is important in it? What are its guiding principles? These are questions the ancient Romans answered in staggeringly horrible ways. I watched Charlie Sheen on TV the other night. I tried not to but it appears there is a Charlie Sheen channel now and the TV happened to be tuned into it. Pundants have analyzed the kinetic vitriol cascading from Sheen's lips as everything from bipolar to drug-induced. Almost everyone in the media and in the professional opinion business has condemned his actions and his words. I've read everything from "pray for Charlie Sheen" to "Charlie Sheen has gone mad". I would like to come out publicly and say I think Charlie Sheen is not only not crazy, he actually may be right ... You see, we've decided in this country that God is apparently dead and the hight of human endeavor is now how many things you can get, how badass you are, how many chicks you can bang, how much bling you can flash, how much money you can make, how many cars you can own and how famous you can become. If you don't believe me, listen to any garden variety rap song. Every society celebrates its values through the music it makes. So what's the message in our popular culture? I know I sound like Jerry Fallwell right now, but hear me out. I just left the gym a few minutes ago humming along to "I want to be a billionaire so freakin bad." That was preceded by "Tonight we're going har - har - har - ha - hard ...you know we're super star - star - star - st - stars." I'm all for mindless pop music, I've written some of it myself, but our culture is becoming nothing more than a heightened state of shallow greed and empty narcissism ...plain and simple. We got our mind on our money and our money on our mind ...pretty much all the time. Not to mention how we are all gonna party like rock stars and get ours cause somehow we deserve it. It's not a tongue-in-cheek joke anymore, it's a way of life. Even the current political uprising in Wisconsin isn't as much about fiscal responsibility and civil debate over that concept, as much as it's about retaining the ability (or right) to continue to get something. Now, I understand and encourage acting in one's own interests, and I'm sure the union workers in WI work very hard for what they earn, but sometimes I think this society is so wrapped up in its own interests that it is imploding. If you are marching for your right to get more, based on what you believe is your value to the endeavor in question, then you have to applaud Charlie Sheen's demanding to be paid more per episode of his sitcom. Even though it would take a person, making a hundred thousand dollars a year, 20 years to earn what Sheen earns in one, 30-minute episode of Two and a Half Men, if he's the reason people watch the show and he can somehow prove that, and the show is making tens of millions per episode and can afford to pay him more, and we'll keep watching no matter what, why shouldn't he ask for more of the share? The truth is, if you remove decency, morality, restraint, spirituality, responsibility to one's fellow man and simple, professional decorum from the equation, there is no reason he shouldn't. "Now Reg, don't compare a fat cat (one of my least favorite words, by the way) millionaire to a union worker fighting for his family." I am most certainly not doing that, but if we are more concerned with what we get in this world than what wegive, that spirit can and will permeate any strata of society. If acquiring and "winning" is all the world is about, Charlie Sheen is acting in a perfectly acceptable way. If this is the world we have created ...Tiberius might fit right in. You see, Sheen is simply saying and doing what millions of others wish they could say and do. I'd be willing to bet that the Mick Jaggers or George Clooneys or John Mayers of the world secretly grin when he mouths off about his "totally bitchin' life." They live it too. How many alpha male sex symbols would love to just tell the world, "I live a dream life with extravagances you can't even imagine you bunch of mediocre losers! I am THE MAN. I can have any woman I want, buy anything I want and take all the drugs I want. Even if I do the stupidest thing on earth you'll all forgive me for it because you all want to watch me, be with me or BE me and you all know it." Charlie Sheen is just the only one of those stratospheric celebrities who has the stones to actually come out and say it. He knows there will be no consequence for this ...because there never has been. So, in a world where everyone has a reality show (even housewives in New Jersey); where every mom is a stage mom; where people will debase themselves just to be on TV; where millions of people a year audition for American Idol, hoping to become a superstar; where achieving celebrity has become the only worth-while endeavor left and the only accomplishment that gives you any weight as a human being; where youtube is the new arena of ideas; where pop stars get taken seriously as political thinkers; where actors are asked to "weigh in" on issues of the day; where only the most popular are considered intriguing; where money buys what we think is happiness; and where the latest drug bust of the top movie starlet leads the national evening news, I suppose you could make a case that Charlie Sheen is doing exactly what he says he's doing ..."winning." If that world then becomes devoid of its soul and its spirit and if it de-values the eternal for the temporal and lays its beating heart at the feet of the meaningless and the fleeting, consuming itself in the currency of pleasure ...in that world ...Charlie Sheen is indeed God. R Thu, 3 Mar 2011 16:57:02 GMT Thu, 3 Mar 2011 16:57:02 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, 14 years ago, when my wife and I decided to drive to the animal shelter and look at puppies. These are the things childless couples have time for on a given Sunday. We casually strolled into the yapping and whining, perusing the high-strung, sad, playful and vicious. Suddenly we spotted a perfect puppy, ears up, alert and fluffy. At 8-weeks-old, he was smart beyond his years. "Can we see this little guy?" we asked the attendant. "Oh yes - Buster is our favorite around here. Someone takes him home every weekend and works with him. He's really smart! We LOVE this little guy. He's the last of his litter."The little brown fuzz ball followed my wife and me into the courtyard and stayed right by our side. When we stopped, he stopped and looked up at us. I grabbed his snout and he never snapped at me - a great sign in a dog. I picked up a stick and tossed it. He gave chase and brought it back to my feet. "Oh my," I said, "this is a great dog." We decided to think about it and come back another day. If he was still there we would take him. As we placed him back in his cage and walked away, we heard a small whine. We turned around to see him pawing at us through the cage as if to say, "come back! You guys are the ones!" Yolanda looked at me and said, "we're taking that baby home right now!" Take that baby home we did, and from then on Buster was our boy. He never cried at night and was potty trained the day we brought him home. He was perfect from day one.Through the years, he grew and bonded closer to us. We once had our family portraits taken with him. He was incredibly spoiled. When we lived on 5 acres, he had a wonderful time chasing rabbits, foxes and cats. There was the occasional possum or squirrel to be disposed of, after he'd brought them to the house as presents. Once a year he'd get skunked and have to go to the vet to be dipped. As smart as he was, he just couldn't resist those skunks. He resided at the top of the stairs, leading in from the garage in our old house. Every night when I would come home, he was there to greet me with a smile and a waggy tail and a bunch of sloppy kisses. I can't say the same for my wife. When she and I were drifting apart and being consumed by our careers, we both believe Buster kept us together. He was the one reason we had to go home every night. We loved that dog and he slept at the foot of our bed until we started bringing children home. The night we brought my daughter home, Buster took his bone into her room and placed it beneath her crib as a peace offering. She tormented him with hair, ear and tail pulling, but he never once made an aggressive move toward her and endured everything she could dish out with uncanny restraint. As she aged and became more dangerous, and he aged and became more frail, he was banished to my office, where he has resided for the past 7 years. He's been the quintessential studio dog, being in the room for vocal tracks, guitar tracks, piano tracks and even strings. He was always the consummate professional. Only one time did he eat a treat during a vocal take. I thought my mic was going out. When I soloed the crackling sound, it was Buster in the background, crunching a milk bone. Every studio dog gets a pass on one of those. He was awesome.Over the past 2 years, Buster's hips have been going out on him. He's been in a lot of pain and has been unable to run or really even walk well. In the past few weeks he was barely able to go potty and took a long time hobbling back to the house after. He hasn't been able to sit for about 6 months. He could only stand or lay down on his side. He developed blindness in both eyes and couldn't It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, 14 years ago, when my wife and I decided to drive to the animal shelter and look at puppies. These are the things childless couples have time for on a given Sunday. We casually strolled into the yapping and whining, perusing the high-strung, sad, playful and vicious. Suddenly we spotted a perfect puppy, ears up, alert and fluffy. At 8-weeks-old, he was smart beyond his years. "Can we see this little guy?" we asked the attendant. "Oh yes - Buster is our favorite around here. Someone takes him home every weekend and works with him. He's really smart! We LOVE this little guy. He's the last of his litter."The little brown fuzz ball followed my wife and me into the courtyard and stayed right by our side. When we stopped, he stopped and looked up at us. I grabbed his snout and he never snapped at me - a great sign in a dog. I picked up a stick and tossed it. He gave chase and brought it back to my feet. "Oh my," I said, "this is a great dog." We decided to think about it and come back another day. If he was still there we would take him. As we placed him back in his cage and walked away, we heard a small whine. We turned around to see him pawing at us through the cage as if to say, "come back! You guys are the ones!" Yolanda looked at me and said, "we're taking that baby home right now!" Take that baby home we did, and from then on Buster was our boy. He never cried at night and was potty trained the day we brought him home. He was perfect from day one.Through the years, he grew and bonded closer to us. We once had our family portraits taken with him. He was incredibly spoiled. When we lived on 5 acres, he had a wonderful time chasing rabbits, foxes and cats. There was the occasional possum or squirrel to be disposed of, after he'd brought them to the house as presents. Once a year he'd get skunked and have to go to the vet to be dipped. As smart as he was, he just couldn't resist those skunks. He resided at the top of the stairs, leading in from the garage in our old house. Every night when I would come home, he was there to greet me with a smile and a waggy tail and a bunch of sloppy kisses. I can't say the same for my wife. When she and I were drifting apart and being consumed by our careers, we both believe Buster kept us together. He was the one reason we had to go home every night. We loved that dog and he slept at the foot of our bed until we started bringing children home. The night we brought my daughter home, Buster took his bone into her room and placed it beneath her crib as a peace offering. She tormented him with hair, ear and tail pulling, but he never once made an aggressive move toward her and endured everything she could dish out with uncanny restraint. As she aged and became more dangerous, and he aged and became more frail, he was banished to my office, where he has resided for the past 7 years. He's been the quintessential studio dog, being in the room for vocal tracks, guitar tracks, piano tracks and even strings. He was always the consummate professional. Only one time did he eat a treat during a vocal take. I thought my mic was going out. When I soloed the crackling sound, it was Buster in the background, crunching a milk bone. Every studio dog gets a pass on one of those. He was awesome.Over the past 2 years, Buster's hips have been going out on him. He's been in a lot of pain and has been unable to run or really even walk well. In the past few weeks he was barely able to go potty and took a long time hobbling back to the house after. He hasn't been able to sit for about 6 months. He could only stand or lay down on his side. He developed blindness in both eyes and couldn't see his treats during these last months. I would place them right at his mouth and he would occasionally snap at me because he didn't know what was happening. Buster was 14 and the sad truth is ...dogs get old and there's not much you can do for them at a certain point. Finally today, the last day of February, 2011, we decided to let Buster move on and get some much-deserved relief from his painful life. I don't know if doggies go to heaven, but if heaven is a place of unconditional love and happiness, then Buster will be there ...at least his spirit will be. I've had several dogs in my life but never one so cherished as my Buster Brown. I will always remember him as a young, beautiful boy, running through the big backyard, catching a ball on the first hop. I will remember rubbing his spoiled belly and hearing him snore at the end of the bed. I will remember how he possibly saved my marriage and protected my children. He was one of God's special creatures and he will be missed more than I can even put into words. Even as I write this, I keep looking over my shoulder to see him peering through the glass door. He's not there anymore. I hope he's catching rubber balls on one hop somewhere and tormenting a cat. I hope he knows how much joy he brought to some people down here on earth. God speed Buster. We love you. R Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:24:43 GMT Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:24:43 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com As the streets of Cairo burn and the upper areas of the United States freeze, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a financial expert at the gym last week. His "rosy" prediction of future financial events left me a little sick to my stomach. According to this completely sober expert, the US dollar will cease to be the world currency standard in about 2 years. Food, oil and water shortages are probably on the way as well as 20-something-percent unemployment. "My goodness, what can be done?" I asked. "Not really much of anything I'm afraid," he replied coldly. "Stay out of debt, buy gold and learn to grow food I guess.""Really?" I thought. "You're just going to go all Glenn Beck on me like that?" Then he smiled and said, "have a nice day." I've never been much of a "book-of-Revelation" guy. I tend to think things don't have to get as bad as all that. I tend to think we can solve problems and emerge better and stronger than we were, and live to see more glorious days. Call me a cockeyed-optimist relic from the Reagan generation, but I've actually seen the world get better. I've seen problems get solved. I'm a believer. These days, however, I'm starting to feel 2012 loom and it's actually getting me a little rattled. Are we on some collision course with history? Have we already ridden as high as humans are ever going to ride? Are we in for the brutal let down? Is it all about to come unravelled? It could be that this week's Super Bowl holds the answer ...The title clash of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers could be a metaphor for the end of the United States as we have known it ...and as we know it now. I don't believe it an accident that the city and team that gave us the Lombardi Trophy through integrity, hard work, upright fundamentals and a squeaky clean image; the team that revolutionized the modern game of professional football and put the term "championship caliber" into the lexicon, is coming to the largest sporting event stage in America to re-claim its namesake on THIS particular Super Bowl. The Packers are the youngest team in the NFL and no one on the team has ever been to a Super Bowl. They represent the pure dreams and untarnished idealism once held by this nation. They see their birthright right before them and are on a sacred crusade to bring that trophy - the holy grail of sports championships - back to that place of its birth. The Gs on those helmets mean the Ice Bowl, Title town, Favre and Nitchke. They evoke fedoras and a coach who didn't hug his children or fist bump his players but, by God, got results. The winter green conjures rows of men in crew cuts doing pushups in vacant lots and driving Detroit City cars back to small houses on quiet streets. The ghosts of another time whisper unequivocal goals and distinct, concise orders to "form a seal here and a seal here" and to "run this play in the ...alley." Green Bay represents the America that once was and the America that became the envy of the world.To achieve the reclamation of past glories and that shining city on the hill, they must vanquish the symbol of what America has become ...the Pittsburgh Steelers (on Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday no less. Coincidence?) The Steelers are the team that has hoisted the Lombardi trophy more than any other franchise. You might say they represent the excesses derived from conquering the league bestowed upon them by the Packers' legacy. They built on what the Packers started and have feasted at the table of superiority for so long that their mere presence on a field of championship play assumes they will leave that field in victory. They are modern and fierce. Their coach represents the best of the story that is America and the modern graces that have sprung forth from hard fought battles of the past - being the youngest head coach to ever win a Super Bowl. He also happens to be black - a fact that is thankfully, merely incidental these days, thanks, in part, to "The Rooney Rule" - a rule stipulating that all teams must interview a minority candidate when hiring a head coach. The Rooney rule's namesake is Art Rooney ...the man who owned the Steelers. The Steelers are the metaphorical children of plenty in the NFL. They have become the team of record in the modern era of pro football by writing their own epic story; the Immaculate Reception, the Blonde Bomber, the Ballet dancer Swanny, breaking my heart on two Super Sundays. They always bring ferocious defense and are led by an unlikely, non-prototypical quarterback in big Ben Roethlesburger. They are masters of all facets of the game and full of victories and confidence. The Pittsburgh Steelers represent what America is now ..and why it might be hated by the rest of the world. As we brace for whatever's next - more riots, more poverty, more crazy weather, deeper financial uncertainty, crumbling culture, etc, the NFL is on the brink of a work stoppage. There's a very good chance we won't see pro football in the fall of 2011. For me, that is more ominous irony. By the time the NFL works out its collective bargaining agreement, will America even exist any more? If my financial friend is right we could be so far in decline by the fall of 2013 that pro sports are a thing of the past. Are these the last days of America as we know it? Is this ironic clashing of teams the signaling of the end? Are these the last two gladiators to ever do battle in the arena built on the sands of liberty and sovereignty? When Barack Obama took office, I whispered to myself, "this man is the last American president." It really had nothing to do with him, it was just a feeling. Despite the "hope and change" in the air, I could feel fissures beneath my feet. Now, two years later, he unfortunately seems like a man presiding over the end of something. Also, there have been 44 presidents ...and 44 Super Bowls. Coincidence? I watch my children play and wonder what America they will come to know. Will they earn and spend dollars or some other form of currency? Will they re-set the national conscious or participate in the appetite for more? Will some mega disaster re-shape the world, leaving only tales of the great sport of football and the athletes who played it, in that mythical place called America, or will we casually live to see Super Bowl 50 and beyond? I cannot say for sure, but what I can say is I believe it no accident that these two particular teams meet this particular Sunday. The clash of metaphors; the dream that was America - the reality that is America - battling for the center of its soul. Maybe this game will be our final history lesson about ourselves. Maybe this game is the epilogue to our nation's odyssey and the winner isn't as important as the struggle. I, for one, will pop my popcorn, nestle in to my favorite spot on the couch and reverently click the remote to the proper channel. I'll smile and possibly tear up with the singing of the National Anthem. I'll watch the flashbulbs at kickoff and as the quarters melt away, in the greatest sports stadium ever built by the hands of men (another ominous irony), I'll savor what might possibly be the last professional football game ever played. For it just might be that the gods of sport have provided more to watch and root for than just a game. Enjoy the Super Bowl everyone!R Sun, 6 Feb 2011 11:04:11 GMT Sun, 6 Feb 2011 11:04:11 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com As I sit in a hotel room in Washington DC and watch ice and snow pelt the sidewalk, my mind drifts to certain narratives I've heard. The narrative that immediately comes to mind is that of the earth warming. Ten years ago many were convinced that we'd never see another snow storm again. The global warming narrative was in full bloom and I was bracing for 80-degree Christmases and an eastern shoreline somewhere around Georgia. Climate change is certainly happening. That is irrefutable. The climate has been changing as long as man has waked this planet. Are we changing it? Who knows? Can we reverse it? I highly doubt it. What I do know is I nearly froze to death walking to Subway for a sandwich and I'm glad I have modern conveniences to keep me toasty warm inside my electricity-riddled hotel room. The narrative that condemns the use of these items i.e.; use of electricity produces carbon emissions that, in turn, warm up the planet and will eventually kill off all life on this rock, isn't useful for me today. I need warmth and shelter and an operational TV. This morning I played at a restaurant right across the street from Ford's Theater, where president Lincoln (one of my personal heroes) was killed. I thought about the narratives we create over assassinations and murders and the ones we curiously don't create. Actors have never been collectively blamed for Lincoln's murder, even though it was the most famous and acclaimed actor of his time who killed Mr Lincoln - John Wilkes Booth. Mr Booth was the equivalent of today's George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Given Mr. Clooney's penchant for political dissent, I suppose you could almost extrapolate that he might be a danger to a sitting president. After all, it was less than 150 years go when another actor shot a president. If we delve into the psyche of actors and their relationship to authority figures (particularly presidents), I'm sure we could make a case for putting Sean Penn on some watch list somewhere ...but it would be a stretch. There's probably a mathematical equation that proves that it's only a matter of WHEN not IF another famous actor is going to shoot another beloved president. We have a precedent for it. It's historical fact. But alas, even though that narrative could be written, it would be beyond ridiculous. We all know George Clooney isn't going to kill anyone ...probably. We all know the circumstances of Booth and Lincoln were unique to their own time and will almost certainly never be repeated. I was intrigued for years with the Kennedy assassination. I read books on it and watched mini-series events and documentaries and delved into the fringes of the conspiracy theories. The narrative of that event could lead you to believe LBJ was a monster who ordered his boss shot. It could lead you to believe Bobby Kennedy accidentally ordered the hit - thinking he was ordering a hit on Castro. It could lead you to the mafia, the industrial military complex or a thousand people and things in between. At the end of the day, however, I think Oswald probably acted alone. It's not sexy but it's probably the truth.I was always baffled by the narrative that made Republicans racists. When I was growing up in the south, I always thought of Republicans as the more highly evolved. All I knew were southern Democrats and they were all rabid racists and big government program folks. Those Democrat politicians were indistinguishable between used car salesmen and preachers. What I knew was that a Republican had signed emancipation. I knew Eisenhower was the first president to appoint African Americans to prominent government positions. I knew more Republicans voted for the civil rights act in congress than Democrats. I knew Dr. Martin Luther King had been a Republican. I had learned that blacks acquired more personal wealth under Reagan than all the other presidents before him. In fact, during the '80's, the collective wealth of the black community alone would've equaled the 13th wealthiest nation on earth. I can honestly say that I've met more Democrat racists in my life than Republican ones. It's what made me look into the Republican party as a young man. So, the narrative that Republicans were racist came as a shock to me. Now, after years of study and research, I understand where it came from and I get it to a degree. It's a reaction to most conservative opposition to affirmative action. It's also a widely held belief that the Republican party was hijacked by a right-wing, Christian, southern contingent in the 80's, and that led to systematic racism within the party. I have become a Libertarian, not a Republican, but still I think it comes down to narratives, in a way. Let me explain further; If you believe that no matter what you do as a minority, no one will give you a fair shake because of your race, then you must cling to affirmative action. The narrative you're basing it on states that EVERY white person in the nation is a racist and will not treat your fairly under any circumstance, no matter your qualifications . If you believe that making that judgment is racist toward white people in itself, and having low expectations of minorities is also a prejudiced position, then you might oppose affirmative action as a racist response to an antiquated narrative. It really depends on the narrative you wish to read into the experience.This week was the State of the Union address. I didn't watch it but I've seen clips. Apparently we're going to spend less and invest more ...or is it the other way around? I'm not sure, but the thing that has chapped me about the speech was the "date night" thing that Republicans and Democrats did as a "call to civility. I literally wanted to throw up in my mouth. This "need for a more civil tone" is based on a false narrative. The narrative states that heated political rhetoric stirs up anger in the electorate, thus causing someone to go out and commit violence ...like in Tucson. It is not true and never was true ...but that's the narrative that got written almost immediately in the wake of the Tucson shootings. To me, that narrative is as ridiculous as putting George Clooney under FBI surveillance ...because he's an actor. Heated political rhetoric is our birthright as Americans. I didn't want it shut down during the Bush years and I don't want it shut down now. It is to be debated and beaten in the arena of ideas - not squashed underfoot. Ds and Rs holding hands and playing nice is merely political theater ...at its worst, I might add. I'd rather them sit with their own parties and show the country who it voted for. Elections have consequences ...as well they should.I suppose how any of us react to any given situation is based on the narrative we choose to accept. On the drive in from the airport, my driver (an African American man), inquired about my residence. Upon hearing Nashville, TN he began talking about his experiences in Memphis as a young boy and how those racist experiences kept him from visiting the south for many years. The narrative by which he guided most of his life hasn't been accurate in a long time. His experiences happened in the 1950's. The things he described to me are foreign to this southern-born man. I have only heard that narrative in history books and tales told by those older than me. Are there still racists in Memphis? I'm sure there are. But there are no "white only" water fountains or restrooms any more. There are no more KKK marches sanctioned and praised by public officials. The great thing about a narrative is ...it can be re-written.R Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:22:47 GMT Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:22:47 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com My heart is heavy ...very heavy. I was going to let all my anger with the state of the world fly on the last day of 2010 and write a long, scathing blog about everything that pisses me off in the world. From TSA pat-downs to people who claim Jesus came to earth to encourage governments to re-distribute wealth were in my ...purview (I started to say "crosshairs" - I won't be using that metaphor for a while). The blog was going to be several pages of long-winded, funny, ironic vitriol - you would've loved it. My manager was excited enough to ask me about it over the holidays and where it was. As it turns out, because of some things going on in my own home, I couldn't bring myself to do write it. Worst of all, I was going to call it, "Both Barrels". In light of recent events, I'm glad I didn't write it. One of my favorite films is Twelve Angry Men. It's a case study in people jumping to conclusions in a murder case, based on their own narrative, world view and prejudices. In the end, they prove themselves wrong and only one of them holds to his bitter, misdirected passion. I've seen a lot of that this week. As a United States congresswoman was being wheeled into brain surgery and authorities were piecing together what was happening, I began seeing strange Facebook posts that piqued my curiosity. Apparently, I had missed the reports that tied the killer of several people in Tucson, Arizona to some graph of "targeted areas" on a Sara Palin blog. I scoured all the credible news sources at my disposal but couldn't find any evidence that the young man even cared about Sara Palin or any of the other people being discussed as his antagonists. In the end, we've learned this young man was troubled and mentally unstable. The wrong song on the radio could've set him off. I've always feared one of mine would set off someone like him. I pray it never does, but any time you climb into the public arena, you have to go in understanding the x-factor of mental instability. I've never said this publicly, but I've always feared being shot on stage. When your audience is as small and as twisted as mine, it's not a far-fetched notion ...but I digress. In 1998, I wrote a song called "Nicole Hadley's Heart" about the first girl in the United States to be murdered in a high-school massacre. Her heart was successfully transplanted to a 50-year-old man. She was, by all accounts, a living angel. I had occasion to speak with her parents, Chuck and Gwen Hadley. Gwen told me the story of the young boy who constantly bothered Nicole at school and continually hounded her to go out with him. She also told me how that young boy had watched the "Basketball Diaries" one hundred and twenty eight times and had frozen (on his VCR) the scene where Leo Dicaprio's character walks into the school shooting people. It was found that way in his room after the Paducah Kentucky shooting where he killed Nicole at point-blank range ...while her head was bowed in prayer. The kid had told everyone, from his friends to his teachers, he was going to re-in-act that scene and commit a school massacre ...and he did. I suppose you could get all hot and bothered over "The Basketball Diaries" and assign culpability to it. I suppose you could reprimand Leonardo DiCaprio for making that kind of film choice. I chose to do neither. I've always believed MORE speech is better ...not less. I suppose you could go on and on about gun bans. I mean after all, prohibition completely ended alcoholism ...or did it? Regardless, one last thing Gwen told me really made me think. She said the media never reported the three other boys who had brought (illegal) guns to school that day, but didn't kill anyone. They were suspected to be in collusion with the young murderer and were all supposed to carry out a Columbine-type incident (although it couldn't be proven beyond doubt), but apparently they couldn't go through with it. Somehow, it was swept under the rug and forgotten. You see, it's a long way from saying you're going to kill someone in cold blood to actually doing it. We all have darkness in us and I suppose in the right passionate moment we could all be OJ, but methodically planning the indiscriminate murder of innocents - just to do it - takes a certain kind of person. Unfortunately, we don't know who they are among us until it's usually too late ...and that leads me to this ... As much as I want to rail on angrily in this blog, I keep coming back to the fact that this boy - this murderer - was once a 4-year-old, pizza-crazed, Santa Claus loving, Barney watching child ...just like mine. I have no sympathy for him or his actions, but my heart goes out to his parents. I've been watching my baby boy wrestle and struggle with finding a happy place in his own life lately. He gets abused daily. He gets slapped in the face for no reason, and his hair jerked out of his head when he's not expecting it. He asks questions over and over again that never get answered. All of this comes at the hands of his special needs sister who is bigger and stronger than him and who is desperately fighting her own disability to communicate with her little brother. I intervene as much as possible and try to normalize the situation, but the stark truth is a parent can't live a child's life for them and eventually each individual is faced with their own choices and decisions. My heart breaks day after day watching my children to their painful, sibling dance. I know my boy is hurting and confused, and I can see life developing right in front of me that I will never be able to completely protect no matter what I do. Where might this path take him? To delusion? To sociopathy? To unquenched anger? To violence? To timid pacificity and under-achievement? I pray for him day and night. I wonder if Jared Laughner's father prayed for him. All of us men need more prayer than we want to admit. Anyone can raise a male, but raising a MAN is hard work. Men are aggressive and that natural state of being can turn ugly if channeled in the wrong direction. Some men take their aggression out on a football field. Some pour themselves into business and industry. Others unleash on the airwaves or in political commentary. Some of us aggressively wield a pen. I pray my little man finds his own, healthy punching bag ...all men need one. I watch my son playing with his little friends and I know that one day they will be making the decisions for the world. They'll decide how the opposite sex is treated. They'll decide what's worth fighting for and what's not. They'll collectively and individually decide what kind of culture in which they want to raise their own children. Will they jump to conclusions about motives, when someone is tragically murdered, before getting the facts? Will they pay closer attention to the details of troubled minds in their own midst? Will they arm themselves too easily? Will they restrain the darker forces of their nature and be good men even when they're hurting? I pray, for all our sakes, they do. R Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:19:20 GMT Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:19:20 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Just after Labor Day I saw them in Costco. Christmas decorations! The cynic in me scoffed and cursed the commercialization of my sacred celebration. "Really!? Can they not even wait til summer is dead? Vultures!" It seems that every year, stores roll out the Christmas fare earlier and earlier. Where I live, there's a Christmas store in the mall that operates year-round. The business savvy adults in us bristle at the crass nature of squeezing every single dollar that can be squeezed out of this December phenomenon. I guess you'd have to concede that Christmas, despite its convoluted messages about the birth of Christ (which most historians believe wasn't anywhere close to December 25th), pagan rituals (like trees and decorations and such), Santa Claus (or is it St Nicholas?), gift-giving, food over-indulgence, inexplicably syrupy sweet music for one month a year and the mandate that forces us to be around family members we don't want to be around the other 364 days of the year, Christmas has officially won the contest as absolute BEST HOLIDAY EVER! Nothing comes close to Christmas in size, scope or global impact ...and I LOVE it! When we get to the bottom of why business starts trying to capitalize on Christmas so early, we find an interesting supply and demand component. The truth is, people buy this stuff. That's what drives business. Believe me, they wouldn't put wrapping paper out in early October if it wasn't being purchased. The truth is, we like to start thinking about Christmas as soon as we can. That's what drives the Labor Day offerings of garland and blinky lights. Us. I thought about that this week ... We need Christmas in so many ways. Every Thanksgiving I start getting younger until December 25th when I'm 5-years-old again. No matter how many years I live, I'll always be the same age on Christmas day. You're probably the same way. Life is uncertain and hard and unfair and heart-breaking. Every new day that tears at our body and soul, wears us a little further down and moves us a little closer to death. As we wrestle the day-to-day giants of job, politics, family, health and culture, we secretly pine for the world to stop for a minute and let us take a breath. That's what Christmas does. It stops the world for a minute. It doesn't require us to be cool or hip or younger or older or richer or more successful. It lets us freeze right where we are for a month or so and remember something good. In my mind's eye, I see a silver tree with blue bulbs dangling and gleaming. There are a few gifts wrapped in cheap, Santa Claus paper under that little tree. Somewhere in the distance Robert Goulet is singing "Do You Hear What I Hear" and I can smell a pie baking. My mother is young and busy and smells like a combination of perfume and cigarette smoke, having just returned from shopping in a public place. I go to hug her and her coat is still cold to the touch from the temperature outside. There are surprises in her shopping bags and she smiles at me slyly. She is happy. In another flash I'm riding in the backseat of my parent's car and gazing at red and green lights on rows and rows of blue collar houses, while Nat King Cole sings "chestnuts roasting on an open fire." I am bundled up from head to toe and adrenaline filled as we pull into my aunt's driveway. I know there are treasures to be opened on Christmas morning and rich and delightful foods to be eaten tonight. Rudolph will soon be pulling Santa's sleigh out of Christmas town, while Burl Ives sings "Holly Jolly Christmas." I hear a fire crackle and see my grandfather rocking gently in a chair next to it, staring at a room full of presents. He has a slight grin on his face and I know from his stories that he "never had anything like that when he was a kid." I try to imagine his black and white Christmases and him as a child receiving a mere apple and orange. I glance at "It's a Wonderful Life" on TV and place his childhood in the Bailey's "drafty old house." A chill races up my spine as I re-concentrate on the fire and my glorious upcoming morning. I still smell the puppy breath that woke me up to a new collie. I can see my brother laughing and crying at the same time while the puppy licked his toddler head. I feel the handles of plastic cowboy pistols and the cool, purple metal of a new bicycle. I hear my father yelling out "alright - just what I wanted!" after opening a box with the fourth poorly chosen necktie. I see my brother and me building a Barbie High rise apartment for our little cousin. I see snow flurries and lines of cards on a mantle. I see little snowmen on napkins and little Santa Clauses on cookie tins and soup bowls. I see solemn, dimly lit nativity scenes with wise men and shepards gazing at the small manger. Charlie Brown and a newborn baby and Bing Crosby and a mythical sleigh ride and elves and angels and Mickey Rooney and a Grinch and the Ray Conniff singers and the color red and a tree in the mall and lights on a roof all converge to create a season - a feeling - a mood. Christmas is a dream from which you wake up smiling. You can't remember all the details but you know you were in a safe and happy place. There were smells and sounds and colors and they left you content and yet still longing. We try desperately to feel that again every year. That little buzz you get at four years-old when you finally get to sit on Santa's knee. That sweet jolt of joy from opening the first present. That warm shudder from hearing a faint and deep, "ho-ho-ho. The ghostly laughter of family members gone. The taste of sugar and love. We do all we can to re-capture it - breathe it in and hold on to it. It's why we start celebrating Christmas in October ...and I don't blame us one bit. R For a free download of the Christmas single, "Orphan's Lullaby," enter the code MERRYCHRISTMAS at www.regiehamm.com. Merry Christmas! Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:17:48 GMT Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:17:48 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Twenty years ago, some friends and I were playing a bit of a parlor game, going around the room asking unanswerable questions. One of the questions posed was, "Would you accept a guarantee of fifty thousand dollars a year, for the rest of your life, if it meant you could never earn a penny more than that?" In those days 50k was a lot of money. No one in that room came close to making that much money, including me. Every person in the room said, without hesitation, that they would take the deal ...except me. I was actually angry about it. I scowled at my friends and said, "I don't want ANYONE ever telling me how much money I can or can't earn and you shouldn't either. I don't care what the guarantee is. I want the choices and opportunities to fly as high as I can. I think I can do better than 50k and leave my family some wealth, help a lot of people along the way and maybe even employ some folks." They all looked at me like I was from Mars but that was the moment I realized what I was. 20 years later I still believe I was right.In the past two years an unexpected argument has arisen in the land of the free. After 236 years of unprecedented prosperity, progress, and technological development, the hearts and minds raised and nurtured under the wings of liberty have suddenly decided to debate the system that has given them the highest standard of living in the history of the human race. I find it appalling.Look, America is the land of the dreamer, the innovator, the wildcat speculator, the guy with an idea and an overactive thyroid. This is where you're supposed to be able to "make it happen" - whatever "it" is to you. Right now we see finance pointy heads wringing their hands over why the economy isn't bouncing back like it's supposed to after the government borrows and spends a trillion dollars. I actually wrote about this two years ago, and it's astounding that the "experts" didn't understand it then and don't understand it now. Business is based on predictability. I have three different friends who have great ideas for new companies. They are all highly successful and well respected, yet they're all having the same trouble. Investment is frozen and scared stiff. I talked to one of them last week who I think has the idea of the year. If implemented, it could employ thousands of people, start a whole new trend in a certain part of the marketplace and quite possibly save a big part of the music business. He needs to raise just over 2 million dollars to implement his idea. Five years ago he would've had it in three months. Now, no one is moving - here's why ...We have a current governmental climate that has announced its hostility toward private business, by not only saying it publicly, but by implementing policies which create long-term instability in the market. You don't know what your tax rate is going to be in 2011 - neither do I. NO one does, not even the freaking PRESIDENT, because Congress hasn't told us what they're going to do regarding the current tax code. They are cowards. If you're a business owner, you can't make any decisions on hiring until you know which tax code you'll be bound by. The health care bill has also created complete uncertainty. Because it's neither good socialist policy nor good capitalist policy, but some murky collision of disjointed policies, insurance companies are bracing themselves for extinction while passing the cost of all the new regulation to the consumer. My rates have gone up and I've already lost one insurance company to bankruptcy - all in one year. This is chaos. Couple that with an overload in Asian debt that is de-valuing the U.S dollar at a staggering rate, the out-and-out takeover of other companies - setting aside their bond contracts and you literally have entrepreneurs looking for different countries in which to do business ...and I'm not EVEN kidding. It's happening.I don't march or rally for anyone. I didn't do 8-28 or 10-10 or definitely not this last John Stewart thingy (which was a rally poking fun at rallies - which we call in artistic circles "running into your own irony"), but if you think the Tea Party is just a bunch of stupid racists who don't like the fact that we have a brown person as president, you're really not in the game. These people were ready to protest when W "abandoned the free market to save it." I was too. This country inherently understands what it is and what it doesn't want to be.A blog is not a place to get into the minutiae of property philosophy or the pros and cons of top down versus bottom up economies, but I do hate hearing politicians talk about jobs bills and job creation. This week's election has a lot of future public servants saying such things. I don't believe it's their responsibility to create jobs. I think it's their responsibility to protect everybody, keep the roads paved and create a warm and inviting environment for the dreamers. Dreamers, achievers and innovators create jobs, and most of the time they create really cool ones. Would you rather work for Google or the DMV? Nothing wrong with working for the DMV (I'll be there this week and they're very nice people), but I sure do like the idea of Google existing and thriving. Plus, spending two hours googling is WAY more fun than two hours getting your learner's permit. Who's the next Google? I can't wait to find out. I'll wager it won't be coming from Cuba ...and maybe not even Denmark. It'll probably come from China. The reason? Well, that's another blog, but trust me ...they won't be communists forever. I just hope we never are.R Mon, 1 Nov 2010 11:54:30 GMT Mon, 1 Nov 2010 11:54:30 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com I don't like to wallow in politics. It's fun to argue about, but it's mostly just a bunch of boring people who couldn't make it as rock stars. I'm also not a big fan of debates over the minutia of religion. If you want me to yawn in your face, start talking to me about your take on the prophecies in the Book of Revelation or your view of predestinationism or whether Genesis is a metaphor or literal or the transubstantiation of the sacrament. I was raised by a minister - there are 21 licensed Christian ministers in my family, going back three generations. I've studied the Old and New Testaments thoroughly, read the Bible front to back many times, had classes on the life of Christ, original Greek and Aramaic and heard almost every angle of exposition you can hear on all the iconic Bible stories. I used to be able to quote almost all the Psalms from memory. Let's just say I know a lot about this stuff, and whatever I don't know my dad does (he's my theological tech support). Still, I find the debating of it a complete waste of time. I'm much more interested in human truth, not the rules and regulations surrounding it. The truth is, the further I reach in the world, the more I learn that the reason politics and religion are such volatile subjects is because almost everything in the world has a political or religious implication. The way we organize ourselves and treat our fellow man all relates to what we believe on a political or religious basis. I hate that idea - but it's true. So, without getting into direct politics or religion, let's talk about life. Let's talk about whether we think it's ultimately good or not. I think at seventeen I might have thought life was ultimately pointless and moving toward nothing but oblivion. I know people who still think that. Some people just sort of press on casually though existence - hoping to make it to retirement and die comfortably. Some believe in a hereafter. Some do not. Some believe the way we treat ourselves and others in this life echoes in the next life. Some believe there are no echoes anywhere - just a bunch of animated carbon crawling around a tiny rock in the galaxy. I pass no judgement on any point of view. We're all in a process. As I've aged, however, I've seen, done and experienced some things that have changed me. I've felt love so deep it pulled me into a new universe. I've felt pain so excruciating I've actually had to laugh in disbelief. The older I get the more beautiful and poetic and tragic and majestic this world is to me. I can't believe that a place this amazing happened by chance. I guess you'd say I believe in a design and a designer. I know too much about art and creativity not to recognize it when I see it. If you go down the road of that belief, you have another choice. You can choose to believe that all the people that have come in this world are important somehow. Or you can choose to believe some are and some aren't. I suppose you can also believe that none of us are important at all. I choose to believe we're all important and all here for a reason. I know that sounds corny and makes some folks roll their eyes, but I do indeed believe it. If you look at the Helen Kellers and Stephen Hawkings of the world, you see something amazing - people who at any other time in history might have been simply discarded but at their time in history changed the world as everyone knew it. Can anyone imagine discarding Helen Keller or Stephen Hawking? I think people like that are object lessons in how much we don't know about ourselves and our potential. There are unexplored regions of the human story waiting to be discovered. There are hidden corridors yet to be unlocked and collective gasps yet to be heard across the world. If you believe every child is indeed special and you happen to be raising one imprisoned by a disability, you long for that gasp. If you believe in the unfolding of an ingenius design you cannot enter a new day without charging into the "what ifs" of those unlocked corridors. My family, like many other families in the world, makes that charge every morning. On Thursday night, at the Loveless barn, in Nashville TN, many of us who believe in the miracle and potential of every life are going to celebrate that miracle and potential. We're going to celebrate with music and comedy and laughter and love. We're going to try and raise some money for a therapy center that may one day break through barriers that right now seem impenetrable. Maybe there's a Helen Keller or a Stephen Hawking waiting to be liberated through the therapy received at the Angel Center ...just maybe. The one thing I've learned about life is that it is unpredictable and that sometimes things are more beautiful than you imagine. You just have to show up and live. This Thursday night, at the Bella Bash, we're going to do just that. -RH Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:08:39 GMT Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:08:39 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com This morning was just one of many sleepless, tossing and turning, watching-the-sun-come-up mornings I've had as of late. I fall asleep with a heavy heart, dream about the things I fell asleep thinking about, then awaken abruptly, still worried about the things I dreamt. I have so much racing through my mind I can't concentrate on any one thing and I find myself spinning webs of convoluted scenarios around the challenges I'm trying to face. Yes my friends ...it's less than two weeks until the Bella Bash. Everybody has a cause. At some point in your life you're going to find something you want to pour yourself into without caution. If you're growing as a human being you'll discover a purpose and a "thing" you want to fix. God knows there are scores of "things" that need fixing. These days I spend much of my life donating my time, talent and money to causes. From schools for the arts to homeless shelters - from autism conferences to flood relief - from Angelman Syndrome research fundraisers to concerts for individuals with brain tumors and/or rare forms of cancer - from adoption awareness and orphan care to doing a private show for a soldier returning from Afghanistan - I have been the guy who doesn't say no to anyone or anything. I do more free work than paid work. Thankfully, God has continued to provide for my family, but when I look at the time ledger at the end of the year, I sometimes wonder how. Most causes are worthy. Yolanda attended a fundraiser last week for clean water in a certain part of Africa. She bought a necklace at the silent auction. I think clean water for starving children is certainly a cause worth contributing to. I have a dear friend in Greece who builds orphanages for abandoned children in Muslim countries. I have another friend who chairs a foundation that helps fund chinese adoptions and that has recently built a special needs orphanage in China. One of my special friends (who will be at the Bella Bash) has purchased 15 acres in Ghana where she takes in orphaned children. Another friend of mine has a non-profit record label that produces music that speaks to specific problems i.e.; grief, battling cancer, raising special needs children, fighting certain addictions, etc. The truth is there's more than enough trouble to go around and sometimes it feels like there's not enough time, money or hope to heal it all. I've spent the entire year of 2010 refining where I want to focus my efforts as a person with somewhat of a platform (however small it might be). I've met with several worthy charities and non-profit entities, this year, discussing their specific causes and how I could help. The truth is, there's more need in the world than I can get to ...and that's what keeps me up at night. There's also need right here in my own house. For some reason my children seem to want to eat food ...EVERY DAY. Life requires funding I suppose. Entangled in this minutia is the new debate in this country over wealth acquisition, capitalism versus socialism, what belongs to whom, who controls what and who's entitled to what. How do we level the world? Should we even try? Who decides when it's level? I have definite thoughts on the subject that will be forthcoming after the 21st of this month, but these questions do give one pause to consider how they're spending their money - how they acquire their money - and what they wrap their lives in. I'm personally witnessing a quiet revolution among the upwardly mobile and (formerly) wealthy folks I know. I'm watching people literally try and give their entire lives and fortunes away. I'm watching families adopt multiple orphans and strain the last of anything they've accumulated over the years on children in need. I'm watching wealthy businessmen down size to the bare minimum and give the remainder of their wealth away. Those who think high income people are selfish and evil don't know the extraordinary people I've met. More on that to come ... The conclusion of my soul searching this year has been that I must focus on the special needs community, particularly the Angelman Syndrome community. Those of you who know me know I do not believe in accidents. I think we're all here for a reason. But I do occasionally stand in the face of so much need in the world and wonder where this cause of mine ranks in order of importance. I know it's more important than get-your-animals-spayed-or-neutered awareness. Is it more important than bringing clean water to a rural village in Africa? I don't know, but I do know it's what I have been given and my work in the special needs community has already changed lives. It feels like this is where I'm supposed to be. This year's Bella Bash will hopefully fund some much needed therapy for some very special kids. The Angel Center is my own personal long-term dream and I pray nightly it is not a fool hearty one. I hope I'm not being redundant and trying to create something that already exists somewhere. The research seems to indicate that that isn't the case. When I crunch the hard numbers, concerts don't really raise that much money, at least not enough to fully fund an Angel Center. But it's what I know how to do and my prayer is it will raise enough awareness that larger funding will follow. I have questions and trepidation and uncertainty in almost everything I do. This endeavor is no different. I suppose the sleepless nights on my couch are just beginning. I pray those nights are not in vain. For those who've purchased tickets, I hope you have the night of your life at this year's Bella Bash. For those who are donating time and talent, there's really no way to re-pay that. I pray God repays you in ways I never could. For those who will be getting the therapy and much needed attention through these meager efforts, I pray you find a voice that will resonate through the universe and leave echoes in the world. R Sat, 9 Oct 2010 11:59:24 GMT Sat, 9 Oct 2010 11:59:24 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com In 2007, two days after my daughter Isabella received the heart-breaking diagnosis of Angelman Syndrome, I got online and started finding other people in the world who were dealing with this rare disorder. I bombarded social networking sites, emailed friends and cold called people who I thought could help. I was on a mission to find information, support, interaction and solutions ...and I still am. Three and a half years since that fateful call, I've personally held and hosted three fundraisers, performed at a half a dozen more and participated in two walk-a-thons. I co-chaired the FAST foundation for almost two years. I've been in the Angelman research lab at Vanderbilt, spoken with some of the most respected and cutting edge scientists on the planet, researching the disorder, and I've met dozens of other families dealing with this mystery. Yolanda and I have had many Angel families in our home and shared hours and hours of stories and commiseration. In these past few years I've learned some things. The first Bella Bash we did was a fundraiser for the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. We filled about half of a local night club and raised just over seven hundred dollars. Collecting the money and disbursing the money was kind of a nightmare and almost not worth the time and headache of putting on the show. The logistics were just too complicated. We could've passed a hat at a party and done almost as well. The second year we raised funds for the FAST foundation (around six thousand dollars), which went into their Gala fund, that in turn, raised a very large sum for continued research for a cure for Angelman Syndrome. Once again, when you look at the money we raised versus the time and effort it took to do a multi-artist concert, it almost seemed silly. When entertainers see a problem, they have what I call the "Little Rascals" response; we can fix it if we just put on a show! The fact is, most music industry insiders will tell you doing a concert is one of the WORST ways to raise funds for a charity. The math almost never works. It costs a lot of time and money to put on a great show, but you don't really make that much in return (this is why the music business is a terrible business model). But, you CAN get a lot of awareness out of a show. You might get people reading about or listening to or watching something they didn't know about before, because music is a spectacle and it can draw attention to something or someone. So, this is why we do a show. As this odyssey into the worlds of non-profit fundraising, research science, tax-exempt foundations, special needs protocols and charity events has unfolded for me, I've learned what not to do and what to strive for. I think I've also realized what the key to long-term success is in this process. To cut through the noise of all the competing competing charities out there (most of whom are completely noble and worth-while), you need clear vision and something a lot of people who aren't related to your cause can rally around without hesitation. As much as I love ASF and FAST, one is a support foundation for Angelman families and the other is dedicated to researching the cure. Both are amazing foundations, I whole-heartily support them both and will continue to do so. My vision for my part of this journey, however, is a little off the beaten path from both. Let me explain ... In my garage is a bed I've been building (at my own expense) for almost a year. It's a special bed for a special little girl. Nakesha Pillow contacted me about building a bed for her daughter Rachael, who is a two-year-old with Angelman Syndrome. Kids with AS don't sleep much and must be contained at night. It's hard for mom and dad to get any sleep knowing that at 2 in the morning your toddler could be crawling through the house eating hair berets. So, based on the design of my Bella's bed, some brilliant carpenters and myself are designing a special bed for angels. It has complete containment without looking like a hospital bed. It also gives fast access to the caregiver in the case of an emergency. We're still making it safe and usable but we believe it's going to be life-changing for people who are severely sleep deprived. Isabella has been doing something called "Alphabet Therapy" at the Kennedy Center. Through this therapy, we've seen my eight-year-old daughter, who can't speak and who tests at an eighteen-month-old level at school, spell "mommy" and count to 26. We're finding that she understands a lot more than anyone originally thought. In fact, we're finding that ALL the angels do. This is significant. Alphabet Therapy is offered as simply a workshop at different Angelman events, but I think it might just be the overlooked key to opening the door to major awareness for AS and other severe disabilities. You see, we have a choice really. We can look at everyone as a child of God who deserves to be heard, or we can look at some people as accidents who just need to be separated out from the rest of us. I, for one, don't believe in accidents and I think these kids have something to say. It's our responsibility to get through to them, not the other way around. I love Jesus because he came to our level, he didn't ask us to get to his. Maybe through these therapies we can reach some people who were once thought unreachable. Until there is a cure, there is still an exciting opportunity for small miracles. Learning to communicate with someone with AS is just that. So, my simple vision is to open an "Angel Center" here in Nashville. This center would be a "one-stop shop" for therapy, diagnosis, nutritional and medical interventions, as well as spiritual, mental and logistical support (ie; beds, chairs, changing tables, etc.), counseling, certified AS care-giver lists, as well as helping provide "time off" for the caregivers and families of special needs children who are the most profound, not just limited to Angelman Syndrome. All of those services are probably available in different places and on the internet, but there isn't a "place" where you can go and get them. We want to have a "place" for angels and their families. A starting point. A haven. A destination. I want to create a spot on the planet where no matter where you are, if you find yourself with a child that has a severe special need, you know where you can come and find resources, therapy, solutions, treatment, hope, support, love and direction. That's the vision of the Angel Center and the Bella Bash Foundation. This year's Bella Bash will be raising money and awareness for the beginning of this vision. Elizabeth Dykens, the head of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, told me there's nothing like this in the United States to her knowledge, and likes the idea so much she has offered space to us at no charge to begin this operation. So the first ever "Angel Center" will be on the campus of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center starting in late 2010. We're on our way. Some amazing friends have lent their support this year. On October 21st, Thursday night at the Loveless Barn (7:30) My dear friend and fellow adoptive parent, Delilah, will be speaking for a few minutes, signing autographs and generally loving everyone. Melinda Doolittle, who is to date the only American Idol contestant to hold Isabella's attention ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time, will be on hand to hold all our attention with several songs. Danny Gokey will come serenade us. Henry Cho, who shares an asian heritage with my beloved daughter, will be there to make us laugh. One of my best friends in the world, Tim Akers, is bringing his all-star band "The Smoking Section" to play some tunes and carry "house band" duties. Finally, music legend and six-time Grammy winner Russ Taff will be on hand to tear the place apart (should anyone get bored with my performance). The night is shaping up to be incredible! The value of these amazing artists is really priceless because they give us a public platform to launch this endeavor. God bless them. To a person, they all agreed to be involved without hesitation. They caught the vision and want to help. Tickets are on sale at Bella Bash.org and are already selling fast. If you are an angel family, please get tickets and come out. We'll be doing a meet and greet for all of you with the VIPs before the show. It's going to be a great night ...but the long term effects of this yearly show will hopefully go far beyond one night. So, to all the Angel families out there and to those who might be Angel families and don't know it yet, we want to give you a place in Nashville, TN you can call your own. Sometimes we feel desperate and isolated as AS parents. Hopefully one day, there will be a warm, inviting home for you and your special ones here in the gentle south. The tag line of this new foundation is a quote from Jesus Christ. I'm not pushing a religion on anyone but I am acting out of my own faith. I believe he said it better than I ever could ..."if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to me." We're trying ... R Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:23:18 GMT Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:23:18 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com The Great Pyramid This week I found myself doing a favor for a friend. I won't give the friend's name but it rhymes with Felinda Foolittle. The favor was being a judge for a talent show at Belmont University. It was a two-day event that found me listening to a string of "most likely to succeed" and "most talented" high school heroes, no doubt, that have suddenly found themselves in the big leagues and on the Belmont stage. Belmont is a legendary campus that has birthed several music legends (the aforementioned "Felinda" included), scores of top-of-the-food-chain session players and songwriters as well as the occasional entertainment business mogul. The place is no joke and it was actually great fun listening to the sound of the next generation. As I watched the nervous, fresh faced, adrenaline-filled newbies wail out their vocal chops or play their best licks or show off their enlightened arrangements, my mind reeled back to my own college days and that ferocious energy you only feel once in your life. I saw skinny, unsure kids setting up their gear and plugging in their instruments and I remembered how it felt to be at the starting gate with the rest of the pack, with the whole world in front of you and any and every possibility within your reach. I smiled for two days. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't go back to that time in my life if you put a gun to my head, but I watched those kids with a perspective only gained from years removed from that kind of idealism. It's so interesting how year after year the same personalities are re-born. Just as it was when I was in college, some of those kids had advanced skills, some just thought they did, some tried too hard, some didn't try hard enough, some almost knew who they were, while some were trying really hard to look and sound like their heroes, and a precious few were on the verge of being singularly interesting. Unfortunately, none of those made the top ten. They just weren't ready yet. The one kid I saw who I thought had the "it factor was unpolished and imprecise. He hadn't found himself and was still groping around in his own self-deprecating clumsiness, but I wanted to tell him he was onto something if he would just keep going. Maybe he will - maybe he won't. But his instincts were right. You just never know. College talent shows are deceptive. Sometimes the kid who was the golden boy, destined for greatness, ends up managing a Red Lobster. Sometimes the campus diva, who everyone is convinced is the next Mariah Carey, ends up getting pregnant, marrying a corporate lawyer and singing on karaoke nights to a handful of friends. Sometimes the kid who is awkward and unsure of his talent ends up making a serious dent in the world with his unexpected music. You can't judge the future by judging a talent show. When I was 21, my band got an audience with a legendary manager here in Nashville. We walked into his palatial office, where he was smoking a cigar and stroking a poodle, feet up on his desk, making a deal via speaker phone. He motioned us in and four wildly young boys timidly took seats in front of him. He got off his call, took the cigar out of his mouth and said in a booming voice, "Why am I here?" We all kind of looked at each other and finally I spoke up (since I was 21 and the old man of the group) and said, "We're a band and we kind of wanted some music business advice." He took out a piece of paper and a pen and began. "Ok boys, here's the deal with the music business." He then drew a row of x's at the bottom of the page ... "You and a thousand other kids just like are all right here right now. Next year a few of you are going to decide the music game isn't for you or you'll decide to get married or you'll move back to wherever you came from and then ..." he drew a smaller row of x's above the first, "the pool of talent will be whittled down to this. Then, you'll get deeper into it and some of you will realize you don't really have what it takes or you don't love it enough. Some of you will just walk away and then ..." he drew an even smaller row of x's above the second row, "it gets narrowed down to this. Years will pass and some of you might face certain obstacles that take you out of the game, some of you might even die tragically, that'll take it to this ..." a smaller row of x's was drawn. Finally, at the top of row after smaller row of x's was one, lone x. Puffing his cigar, he said, "at the end of the day the guy at the top of this pyramid might not be the best looking or the most talented or the most promising or the brilliant one or the clever one or any of that. The guy at the top of this pyramid is quite simply the one who sticks it out ...no matter what. He's the guy who makes it in the music business. Now, get out of my office - nice to meet you kids but I have business to do." Through the years I've thought about that meeting thousands of times. As it turns out, everything he said would happen on that pyramid did happen in my own life and career. I watched close friends and fellow dreamers give up or settle for something safer or change their dreams or just plain get sick of the nonsense that is the music business. I never begrudge someone for getting out of this horrible business, even though I ended up being the guy who stuck it out no matter what. At Belmont this past week, I remembered back on all the people I thought were so much more talented than me but who never found themselves creatively. I thought about all the hot shots I've personally seen come and go, who are now praise and worship leaders or running thriving businesses or who are working on horse farms in Montana or who are ...dead. The pyramid gets rebuilt with every new generation. It's a heartbreaking thing to watch and experience, but for two days this past week I got to watch the best and most hopeful row of x's - the first row - chase their dreams down the road a bit ...and it was beautiful. R Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:41:09 GMT Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:41:09 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com My dad used to say, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go tonight." We're hard wired to stay alive. Every living thing is. I personally admire and am in awe of the survival instinct. Humans can survive incredible things and come out on the other side relatively unscathed. Why? Why are we programmed to live? Why do we not just spontaneously cease to exist when there are suddenly too many of us or if we suddenly find ourselves with some disability? I believe the spark of life is divine and sacred. The older I get the more amazed I am at life and its absolute wonder. Even sex, which is so often scoffed at by some as "dirty" or something to be stringently controlled, is such a part of that wondrous journey. Though I am a proponent of monogamous relationships and keeping the act in its proper place, I believe the drive that propels life is beautiful. All life is beautiful. This week I toured a science research lab at Vanderbilt University. My newfound position of helping people with Angelman Syndrome has given me access to the intriguing to say the least. I walked through lab after lab and watched people from varying backgrounds, of various races and genders, looking through microscopes, manipulating cells and organisms and speaking in phrases so foreign to me and over my head, they might as well have been a different language all together. The building blocks of life were in small jars and canisters and those uber-smart folks were all on the same quest; find out what those building blocks do and how they do it. I was beyond fascinated. Under the right conditions, life will grow in a jar. The "hows" certainly interest me but the "whys" are my real passion. Why are we here? Are all of us supposed to be here? Do some of us deserve to NOT be here? Are any of us accidents? These are the questions that haunt all of humanity. I was just reading about a Christian Lebanese girl who was the victim of an Islamic terrorist attack and was trapped in the rubble of a building for 2 days, forced to drink her own blood to survive. Suddenly, the news broke about James Jay Lee, hostage taker, eco-terrorist and angry critic of the Discover Channel. I read through Mister Lee's list of demands for the channel, eleven in all. In a strange way, he isn't unlike the people who were trying to blow up that little girl. Just wrapped in different clothes. The overriding theme of Mr. Lee's angst was the fact that (in his view) there are simply too many parasitic humans (or as he calls them, "filthy human children") on the planet. He seemed to think it would be best for all concerned if we simply killed most of our population off to leave room for more worthy inhabitants - animals and such (after all, animals aren't filthy and they live in total harmony without any savagery or brutality). He then went on to rant about how The D Channel should stop promoting weapons of war and destruction and promote peace. Interesting contradiction. I don't know if anyone ever told Mr. Lee, but war is actually a good way to kill off lots of "filthy humans." He seems to have had conflicting agendas. You see, war is kind of like how we vote people off the island. If you want to conquer the world and oppress people with whom you disagree, a war will sometimes break out. Whoever wins that war wins the argument. Period. The global community tolerated Nazis until they started picking fights and committing genocide. That was our cue that they simply had to go. If they had won, we, the free and opinionated, would've faded into history, never to be heard from again. The same holds true of the American Civil war and many other conflicts. Still, anytime people start talking about thinning the human herd, I get nervous. There are so many eco-groups that call for less population, it's part of their whole platform. It all sounds good in theory until someone's hauling your father off in a train car to the gas chamber because he busted a hip. I know that sounds alarmist but that's how these things start. Read a little history and you'll know. Most people who think the herd should be thinned also have very specific ideas on WHO (in said herd) should be thinned. If you come to my house looking to thin anyone under MY roof, war will most certainly break out. I don't believe in human parasites. I don't believe we should stop reproducing and go back to mud huts. I believe in the soul and in the individual. I believe the only problem with humans is what goes on between their ears and what happens in their hearts. Our spirit is reaching for something and our great human story is rushing toward a spectacular conclusion. The wonders of the world are waiting to be dwarfed by new breath and new hope. That hope courses through the veins of our children. If you don't know that, I don't know how you get through the day. James Jay Lee allowed himself to be the victim of a lie and he, in turn, created more victims in its wake. In the end, he was ultimately thinned out of our human herd by a sharp shooter. I guess he got what he wanted - one less disturbed parasite on the planet. I find that ironic. R Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:52:19 GMT Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:52:19 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com I had lunch today with an old and dear friend of mine. He is quite possible the best guitarist you've ever heard and no doubt one of the 10 best in the country. This isn't hyperbole. He has played on literally hundreds of popular records you would know, and if I named the artists he has been behind on stage as well as recording, it would sound like a name-dropping fest. He's in the middle of his life and wrestling with what to do next in his journey. He makes great money and is at the top of his profession but now he wants to see a greater meaning and purpose to his existence than just nailing the perfect take or finding a monster tone. I know exactly how he feels and we talk about these things as fellow travelers who are at the same place in the road. Still, he is special. No matter where his life takes him, he carries with him a rare gift. If he decides to give up music as a profession and become a car salesman, he'll be the guy in the sales office who can pick up a flat top guitar and move his customers to tears. My parting admonishment to him was to always be responsible to his gift no matter what. God gave it to him and to whom much is given, much is required. I believe that. I love to watch people go for their dreams. It's one of the guiding principles and themes of my life - chase the dream. I've been fortunate to chase and catch a few of my own. I am surrounded daily by people who honed their skills, took a big swing at something and knocked it out of the park. I live and move in a world of top tier, high functioning talent and I won't lie - it's amazing. It's easy to become a bit snobbish about such things when you're used to a certain level of performance. When I was producing records round-the-clock we used to have a mantra in the studio. "We're going a hundred miles an hour in here. Even if you're going 98 miles an hour - you'll still get run over." In other words, zero tolerance for anything the least bit sub par. I can't say I always achieved that ...but my brilliant friends always did. As a student of history, I've always been intrigued by convergence. When a group of people find themselves in the same place and time in history, with the same goals and points of view and the same level of enlightenment, you have convergence. We see it in the Christian reformation, the founding of the United States, the American Civil War, the industrial revolution, WWII, the birth of rock-n-roll and on and on it goes. I think the music of Motown was a convergence. I was in a Detroit Motown memorabilia shop recently and was amazed at how many iconic artists and musicians went through that system. I've always wanted to be a part of a convergence, and in some ways, I think maybe I have been. The collective musical genius found in the city of Nashville is, in my view, unprecedented. The mild mannered nature of the city and its residents is so understated that there will probably never be much fan fare about it. Nashville isn't great news fodder even when it floods, but there is a collection of composers and musicians here that is akin to Vienna in the 1700's, New York's Tin Pan Alley in the early 1900's, Laurel Canyon in the '70's, or Seattle in the '90's. I'm not sure people fully realize what the inner circle of writers and musicians can accomplish in this town before 6 pm. I can literally throw darts into my black book and assemble a rhythm section that would be able to track a legit funk track at 10 am, a legit, stone country track at 10:45 am, a balls out rock track at 11:17, and nail a power ballad by 12:12. Go to lunch, check Blackberries and Iphones, go back to the studio and do it again until dinner. It's amazing to watch and hear and I'm thankful everyday I've been allowed to "grow up" with these guys in the music biz. I thought I'd simply take time to say thank you to the gifted people I've worked with over the years who have taught me so much and helped me become something better than I was. "God bless the boys who make the noise on 16th avenue!" R Wed, 1 Sep 2010 20:24:50 GMT Wed, 1 Sep 2010 20:24:50 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com I do a fair amount of interviews and media appearances but not enough to become a household name. I feel totally comfortable in my place on the planet. I kind of like being somewhere on the fringes of notoriety without the expectations, responsibilities or scrutiny of full-fledged celebrity. I have somehow found myself able to make a living doing something I love, retaining complete autonomy over my art and schedule, and still maintaining enough recognition to keep it going from year to year. I'm in a good place. Because of the space I occupy in the creative universe, I don't get all up in arms over being on TV or radio or the internet. I'm comfy in front of a camera and behind a microphone but I'm no media darling and I kind of like flying just far enough under the radar to be able to poke my head up from time to time and tell the world I'm still around with something new they might be interested in. Then I go back to my little observation perch and my almost serene existence. Every so often, however, something comes up that actually makes my blood race a little faster and gets me excited to actually leave the house and board a plane. Wednesday night (actually Thursday morning) is one of those nights. I'll be a first-time guest on the late night panel/discussion show Red Eye, on the Fox News channel. Because I'm often up at 2 in the morning and there usually isn't anything worth watching on the tube, I tend to look for anything a little off-beat. I stumbled on this show a couple of years ago and thought it was an interesting premise. A panel of predominantly young, hip pundents discussing the topics of the day and commenting on everything from politics to pop culture. The host (Greg Gutfeld) plows through blocks A to D with rapid-fire copy, peppered with quick wit and acerbic sarcasm, all the while feigning hostility for his two cohorts, Bill Shultz and "TV's Andy Levy" (which is the best monicker ever!). Each segment gets bookended with some strange viral video that routinely involves kittens or puppies or something with a latent homosexual overtone. What makes this little night cap more interesting than most is its positioning on the Fox News Channel, which is considered to be the "conservative" news channel. In that universe, you wouldn't expect such blatant flirtation with the edge of what's appropriate on commercial TV. You might not expect succinct, informed and diverse points of view (especially at that hour), and you certainly wouldn't expect first rate comic relief. You might not expect very put together and coifed blondes, brunettes and red-heads who hold your visual attention ...but then again it's Fox ...so yes, you probably would (and there's NOTHING wrong with that!). Red Eye offers all of those things. It's almost the perfectly designed show for someone with my sensibilities. Conservative leaning but not prudish - topical and informed but not elitist - biting but not mean spirited. When in doubt, the show always goes for the joke and not the jugular. That's a show I can get behind. I'm excited to be doing Red Eye and I only hope I can hold my own on the panel and not embarrass myself or my family and friends. When my publicist asked me what shows I really wanted to do in the promotion of the book and CD, I told her the show I thought would really be fun to do would be this little-known show, on the air when everyone's asleep, called Red Eye. Now my obscure, wee-hours-of-the morning induced fascination is a reality. If you're up for any reason at that hour, tune in. If not, DVR it and watch in the cool light of day. I think you'll find it fun and entertaining ...and if you don't, you're a racist homophobe who hates pancakes and baseball! R Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:06:53 GMT Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:06:53 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com I do a fair amount of interviews and media appearances but not enough to become a household name. I feel totally comfortable in my place on the planet. I kind of like being somewhere on the fringes of notoriety without the expectations, responsibilities or scrutiny of full-fledged celebrity. I have somehow found myself able to make a living doing something I love, retaining complete autonomy over my art and schedule, and still maintaining enough recognition to keep it going from year to year. I'm in a good place. Because of the space I occupy in the creative universe, I don't get all up in arms over being on TV or radio or the internet. I'm comfy in front of a camera and behind a microphone but I'm no media darling and I kind of like flying just far enough under the radar to be able to poke my head up from time to time and tell the world I'm still around with something new they might be interested in. Then I go back to my little observation perch and my almost serene existence. Every so often, however, something comes up that actually makes my blood race a little faster and gets me excited to actually leave the house and board a plane. Wednesday night (actually Thursday morning) is one of those nights. I'll be a first-time guest on the late night panel/discussion show Red Eye, on the Fox News channel. Because I'm often up at 2 in the morning and there usually isn't anything worth watching on the tube, I tend to look for anything a little off-beat. I stumbled on this show a couple of years ago and thought it was an interesting premise. A panel of predominantly young, hip pundents discussing the topics of the day and commenting on everything from politics to pop culture. The host (Greg Gutfeld) plows through blocks A to D with rapid-fire copy, peppered with quick wit and acerbic sarcasm, all the while feigning hostility for his two cohorts, Bill Shultz and "TV's Andy Levy" (which is the best monicker ever!). Each segment gets bookended with some strange viral video that routinely involves kittens or puppies or something with a latent homosexual overtone. What makes this little night cap more interesting than most is its positioning on the Fox News Channel, which is considered to be the "conservative" news channel. In that universe, you wouldn't expect such blatant flirtation with the edge of what's appropriate on commercial TV. You might not expect succinct, informed and diverse points of view (especially at that hour), and you certainly wouldn't expect first rate comic relief. You might not expect very put together and coifed blondes, brunettes and red-heads who hold your visual attention ...but then again it's Fox ...so yes, you probably would (and there's NOTHING wrong with that!). Red Eye offers all of those things. It's almost the perfectly designed show for someone with my sensibilities. Conservative leaning but not prudish - topical and informed but not elitist - biting but not mean spirited. When in doubt, the show always goes for the joke and not the jugular. That's a show I can get behind. I'm excited to be doing Red Eye and I only hope I can hold my own on the panel and not embarrass myself or my family and friends. When my publicist asked me what shows I really wanted to do in the promotion of the book and CD, I told her the show I thought would really be fun to do would be this little-known show, on the air when everyone's asleep, called Red Eye. Now my obscure, wee-hours-of-the morning induced fascination is a reality. If you're up for any reason at that hour, tune in. If not, DVR it and watch in the cool light of day. I think you'll find it fun and entertaining ...and if you don't, you're a racist homophobe who hates pancakes and baseball! R Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:05:32 GMT Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:05:32 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com In 2003, I returned from SARS riddled China, where my wife and I had defied both the World Health Organization and the CDC to travel there and adopt our little girl, and where I had endured my own SARS scare for three weeks. My record label and PR firm (at the time) thought our adventure would be a great human interest story for the press. Once SARS didn't actually kill anyone in the U.S, however, they promptly told me (and I quote) "SARS isn't hot anymore, we'll have to move to something else." That's kind of how the American press operates. They're chasing viewers and readers and so they look for the most controversial, the most salacious, the most sensational thing they can find. Once it strikes a nerve, that's all you're going to see or hear about for a while (OJ anyone?). Once it runs its course, good luck getting anymore information on it anywhere (bird flu still bothering anybody?). My publicist and I had a conversation last week about upcoming press events regarding my current book and CD. She casually mentioned that many of the news shows are only running "ground zero mosque" stories. Once again, it's a hot topic right now. So, I thought I'd break from my tradition of being oblique and looking for the shadow angle, and actually directly comment on something right on the front page ...right now. Ground Zero mosque ...where do I begin? Just after 9/11 I had a song out called "Infidels." It was a tongue-in-cheek laundry list of everyone in western culture who would be considered by Islam to be an infidel, worthy of death. The point was to show the good and bad of what people become when they're given freedom to be their own person and follow their own path. I juxtaposed baseball great Billy Martin and Billy Graham (a comparison that raised the eyebrows of more than a few fundamentalists). Musical genius Randy Newman and A-bomb dropper Harry Truman were placed in the same phrase as well as Ted Danson and "all them boys in Hanson. These were all attempts to show the beauty and texture of a diverse society and how I think that's really a good thing. I listed Muhammad Ali and many said that was faulty because he WAS a Muslim. Well trust me my friends, I'm a highly trained professional and I never do something like this without doing my research. I learned a long time ago not to shoot your mouth off until it's fully loaded ...that sounds kind of gross ...but I digress. In October of 2001, before writing "Infidels," I had a long conversation with a dear friend of mine who has been a missionary in Muslim countries for over 20 years. I was curious about this religion that so many of us in the west are still grappling with. My friend has actually risked his life to smuggle bibles into Turkey. He has actually lost contact with other missionaries who have been presumed beheaded because of their preaching the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ. He knows more than anyone I've ever seen on TV or talked to about the nation of Islam and he told me some very interesting things. I had been reading the Quran to try and familiarize myself with this enigmatic religion. I told him what I had been doing and he just started laughing. He said, "don't bother Reg. The truth is true Muslims know that the Quran must only be read in Arabic for it to really be understood. Our western translations don't get to the heart of it. You can read all you want but it won't matter. Also, westernized Muslims are looked down upon as "low Muslims" in the true Islamic countries. Ali, Farrakhan, Malcolm X - all of them - are seen as useful idiots by those nations, and after the Jews and the western devils are all dead, they'll be killing all those sincere young, American black men in bow ties as well. Islam is about bloodlines and birthrights and politics and essentially global Sharia law on a globe populated only by Arabs who pray to Mecca five times a day. We'll never be nice enough or tolerant enough or good enough negotiators to break that belief. I'm sorry to say they draw the hard line in the sand. We can only win by hoping and praying as many people as possible are actually allowed to taste freedom and make their own choices. Then, that's where Jesus comes in. It's about the individual and the heart and it transcends politics." His words were brilliant, insightful and inspirational for me. The next week I wrote Infidels and have played it proudly all over this country. Some have told me that song is going to get me killed one day. I've thought about that once or twice and the same thing always pops in my mind, "how screwed up is it that we're ALL scared of this religion?" I'm an equal opportunity insultist. I have real problems with most organized religion as a general rule. I love and believe in Jesus only because of HIM and not the religion that sprang up in his name. My relationship with "the church" is fragile at best, but I think Jesus is the light of the world and the only hope for mankind. Having said that, if I poke fun at Christianity or criticize it in any way, my only fear is that a church might not book me as a guest or I'll get reprimanded by some well-meaning Baptist. If I make fun of the Jews, my only fear is that some key components will be "overlooked" in my next contract negotiation (only kidding - of course I don't think all Jews are lawyers - although a couple of mine have been and I love you guys). But the only religious people on earth that make me fear for my life ...are Muslims. So, how do I feel about the ground zero mosque? Well, ultimately I would have to say that as strange and eerie as it might be for them to be there, they have every right to be. But I'll pretty much guarantee that that mosque, on sacred American soil, won't drive any Americans to climb into 747s and fly them into buildings in Saudi Arabia. The last few years have brought us face to face with our deepest fears and most core beliefs. In the years following 9/11, I realized that I was a full-fledged westerner who loves freedom and believes all faith should have to win out in the sometimes diabolical arena of ideas and transform the human condition in more ways than outward legalism. For me, that's what Jesus did. He told us to render to Caesar what was Caesar's - in other words, "I'm not here to bring you a political message. I'm bringing a spiritual message." He told us to cast the first stone if we were without sin. In other words, "I'm leaving you the choice. If you think you're worthy and have no sin, kill the woman. But deep down you know you're as much a sinner as she is." The genius of Jesus has confounded generations, built nations and religious power structures, but ultimately always leaves us wrestling with ourselves and needing his redemption. The fact that Jesus was about love and not just some kind of nebulous "peace" nor was he simply the animating character for those who want political social justice is the fact that keeps him relevant and squarely in the middle of the ongoing conversation. He constantly called us all out individually and forced us to examine ourselves in the light of love. As much of a punch line as it has become, I actually like the notion of asking what would Jesus do. The truth is, most of us (myself included) don't really know, nor could we achieve it if we tried. Jesus, faced with the prospect of being beheaded in the name of Allah, would probably lay his head down willingly and tell the executioner he loved him while having his neck sawed in two. In his last breath, he would pray for God to forgive the murderers, for they know not what they do. I'm sure I wouldn't do that but that's why I love Jesus. The most brilliant thing I've seen regarding the mosque and its controversy so far, is Greg Gutfeld's (Fox News's Red Eye host) idea to open a gay bar next door to the mosque in an attempt at diversity and dialogue. I actually think this is a great idea. If you're gay, why not confront the religion that wants you exterminated instead of just constantly protesting the one that doesn't want you to get married. If that bar was next door to a Christian church, the patrons might get dirty looks and slurs shouted at them. They probably wouldn't be allowed to hold their wedding in that church and might even get in a scuffle or two with some of the parishioners. Depending on the attitude of the congregation, any number of things could happen, from violence to, even possibly, acceptance. God knows there are all kinds of Christians out there. I really want to believe the same can be said of Muslims. I saw a Muslim couple in the mall today and they looked like very nice people. It just seems like an awful lot of them are hell bent on killing people like me. So, until I see a Muslim tolerance revival sweeping the country and ANY Imam publicly apologizing to Israel and all the western countries who are periodically terrorized by "extremists, I'll remain a bit skeptical. I know that's probably not how Jesus would feel. He'd love them and embrace them with no fear. Me? I'm trying to love everybody, but sometimes I still get a little scared of getting killed for being a smart-ass infidel R Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:48:21 GMT Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:48:21 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Dear Mr Smith ... It's no secret that I'm a fan of the NFL. Every fall I talk about it on this blog site and It's the only thing I follow in the world of sports. I've been vocal and public in my opinions on pro baseball. My three-year-old son already exhibits uncanny baseball skills (almost hitting one over our backyard fence this past Friday!) and I will happily watch him stare down major league pitchers in 20 years or so. But until then, it's a third rate snore-fest for me. I don't follow college football either, mainly because I simply don't have the time to sit around a card table with ex-frat guys, smoking cigars six days a week, and extrapolate all of the billions of scenarios that could occur in the BCS ranking system. I have a life and a career and no time for this. I want to watch one team play another team and lose or win. That is all. Please don't talk to me about the nuance of the rankings, different conferences, strength of schedule, recruiting style, school history, and (for the love of all that's holy) please don't go into money and unfair advantages based on it, blah blah blah. If 11 guys line up against 11 other guys and get beat, the other 11 guys are a better team. I don't care how it happened, who coached them, what their grade point averages were, how everybody got there or if some guys were smaller or disadvantaged or whatever. I'm pretty Darwinian when it comes to athletics. You either win or lose ...period. Black, white, red, yellow, green ...whatever. Sports is the great equalizer. You can either hit the 30-foot jumper or you can't. You can either throw a 50-yard pass through a tire ...or you can't. So, when college football moves to where college basketball is and there's November or December madness and a straight, sudden death playoff ...I'll be glued to the screen. Until then, they can play the Nabisco Oreo Cookie Bowl without me. I have no interest. We humans are driven by a mysterious force called inspiration. I can't tell you what it is or why it's important but it's the thing that brings tears to our eyes and gives us chill bumps when we don't know why. Inspiration makes us change direction, re-think the status quo and go another mile we might not have normally gone. Inspiration empties our adrenal glands on an average Sunday and makes us pace around the house like a tiger or jump up and down and pump our fists in the air. It strikes that mysterious chord in our soul that lets us know we're alive and connects us to every other human on the planet on some primal, ancient level. Almost no other human endeavor inspires us like sports. There are pictures of me wearing a football uniform at the age of 2. I've always loved the game. People have told me I was a warrior in another life because I'm drawn to strategic violence. I love the precision and grace juxtaposed against the sheer brutality of a football game. My childhood dream was to one day play professional football for the Dallas Cowboys. I studied and practiced and ran mile after mile through the summer leading up to my first junior high tryout. In the sweltering months of August (nineteen-seventy-something), I made the Bradley Junior High School football team ...and promptly got fluid buildup on both knees, putting me on the sidelines in knee braces. My father, citing that my gifted, musical hands were far too important to be ground up like hamburger meat on a football field, insisted that I would only be allowed to play one year of the sport. So, I quit the team that season and trained a full year to make another run the following fall. I lifted weights, stretched, ran and worked to get better and stronger. Sure enough, I was ready the next year and made the team as a full back. My knees, however, kept me watching from the sidelines yet again. Knowing this was my last chance to ever play organized football, I walked away from the game at fourteen, realizing I simply didn't have the body for it. I could either work harder to become an average and perpetually impaired football player, and still only get one season on the gridiron (maybe), or I could focus on my gifts and excel in music. I believe I ultimately made the right choice but to this day, watching football still brings up strange emotions in me and watching the Cowboys of the nineties always made me a bit melancholy. The Cowboys were my favorite team in my youth and the team I dreamed of playing for. When Troy, Michael and Emmitt arrived, they were the class I would've been in had I achieved my boyhood dream. I followed that team religiously and lived and died by their wins and losses. I felt a part of them in some strange way. Those guys were winning Super bowls and becoming household names. I once sat in a bar, IN DALLAS, with the co-owner of my publishing company, and bet a full year on my songwriting contract that they would win the NFC championship game ...and I wasn't EVEN kidding. He wouldn't take the bet because he knew they were going to win it too. I loved those guys. The game I'll never forget was the one in '94 against the Giants. Dallas had to win to get home field advantage for the playoffs. They had played more games than any other team in a two-year stretch and they were tired. They were feeling the weight of the microscopic scrutiny and constant pressure to be the best and you could see it taking it's toll. Emmitt Smith was carrying the team on his back and it seemed that with his supernatural strength, they would cruise to to the playoffs unscathed. Suddenly, he was driven to the ground, landing on his right shoulder, and began writhing in pain. He was taken to the locker room for x-rays and without him in the game, it suddenly became a dogfight. After halftime, the report from the announcer was that Emmitt had separated his shoulder and his return was improbable. I was crestfallen. But Emmitt's return was anything but questionable. He came back in the second half and played like a man possessed while defenders abused his right shoulder with impunity. I watched that man sacrifice himself for an entire half of football and tears welled up in my eyes. I knew he was in unspeakable pain and was actually putting his long-term health and career in jeopardy to help his team when they needed him most. Suddenly Emmitt Smith wasn't just playing a football game ...he was becoming an inspiration. Every time he would walk to the sidelines with that grimace of agony, I knew what he was doing. Anybody who's ever played the game on any level knew what he was doing. He was playing like it was the last game of his life ...like it was his last act on planet earth. On that day, Emmitt Smith became a personal hero of mine. When I've been at my lowest and almost unable to put one foot in front of the other, I've thought back on that game. There have been nights I've done gigs while feeling a kidney stone move down my side into my bladder. I've smiled and sung through it, all the while thinking of the time Emmitt Smith played a whole half of football with a separated shoulder. There were times I was up for days with my daughter and her condition and still pressed on to what needed to be done, thinking back on that game. It sounds about as corny it gets, but inspiration comes from the most unlikely places sometimes. For me, watching Emmitt Smith fight through his pain and become a legend has been a touchstone in many ways. I've had this recurring fantasy of running into him in an airport somewhere or winding up at some fundraiser, next to him at the table and getting the chance to tell him what that day and his actions have meant to me. It was about so much more than football. It was about heart, soul and character - a lesson in grit, determination and being responsible to the privileges one has been given. It was about being who you're supposed to be no matter what and doing what you were born to do even when you're in blinding pain. So far, my fantasy hasn't come true but I hope one day it will. This week, Mr Smith was inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame, and deservedly so. I laughed and cried along with him while watching his speech. He carries the dashed hopes and broken dreams of all of us hopeful ten-year-old boys with him into that hall. But he also carries the undefinable spirit that all of us grown men hope we can attain. We all hope we can lay it all on the line when called upon and fight through ourselves for the ones we love and the ones who are counting on us. We all strive to live up to our full potential even when everything is raging against us and conventional wisdom tells us to be smart and quit for a while. We hope we won't quit - we hope we will press on. I thought it appropriate that I watched Emmitt's speech while at the gym, on a treadmill, running on a foot riddled with gout. While he was thanking people and accepting his place in football history, I was limping through pain, telling myself I could do it, trying to forget about the knives and the burning, refusing to quit and remembering a day in 1994 when one courageous young man on a football field inspired me. Thank you Emmitt ... R Mon, 9 Aug 2010 07:51:58 GMT Mon, 9 Aug 2010 07:51:58 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p>To be completely honest, I've had so many thoughts racing through my head for the past few weeks, and there has been so much in the world to comment on, I haven't been able to focus on one thing. I've been going out of my mind. I could write a blog every day - maybe two or three. I have responsibilities and schedules to keep and kids to play with, so I usually just try and pack one good punch in a week. But over the last 3, I simply haven't been able to narrow it down to one topic that doesn't unravel everything from race and white house firings (based on the possibility of being on Glenn Beck), to the economy that's supposed to be roaring back, to property rights issues. From the annoying transformation of gift-wrapped boxes with bows to the new practice of gift-bags stuffed with colored tissue paper to the disturbing ascendence of the ukelele on rock records. From the BP executive "getting his life back" and being sent to Russia (something I thought only happened on Hogan's Heroes), to the speaker of the house saying unemployment is a job creator (I actually got light-headed with giddiness with that one and almost passed out - just wait - it's too blog worthy to leave alone for long). Unable to narrow down the field, I've decided instead of taking a wrecking ball to current events and the state of the culture, I would simply do a semi-annual report (of sorts), on the state of things in my own little corner of the world.</o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>I've never really understood the Christmas card/newsletter phenomenon. Letting the world know what you've been up to seems kind of silly to me. I always wonder who really cares about such things. But it does seem to be a pretty common thread in the human experience. We all have a story to tell and a point of view to reflect and some of us will stop at nothing to make sure everybody knows it. So, in the spirit of passing along relatively useless information to those who are mildly interested (and maybe not even mildly), I thought the end of July would be a good time to do an update on the year that has been around here (so far), and the remainder that is to come. 2010 has definitely been eventful ...</o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>You know, January of any year is a bit like a hangover. You're still foggy from the endless partying and somehow you've mysteriously gained 20 pounds. Then you check your bank account and realize you have no money. You look around the house and say to yourself, "who made this mess? Where did all these toys come from? What's that tree doing in the living room? ....Oh look! The playoffs!" So you cut yourself another slice of the thing that packed on the 20 pounds, crack open another product that was also complicit in this action and zap more brain cells in front of the big screen - all the while learning about bigger trucks with more "payload" (I don't even know what payload is), and the ever advancing closer shave. No body gets anything done in January ...and neither do I.</o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>February is my least favorite of all months. Too cold - football season done - no holidays to look forward to except the dreaded Valentines Day - bain of all men's existence. If you've been a reader of this blog for the past few years, you know I despise these kinds of holidays and I think Valentine's Day is the most manipulative of all of them. Except for my grandmother and dad's birthdays, as well as one of my friend's, I can live without February. So, I spent January and February editing my book (Angels and Idols) and sequencing and mastering my CD (Set It On Fire). I thought all was moving nicely ...then came March ...</o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>As the weather warmed, I got this weird pain in my right foot. Suddenly, everytime I put my foot on the floor it was if a million Lilliputions were stabbing their tiny swords of death and fury into my right big toe and then pouring thimble's full of battery acid over the bones followed by torches doused in skin eating ants that rip the very flesh from the skeletal tissue ...and it began to swell. All of this was happening while my family was working through the great vomitation of 2010. Every person in my house got this stomach virus that brought on projectile regurgitation for three days. Mine came with a full case of gout, so walking to the bathroom every five minutes was a new experience in pain. After a week, all had subsided and the coast was clear - then on a Sunday night came the blinding pain I know all too well. I drove myself to the hospital in time to learn of my brand new 7mm kidney stone! 3 Surgeries and six days later I drove to Memphis and played 5 Easter services, where I can only hope the narcotics didn't impair my performances too much ...but I make no promises. </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>After returning to Nashville on Sunday night, I awoke on the first Monday in April and decided to go for my first good run (in over a month) on my newly healed feet. The first Tuesday in April I awoke unable to walk on the left foot ...gout. This back and forth tennis match of gout in both feet has been going on all summer. I take the meds and get well enough to fly and do press for the book/CD and then another flare will happen. I have received dozens of remedies from experts and armchair doctors alike, and have been initiated into the secret brotherhood of famous and/or semi-famous guys who don't want to publicly talk about their gout. Apparently it's prevalent in my profession. Maybe it's all the fried ego we consume - who knows? I just know that I haven't been able to run all summer and that has taken a toll on me physically and mentally. Running was always my refuge and the thing that cleared my cluttered head. Now, as well as some gradual and frustrating weight gain, my head is brimming with crazy and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to contain it. We do take our feet for granted and mine have kept my head on semi-straight for many years. This year has been the exception. </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>Still, despite the year of pain (as I'm dubbing 2010), some wonderful things are happening. The book and CD are both being received in amazing ways. The reviews on both have all been wonderful and people seem to be responding on a heart level to the words and the music. I've done many TV shows and countless radio interviews promoting both pieces and have been given a platform to raise awareness for Angelman Syndrome and to help give so many a voice who've been in the shadows for so long. This has been a wonderful and unexpected by product of the book and CD and I'm truly thrilled by it. Even through all this physical suffering (and it has been extreme), God is working in ways beyond me. That is a recurrent theme in my life. </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>We're now looking to the fall and winter. I use the "royal we" because my team and family are as much a part of this as I am. There are some live dates on the books, some production projects in the works and many writing opportunities in the coming months. But the big date on the calendar is October 22nd (Friday night). The 3rd annual "Bella Bash" is being put together now. Me and my management team (Rutledge Nash) have actually been working on it since the day after last year's amazing event. This year proves to be something truly special. At the event I'll be rolling out our new project in the works that specifically helps kids with Angelman Syndrome as well as Autism and many other disorders. I'm chomping at the bit to talk about it, but I learned a long time ago it's better to underpromise and overdeliver. So, all will be revealed on the 22nd of October (location is almost secure - we'll be letting you know). </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>As for now, the gout is gone, the last kidney stone got passed a few weeks ago on our first family vacation in 7 years (at a beach somewhere), and life is pretty darn amazing. I've started working on the next CD (more country than ever) and I've also started writing the next book. Fiction this time ...I'm getting ambitious. 2010 has definitely been a mysterious and strange little year so far - I guess they all can't be like 1985 or 1997. But my family is happy and my bills are paid and I'm doing what I love and making people feel something through it. I might just be the luckiest guy in the world.</o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>R </o:p> Tue, 3 Aug 2010 09:13:35 GMT Tue, 3 Aug 2010 09:13:35 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Two hundred and thirty four years ago, 54 white guys sat in a hot, sweaty room without air conditioning, indoor plumbing or catering, dressed in wool, wearing wigs and three-pointed hats and signed, quite possibly, the most brilliant and complete document enumerating the inherent rights and privileges of human beings on planet earth. The house in which I sit, purchased with currency I earned by forging my own path and interjecting my own voice of creativity into the public conversation, is a testament to that document and the blood, sweat and tears that ultimately consecrated it. So is yours. The freedoms born from it's womb have allowed me to travel at will and speak and sing freely, without the fear of being silenced or arrested, and have, in turn, given me the opportunity to buy goods and services created by others who have been allowed to grow and expand beyond their own limitations, placing me here in my kitchen, adorned with appliances and light, temperature controlled and comfortable, and type these words from a personal, laptop computer. All of this is because of words penned by a 33-year-old lawyer, farmer, statesman, visionary ...all those years ago. When I was 8-years-old, my family toured in Virginia and Maryland, giving my father the opportunity to introduce my brother and me to Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown. My young imagination took in redoubt number ten (the last stronghold taken by the colonials and the very ground on which the American Revolution was won), and conjured the blood and screams and sacrifice. I caught my father wiping tears at one point and although I didn't know exactly why, I knew this place was important and this land was sacred. From that day to this, I have been a student of the men and women of the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. As one learns about this time in history, you necessarily go through the gyrations of analysis and deconstruction. What starts as wild-eyed idealism, turns to contempt once you place slavery, sexism, racism and hypocrisy under the microscope of the present and judge other human beings out of context. The pendulum swings and you can begin to hate these guys with the same fervor with which you loved them at first introduction. The truth is they had the chance but didn't end slavery. The truth is many of them were slave owners. The truth is some of them were womanizers. The truth is some of them were racists and sexists. The truth is the "check" Martin Luther King Jr. talked about in his famous "I Have A Dream" speech wasn't cashed for many years in this country. I can easily see why some people of color may not be so excited about the 4th of July and might turn up their nose at all the red, white and blue and goofy white people eating cotton candy and mindlessly waving flags. I kind of get it. What many of us take for granted, often has a more complicated back story. The check, however, WAS written and it's still the hope of mankind in every corner of the planet. It's a promissory note from which generation after generation continues to draw. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," being guaranteed in writing, is still nothing short of a miraculous thing in the course of human events and I invite everyone to participate. In 2010, it sometimes feels like we have drifted from the lofty ideal of that original, splendid declaration into the pragmatism of mediocrity. This nation often looks like a lumbering, over-served, over-medicated, over-weight, under-achieving, monolith, cowering in the middle. The sacred hopes and dreams of ancient men and women, fighting over tiny pieces of earth and breathing their last, desperate prayers for future generations, have melted into the mist and are now buried beneath the newest Wal-Mart/Applebees/Bed-Bath-and-Beyond strip mall plaza. Is this the America Ben Franklin placed his life on the line for? Are these the equally created men for which Thomas Jefferson wielded his considerable pen? Sometimes I wonder. As I type this, a fevered debate is raging in this new world. A rediscovery of these men and their documents is taking root in the land built upon them. I think that's a good thing. Unbelievably and maddeningly, the fight over capitalism and communism is again in the fore. I thought we settled that 25 yeas ago. But alas, as the founders themselves knew, freedom must continually be cultivated and earned. I feel our nation in the process of that even now. Last week, a United States congresswoman, in the middle of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, asked the nominee questions about slumber parties and the latest Twilight movie. My stomach aches when I think of this. In this hollowed room, built on the backs of slaves yet to be freed by its own deliberations, where wars against tyranny had been declared and won and the rights of women had been ratified, a duly elected public servant of the greatest nation on earth, casually discussed frivolous pop culture with a potential supreme court justice ...on the tax-payers' dime. My goodness. What have we become? Though mountains of complication have grown and rivers of blood have run through this land since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I, for one, still believe in its core values and in its genius as a liberating key for the prisons of all mankind. In my mind, the truths are still self-evident; That all men (and women) are indeed created equal; that governments can only derive their power from the consent of the governed; that to ensure these rights we must all continually pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor. On this fourth day of a new July, I for one, will be basking in my own unalienable rights and pursuing happiness. I hope to see you there. R Mon, 5 Jul 2010 13:55:22 GMT Mon, 5 Jul 2010 13:55:22 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com 've heard the story since as long as I can remember. I can still see it being told in hushed and reverent tones around the leftover-laden tables of Christmas or Thanksgiving†the choking  smoke of burning diesel and exploding artillery shells conjuring itself through the waft of pumpkin pie and cornbread dressing, the echoes of screams and ancient, urgent orders barked through the faint sound of a football game in the next room, the story of a young marine in the volcanic ash of Iwo Jima during World War II, having dug an uncommonly deep foxhole. According to the family legend, he just happened (through random events) to arrive at his forward position before the rest of his platoon. The others were possibly on some detail that held them back. He possibly got an earlier start. He might have been sent ahead of the platoon for some reason. We never really knew. Thefog of war and haze of history have shrouded the intricacies of the moments in question. Those details have long since been buried in the graves of the fallen, but the heart of the story still beats inside of me. I believe my life was forever altered in 1945. My grandfather, a man of average height, had dug a very deep foxhole in preparation for an upcoming battle. When the rest of the platoon arrived, one of his tall compatriots only had time to dig a shallow foxhole before all hell broke loose and the platoon began getting barraged with enemy mortar fire. The tall soldier yelled over to my grandfather, Tice, switch holes with me! I'm too tall for this one, but you'll be fine in here. Please, Tice! I need a deeper hole; you don't need one that deep! Watching the lanky marine trying to curl his oversized limbs and torso into undersized shelter, my grandfather agreed, and they rolled through intolerable waves of explosions and gunfire, past each other into the other's foxhole. As the man was crouching into his new position and throwing my benevolent, young grandfather a casual thank-you salute, the deep, well-dug foxhole was instantly incinerated with a direct hit by a mortar round. There was nothing left but scorched earth and fragmented body parts. Pawpaw Tice (as we called him) told my father in later years that he stared at the carnage for minutes, realizing that if he'd shown up ten minutes later and not dug so deep, the man would've never asked to switch. If that hadn't happened, it would've been my grandfather's remains smoldering on the sands of Iwo Jima and not the taller marine's. He said it always bothered him how random it all was. Random. He just happened to get there first. There just happened to be an uncommonly tall man in the next hole. That man just happened to ask him to switch holes. They just happened to switch in the nick of time. Random. Thomas Tice, my grandfather, somehow survived two years on Japanese island battlefields†with untold random events that kept him alive, no doubt†came home to the United States, and produced the last of his four children: my mother. I can trace my entire existence back to one bloody, terror-filled night on an obscure island ten thousand miles away from my warm bed. I can see a hand of providence directing the path of a scared, tired, haggard marine through the muck and minutiae of war. Every day I've enjoyed on planet earth was born in a single, sweaty, adrenaline-fueled roll from one foxhole to another in some place I've never seen by someone I never knew in a time which I didn't live. God only knows the moments that changed everything to lead to that moment on Iwo Jima: the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American response, the global conflict that emerged with billions of moving parts that triggered billions of decisions, one ofthose decisions being a young Mississippi barber enlisting in the Marine Corps, his training and deployments, the convergence of events that led to the taking of Iwo Jima as a strategic military target and the bloody battle for that tiny piece of earth, the decisions that led to sending that young marine to that particular place in that battle and his decision to switch places at the last minute with another young marine, the ironic event that became an off-handed war story to a son-in-law, which became a holiday staple in my life, the legend that became the story you've just read and that will now alter something about you forever. God only knows the moments that change everything. Random events. Life, to some, is a series of disconnected, random events†one giant pinball game where we are all tiny and pointless, careening into bumpers and dodging one another, hoping to score enough points to continue the kinetic roll. We tell ourselves that this moment doesn't have that much importance. It's just a Thursday. It's just lunch. It's just a date with the girl from English Lit. It's just a different foxhole. Will we remember it? Probably not. Will it have any lasting impact on our life? Who knows? We're always hoping to arrive at some magical moment of truth, a life changer, one of those moments that gives us clarity and epiphany. We think we'll know it when we see it or feel it. We are oriented through movies, TV, and dramatic novels to watch for the heavens to open and to listen for the angels to sing. Then we'll suddenly know something we didn't know before. We'll have new wisdom and new light and new purpose. Surely that moment isn't happening right now. This is just a regular day full of regular moments. Yes, our random lives can seem mundane and purposeless. The moments that course through the veins of our existence can feel uneventful and redundant. Random events seem to be happening to us all the time. One such event showed up in my date book somewhere in the fall of 1992. A random series of events and a lifetime of coincidence had led me into the role of staff songwriter for a company called McSpadden Smith Music. Primarily a Christian-music based publishing company, they were incredibly young and wildly successful. I was a newly married, twenty-something songwriter who was finding favor in the world of Christian music. I'd had a couple of minor hits on the radio and was starting to turn some heads. The future was bright and wide open. In those days, I was a bit of a workaholic. I would write songs all day, have dinner, and then write through the night into the wee hours. I would then go to the Vanderbilt University track, run a few miles, and then head home for a shower and bed only to start the whole routine over again the next day around eleven. Because I wasn't making much money as a writer, I would also take occasional odd jobs to bolster my income. I was going full speed. All out. I was certain that success was completely within my grasp and, more importantly, within my control. Shawn McSpadden, the owner of the publishing company, and I were constantly scheming and planning and working toward the goal. The goal? Success. Achievement. More songs written. More songs recorded. More songs on the charts. More songs topping those charts. Gold records. Platinum records. More money. More success. More, more, more. Get it done. Take care of business. Focus. Do what the other guy won't. Start earlier. Stay later. Never be satisfied. Dig deeper. Do it better. Work as hard as you think you can and then work harder. That was the mind-set. I truly believed that with that work ethic, I had control over the destiny of my music and life. I was certain that with enough sweat and opportunity, I could make it happen. I kept my datebook full at all times. My wife and I lived in a Spartan, 350-square-foot apartment above a small house in downtown Nashville. We paid three hundred bucks a month for it and lived in four rooms: front room,kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. You could fit all our worldly possessions in the back of a pickup truck. We were built for speed. Three minutes to West End Avenue, five more to Music Row. Life was quick and spontaneous. We didn't do much of anything except sleep, work out, and work. We were determined to make it somewhere. We weren't sure where, but it was going to be great when we got there; we just knew it. So we worked. Days were a blur of meetings, writing appointments, business lunches, and being holed up in recording studios for hours on end. Nights were filled with industry parties and hanging out with the right people and being holed up in recording studios for hours on end. I won't lie; it was a good time. The feeling of being young and taking the world by the horns is a powerful one. You feel invincible. You believe you're immortal. Though I was married to my dream girl and best friend, we didn't hang out with other married couples. All our friends were single. There wasn't much talk of children or school systems or health insurance or life insurance or home values or anything of that sort. Make the rent. Work hard. Play hard. That was the life we were living. Amidst the swirling energy of that life, I befriended a young song plugger at McSpadden Smith Music. His job was to comb through the songs I was turning in, make copies of the ones he felt would work for certain artists, and pitch them to those artists. He was a thoughtful, soft-spoken soul named David Moffitt. David was quiet and deliberate. His perfectly groomed and parted red hair, button-down shirt, khaki pants, and glasses made him seem academic and astute. I would never have guessed he was a songwriter too. He didn't seem crazy enough. He was always on time. He appeared to be together and in control. He chose his words carefully and wasn't angry for no reason. In short, he was almost the exact opposite of me. I could never have known that he was protecting three ominous words that would change my life forever and haunt me in strange and frightening ways. Of all the publishing companies on Music Row, I had walked in to that one. I'd signed a contract with that one. I had been attracted to the pace and the action. I had hitched my wagon to what I believed was a shooting star. I'd signed with one of the youngest, hippest companies in Nashville in an attempt to become something, anything other than what I was. The thing I wanted the most was staring me in the face, yet an unlikely, mild-mannered employee of that young, hip company would hold the touchstone to my true purpose. Let's write a song sometime, he said casually one afternoon. I have an idea I think you could really help bring to life. I wasn't sure what to make of writing a song with an employee of the company for which I was contracted to be golden. It seemed a little weird and unorthodox. Still, I was booking anyone and everyone, and I felt something interesting might come of it. So somewhere in the fall of 1992, a random encounter with the song plugger of a small publishing company in Nashville became a penciled-in appointment in my date book. Another writing session. Another song in a catalog full of them. Another melody. Another lyric. Another possibility of success. Another random attempt at making something special happen. Certainly David couldn't have known that my favorite book was Dickens's Great Expectations. He wouldn't have known the reasons for my being drawn to that story at age nine (the same year I started writing songs) and my deep connection to Pip, the main character. He couldn't have realized that I saw myself in Pip and his desire to reach beyond his embarrassing beginnings to something grandiose and important. He couldn't have known I had that same desire. He couldn't have seen the same undulating fear in my heart that pounded in Pip's†the fear that I would never truly rise above what I was, no matter how hard I tried. He couldn't have looked into my past and seen a five-year-old, self-taught prodigy playing gospel music in country churches and all-night singings. He wouldn't have seen my formative years and my family band singing in high school gyms and in mall parking lots, being laughed at by kids my own age, mocking the message of Christ and the down-home way in which my family delivered it. He couldn't have known I had spent my entire life running from church picnics and Sunday morning services into some place cooler and hipper. He couldn't have seen the raw ambition to get out of a world I considered to be a wasteland and reach the heights of some blinding success somewhere else. David Moffitt could never have known any of that, but the keys he held in the idea vaults of his mind would unlock the doors of my childhood and release the demons. The three words he was harboring for me would foreshadow the rise and fall of a would-be pop star, the destiny of a child not yet conceived in rural China, the meaning of an enigmatic genetic disorder that would devastate a family, and the redemption that would come from the rarest of places. My chance encounter with David Moffitt was as random as two marines switching foxholes in the heat of a battle. But it was about to set the stage for the time of my life.   Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:06:21 GMT Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:06:21 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com I am an almost teary eyed First Amendment freak. I love freedom of speech and I wield it daily. I will do so until the speech Nazis come take me to speech prison and even there, I'll probably be put in solitary confinement for screaming obscenities at the guards. As long as the stars and stripes fly somewhere, no one is EVER going to tell me what I can or can't say. I would take up arms to make sure everybody gets that same privilege. I think free speech is essential to those of us who are seekers and truth tellers ...but I've always hated protest songs. My hatred of them has nothing to do with the protest itself. I'm all for letting the Dixie Chicks spout off or giving the 18-year-old rock star of the moment a pulpit from which to spew unintelligible ramblings. I say speak your mind even if you don't have a good one. My problem with protest music is the masturbatory nature of using art to air the grievances of the moment. That turns it into something not universal and divisive, thus diminishing something sacred. Speech may be free but it shouldn't be cheap. True art is timeless and deeply entangled in the human condition. Great artists know how to protest the moment without painting it in a corner. Dylan was the classic example of that. Everyone applied his poetry to Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson and the establishment, but these words are still relevant and ominous today: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don't criticize what you cant understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command." He was writing about something beyond the moment - it just happened to be relevant in the moment. On the other hand John Mayer's, "me and all my friends are all misunderstood. They say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could," kind of sounds like a 14-year-old whining. My point? If you're going to get into protest writing, be a freaking prophet or leave it alone. The very minute the guy you campaigned for gets elected and the world has essentially "changed", your song is then obsolete, like a bumper sticker. We won't need to hear or sing it anymore. Your problem has been solved. On the other hand, if you're writing about broken pieces of the human condition that get repeated time and time again throughout history, then your song will never be obsolete. John certainly achieved that with "Daughters". It's a subtle yet profound distinction. My take on all those who like to march and scream and pound their fists about political stuff is that a genuine, truthful observation and legitimate thought often spawns hacks on the subject in the world of entertainment. I love stand-up comedy but when I see a stand-up special listed on TV, I always check the year it was taped. If it's anywhere between 2002 and 2008, I know I'm going to have to endure at least a 10-minute rant on George W Bush. That's fine, if it's really funny. Most of the good material on Bush, however, was burned up by 2006 and then the "Bush joke" just became this thing everybody knew they could do with impunity, so they piled on whether the material was funny or not. That's bad art and a poor use of freedom of speech. I'm not offended by jokes, I'm offended by bad, cheap jokes - especially if the one delivering them is supposed to be an artist, or at the very least, a professional. This past week one of my musical heroes let me down. Sir Paul McCartney, the man who has written several of my favorite songs, the man whose show I saw in Memphis in 1995 and still ranks as the best I've ever seen, the man who wrote the piano piece that was my pre-show warmup for years (Martha My Dear), laid the egg of all eggs ...he angled for a cheap Bush joke. Once he knew "Library Of Congress" was on the menu, he went for the easy swipe. Ouch! Now, let me tread softly here. Sir Paul has earned fair treatment from this often venom-tongued songwriter/blogger. Still, my guaranteed-in-writing speech freedom demands a comment. Sir Paul knows a lot about nailing a musical and lyrical hook to the wall. He is the master of his art. What he should also know is that if you throw a comic punch in front of Jerry Seinfeld ...you'd better, by God, land it. Unfortunately, he did not. "W" has joined Brittany Spears, Monica Lewinski and OJ Simpson in the pantheon of subjects that have been over-mined, targets that are too easy, and punch lines that are simply no longer funny. It's like saying "where's the beef?" or "whazuuuuup?" We get it. We got it 6 years ago and it was actually starting to get a little old then. If you're going to be a social commentator, you have to understand who's in power and who's not and have a firm grip on the absurdity of the now. If you're going to turn it into humor, you have to be funny. I always loved John Lennon's intro to "Twist and Shout" when the Fab Four were playing for the royals in '63. Paul should remember - "This one goes out to the cheap seats ...everyone else ...just rattle your jewelry." That was courageous because he said it to their faces, it had impact because it spoke to the larger history of classism in England ...it was also funny. Billy Joel turned down an invitation to jam with Bill Clinton in '92. His response? "It has nothing to do with politics ...it just doesn't sound like a good jam session to me." That was a subtle, yet non-partisan comment on the absurdity of politicians using artists as props to make them cooler than they are. It was also funny. In the spirit of help, I offer these humble suggestions, off the top of my head, to Sir Paul as possibilities of more current alternatives to his stale and outdated Bush joke: 1) "It's great to see Mr Obama here. Because of my home country of Britain and it's petroleum business, he actually will be able to walk on water now. At least in the gulf ...you're welcome Mr President." 2) "The American Revolution. The war of 1812. WWl. WWll. Me and the boys invading in '63. Now BP. We Brits must feel like that annoying little sister who won't leave America alone." 3) "It took a lot of British petroleum to fly me here from England. Fortunately, you can just swoop down and get it right out of the ocean now." 4) "I don't blame you Mr Obama. I'd rather be here listening to me than in the gulf too. You really ARE the smartest president ever!" 5) "I was going to sing 'Blackbird' tonight, but I didn't want to offend the pelicans in Louisiana." These are just a few of the more topical (and even self-deprecating) offerings I might have tried to play around with were it me accepting the Gershwin award (something that will almost certainly never happen) and flaunting the first amendment. I know I'm just a simple, obscure paper back writer, but I would suggest that Sir Paul not live in yesterday. Whenever you do that, you end up coming off like a bit of a nowhere man. Because of America, Sir Paul's songs have been heard across the universe and will be for a long time to come. Maybe the next time he feels like making a quasi-political statement in someone else's country, if he can't find something really funny or biting or topical or profound or timeless to say, he should probably just smile, bow ...and let it be. R Mon, 7 Jun 2010 15:25:52 GMT Mon, 7 Jun 2010 15:25:52 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems like people talk differently than they did when I was a kid. I actually remember when the term "awesome" was first being used in that casual, "that dude's car is awesome" sort of way. Before that, "awesome" had a more grandiose and majestic meaning i.e.; "the awesome power of almighty God" as opposed to "the almighty power of God is totally awesome dude". A subtle yet profound difference I think. I also remember the advent of the word "like" being jammed in front of every, like, sentence and like, point of view someone was like, trying to convey. It all sprang from a movie and song called "Valley Girl" in the '80's. Talking like a valley girl was once a novelty that my friends and I thought was cute and endearing in teenage girls. It signified a slight lack of intelligence coupled with a strong desire to fit in. Add the willingness to do whatever it takes to be liked and you have my high school dream girl. So I know how this type of speech became popular in women. What I totally (I actually mean "in total") missed was the moment every person in North America - male and female alike - started talking like a 17-year old "valley girl." For those of you under 30, you won't understand what I'm talking about. For those of you older than that, you'll probably get it on some level. There's a specific inflection that has become generational I think. It's always that way I guess. My generation certainly doesn't talk like my father's or grandfather's. I love watching black and white movies and hearing some guy tell another guy "sit down or you're getting it right in the kisser see. You been givin' these boys the business but them shenanigans don't fly around here brother". Nobody talks like that anymore. By the time my son is a teenager, he could very possibly watch a movie from the 1930's and not understand a single word being said. I find that kind of amazing. Our language and culture changes so rapidly that it's not out of the realm of possibility that we could be using a completely different vernacular in one generation. Incredible. Language and the ability to fully communicate is the cornerstone of any civilization. I'm reminded of the story of the tower of Babel. The people of Babel had decided they were equal with God. They built a tower to reach him but instead of killing them all or "smiting" them with some disease or visiting a pestilence or famine on their land, he taught them a valuable lesson by doing something simple. He confused their language. They couldn't communicate with each other anymore. Thus the term "babbling."Once they couldn't understand each other, they couldn't work or live together. That's sociology 101. Common language is essential to any successful society. I often hear politicians moving to make English the official language of the U.S. I'll then hear fierce opposition on the other side. Somehow, recognizing an official language represents racism and bigotry to them. I have no comment on it one way or another except to say ...shuiwjwabc uijalk lelelelelh adhioibe! (that's my own personal language and I'd like it recognized please) My new pet peeve with the ever evolving culture of language is the texting craze. I see 20-somethings around me all day long, drinking designer coffee, wearing those permanently-attached ear pieces and frantically banging their thumbs on some four-inch by six-inch piece of plastic with raised numbers and letters on it, trying to communicate without having to actually engage someone vocally or emotionally. I understand the convenience aspects of emails and texts - it does make sense and I'm caught right up in the middle of it. But I think you can go overboard with anything. The Amtrak disaster of last year appears to have been a direct result of the engineer texting while driving the train. Really!!!? How important could that text have been for someone in their right mind to say to themselves, "I'm driving a thousand tons of steel filled with human beings a hundred miles an hour over two narrow rails ...I'm bored. I know! I'll send a text to someone ...that'll be a great way to pass the time!" The de-railing was horrible and I'm certainly not trying to make light of anyone's tragedy, but folks can we put the phones down for a few minutes? Especially when we're driving ............a TRAIN???!!! Finally, I'd also like to register my disappointment with the de-construction of proper grammar, spelling and punctuation as a whole in emails and texts. Somehow, we've decided as a culture that if you are just emailing someone, grammar, spelling and punctuation doesn't count anymore. How did we all decide to give ourselves a straight pass for that? I get the whole "k - c u 2 nite" text efficiency thing I guess. No wasted letters - I get that. But I don't do it. I spell the words. I also capitalize proper nouns and punctuate as correctly as possible ...all the time ... sort of ...even in emails and texts. I had to learn all that stuff in school and by God, I'm using it! The most frightening thing of all about language and communication is how fragile it all is. One missing or misplaced letter can change an entire sentence and could actually change your life. If you were writing a newfound love and were texting her "meet me at the car" but accidentally hit a "b" instead of a "c" - she might never find you and meet someone else at the "bar" and then live happily ever after with them ...all because of the difference between B and C. Words are important and powerful. Communication is an art and must be cultivated. All good songwriters know that the difference between "but" "and" and "so" can turn your song from one of redemption into one of confusion - from something funny into something sick - from a classic love statement into an inappropriate question. It's always in the details. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" means one thing sung by the Beatles. "I Want To Mold Your Hand" means something completely different and is actually kind of creepy. One letter would've turned the Fab Four into an obscure, niche band who wrote songs about human body wax replication. It's such a fine line. So, always remember - God and the devil are found in the details of everything. It's no different with language and communication. But these days, with all the new forms of it, I'm surprised when we see either one of them. R Wed, 26 May 2010 08:55:57 GMT Wed, 26 May 2010 08:55:57 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com This past weekend was the Angelman Syndrome walk-a-thon. Angelman Syndrome is the disorder my precious Isabella has. She is missing a small piece of her 15th maternal chromosome. The symptoms of Angelman Syndrome range from lack of speech and gross motor skill delays to seizures and acute insomnia. Kids with this disorder are called "Angels" and it's such a perfectly appropriate moniker. The delays and disabilities brought on by this disorder are balanced by angelic dispositions and unconditional affection for everyone. My Bella is living, breathing love. In a few weeks I'll be releasing a book called "Angels and Idols." It talks about our struggles with Angelman Syndrome, its effect on the lives of those surrounding it and the questions all parents with special needs children ask in their darkest hours. It was painful to write but my prayer is that it will help other families wrestling with raising a child considered by the world to be "special", and bring a ray of hope and possibly even a fresh perspective to them. In our current culture, we've substituted nice words for the old words. We use "special needs" instead of "retarded. We say "challenged" instead of "handicapped. I think those are sensitive distinctions and I'm thankful for them. On the other hand, the word "retarded", from a purely linguistic standpoint, is correct and should have no negative connotation whatsoever. The reason it does is because it has become such a slang pejorative. The word and concept "retarded" is such a punch line no one seems to think twice about it. Our own president made an off-the-cuff joke about being able to bowl only at the Special Olympics on the Jay Leno show, and the audience laughed heartily. I winced and furrowed my brows. Even so, I myself have made insensitive comments in the past, using words like "idiot", not thinking about my own daughter's condition and the implications of my speech. It's easy to do because the people at the heart of the joke are defenseless. We feel a certain license to use the "special" people of the world as punch lines because deep down in a secret place we don't talk about at nice cocktail parties, we all know there's something mysterious and unsettling about them. They don't feel natural to be around. They are not a part of the "normal" human flow and no matter how much we try to act like they are "just like us - just a little challenged in some areas," we have to train ourselves to think that way. Our natural first reaction to someone 25-years-old, drooling or talking to the air, or laughing too loud in a public place is not total inclusion and acceptance. Our first response is probably something like, "what's wrong with them? I don't want that to touch me." As my daughter ages, I see the turned up noses and confused stares when she's in public with us. Everyone with a special needs child knows exactly what I'm talking about. As parents, our first reaction is obviously to protect our child and lash out at the person who lacks the understanding. But deep down, we know why they have those disapproving looks on their faces and why they turn the other way instead of engaging our children. I've been sidelined with some foot problems lately. The doctor's orders to stay off my feet have planted me in front of the History and Discovery channels more than I care to admit. I am a songwriter by trade and part of being good at that trade requires me to study the human condition from all angles. I am constantly intrigued by what people do and why they do it, so the brain candy offered on networks like these is hard for a guy like me to pass up. Eventually, at the heart of every program designed to unravel certain mysteries or examine this or that about human behavior or study the reasons behind this or that revolution or migration or coup, are the implied questions we all ask ..."why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What are we racing toward?" Seeking the answers to those questions takes humans in a million different directions. According to the prevailing, current science, evolution and nature selected us all to be the best and brightest and strongest and smartest and it discarded everything else. Let me first say I'm an open minded Christian regarding these matters and continually hold to what the Apostle Paul said, "now we see through the glass darkly." To me that has always meant we don't know the whole story and are learning as we go. I also believe God is big enough to be questioned over and over and over again and I do not have a quarrel with those who do the questioning. I don't freak out about words like "evolution" or "natural selection. The last part of Paul's quote is ..."but then face to face." In other words, one day we'll see everything as it actually is. I believe that firmly, so I enjoy the ride of knowledge and it never shakes my faith. But when science asserts that evolution and natural selection are weeding out the slow, weak and unprepared, I get a little nervous. What does this say about my daughter and her condition? How many steps is it from "she's an evolutionary mistake" to "it would probably be best if we dispose of her for the good of society"? I know that sounds overreaching and paranoid but it has happened before and not all that long ago. Hitler's final solution started with executing the mentally ill. If reaching the pentacle of human endeavor is your goal and weeding out "evolutionary mistakes" becomes part of that goal, all you really have to do is remove the sacred, the spiritual and the moral from your society and it's not a far leap to doing away with those who can't contribute or move us further down the evolutionary highway. Hitler was a monster to be sure, but his ideas on these things originated in the United States as something called Eugenics. Smart people can (and do) debate Eugenics until the air is out of the room, but the gist of it was ...we can solve everything on the planet by ridding ourselves of those with "defective" genes. It started with sterilizing the "mentally retarded" so they couldn't reproduce, but it evolved fairly quickly from there (just as the Jews). Though Hitler bares the brunt of the world's indignation, there were plenty of famous and very accepted thinkers that weren't that far removed from supporting at least the theory of his ghastly actions. George Bernard Shaw and Charles Darwin both have some pretty frightening quotes on the subject of how to deal with the mentally challenged. They obviously didn't kill anyone and Hitler did, still, the very entertaining of those thoughts makes my skin crawl and causes me to hold Isabella a little more tightly at night. I've often said that I'm interested in science but I'm ultimately a man of art. To me, if you only see the world in scientific terms and never see it as an art piece, you can easily find yourself in dangerous and disturbing waters. Science is supposed to ask "why" but occasionally veers into words like "mistake" or "anomaly. As benign as those words are, they are essentially words of judgment on someone or something, and can send us careening into moral ambiguity. Ironically, some Christians find themselves on similar paths. I've head believers say that all of these problems wouldn't have occurred were it not for all the sin in the world and that, essentially, people like my daughter are a result of someone else's moral corruption. Once again, I go back to the words of Jesus when he was asked why a certain man had been born blind. Who had sinned? The man's mother or father? Jesus' response? Neither one. Jesus said the man was as he was so the glory of God could be revealed. To my mind that means, "so a little more of this beautiful art piece can be shown." I don't know why my daughter is the way she is. I don't know if she's an evolutionary mistake or if she lives in her prison because of some past, horrible sin committed by someone I never met. What I do know is that she is a beautiful instrument of love and joy that continues to change and shape my life and the lives of all those around her. I know she's made me a better man and has opened my eyes to worlds I would've never known about before. I know that she has caused me to meet people I would've never met and write songs I would've never written. If she is a scientific mistake, then she's more than an artistic necessity. The beauty she brings into the world is impossible to define or quantify. The "special people" of the world are more meaningful than we know. Their innocence and acceptance of our pettiness and pride is remarkable. The way they forgive us of our shortcomings is hard to fathom. Their unconditional love, even when we don't deserve it, is nothing short of a miracle. Some may think my daughter is a mistake but in many ways I would rather be more like her than have her be more like me. So, the next time you're face to face with someone whose mental or physical condition makes you uncomfortable, the discomfort you feel may not be because they're not enough like you. It may be because you're not enough like them. Such is often the case when mortals are in the company of angels. Tue, 18 May 2010 08:50:23 GMT Tue, 18 May 2010 08:50:23 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com My dad used to say, "It's a poor frog that won't croak for his own pond." Well, my pond has recently overflowed. In fact, my pond, Nashville Tennessee, was almost completely washed away a week ago. The worst flood in the recorded history of this region, and the worst non-hurricane related flood disaster in U.S history, coursed through the hollows and dells and rushed over the hills and ridge tops of my hometown, while I could do nothing but watch from my kitchen window. As I write this, I am watching the local news and feeling a certain pride in the people of this genteel, southern city. The cleanup operation is neighborly, generous, warm and downright inspiring. There are no reports of widespread looting or panic or hysterical vitriol being volleyed at the government. In fact, on a national level, there are almost no reports of anything at all. I suppose in the swirling drama of yet another attempted terrorist attack in New York, an out-of-control oil slick in the Gulf and a raging immigration debate in Arizona, the flooding and destruction of one of America's great cities is an afterthought. I guess on some level I understand the disaster pecking order. Still, I can't help thinking if this were Chicago or Detroit or someplace just a little sexier, how many more cameras would be lined up to get the devastation footage while there was still enough human suffering to make it worthy of leading the evening news. Many more I think. I ask myself why? But in a way I think I kind of know why. I don't believe in the inherent goodness of geography but I do believe cities take on a certain soul and exhibit certain personalities. Vegas is what happens when you build something completely on vices. LA is what happens when you build something completely on image. New York is built on the dreams of the immigrants and I feel their ghosts on the subway. Memphis is built on the blues and I shuffle a little further behind the beat when I'm there. Nashville was built on the heart. All hearts that are broken, soaring, thankful or heavy are all written about and sung about here. Doctor Vivien Thomas performed one of the first open heart surgeries in the U.S and was THE first African American ever to perform open heart surgery on a white person. His attention to detail and his seamless work was once referred to as looking like "something the Lord made." He definitely knew his way around the heart ...and he was from Nashville. That's more than a little ironic. I am the rarest of breeds, a fourth generation native Nashvillian. In fact, I'm not even sure how far back I have to go to find people in my genealogy who weren't from middle Tennessee. My grandmother used to sing at gospel night at thy Ryman auditorium in the '50's. She's gone on stage after Patsy Cline before. My dad was a session guitarist in the '60's and was working at RCA studio B with a couple of legends the week I was born. My connection to this town is deep and I think I know what makes it a special place. The music of Nashville has always been about the heart. On one side of the street are the country songs of heartbreak and love lost. On the other side of the street are the gospel songs of redemption and rejoicing. I was raised at that crossroads and the music of this town runs through my veins. Nashville's music and its people are all heart ...this is my town. Some see Nashville as a layover on the way to someplace further east or further west. Many of my dear friends have moved to the Big Apple or the City of Angels over the years. When I myself was climbing the pop charts as an artist, several music insiders asked me at parties when I was "making the move" to LA. My response was always the same ..."never." Why someone would stay in Nashville while trying to have a career in any musical style other than country was unthinkable to them. In fact, there are factions in this town that hate the very fact that I have pop songs on my resume and any sort of pop sound in my music. I haven't always been embraced by the music business in Nashville, but I've always believed that it is mecca for songwriters - not just rhinestone-clad country stars. I wanted to stay in the place I considered to be the pentacle of the art of the song, without having to sift through the trappings of fame and spectacle to get there. In short, I need to live in a place with heart. Nashville was built on the heart ...and it's my town. Through the years, I've endured the good natured ribbing, at east and west coast events, about not wearing shoes or not having indoor plumbing or marrying my cousin or any number of the obligatory "red-neck" or "Beverly Hillbilly" jokes that circulate. I've lost gigs and cuts and opportunities because someone thought they heard a "fiddle or something" on some track of mine or assumed I was a right-wing racist or a "red-state" hate monger. These days you get a lot of "tea-bagger" jokes. The truth is there are some tea parties here (I don't think that's a bad thing). The truth is when a tornado blows through a trailer park here, there will inevitably be that four-toothed stereotype guy with no shirt and a "Skynard" tattoo on his chest, who can't find his pickup truck being interviewed on the local news - I love that guy! I get it - hillbillies, south of the Mason/Dixon, simple, down-home, blah, blah, blah. I laugh along with the joke. You can't stop the ignorant from showing their prejudices and preconceptions of the south, its music and its people. I know at its core, this is a good place with good people who want everybody to do well, cheer on their neighbors and pitch in when they're needed. They don't complain or wait for somebody else to show up. They get to it and get past it. This place has heart ...and it's my town. Shepard Smith hasn't shown up and cried like a 9-year-old girl here. Geraldo hasn't shown up and declared it the end of the world. George Clooney hasn't chastised anyone publicly while simultaneously rounding up the cast of Ocean's Eleven to hold a telethon on our behalf. Julia Roberts hasn't looked into the camera, cocked her head slightly to the side and said, "please give," while choking back those big, patented actress tears. President Obama hasn't shown up and stood at the steps of the Ryman or the Parthenon (the only exact replica in the world of the one in Athens by the way - I've seen them both - ours is cleaner), or any Nashville historical landmark and said anything about anything. To my knowledge, we haven't even gotten a fly-over and a wave yet. I suppose if it's not something as important as an Olympic bid or a peace prize or a climate change summit or a date night with his wife or a guest spot on Jay Leno, it's not all that important. Still, you'll never hear Alan Jackson or Kenny Chesney stand in front of a camera and say, "Barrack Obama hates white people." Who knows? Maybe he just hates country music ...but I digress. Without fanfare and without the need to be seen or heard, Nashvillians are cleaning up the damage and getting on with life. The community spirit in this town is amazing and should be a beacon to the world ...if the world could only get a look. This time next year, Nashvillians will be laughing about this around the table, eating pie and drinking sweet tea. Disasters don't define Nashvillians, they only challenge us temporarily. We won't live in this moment, we'll move on from it to more pressing matters of the heart. The music that does define this town will continue on and help the world through its heartbreak - cheer it on when it's down - buy it a drink when its had a hard day - help it dance when it's bored - make it cry when it least expects it and make it laugh when things look the worst. The people of this town will work till the debris is cleared, rebuild what was lost and show up at the Titans game after church every Sunday this coming fall. That's what we do here in Nashville. Nashville was built on the heart ...and it's my town. R Mon, 10 May 2010 11:01:31 GMT Mon, 10 May 2010 11:01:31 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com As I sit in my warm, cozy kitchen, watching the rain and listening to a Disney production in the next room, my son makes up an entire world with spider-man and a hot-wheels car in his bedroom and my daughter sits on the couch and fumbles with a book, glancing occasionally over at me with a lovely, contented smile, and I am struck with just how lucky a man I am. It is my birthday and I am glad to be alive. To my right are the cards I opened this morning. The one from my wife is deep and poetic and comes from a place only known after many years together. The one from my children is a big green monster with illegible scribbling all over it. I cherish them both. As I've aged I've grown to fall in love with little things. I remember my grandfather's appreciation for what I used to consider to be the mundane. He would occasionally look up and say, "Reg, look how blue that sky is son. Ain't that beautiful?" I couldn't understand back then what was such a big deal about a sky. It's supposed to be blue, right? With every year that passes in my life, however, I understand more and more what it means to appreciate a sapphire sky. The first thing I do when I leave my house is look up and admire the sky, whatever shade it might be. It's a miracle and I'm humbled by it. A few months ago a dear friend of mine passed away on a park bench while waiting on his wife to return from a walk. He was far too young to die and he is deeply missed. In his last breaths I hope he looked up at the sky. Last night I heard the news that another acquaintance of mine and fellow musician, took his own life in his studio. Though I didn't know him well, we did get dropped from our record labels the same year and commiserated with each other for about 30 minutes at a party one night. He was a monstrously talented individual with more than enough to live for in this world. I am saddened and angered by his exit. Suicide is a particularly dark end and it's a wound that never heals for those left behind. Still, I reluctantly admit that I understand it to some degree. I've been a brooding, moody artist for most of my life. Several years ago I found out that I could attribute my dark side to more than my melancholy temperament. My lithium levels were almost non-existent. The doctor who discovered this asked me why I hadn't attempted suicide. He went on to tell me that he'd never seen anyone with lithium levels like mine that hadn't attempted it at least once. What he didn't know was that I had contemplated it many times in my younger years. One night in particular still haunts me ... On a certain night in my teens, while my hormones were swirling in tumult and my future was uncertain (and in my opinion bleak), I had a horrible battle with myself. My parents were out of town on church business and I was was almost ready to leave the nest and strike out on my own. I was contemplating my future and where I would end up in life. This night my mind was in full meltdown. Anyone who's ever battled clinical depression knows how the spiral works and where it can end. It can start with something as simple as "the way that girl laughed at me today is just a microcosm of my entire existence. I'm worthless and life is futile. I can't find hope in anything anymore - why should I even keep going? All these people trying to encourage me are phony and hiding behind a mask of their own feelings of worthlessness. I should end this right here and now and teach them all a lesson. They will have to deal with their hypocrisy and hollow belief systems once I scatter the truth all over these walls. This is really the best and only choice for someone who really understands how broken the whole thing is. It's all worthless. I am worthless. I am nothing. I can't take this pain anymore and no one understands it. I just want it to end. I want that girl to feel this pain. I want my parents to feel this pain. I want everyone who knows me to finally feel this pain." I took the pistol we kept in the house for protection into my room and placed in on my bed. I stared at it for at least two hours. The adrenalin and dread was coursing through my young veins and I began to feel like a man with only one option. "You're a coward because you can't really do it," the voice kept saying. "You don't have to do this - this is crazy! Sleep on it and figure it out in the morning," said the other voice. The emotional tug of war went on until the wee hours. My heart was close to bursting with all the stress of these tortured hours. I can't really say why I chose to put the gun away and press on until morning. Maybe it was one extra hug from my mother or a minute's more conversation with my father. It might have been a commitment to a dear, best friend or my not wanting my brother, who I loved, to have to live with having discovered my body. I went through every permutation and scenario that could've happened to me and all those around me that night and decided, somehow, on life. To this day I'm not always completely sure why. In the past two months, I've had gout in both feet, a 7 mm kidney stone removed with 3 surgeries, plantar facsitis and tendonitis in my left foot as well as two stomach viruses. I also witnessed the biggest flood in Nashville, TN history happen right outside my front door just this weekend. Over the course of these days in the house, I've played with my children and tossed them around in delight, sometimes followed by some scolding and discipline, followed by more playing, followed by kisses and hugs ...often followed by yet more scolding and discipline ...ultimately ending in more kisses and hugs. Such is the ebb and flow of life itself. One moment you're talking to your wife, the next you're getting a morphine drip and being prepped for surgery. One minute you're roughhousing with dad, the next he's chastising you for slugging your sister. One second your headed to the grocery store, the next your car is up to its windows in flood water. Life is a wild ride at any age or in any place. There are no real guarantees and often no sense to be made of it. I did hear Oprah say something one time that actually made a lot of sense to me and was the inspiration for one of my favorite songs I've written. She said, "press on and see what the end will be." As much as I've often rolled my eyes at Oprah and her oh-so-important life lessons, I think this one really rings true. We can choose to believe this is all a cosmic accident or we can become participants in the great human march toward wherever we're going. I lived to see the first black president in American history. I lived to see Tom Brady throw 50 touchdowns in one season. I lived to achieve some of my own dreams I didn't think I would ever have a shot at achieving. I met my little brother's 3rd child last week on his 4th day of life. I got to meet my own daughter and son and referee their ultimate fighting matches. I got to marry my dream girl. I got to go to Beijing in 2003. 5 years later I got to hear one of my songs close the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. I got to watch my daughter, who specialists said might never walk, take her first steps at age 3. I now get to race her through the mall. I saw 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina ...and now the great Nashville flood of 2010. I witnessed all this; the beautiful, the ironic, the sweet, the bitter, the horrible, the unthinkable, the sublime, all because I chose life ...and I'm glad I did. Life is ultimately a good thing and it's worth living to the absolute fullest. My dad says we've gotten the cliche' backwards. They say "where there's life there's hope." He says it's actually "where there's hope there's life." He might be right about that. It sounds good to me. Still, I know what it means to feel hopeless. I empathize with those who feel that their dreams have sailed beyond them and there is just no point in going on any longer. I have a book coming out in June that talks about these issues in depth. I know the territory and although there are horrors some have been through that would make anyone give up, I still believe in hope and life. Ultimately, we have to connect with others and risk love. I can guarantee beyond all doubt that nothing will work out like we plan. But the great mystery of it all is epic and exciting and to be embraced. So, to be or not to be? I say be ...always and without question ...BE! R Mon, 3 May 2010 10:21:36 GMT Mon, 3 May 2010 10:21:36 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com As I was about to turn 30, I began getting barraged with CDs and letters explaining how and why it was finally time for the person sending said CD to "take the next step" and "go to the next level" with their music. Many of these same people had laughed at me for diving head long into the music industry right out of high school and scoffed at my jettisoning college to walk the road less travelled. I distinctly remember laughing and tossing their CDs and letters into the garbage. I knew they were just reaching a milestone of age in their life and freaking out about the career path on which they had most likely inadvertently found themselves. My reaction to their panic probably seems cold and calloused. The truth is by the time I was 30 I had already belonged to a tight-knit fraternity for well over a decade and I was long past having time for frivolous dabblers. I admire the person chasing a dream and will lock arms with them in solidarity toward that end. I refuse, however, to be a short cut for those who want to minimize all risk while pursuing that dream. It isn't fair to the dreamer. For dreams to really come true they must be firmly planted in extreme risk. In short, if you aren't willing to lose everything; be broken down to nothing; be lost at sea forever; you have no business in the music business and I can't really help you. More importantly ...I WON'T help you. It sounds mellow-dramatic I know, but the truth is entertainment is a blood sport and we gladiators swear an unspoken oath to win or die. There are only two ways out of the music business - enough success to retire or enough failure to destroy your life. There's almost nothing in between. I think back on my earliest days of struggle to become a successful songwriter. I was in my late teens and living in a completely bare apartment, in the bad section of town, with nothing but a twin mattress on the floor. My car would get broken into about once a week when it was working. I would take 10 bucks to the grocery store and buy boxes and boxes of Ramen noodles for 39 cents apiece. My sheer poverty and perceived lack of promise was almost laughable ...but I was on a mission and would not be swayed from it. I remember the day my good friend Joel Lindsey quit his high paying corporate job at a well-known insurance and investment firm to launch into full time songwriting. He had just been offered a promotion and raise. He promptly turned in his resignation and removed his necktie for the last time ...never to be donned again. He and I became roommates and fellow sufferers for our art. While our friends were landing jobs and starting families, we were getting our electricity, phones and water shut off on a regular basis. We were working odd jobs and waiting tables and doing just enough to survive while writing 5 to 10 songs a week, studying every writer of note in the history of the art form, and hustling our way onto records. We would start every day with one of us throwing out a word we had to rhyme with in every sentence until the next day. Our entire lives were immersed in the art and craft of songwriting. Joel has gone on to become an iconic songwriter in the world of Gospel music. His song "Orphans Of God" brings me to tears every time and the sheer volume of his work is staggering. But his genius aside, Joel and I will always share a special bond that transcends the music we've both created. The bond we share is the fact that we both put everything on the line and not just for a year or three years or ten years. We committed our entire lives to the art of music, poetry and songwriting. It's a bit like climbing into a small sailboat and deciding to circumnavigate the globe ...forever. The stereotype of young men suffering for their art seems quaint and slightly comical. Movies and TV lead us to believe in the inevitability of success for those struggling artists. From the outside in it's easy enough to say "just keep at it guys - you'll make it". When you're the one doing the sacrificing, however, it's not that simple. There are no guarantees and no inevitability. The farther you get from land, the more you realize you actually have to survive on that violent ocean or be lost. After a few years, you are faced with the stark reality of having to write on whatever job application you fill out for the rest of your life, "took 4 years off to become professional musician/songwriter" in one of the boxes. The longer you struggle, the bigger that number gets. Somewhere, you pass the point of no return and face the stark realization that this is now your life ...like it or not ...for better or worse. Artists of all stripes - actors, poets, writers, painters, musicians, singers, filmmakers - anyone whose living depends on the whim of public opinion eventually lands at the crossroads ..."do I keep doing this or do I cut my losses and quit while I can still do something else?" Legends keep going at all cost ...so do the homeless people living under bridges without families, who have plunged into mental illness and delusion. It's a fine line and there are no good answers at that point. As I've aged, I've gotten more cruel and stern in my advice for young talent seeking wisdom on "how to succeed in the music business". I love to watch youngsters develop and grow into their own, but the life of a professional musician/songwriter is not easy and it would be a disservice to the youngsters to say otherwise. All the people in my life who have been truly instructive are not the ones who cheered me blindly on or dismissed me out of hand, but the ones who gave me real world advice and unflinching critique. Cindy Wilt was the first person who told me to "perfect my craft" and that my songs weren't really ready to be recorded. Cindy changed my life and I love her to this day. She's the sole reason I am what I am. Now, I could've taken that criticism and let it destroy me. It's been my experience that most people who say they want you to be brutally honest actually want no such thing at all and leave in tears. I wasn't asking Cindy for an honest critique - I've never asked for critique of any kind. I want you to record my songs. Period. But after hearing Cindy's sobering words, I could've just as easily gone the other direction and quit. Ultimately, that's what separates those who should do this from those who shouldn't. In that spirit, my first piece of advice to newcomers is to not do it under any circumstances. It's a life full of heartbreak and rejection peppered with brief moments of inexplicable success that make no sense and have no rhyme or reason whatsoever. I heard Barbara Striesand say once that she tells all young singers that they cannot do it and they don't have what it takes. They should go home and forget their dreams. If they listen to that advice, they have no business trying to do it professionally. If they tell her where to go and defy her advice, then they are cut from the right cloth and will probably make it. As much as I hate agreeing with Babs on anything, I believe she's right on this one. If my stamp of approval is what you're waiting for, you will fail miserably and be eaten alive. Only the most defiant and stubborn will make it in this business. It's not for the faint of heart or the reasonable. So I tell you you're great - then what? So I tell you you suck - then what? I'm not going to "take you under my wing" and help you along. I'm not in the business of training proteges. I ultimately couldn't care less if you make a mark in the world of music or not. If you're seeking approval, play songs for your mom and dad. I'm feeding my kids and paying my mortgage. Many people my age are running for office - some are in seats of power and changing the country and the world. Many people younger than me have developed internet companies and become billionaires. Some of my contemporaries have gone on to big and important things. I'm still just trying to make people sing, dance, laugh and cry along with my 3-minute ditties. That's my cross to bear and that's the life I chose - I will not take responsibility for making it yours. Only you can do that. So, what IS my advice? I am weekly inundated with people on social networking sites asking me to listen to their music or their son or daughter or niece or kid at church or blah, blah, blah. I am terse and truculent in my response always. I simply don't do that for anyone. If I did, I would be doing it 8 hours a day every week. Look, I can teach you tricks of the trade of songwriting. I can offer insight that will help you write better songs and get deeper into your craft. I can help you sidestep trouble and heartache in the business. If you're looking for that short cut, however, you don't deserve it. I earned my education. Joel Lindsey and all our friends in the brotherhood and sisterhood of artists earned our stripes in the process of doing it and that's the way it should always be. My standard advice is simply this: move to a music center (NY/LA/Nashville), get a job and start doing whatever it is you want to do. Don't sign anything without having a lawyer look it over. Find out who's doing what you want to do at the highest level and emulate their process. Finally, make everyone in the world tell you that you suck before giving up. The dark nights of wondering if you're any good and if you have a future are rites of passage. If you cannot get through them unscathed, maybe this isn't the place for you. For those who choose to set sail on the wild sea of dreams, I salute you and will wave as we ride the trade winds of fortune and misfortune together. I now have a wife and children in my boat and my face is even more hardened to the storm. I'm thankful for every island of respite I've encountered along the way that has allowed me to raise toasts, secure and repair my vessel and sleep under the palm trees for brief and precious moments. Soon enough, though, I will be battening down the hatches, trimming the sails and racing for the open water once again - salt in my nostrils and wet wind in my greying hair. The calls from shore are not heard by my focussed ear any more. I'm too far into the black billows to hear the land dwellers. I've fallen in love with the danger and uncertainty and I know that I will never return to the beach again. For those still on land contemplating the adventure, I say commit to the adventure totally or stay on land and occasionally swim in the shallow end of your local lake or river. You will be happier in the long run and there is no shame in living safely. But if you are a hearty soul, wrestling with your own sanity and willing to submit your entire life to whims of the surf, step into your sailboat and grip the rigging. Just know that you may die in the middle of the howling wind and rain. Know that the very dreams that breathe life into your sails can drag you to the bottom of the brine, never to be seen again. If you can die there with a strange little smile on your face believing that you did the right thing ...then set sail and join us. For those at sea, there is simply no other choice. Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:41:32 GMT Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:41:32 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com If you spend any time at all on social networking sites (and I do) you know that people like to sound off and tell their story. I like the fact that we now live in a world where everyone can stand up and say what they want on their own little soap box. I like little soap boxes. Maybe it's the preacher's kid in me, but I'm just fine with the idea of anyone from anywhere shouting their particular beef or truth or revelation from the rooftop. Many of these "truths" and/or "beefs" are completely wrong-headed and misguided and some are down right crazy (in my opinion). Still, while some might want to silence opposition and discredit desent, I say shout on. The truth will ultimately win in the end and we won't get to it unless we weed out all the lies. Say your piece and let God sort it out ...trust me ...he most certainly will. One thing I have noticed in my social communications is how harsh, unrefined and brutal humans can be when they think they are acting anonymously. I often bristle at comments directed at me and others about certain subjects. Sometimes, I absolutely agree with a particular point of view being shared but it is done in such a way that I cannot abide. I love healthy, robust debate. I believe it makes us better, smarter, more critical thinkers. I do not however, enjoy blunt and raspy attacks on one's person. The coarse nature of our current societal dialogue has certainly left me disappointed in our current general disposition as humans, and more than a little concerned about the state of grammar and spelling. The art of communication must be cultivated for it to beautifully bloom. Surfing social networking sites is often like trudging through a garden of sand and stone in this regard. Still, I love the fact that we can all connect and discuss. I believe it's ultimately a good thing. In my life's work I've striven to become a better communicator. All art is communication. The painter, sculptor, composer, poet, songwriter, novelist, conductor, director, actor, comic, musician, dancer ...all phases and faces of artistry, are trying to communicate something to humanity and shout something into the universe. I believe Walt Whitman referred to it as "my barbaric yawp!" We artists are screaming something everyone wants to scream. We just do it in realm of "artifice" ...hence the term "art". I am fortunate to be an artist in today's world and have so many vehicles at my disposal for sounding my "barbaric yawp". The internet, and all it's spin-off products, has afforded me new and interesting ways to connect with the like-minded who might enjoy my songs or books or thoughts or ...impish mischief. About six months ago I stopped blogging in order to finish a book and CD and re-vamp my website. All of it is taking shape beautifully and becoming so much more than I ever imagined. The launching of the new website is the first step in releasing the new projects that have been in the works in RH world for over a year now. The inspirational story of the song "Time Of My Life" became a blog that was read the world over by thousands (and some even speculate millions) of people in 2008. The story came to the attention of a book publisher who asked me to expand the story into a book. Along with that, the same publisher happened to be launching a record label. They asked me to record a CD for that label as well. The culmination of both those things is about to be released to the general public and I'm very excited about it. It will be my first solo CD release in 7 years and my first book release ever. The book is called "Angels And Idols" and the CD is called "Set It On Fire". The first single off the CD is making its way on to Christian radio right now. It's the title cut - "Set It On Fire". Hopefully, you'll be hearing it so much in the coming months that you develop hatred for the very sound of my name and voice. That would be great! Tate Publishing and Tate Music Group are the book publisher and record label respectively, and I'm excited to be working with them. I pray daily that the projects find an audience and touch people's lives in a positive way. As always, I'm flanked by my amazing, boutique management firm of Rutledge Nash and Associates. Over the past few years they have helped me navigate the rushing waters of my strange little career with creativity and boundless energy. I'm truly blessed to be in the company I'm in on all sides ...and it's no accident. I believe that if you continue on the path laid before you and follow the still small voice directing you (some might call it the voice of God), amazing and wondrous things will come your way. That doesn't mean they'll all be comfortable and happy things. It doesn't even mean they'll always be positive things. I said "amazing and wondrous." That can encompass many twists and turns that, on the surface, may seem brutal, unfair and confusing. Still, I believe in the end, it is all working toward the greater purpose - the greater good - the ultimate healing. I'm not sure I've always believed that, but having gone through the last 7 years has made my faith in this notion unshakable and certain ...and it's all in the book. So friends, I fully intend on re-starting the acerbic, controversial blogs and keeping you all informed about upcoming events, projects and shows. You can tune in here every Monday morning, and get your dose of ...well ...whatever it is I do in those blogs. I love connecting with all of you - even the ones who are wrong about everything or on the verge of insanity (you're actually my favorite). Hopefully we'll be seeing each other at a show or book signing event soon. Come up and say hi. Also, come back to this slick, snazzy new site from time to time and get your update. I'll be here sounding off about something I'm sure. I love you all - even the mean ones ... R Tue, 6 Apr 2010 06:06:33 GMT Tue, 6 Apr 2010 06:06:33 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Newton's third law of physics asserts, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction . Who am I to argue with Newton? If you jump off a building, the laws of gravity won't kill you, but they will continue to pull your body down until the laws of matter density (such as are found in concrete) will kill you. All around us are natural laws and universal principals. One certainly doesn't have to believe in these laws and anyone can say, I choose not to abide by the laws of gravity -" I'm getting in a plane and flying. What of your precious gravity now Sir Isaac? I've defied you!!! Actually you haven't. You simply slipped into the laws of aerodynamics. Those laws have parameters too and if you jump out of that plane, Mr Newton magically re-appears to escort you to an abrupt meeting with Mr matter density (concrete again). There is no defying a universal principal or a natural law. I was horrified to watch the woman mauled by her pet chimpanzee last year. Hmmm, let me say that again PET chimpanzee???!!! I wish no one the horror she went through and my heart absolutely goes out to the woman's family who was killed. Still, I think living with a chimpanzee, who has the strength of ten grown men and an unpredictable temperament, is not just a risk, it's a guaranteed disaster somewhere along the way. Do we know of anyone who has successfully slept with a chimpanzee for any significant length of time? (not counting Michael Jackson). Don't we all know in our heart of hearts that if we keep a wild animal in our house, eventually we are going to lead the evening news? Don't we? Do you ever hear, you know that monkey and aunt Alice lived happily together for 20 years without incident. He was toilet trained and brought tea and cookies to all the guests that came by. He was almost human and even played Amazing Grace on the harp at her funeral ? NO! Somewhere along the way, that story is going to have a ghastly twist -" The monkey was fine for about 6 years and then one day it didn't like something Oprah said and just went APE!!! Yeah -" that's why they call it going APE because it's AN APE! Every now and then, we hear some horrible story about the serial killer looking guy who's pet boa constrictor Butch gets out of his glass cage and wraps himself around some poor, unsuspecting poodle. By the time the authorities arrive, the only thing left is a pink ribbon,16 tiny, red-painted fingernails and a sequined tag that reads Henrietta . You can't really blame Butch -" he's just being a boa. That's why Butch lives in the freaking jungle and Henrietta is a domesticated lap doggie. When the two of them meet without supervision, certain natural laws will overtake whatever grand, social design you would love to engineer. No matter how much we want all God's little creatures to get along, big snake eats little poodle every time. It's a mathematical certainty. Don't try to change it, just keep Butch and Henrietta away from each other and they'll both be fine unless a monkey shows up whatever anyway, the point is, don't hate the natural law just obey it. It works. I believe in natural laws and universal principles. There is a long list of things I don't eat anymore because of this belief. Some things are just not designed to be ingested by the human body -" they CAN be -" they're just not designed to be. Twinkies, sodas, candy, etc. are all unnatural foods that taste pretty good going down but have a unique set of consequences attached. Eaten once or twice every so often, are barely noticeable to the body. Eaten in massive quantities by a majority of the population, and you have thirty percent of the childhood population obese and at risk for type two diabetes. Now, as Americans are prone to do, we'll probably blame the epidemic on some new found thyroid condition that has been triggered by an obscure virus we can't really pin point and aren't sure really exists, but is probably the cause of all this obesity in children. Therefore, we'll develop more drugs that counter this vague virus so that these phantom thyroid conditions heal and get our children back to a normal lifestyle. Guess what America? The childhood obesity problem we're facing might be a simple violation of natural law. Eat too much refined sugar and your pancreas, liver, nervous system, brain and everything else, starts going haywire. Stop drinking soda and eating sugar, start drinking water and walking a few miles a day and something magical will happen -" you'll lose weight and probably lose your one way ticket to diabetes as well (*I am not a trained physician -" these are merely opinions and not medical advice*). Point is, universal principles will work every time if we work with them and not against them. There are other universal principles continually in play. Some our own beloved, elected leaders might consider in their budgetary plans. You cannot borrow your way out of debt and you cannot spend your way to prosperity. I know these sound like the rantings of a madman, but I've actually seen this work in my own life. Many years ago, my wife and I stopped financing meals and gasoline at 18% interest, cut up those credit cards, sold our house (with the mortgage we couldn't afford) and moved into a teeny, tiny upstairs apartment for two years. The rent was three hundred dollars a month and we vowed to not leave that place until we could actually afford to. After two years, we moved back into a house we could completely afford. You'd be amazed how much money can be used for other things when you're not paying the lion's share of it out to a company who fronted your chicken sandwich and iced tea last Saturday night. Universal principal -" better to only pay for the chicken sandwich once. At 18% interest, you would end up paying for a ten dollar meal (eaten in January) twice by June, if you don't pay the entire balance off every month. The math is pretty simple and the principle is in stone. Now, defying universal principles sometimes results in the immediate. The effects of jumping out of an airplane will not take a long time to feel. Eating the wrong foods or drinking the wrong beverages might take years to feel. Paying 18% interest, over and over again for chicken sandwiches, will take some time as well, but eventually, all will produce a result. My father used to preach a sermon called There's a Payday Coming . It was an exposition on cause and effect -" reaping what you sow -" your decisions catching up to you, etc. It was all true. We all know in our hearts that sooner or later those potato chips are going to send us to a specialist for some ailment. Maybe not tomorrow and maybe not for years, but eventually the cumulative effect will be felt. When you're buried in revolving debt (as I once was) you know one day the calls will start coming and the payment plans won't be far behind them. At the very least you know you will never build wealth that way. In our hearts we know in everything we do there's a payday coming. I've recently seen news reports of new, record numbers of broken marriages. An interesting common denominator in a high percentage of these has been one person or another re-connecting with past love interests through social networking sites. Some husband or wife will find an old boyfriend or girlfriend on one of these sites and re-kindle the once extinguished flame. Before long, someone's filing for divorce and racing to re-live something they never really lived the first time and exists only in fantasy and not reality. I've seen it happen in my own circles. It's a universal principal that people are curious. That's a great thing. It has taken the human race to the moon and back. But sometimes, it can take you into the arms of your high-school sweetheart the one you DIDN'T marry. It's also a universal principal that those found in the arms of said high-school sweethearts are not looked upon kindly by actual, current spouses. That will lead to the universal principal of divorce and a broken family. That can lead to the universal principal of old guy at the club syndrome, complete with middle-aged, grey hiding highlights (thought to make one look younger) and awkward pickup conversation moment of sorry dear -" I'd really love to hear more about Lady Gaga, but I'm having a ‘procedure' done in the morning and I need to be in bed by ten alone. Apparently, I've eaten too many potato chips in my life. Here -" I'll put the drinks on my Visa I only pay 18%. Nobody wins -" least of all Lady Gaga but I digress. Have we all violated universal principles? I know I have. Will we continue to in the future? God knows, I try not to but I certainly make no promises knowing me. I'm just hoping we can all at least recognize the principles before we violate them. My hope is that this year, we read less and less about childhood obesity, bankruptcy and predatory lending, broken marriages at the hands of social networking sites and at the very least in-home, wild animal accidents. My hope is that we all eat better, spend within our means, avoid the old flame on the social networking trap and, for the love of Pete people don't buy a monkey! R Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:00:52 GMT Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:00:52 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com So, I'm a Peyton Manning fan. I know he was born into a privileged life and had every advantage known to man (none of which is his fault), but he's chosen to take those God given assets and work his butt off instead of coasting on his abilities and family name. He's parlayed his advantages into heights possibly never seen in professional sports, and he's done it with grace and class. I would love to see him break all the records and get more rings. I root for people like that. Some blindly cheer for the underdog (no matter who the underdog is) because they think it's poetic or fair or whatever. I tend to root for the guy (or girl) who is laying it all on the line and then some, all the time underdog or not. Last weekend I witnessed a travesty. The undefeated Colts were removed from the field in the back half of the 3rd quarter and made to watch, from the sidelines, as their green, unproven replacements handed the game (literally) to the opposing team. I personally like Peyton's response. He didn't publicly criticize his coach, general manager or owner. He didn't start a press frenzy with his sideline body language. He did something very subtle yet profound. He simply stood for the remainder of the game with his helmet on. He said afterwards that he was simply listening to the plays I think not. His regular season is essentially over. He could've changed into street clothes and no one would've cared. What he said to the world by keeping his helmet on was simply, I'm still ready to play. I will be ready to play till the time runs out. I'm not going anywhere. I want to win this game, even though I know some think it means nothing. I'm still ready to play. I felt bad for the Colts' starting lineup. They deserve to go undefeated. Jim Caldwell (the coach) and Bill Pollian (general manager), however, don't deserve to win another football game for the rest of their careers. It sounds harsh, but it's true. If you're not willing to lay it all on the line for something inspirational -" for a moment in time -" to breathe rarified air when you've been given the chance, then you don't deserve the opportunity to be in that position period. Reg now, come on! What if someone got hurt and it cost them the Superbowl? They're playing football my friends. It's a contact sport. If you're afraid of injury, you shouldn't be on the field in the first place, and guess what? Letting the air out of that team in that game is probably going to cost them the Superbowl anyway. I predict they don't get out of the divisional round, and (the players notwithstanding) their organization doesn't deserve to now. In my opinion, when you purposely shut down momentum in the name of safety, you're done. Of course, after last week's loss, I would certainly rest the starters. There really is nothing to play for now, but it doesn't matter anyway. The fatal blow has been struck. Now, before all the armchair coaches and quarterbacks pummel me, just know that this is not about football When I got close to turning 30, friends I never knew I had started coming out of the woodwork, sending me songs and CDs and everything you can imagine. I'd already spent over a decade slugging it out in clubs and writer's rooms and on the road and in studios. I had been initiated into a fraternity of creatives who were willing to get their heat turned off in February, air turned off in July, drive crappy cars, live in crappy apartments, get evicted, get divorced, work regular jobs all day and write all night, just to be in the action of professional songwriting and put it all on the line for the sake of their art everyday. I developed a bond with those people that still holds to this day. The pretenders clamoring for my help were not in that fraternity. They were motivated by the simple fear of approaching a certain milestone of age and seeing their dream finally slip away for real. They were obviously acting on a last effort to throw a hail Mary pass and get lucky with a song or connection that might change the direction of their life. As cold as it sounds, it made me chuckle and toss their material in the trash. Why was I so cold in my response? They hadn't earned anything. They weren't willing to move somewhere and lay it all on the line. They weren't willing to risk face to face rejection. They had made no irreversible commitment to the art and craft of writing. They were perfectly happy for me to have done all those things and were hoping to cash in on my sacrifices they just didn't have the stones to do it themselves. Some of these were the same people who'd snickered at my drive to become a writer. Some were the ones who'd gotten college degrees and good paying jobs while I was lost in the construction of a long shot life. I realize that everyone has a different set of circumstances, and I'm sensitive to that. I always have time for talent and I render no judgement on the way someone lives their life. But if you want to be a true artist, you can't just look for a shortcut. It's disrespectful to the art and it has no spark of inspiration. People don't watch sports or movies or listen to music or look at art or read books to only find the status quo. No one wants to just see Xs and Os executed on a football field. They don't want to listen to music written with only a paycheck in mind. They don't want to watch actors on the screen who are just saying their lines and not believing the words. We long to be moved. We need to be inspired. We watched Rocky not because it was the story of a great boxer, but because it was the story of a guy who gave everything he had. We go to Springteen concerts because we believe he might just blow his voice out on every note and pass out before the night is over. He moves us. Football is just a game, but I will always be an Emmitt Smith fan after watching him play an entire half with a separated shoulder. He could've very easily sat it out and no one would've thought less of him. But his team needed him and he refused to quit, even when he probably should've. As corny as it sounds, sometimes when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I think about that game and say to myself, this isn't a football game with a separated shoulder -" press on. He forever inspired me. We need these glimpses of what can be and what can rise out of the mediocrity of our condition. We need inspiration. This year, all things RH are going to another level. New music, new blogs, a book, more touring and lots and lots of surprises. I don't do all of this to build wealth or sell you trinkets or feel good about myself. I do it because it's why we're all here. Press our limits -" fly as high as we can soar -" break bonds -" do all that we think we can then do more. In 2010, may we not just resolve to achieve. May we commit to inspire. If you want to lose weight this year, start right now not some random Monday. Don't cheat a little here and a little there. Go ALL out and take yourself to a new place. If you want to be in a relationship this year, start looking for that person today, don't just wait for them to find you. Whatever it is you resolve to do this year, begin right now and don't look back. Say yes more than you say no. Take more chances than you're comfortable taking. Do something that scares you every day. If you've always had a dream you've wanted to chase, stop thinking about it and give chase (unless it involves moving to my town and bugging me to write songs with you and help you get a record deal in which case, I can already tell you your dream is doomed to failure but I digress). My grandmother used to tell me if you have been entrusted with a vision, you have a responsibility to follow it. God gave it to you, and you alone, for a reason. Now, it certainly won't become exactly what you think it will -" mine sure didn't. But you'll truly never know what it's supposed to be until you get off the sidelines and get in the game. Could you break your ankle on the first play? Yep play anyway. Could you go undefeated, then lose the Superbowl? Yep play anyway. Could you get out there and discover you're overmatched and end up looking like a fool? Yep play anyway. Wherever you are in life, take this year to the next level at whatever you do. We can be better parents and children and spouses. We can be better citizens professionals friends. There's a universal joke circulating about the world ending in 2012. What if it does? What if it just does for you? We have no promises of the future. I, for one, want to leave a legacy of having gone down with all my guns blazing. Whenever the world ends for me I want to know, in those final moments, that I left it all there and emptied the tank completely. I want my children to know that I never lived my life half hearted but gave my full measure all the time. I want to know that if I were a football team with an opportunity to do something never before done -" even at the risk of great peril -" I would do it without thinking. That's the only way you live to the fullest. It's the only way to inspire. May we all live all in and without fear in 2010. God bless you all! R Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:00:04 GMT Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:00:04 GMT http://www.regiehamm.com Every holiday season, for as long as I can remember, George Bailey has smiled down at the freshly recovered Zuzu and the glowing, teary-eyed Mary from my TV screen. That joyous wink has been given to Clarence the angel, lurking somewhere in the ether of hereafter, never was, might have been, could be and is. As Hark The Herald Angels Sing is sung and cups of cheer are raised, To my big brother George the richest man in town, is a quote that always brings me to tears, no matter how many times I see it or how prepared I am for it's emotional gut punch. George Bailey's odyssey, in the Frank Capra classic, takes us to the depths of our search for purpose and reason and puts us face to face with the human condition, it's action and reaction, and the implicit goodness of life we all hope is there. Why do I cry every time I watch it? I don't know really, but I think it has something to do with God. I think it has something to do with truth. I think it has something to do with love all of which (I contend) are one in the same. Couched in the trappings of a Christmas Eve at the crossroads, the story of It's A Wonderful Life has all the genteel warm fuzzies we want on the screen as fires blaze and pie and hot chocolate waft through the festive air. The arc is satisfying and the ending is happy. The faces (Mr Gower notwithstanding) are all pleasant and we root for the hero. The questions asked in the story, however, are so deeply ingrained in our human experience, they dominate the core of our existence -" Why am I here? Why are ANY of us here? I've spent the better part of this year grappling with such questions in intimate detail and from almost every angle. For the Hamm family, the year of our Lord 2009, has been an odyssey all it's own. Professionally, I recorded the remainder of a new CD that has been whittled down from 23 tracks to 12, co-wrote and produced the Mica Roberts single, Days You Live For and also co-wrote the Christmas single Night Before Christmas for Brandon Heath. I played live shows in Jacksonville, Orlando, Denver, Vegas, Kansas City, New York City and several right here in Nashville, as well as hosted the 2nd annual Bella Bash (here in Nashville) and performed at the 2nd annual FAST Gala in Chicago. In the middle of all that I also wrote a book, which will be released in the spring of 2010. On the personal front, the unfinished house (that has been under renovation for 5 years) was finally completed in early October of this year. The health insurance nightmare that my family has been grappling with since we brought Isabella home 7 years ago, was finally resolved (thanks to an extraordinary public servant named Bob Duncan), and Isabella was accepted on to Cover Kids (the Tennessee state insurance plan for children) on December 1st the last day of it's operation. In this, Isabella's 7th year of existence, she has finally started sleeping eight to twelve hours a night and Yolanda and I are finally beginning to re-set physically from the unbearable sleep deprivation of the past three quarters of a decade. My amazing, three-year-old son finally ate one piece of broccoli (under duress), can count to ten (not necessarily in the correct order), started blowing the harmonica, and wrote the songs Bobba (his word for Bella) On The Bus and Snacktime Blues . He now works in the studio with me an hour a night, and I'm quite certain will surpass my musical acuity in short order. It's been an amazing year. But why all the year-end newsletter fodder? Well, strangely, I think the sum of it's parts is related to the whole. I'll bet if you dig a little, you'll find the same phenomenon in your own life. Over the past few years, my life has become some strange amalgam of entertainment, art, music, literature, science, politics, faith, culture, commerce and family. I suppose all our lives operate in these entanglements, to one degree or another, but mine has become so poignantly locked into all these phases of existence, I'm forced into day to day seeking and learning. Writing a book about one's past, present and future and seeing it speak back from the page, creates the kind of self-examination and world-view analysis often avoided for lifetimes. I have had no such luxury, but the examination has been such a revelation, I would never trade it back for the ignorant bliss it replaced. A man recently told me that my family and I have lived an extraordinary story (hence, the book). I told him that I believe EVERYONE has lived an extraordinary story -" they may just not be able to see it. In fact, I believe the human story as a whole is extraordinary. A few days ago, I watched a documentary about some scientists who developed the theory of Intelligent Design and their opponents, the staunch Darwinists. I found it so fascinating, I watched it two more times. If I understand the debate correctly, the essence of it comes down to either believing our planet is a cosmic accident, with one single cell spontaneously forming, then spawning trillions upon trillions of other cells that have careened into one another in directionless multiplicity, over billions of years, bringing about this very moment, which is probably ultimately pointless and moving us toward nothing and nowhere OR believing the cells are part of some larger design and are traveling in directed multiplicity, from somewhere, moving us toward something. Many scoff at Intelligent Design as an attempt to backdoor God and creationism into schools again. A lot of really smart people call it bad science -" heresy -" laughable -" etc. Since I am not a man of science, I make no claims either way. I find the debate fascinating but would never presume to make scientific assertions not being a man of science. In recent years, however, I have found myself sitting at the table with research scientists, listening to them discuss the in-depth minutia of chromosomes and genes and enzymes and proteins and a myriad of things I cannot fathom. The truth is, they often can't truly fathom these things either and are swimming in oceans they themselves don't always fully comprehend. I don't believe I'm speaking out of turn here -" most of them would agree with me that research scientists are essentially adventurers with microscopes, hence the name research . I am continually intrigued by the work of science and the discoveries it makes. Even as a man of faith, nothing about scientific discovery challenges my belief or shakes my foundation. I welcome it all and am truly excited by it. That is because I am also a man of art Behind all art is science. Classic musical pieces are mathematic in nature. If you analyze a Bach fugue, you'll discover perfect mathematical symmetry behind it. Scales, time signatures, clefts, modes, harmonics, counterpoint, figured bass -" all the components that make up music -" are mathematical. Truly great music will have true math behind it but that's not enough. The fact is all art is science, but just being scientifically sound doesn't make it resonate with all humanity. There are plenty of compositions in this world that are completely theoretically sound but fall flat to the listener why? Why do some songs rock and some songs suck? Science and math certainly play a part, but the special sauce in any art of consequence is spirit. Being tapped into the mysterious is part of the job description for any true artist. The math and science have to be correct -" that is without question -" but the spirit must be present as well. What is the spirit? Who knows? Some call it the muse, the fine madness, the mojo, the edge, the essence, soul. It's been called by many names through the years but for me, the spirit is God. I've always loved the passage of scripture that says, God is a spirit. They that worship him must do it in spirit and in truth. Profound. As an artist, I believe that any art that moves you to tears, laughter, reconciliation, dance, hope, or any other strongly felt emotion, is truth love God. Truth is God. God is love. Love is truth. Truth again is God. I've read a couple of books by Malcolm Gladwell ( Blink and The Tipping Point ). His current book is called Outliers and attempts to explain why someone on the planet might be good at something and someone else on the planet might not. He makes fine cases for the ten-thousand-hour rule, racial and cultural pre-dispositions and generally how the whole world works. It's very tidy. I tend to be skeptical of these kinds of assertions, however. Once again, as a man of art, I believe in the individual and the spirit, in truth and in everyone's unique contribution to the epic human story. I could've been born in Austria, in the seventeenth century, spent ten-thousand-hours in classical composition study, been raised by an accomplished musician and still not have composed anything close to Mozart. Some things just can't be accounted for by simply looking through a microscope, studying anthropology or applying historical context. Some things fall into the realm of the spirit. So, how do I explain the meaning of all life in a Christmas blog? Well, obviously I don't. What I do say is that I believe this planet, this galaxy, this universe to be an amazing art piece. Science might get close to explaining the hows . Cultural scholars might have accurate theories on the whos , wheres and whens . Still, the why is often the singular domain of the artist. From Dickens' A Christmas Carol to Capra's It's A Wonderful Life to the Beatles' All You Need Is Love , artists have been grappling with the whys for centuries and coming back, in the end, to love. Love is truth. God is love. I know (as do you) that God is not some large white man with a long beard, dressed in robes, sitting on a cloud, reading some gargantuan, medieval book, written in the King's english, surrounded by androgynous cherubs in togas and halos, fluttering about the haze-like dwelling called paradise. That God lives in a mythical fraternity house with Santa and the Tooth Fairy. What I do believe in is a pulse of life that can be defined yet not fully explained. I believe in the mystery that remains unsolved -" the inexplicable spark that drives us -" the meaning that's illuminated in that moment between asleep and awake -" the music we hear in our dreams -" the angels that appear to us in unlikely places. I believe in the delicious and the bitter and that the fountainhead from which they both flow is an unseen yet divine eternity. Science without art is cold evolution leading to nowhere. Without the spirit, myopic humanity can spin into a Nazi final solution, proclaiming the why to simply be supremacy of race -" discarding of the weak and undesirable -" and attempt to evolve into the purest utopian flesh. Without spirit, well-meaning humanity careens into Marxism and Communism, proclaiming the why to simply be equality of task for all -" to exist impartially and in collective mid-range. None higher -" none lower. All in monotonous concert and monochromatic hue. Without spirit, it's easy to find oneself standing on a bridge, on Christmas Eve, contemplating the futility of one's own life and the lack of it's importance in need of an angel. The spirit, however, drives a scientist in Florida to discover the hidden chambers of my daughter's mind. Rather than resigning her to the refuse heap of the evolutionary highway, he dons his Indiana Jones hat and treads fearlessly into the uncharted recesses of human genetics. What will he find there? I believe he'll ultimately find truth. Spirit drives thousands of couples to adopt children every year -" in and out of the United States. Spirit allows a little girl from China (who under communist rule, would've been discarded and placed in confinement) to touch other children with her disorder and even thousands more without it. Spirit allowed my son to escape a cold, mechanical fetus extractor, find his way to my home, sleep peacefully in his room every night and dream of the baseball glove Santa Claus will most definitely leave him under the tree on Christmas day. Spirit is in my wife's laughter and her strength. Spirit has led my family on it's amazing journey of hope, adoption, heartbreak, Angelman Syndrome, loss, surrender, redemption and ultimately back to love, and to become the book that will come out next year and hopefully touch even more lives with these stories that all intertwine in a beautiful, artful web. I'll bet it's leading you on your journey too no matter where you are in that journey right now. Are we just a colony of Whos on a speck, being held by an elephant? Maybe. Are we merely a collection of cells, without direction or meaning, racing toward nothing? Maybe. Still, the art of it all tends to give me pause before I write it off as a big mistake. For me, the art points to the spirit. The spirit to truth. Truth to God. God to love. Every December 25th, despite the commercial convolution, the pagan accessories and the western refinement, we celebrate the birth of the incarnation of that love. In the two thousand years since that birth, a great cinematic epic has played out, full of hope, horror, blood, beauty, tyranny and redemption. Has it all been for nothing? I truly hope not. A simple, cosmic mishap on the third speck from the sun would certainly be a letdown for anyone who appreciates the nuance of art. So, I choose to believe there's a purpose, a meaning, a direction. I choose to believe in hope and the possible. I choose to believe in truth love God. This Christmas, 2009, with all its trouble and pain, with all its questions and uncertainty, with all its mystery and fragility, I still believe it's a wonderful life! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!R Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:56:27 GMT Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:56:27 GMT