When you put yourself in the public, guess what, someone isn’t going to like what you do and chances are they could slam you bad.

Benise to me strikes me as probably being a nice guy that got a really lucky break with the right money people.

I think I’d probably avoid Dancing With The Stars at all costs though.

I still wonder how it came to be that Ottmar Liebert did a double bill show on a cruise ship with Benise back in 2009, mind you this is after Benise’s marketing folks posted on a forum somewhere on the web that Ottmar liebert is probably jealous of Benise.

Did I just show up under someone’s Google Alerts? probably…

From my experience, Tareq always treated me with respect and always paid me at the end of the performance. Most of the time he would hand me a bottle of wine as a tip when I left for the night. While it was always apparent that he was a keen business man, I never once got the impression that he was ever up to “no good”.

I never had a chance to get to know Michaele, as I had moved away to Texas shortly after they began dating. Tareq had contracted to do a Flash animation for his online wedding announcement, but that never was completed due to my laptop going down in the Word Trade Center on 9/11 and all files were lost. After that we kind of kept in touch over the years.

This should be interesting to see what happens next on this topic.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/03/house-committee-probing-crasher-gate-subpoena-salahis-rogers/?test=latestnews

I must say, that I got a lot of mileage out of the site before the decline began. If nothing else it was a very convenient way for me to test fair public opinion against my (shall we say) competition. It was really nice for a while for me knowing that if record companies and the money machine had nothing to do with musical success, then I truly experienced “public opinion” success over many other artists in my field (yeah you know who you signed guys are) which have had the luck and fortune of having that ever sought after “backing and support”.

Facebook seems to be taking the place of myspace users, at least the crowd that just wants to stay in touch with friends and family. However I’m noticing that little by little, Facebook is beginning to offer plug-ins, or the ability to add visual chatchkas. And what about Twitter? Yikes! Has anyone seen Idiocrasy? Its more than a bit crass in many ways, but tells of a pathetic world in which we are headed. Do I have a Twitter account? Yes. Ummm.. the sad thing here is that these silly social networking sites are becomming necessary for doing business and self promotion. Twitter has people “tweeting” about silly things like “I’m doing laundry now…”, and stuff that like that. Wal-mart has a Twitter account, need I say more? I propose using the word “Twitting” instead of “Tweeting”, or the posting of a “Twit”.

Buy an iPhone today and post to your Twitter account, even while crossing the street! Have you seen the zombie type crossing traffic while numb to the world and focused only on texting. My wife posted a blog on the subject of “nature + survival of the fittest”…I’ll post a link to her funny blog here shortly.

It was great getting to know Juggler/Comedian Randy Cabral (http://www.randycabral.com). We got to hang out in Tunisia together and chuckle at the blatant scamming of the cab driver, who drove us 5 miles out of the way to make it appear that we had gone farther than 5 blocks. I am very impressed by Randy’s character, as he has many accomplishments in the entertainment world and is very humble. This gives me hope that there are more like Randy out there!

David Peterson, the cruise director was as awesome as always, and I hope that I have the opportunity to work with him on future cruises!

We hit some bad weather in Venice, Croatia and Tunisia on the way back down the coast, but everyone seemed to still have a good time. I’m not sure why, but I like it when the waves get a little motion, as this makes for a great nights sleep for myself. I’m sure that if I had encountered a really rough night, that I wouldn’t be saying this.

Mio, the magician is another really great guy that I had the opportunity to meet, but unfortunately it was on the last night that we were on the ship at the same time. I hope I get the chance to hang out with Mio again!

I’ll post some photos soon!

I’ve never been any good at politics and “playing the game”, so winning this award means a lot to me. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have a “schtick” or gimmick, that which has kept me from getting “there”. I keep hearing that I need something like “a hat and cape”, or “dancers”, or some decorative golden and controversial religious artwork on my cd covers, or whatever. Even back when I played rock guitar, I always, always kept my focus on being the best player and composer that I could be. I just never wanted to have a show that would over-shadow the music. To me, if a performer had and over-the-top show, it meant that he or she was covering up the lack of talent, skill, and craftsmanship.