Status Report March 6, 2011— Several of my friends have written to ask what's up because I haven't updated the site for a couple of months or posted anything on Facebook. So I thought that I'd explain. The main issue here is that I'm no longer in a band or working for a band. Haven't taken my guitar or keyboard out of the closet since September, got divorced, am working as a security guard for baseball spring training and getting ready to file for bankruptcy. As a result, music is no longer a part of my life like it has been for the last 30-some years and there's no good reason to talk about anything else, since that is the topic this site has been devoted to for the last 9 years or so. I was supposed to go on the road doing sound for a band in January, but it keeps getting delayed for one reason or another. As it now stand, if it happens at all, it's going to be late April or May at the earliest before that takes off. If that gig doesn't happen, I think I'm going to call it quits. I put five months into the last album, only to have the band fracture and we only sold three copies, despite a lot of effort on my part. Regardless, I was pretty happy with the way it came out, and considered it to mark accomplishing my life's goal of producing a decent album. Unfortunately, my life's goal didn't include selling it, just seeing it available for sale. So with all of that, I don't consider myself an independent musician any longer. That means there is no logical reason to fight for that group. The RIAA has gone down the tubes, selling less than 300 million albums last year, given up their silly lawsuit campaign, and generally has finally shut the fuck up (about time!), which means that railing against them for being morons is really rather pointless now. The even gave the Album of the Year Grammy to an independent. Overall, pretty much everything that I kept predicting and pushing for has finally come to pass. The great Music Wars of the 21st Century are over and we won. While I do take some satisfaction in all of that, it leaves me with very little to say, at least about music. The only thing I've done to occupy my free time lately is play Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is hardly the great topic of discussion, although I will say it was a cheesy move on Treyarch's part to sell everyone a new set of maps for $20 (Black Ops: First Strike), then bring them into the regular rotation just a few days later for free. Quite the rip-off, IMHO. So that's it, unless you want to hear about spring training, but I'm really not allowed to discuss anything but the obvious. I'm not the baseball fan I used to be, so even though I'm in close contact with a lot of the pro players, it's all kind of meaningless to me and I'm not that impressed. Not quite the same (or half as much fun) as hanging out with rock stars.