Thank you Victoria Banks, for this incredible song about the spirit, diversity and will of our beautiful city of dreams, Nashville, TN.

Had the good fortune to start my work week with Aaron Lewis (Staind) and end it with Lady Antebellum. Of course, that was antediluvian…

It’s one thing to admire two really talented women, but it’s much cooler to spend the day writing a great song with them! Liz won P. Diddy’s Starmaker Reality TV show on MTV recently, and now she’s talking with record labels in Nashville about a country deal, and focusing her attention on writing. Amanda is a dynamic performer and writer in Nashville, having most recently co-written Lyric Street Record’s Tyler Dickerson single “Tell Your Sister I’m Single” . Check these girls out – they’re both making some great music!

We the people. Are we taking care of America? In other words – are we taking care of ourselves, each other? Are we responsible for each other? It seems obvious that we don’t all like or agree with each other, and people have varying degrees of compassion and tolerance. But what are our civic duties as Americans? We care so much about our rights, our freedom – our individual beliefs and choices. We allow the media to focus on and editorialize the issues, derive our collective judgment of our leaders through polls and talk shows. The nature of this situation is that we believe what we already believed, and deem the truth to be that which comports with those beliefs, not knowing which facts from the spewing millions of  sources are indeed trustworthy. We are a nation of differences, protected by our Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. If what we have in common is that we are Americans – what does that mean?

I just had lunch with a couple of talented people that I figured you needed to know about – Christine and Ryan Rushing. OK… Ryan is my God son, and today was not only his birthday and my son Fletcher’s birthday, but also Biff-Bangs cohort Yvonne Smith’s (The Traveling Vegetarian) birthday! (And Amanda Williams’s, too – another great artist). Ryan has a company called Cinemulsion and a film reel that is pretty impressive. Check it out here. Christine is an up-and-coming singer/songwriter who is catching on fast, so expect more to come from Christine in the next few months.