SpinTunes 3 Wrap-Up Recommendations
After my first SpinTunes competition last year, I posted a lot about both my experiences going through SpinTunes and my thoughts on songwriting contests in general. This year, I knew better what to...
View ArticleSome Thoughts To Help With the SpinTunes #5 Mini-Opera Challenge
Spin+judges didn’t get to fully talk through the mini-opera challenge before it was posted. I don’t blame anyone. We’re all busy people. But I’m concerned that the challenge post as it stands may...
View ArticleSpinTunes 5 Judging Wrap-Up
Except for a few loose ends (like announcing the winner) that are in others’ hands, SpinTunes 5 is pretty much done, at least for me as a judge. It’s been interesting, challenging and worthwhile....
View ArticleMad Libs with Looper and The Terminator
Looper is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Don’t let what follows lead you to think that I felt it unoriginal. Because it was highly original. Go see it and you’ll be richly rewarded....
View ArticleMad Libs with Frasier and Joey
Playing Mad Libs with Looper and The Terminator reminded me about another astonishingly similar pair of projects. Years later, here are the Mad Libs for the television series Frasier and Joey. A hugely...
View ArticleMad Libs with 30 Rock and Gandhi
The other Mad Libs posts I just did this week — on Looper and The Terminator and on Frasier and Joey — reminded me about another set I did, practically on a dare. Netflix told my wife that she’d...
View ArticleYou and Me and Her or Him
This song was one of three songs written for the 3rd Annual Capital Region / Berkshires 24-Hour Theatre Project. For more information on that event and the process of writing the songs for it, see...
View ArticleSongwriting for a 24-Hour Theatre Project
The Invitation In mid-March, my friend and colleague Kat Koppett asked me if I’d be involved in a pretty unique way in the 3rd Annual Capital Region / Berkshires 24-Hour Theatre Project, which...
View ArticleSome Thoughts On Humility
A Facebook Friend posted: “I hate modesty, loathe mediocrity, despise humility. They are crutches, an invented virtue for those who have nothing to offer besides how little they have to offer.” I...
View ArticleTalking About Depression
Reasons why not to talk about having depression: Embarrassment. Shame. People will make too big a deal of it. People will make too little a deal of it. People will be on eggshells, which would only...
View ArticleCrying at Movies and Songs
Hi, my name is Mark, and I cry at movies. And songs. And other stuff, too. But especially movies. And songs. Probably like most people, I’d sometimes feel tears well up while watching a movie. Maybe a...
View ArticleMad Libs with A Chorus Line and Cats
I like to see connections among things. Sometimes between stories. And somewhere between “there are only 7 basic stories in the world” and downright plagiarism, there lie things like this, where odd...
View ArticleWant
I’m going to reference Buddha and the Spice Girls, the Bible and Jerry Maguire, the Serenity Prayer and Tag Team. Because that’s just how I roll. People want things. It can’t be helped. In the space...
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