John Braheny on YouTube.com!

John Braheny is interviewed on YouTube.com by Michael Laskow, CEO of TAXI.com about some of the things that Taxi song screeners look for in a well-written song ...

Check it out!

Unbelievable Consumption - Photo Exhibit

Here's a photography show, at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York, that really makes its point.

Hopefully, it will be put on tour ... but for now, you can see some of it here.

The show is called Running the Numbers, An American Self-Portrait, illustrating the quantities of things we consume ... awesome!

The artist is Chris Jordan.

Enjoy!

Flipping for a Living - at Minimum Wage

Among the variety of classes at The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (California), they teach how to research and illustrate quantifiable data.

Students usually design and execute charts, graphs, or 3-D art to demonstrate their findings.

Here's a particularly good one that a student (who will remain anonymous) designed and built.

Cardboard stove emits a small burst of steam, accompanied by a sizzling sound, each time a burger is flipped.

Some of the text ...

"How many flipped burgers does it take to pay for everyday expenses..."

"The average worker needs to flip 118 burgers to earn one hour of Federal minimum wage."

"45,825 burgers [need to be flipped to pay] for health insurance"

"916 burgers ... for gas"

[Other categories included: college tuition, rent, toilet paper, Top Ramen, diapers, etc.]

"1,700,000 minimum wage workers are currently working at or below the $5.15 hr. Federal minimum wage."

[P.S. Don't know where the student got his/her data.]

CityCreator.com - Game

Years ago, my mother took me by surprise when she revealed that she would have loved to design and build cities. I think she would have been very good at it.

If only she'd had this fun little game ... CityCreator.com.

There are 3 choices: Medieval castle, snow scene or future city. I suggest you choose a background first and then choose and place the roads or walkways. (Each segment is drag & drop.) Then you can go from there ... choosing commercial buildings, houses and so on. When you're done, you can save and send to a friend.

Enjoy!

Writing Tips - Paul Graham

Here's a list of some excellent writing tips from successful entrepreneur/writer, Paul Graham.

Several of them, you already know, but it's handy to have them in a list form.

One that jumped out at me is, "Imitate writers you like."

Whether you're writing stories, or a novel, or songs ... this still applies. I know that John Braheny has taught a class "Anatomy of a Hit" where students would bring in their favorite hit songs.

John and the class would pick them apart (the songs, not the students) to learn what specifically helped to make this song successful and how structure, dynamics, lyric content, etc., contributed.

If you're playing in a cover band, you'll absorb some of these things just by learning and playing these songs over and over. So, it becomes a process of osmosis, rather than deliberate learning. Learn while you earn. (smile)

Enjoy the list of tips!