For those who don’t know, I’ve been in and out of the high school show choir circuit for years. After swearing it off back in my “RENT” days, I got suckered back in when an old colleague took the Burbank High School job just up the street. Since then I’ve arranged a handful of songs each year for the many groups there, including their top group “In Sync.” A few years back I travelled to the East Coast with the kids, and watched them take home the Grand Champion trophy at FAME New York — I kinda surprised myself at just how into I got. Crazy!

So here I am five years later, and these kids are literally sweeping the nation. Aside from a second place finish at the first show of the season, they’ve won every competition they’ve been to this year, and people who know this world are saying they might just be the best group in the country now — edging out perennial powerhouse Clinton, Mississippi. That’s significant for me. But I can’t tell you why just yet…

In the meantime, check out the ballad they’re singing this year. It’s a song called “I See Light” by my friend Christy Crowl, which I’ve arranged for an eight-part a cappella chorus.

This has got to be the best trailer of the year so far…

Check out: Kissing a Wookie for a wonderful little blast from the past, and be sure to scroll to the bottom for links to hundreds of fantastic pictures from that galaxy far, far away.

So I’m busy yesterday working on some music, when I hear a loud pounding on my front door. My dog Rage goes ballistic, and the knocking quickly becomes much more insistent, almost panicked. Something is obviously WRONG! Heart beating, I race to the front of my house, Rage running circles and screaming bloody murder at my feet, struggle with the lock for a moment, then finally manage to unhinge the old wooden beast. Imagine my utter shock and dismay when the door swings open to reveal my mailman, who immediately exclaims…

“I CAN’T BELIEVE ANNA NICOLE IS DEAD!”

Dead, kids… She’s no longer with us.

Now I’m not making fun of the fact the someone’s light as been prematurely snuffed out, I’m simply observing the fact that this news ROCKED my mailman’s world. In our day and age, I suppose that this kind of event does constitute SOME kind of newsworthiness, but my postal carrier has never gone nuts on my front door with exclamations of “I can’t believe a truck blast in Baghdad killed more than 120!” or “I can’t believe suicide amongst Australian farmers is at an all-time high!” or even “I can’t believe O.J. didn’t do it!” But we lost Anna Nicole yesterday, and he NEEDED to talk about it. (Read the Rest…)

I’d like to believe that this blue and white Stormtrooper getup is concealing a lonely Victoria’s Secret model whose one wish in life is to make me breakfast in bed every day — in the nude. I mean, there HAS to be a world-famous lingerie model SOMEWHERE out there who loves Star Wars and the Indianapolis Colts as much as she’ll one day love me. And yet, here I am thirty-three years into this thing called life, life, life… and I’ve yet to encounter that elusive trifecta.

In the meantime, the Colts won the Superbowl, Prince kicked purple butt at halftime, and I’ve been nominated for a Nobel Prize. More to come…