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ON THE BORDERLINE
We spend our lives crossing borders. From moment to moment, from one stage of our lives to the next one, from one significant person to another, we leave something behind, to take part in something new. This is a song about someone in the middle of a transition.

WHY I LEFT LA.
Having spent most of my life in Los Angeles, I came to see it as the world capital of seduction. Most people get into the entertainment industry to try to become more socially and sexually seductive. Hollywood seduces the world with expensive productions and advertising. What ever happened to the idea of letting artists with something deep and meaningful to express being allowed to use all that state-of-the-art mass-media-making technology? It would imply a whole social power shift of influence from the hands of takers to the hands of the givers. Meanwhile, all the sidewalk cafes are filled of people in trendy rebel clothing, but there is no rebellion going on.

DREAM
This is a stream of consciousness song with an anti-chorus.

VAN GOGH IN HOLLYWOOD
So, Van Gogh comes to Hollywood. What kind of reception does pure art get in a city where you often hear business people say "This is not an art, it's a business?" They can only say that because they are used to a very artistic period of music (1959-1975) and built it into the business it is today. Besides, real artists would distract from the near-star status that most business people enjoy, based on their success selling units of plastic. Since 1975, the unspoken message from the music industry is "True Artists, Stay Out." If you're willing to let business people set your creative agenda, they just might find a place for you.

SISTER, DONT YOU KNOW US?
Song to a close friend who became rich and famous. Suddenly, all the people who wouldn't have anything to do with her, decided they had to have her on their calendars. Hey, it's cool, but I miss the days when we used to hang out every weekend and you used to tell me I was the only person who really communicated with and understood you.

ADD WATER AND STIR
The music industry is a global phenomenon - and a political one. It they can sell thoughtless music to lots of people, who's to say that big political machines can't sell thoughtless candidates to the same people? There's a recipe for the careers of most people who are successful in the music business these days. You get a lot of pretty young men and women who want to be stars. You get a lot of producers who crave the money and glory associated with making a big selling CD. You get a lot of desperate professional songwriters writing on salary for big corporate publishers - songwriters who are willing to sacrifice their potential for greatness in order to fulfill the industry's preference for adequacy over artistry. Find a record company to spend a small fortune financing and advertising the product and paying off the proper people to break the CD. The next thing you know, you have 60,000 screaming (mainly female) teenagers in a stadium, lip-syncing every hackneyed, painfully contrived, anally crafted, commercially motivated, corny cliché in every big hit song being performed. Add water and stir.

LOVE
This song can speak for itself.

REAR VIEW MIRROR KISS
This is a true story. Right after the events in the songs happened, I drove home and wrote the song.

ASK HER
Was talking to a friend who doubted her ability to love herself. I said something like "There's only one person who can give you permission to love yourself. All you have to do is look in the mirror and ask her." The thought had the kind of energy that sometimes turns into a song.

WHEN I BELIEVED IN LOVE
All I have to say about this, I put in the song itself.

THE BEAUTY STANDARD
I've lived and learned a little, and it seems like most people in modern society learn what they consider to be sexy, attractive, and desirable from the mass media - TV, movies, magazines, and commercials. Form seems to be almost universally more important than substance. It's easier for the "image makers" to create form than substance. If you're a single man looking for a woman to be with, as I have many times in my life, it seems to be preferable if you resemble a fashion model. A lot of women seem to find that attractive. Not resembling a model, I have come to realize that their preferences are based on a preponderance of propaganda they've been exposed to, showing fashion model types in heroic and fashionable poses. As for me, I don't see why looking like a model is more preferable to, say, looking like a camel. I've learned as much, in my life, from camels as I have from fashion models. But seriously, the beauty standard is one of the most publicly unquestioned forms of social, romantic, and spiritual tyranny in the world today. Who am I to question the values that the mass media has programmed people to believe in? Why, I am me! I'm supposed to question things that influence my chances for finding love and happiness. A lot of people are grieving because of the beauty standard, because it creates a form of prejudice. Think about it!!!