Mark Davidson. The Writer.

I love music. All kinds. The Police are playing in the background right now. My playlist, which I stream from my wife’s computer via WinAmp remote

to the XBOX 360 and out of the good sound system, is comprised of 514 choice tracks from my library of 21389 (and growing). I don’t say this to say “ohhh, look how many” — I say it to demonstrate the diversity of the music we listen to.

Here’s a sampling of some of the other artists in the playlist: AC/DC, Bee Gees, Blink 182, Blue Oyster Cult, Springsteen, Butthole Surfers, Darius Rucker, Doug Sahm, ELO, Fuel, Garth Brooks, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, Kings X, Zeppelin, Lucinda Williams, Mike Doughty, The Crue, Natalie Merchant, Primus, Prince, Radney Foster, RHCP, Ryan Adams, Third Eye Blind, Van Halen… etc. etc.

Like right now, Foo Fighters came on. The song “Statues”

We’re just ordinary people, you and me.

Time will turn us into statues, eventually.

Brilliant. So simple. So true.

Ryan Adams. The song “Two”

I got a really good heart

I just can’t catch a break

If I could I’d treat you like you wanted me to, I promise

But I’m fractured from the fall

And I wanna go home.

Very simple. Yet conveys such a vivid UNIVERSAL message. “And I wanna go home.” Dude — who doesn’t wanna go home, right?

Somebody much smarter than me pointed out how Springsteen’s writing was a lot like a good screenplay.

Take this opening from the seminal THUNDER ROAD:

The screen door slams.

Mary’s dress waves.

Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey that’s me and I want you to want me.

Don’t turn me home again

I just can’t face myself alone again.

Again. Beautiful. So simple. So UNIVERSAL. “I just can’t face myself alone again.”

OK, so no, this isn’t going to turn into my sophomore lit class, where i went rogue and decided that instead of  dissecting the Canterbury Tales I would discuss the REAL meaning behind Queen’s “Another One Bite’s the Dust!” (an AIDS allegory, me-thinks…)

But recently, over the last, oh, say 7 months, I’ve been doing less of what I want to do and more of what I have to do to make a living as a writer. I just got back from a whirlwind LA trip. Lotsa meetings. A good time had by all.

One of the common questions is “what do you want to write” and my first answer is “police procedurals that give a voice to victims.” But … that’s not really gonna pay the bills. So if I have to be pigeon-holed, I’d rather dance with the girl I brung and say “horror.”

And that sort of got me thinking about doing what you want to do vs. doing what you have to do and THAT got me thinking of the Rush song ‘SPIRIT OF THE RADIO.’

In the song, the Canadian rock trio ponders the dilemma about doing what they want to do as artists, and what they have to do to remain commercially viable.  The lyric goes like this:

One likes to believe

In the freedom of music

But the glittering prizes

And endless compromises

Shatter the illusion

Of integrity

For the words of the profits

Are written on the studio wall,

Concert hall.

A long time ago, I mentioned (I think…) that some things HAVE to be written. You can’t not write some things. For instance, AMERICAN MONSTER had to be written. Will it ever be made into a movie? I dunno. Probably not. But the story-teller in me said “you have to tell that story” and so it was.

Conversely, I have ideas that I don’t want to write, but I have to write to keep myself afloat as a commercial entity.

MARK

P.S.  Still need an artist.