I've been working on songs for quite a while. At first, I thought I could just write lyrics and somehow sell them and make money. Two problems. Most performing artists or groups are not interested in lyrics written by outsiders. This is for artistic as well as financial reasons. Stand-alone lyrics written by amatures are almost always worthless. The second problem is deeper. Writing stupid pop lyrics is easy. Writing stupid pop lyrics that acutally reach and entertain people is difficult. Even when done well, it is a bit of a crap shoot. Many well-crafted songs do not become hits or even make any money. There is a certain quality to successful songs that you can only learn by performing. You don't need to be a great performer. Just go to your favorite bar on Karaoke night and get up and perform. That's what I did. After three or four months I learned a few Eminem raps well enough to karaoke them. My fellow bar patrons were highly entertained. I started working on some of my own stuff. I began collaborating with an enigmatic beatmaster who calls himself bl9nk0. Our first result was "Bubble Pop Apocalypse." I tend to write slowly. I collect ideas over time. I might think of a good line, but it might be a few years before I put it with other lines and actually come up with someting performable. I don't always know what I'm writing about. I might write an entire set of lyrics that I think are lame, but then one little fragment will work perfectly in some other thing I'm working on. I recycle! At one point I referred to my work space as a "poetry chop shop." I did some of my raps at a coffee shop a while back. One of the customers said, "Hey, that was great freestyling!" Nice compliment, but in fact I stay up late and get up early so that my raps sound like freestyling. The poets and rappers that influence me tend to have powerful, rhythmic, attention-grabbing styles. John Milton, Gerard Manly Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Alan Ginsberg, Eminem. They are all different in their lives, their attitudes and their art, but they all have a way of siezing your senses, if I might paraphrase a line by Sylvia Plath. By 2011 I had enough material for an album. The result is the collection of eight raps or poems that make up my "Idiot Hero" CD. You just possibly might find it funny, quirky, interesting, listenable and worth your money. That is what I am all about as an artist. Entertaining people, making money and having fun.