Boy what a conversation; a very nice poem, a curse of biblical proportions (btw, if you stick to public domain, or better yet write your own material, nobody can touch you), some good thoughts...thanks for the compliment... I am comfortable with anti-elitist, which is not even remotely related to anti-intellectual...The public school systems are indeed in worse trouble that any of us know. There's layer upon layer of foolish administration and curriculum creators, and this is supposed to be fixed by parents and communities that can't weigh three fourths of a pound and are suspicious of anyone who has a college degree? I am hopeless for the future of education. If the public doesn't care and show it, then the politicians sure as hell aren't going to care and nothing will ever change. It would have to be rebuilt from the ground up, with the actual educators designing the whold thing. As for BMI and ASCAP, I'd love to find an alternative, but who would be willing to collect for me when my song is used to make money thousands of miles away and give me all of it? I think we're solidly over a barrel here. And if we're really talking about a cashless utopia, then who's being hurt? I'd love to talk face-to-face with all but one of you. And again I say, in thirty years of playing in public, nobody has once asked me to pay royalties, probably because I was not making much to begin with.

It's been a hard week, Chet W.