MLK Day randomocity

MLK Day is a holiday for me, so I'm off!

Plans are--give Atari a bath (done already), and start tracking a new tune. Other than that I'm going to relax a while, watch some TV if I can find anything worth watching. and otherwise chill.

Speaking of Atari, he seems to be feeling okay. He's a bit pissed because of the bath thing but he just now gave me a kiss so maybe he's over it already. His vet says that the mass in his abdomen will rupture soon--could be tomorrow, could be a couple months from now. But when that happens he'll bleed out internally. There's really nothing else we can do.

He gets the baths because he has a skin infection and can't take antibiotics anymore--they make him sick. Other than that, though, he's just going to get spoiled more than usual. I'm going to enjoy the time I have left with him as much as I can, and hope when the end does come it comes quickly and with no pain for him.

I'm almost half way through tracking the Cold Iron song cycle--just finished the fourth tune yesterday. Six more to go. I'm supposed to have some minor surgery next week--the goal is for me to have at least five songs done before then. I may be ahead of schedule by then--fingers crossed.

I woke up this morning to the news that my beautiful little goddaughter has been cast in a play! She and her mom are very excited, as am I. I wish I could see it but they're in California. Hopefully the two commercials she's going to appear in will start airing soon so I'll be able to see her in those.

Glad people are liking the "I, Fudd" stuff. At least, judging from the number of views they get I think people like them. It's not like anybody's saying anything . . . or much of anything, anyways . . . I'll be doing those for a while now. I've got a lot of material. Unless I get ordered by WB to knock it off, of course. Hopefully they'll take it in the spirit in which it is intended.

So, what's on your mind today?

I, Fudd - a rivalry is born

Edwina Fudd, nee Rudd, still has the slim figure and the flashing green eyes that broke hearts up and down the East Coast while she performed assorted roles from Shakespear. On Broadway she was a rising young star when she was cast as Desdemona in Elmer Fudd's production of Othello.

"That was the first time I'd met Elmer." she tells me, sitting at the same table in the study, her voice still strong and confident and reminiscent of her days on stage. "He was so charismatic, so talented, so charming. He'll tell you he's not funny but he's great at telling funny stories. He made me laugh. And he was intense. Passionate about his craft.

"But then, he brings in Wile (Coyote) from England. Wile was setting the world on fire over there and Elmer thought he'd make a great Iago to his Othello. He was right, and Elmer was so gracious to allow the newcomer to have that role--Iago is one of Shakespear's meatiest parts. But that's typical. Unfortunately, trouble started at that point."

Elmer and Coyote won raves--they had a great chemistry onstage. They were also notorious ladies' men, bachelors who ran up quite a score among beautiful young women.

That changed, though, when Elmer met Edwina. "Man, she was so beautiful." Elmer told me, with a wistful sigh. "Those eyes. That hair. Those freckles. Her laugh was like music. Her voice like a song. Her wit was razor sharp, dangerous and wonderful. I was in love. Crazy in love. I've never felt that way before. About anybody.

"But so was Wile. We were only a week or so into our run when we figured out we were going to have a problem."

"I suppose I could have just ended it by deciding between the two of them." Edwina said. "But I couldn't. Elmer was so . . .  so . . . he was just such a powerful prescence. Almost hypnotic. Sensuous and passionate. But then, Wile was so handsome, exotic--he's Czech, which made him a bit mysterious to me at that time. Charming, clever, and so talented. These two incredible actors, and they were both crazy in love with me. What's a girl to do?"

There were rumors of clashes between the two men over Edwina which esculated into a backstage brawl. Eventually the run came to a premature end--while Fudd and Coyote were consumate professionals and went onstage and performed every night, the cast and crew soon grew tired of the walking-on-eggshells atmosphere of the production and quit, en mass. Coyote remained in New York, havng made some connections, and was soon performing in other productions. Edwina  also made her decision.

"I had to pick. As much fun as I had with Wile, it was just a fling, really. He wasn't in his heart ready to settle down. Elmer was. That was that. But it was too late to stop the bitterness between them. They didn't speak again for several years."

Elmer decided he couldn't stay in New York any longer. After long meetings with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, it was decided that they would move to Hollywood, form a production company and try their hand at making films.

Looney Toons was born.

Someone to Love

I thought you could be someone to love


You were my friend I thought I knew you

But I couldn't give you what you need

You had a habit I cannot feed

Someone to love, someone to love



You thought I could be someone to love

I'm sorry that turned out not to be true

I'm not the man you hoped I was

And I left like everyone does

Someone to love, someone to love



It doesn't seem to be asking so much

Something everyone can give but still in short supply

A hasty kiss a glance a touch

A simple moment of joy before we die



We both wanted someone to love

We thought we could fit each other's bill

Too bad we both were wrong

we both have to move along

Someone to love, someone to love



words and music by J Franklin Evans

I, Fudd - fateful meetings

In a vast estate in North Hollywood, behind ivy-covered walls, dwells one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Elmer Fudd, now mostly retired from show business, rarely grants interviews, much less unfettered access to his family and home, but, much to my astonishment, he granted my request for an extended interview of himself and his wife in their beautiful home.

The Fudds have eight children, all adults, all with children of their own. Many of Elmer's grandchildren also have children. When family gets together it becomes quite a crowd.

"I've always wanted a house full of children." Elmer says, escorting me to his study where we will conduct the interview. (In order to encourage readability Elmer's unique pronunciation will be ignored.) "We've certainly had that over the years!"

We sat at a table in his comfortable study and spent the next several hours rehashing his life. While there were no startling revelations uncovered, Elmer (he insists everyone call him Elmer) had never discussed many of these topic publicly before.

"I was performing the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III (a role for which he was critically acclaimed) on Broadway and one night, after a show, I went to catch a Vaudeville show. That's the first night I actually saw Bugs Bunny. He was the headliner. I'd heard of him but never had a chance to catch his show before. He was hysterical. I'd never seen anything like him before. Nobody had. Turns out he's a big fan of my work, and someone told him I was there, so we met for a drink after the show. We hit it off. He's as funny in person as he is on stage. We talked for a while and decided we wanted to work together. Problem is, while Bugs is a terrific dramatic actor he prefers comedy, and I'm the opposite. I told him, I'm just not funny. He said not to worry about it, he and his writers could make me funny. You know, he was right!"

Elmer became the straight man to Bug's one-liners. Audiences loved it. Backers flocked, and demands to expand the show became impossible to shrug off. "Bugs is a great writer, but he's only one guy. We had some other writers and performers--Dawg and Foggy (Foghorn Leghorn, who started as a writer and became an actor) were on board, but we needed more talent. Writers, actors, everything. That's when we wound up hiring this fellow named Daffy Duck and his companion, Marty the Martian. Daffy was a young comedian, Marty was his chief writer. He just killed every night. Then Sly (Sylvester the Cat) and Tweety came on-board. We had a full house every night.

"Still, I missed Shakespeare. I can't help it. The tragedies, the historicals . . . I just love them so much. I wanted to go back to that. That's when I had the bright idea to bring in this superstar young actor from Eastern Europe as a co-star. I didn't know him but he was getting raves in London. So, I made arrangements for him to come to New York to play Iago to my Othello.

"He was an up-and-coming young actor named Wile Coyote."

Atari news

My dog is sick.

He's got a mass in his abdomen associated with his spleen--his vet says it's 50/50--benign or not. He has a stone in his bladder. He's also extremely nauseated and will not eat anything.

He was on antibiotics and the doc thinks that's what caused the nausea. I stopped giving those to him yesterday but he still seems to be having an issue. I'm hoping he just needs a little more time.

He's also passing blood. Doc says it's either because of the bladder stone or the mass. If it's because of the stone that's a good thing, because passing blood is also a symptom of a malignancy of the spleen. Which would mean the growth is not benign.

The doc won't do surgery--she says that because of his age he wouldn't do well under the anesthesia. So, he's got some food that should hopefully dissolve the stone. Of course, to do that he has to eat some of it, and right now he's not eating anything. He's also getting dehydrated--he will drink some water but I don't think he's drinking enough.

I'm naturally a pessimist. I always expect the worst. But in this case I think I'm being realistic--I really don't think he's going to be with me much longer. Doc says if the growth is malignant one day it'll rupture and he'll bleed out internally.

I talked to my best friend about it--I inherited him from her--to keep her aware of it. I really wish she could be here, but she's in California. I know he'd love to see her again. He still loves his mommy. Hopefully he finds me tolerable enough, though, to be a substitute.

I'll do what I can to make him comfortable, and try to get him to eat something periodically, and take him for his follow-up visits. Really, that's all I can do.

Cold Iron progress report

So, I've got two songs in the can. One more that will be in the can in the next couple of days. Lyrics for a couple more--not counting "Aeon's End" which I wrote and recorded some time ago.

I'm having surgery in a couple of weeks which will lay me up for a few days--I want to get as much tracking done as I can before then. I hate leaving a project for an extended period when I'm right in the middle of it, then coming back to it later. It takes me forever to get back into the groove.

Making this one is a little bit like open heart surgery for me--most of the songs are autobiographical, personal, about people and events that shaped my life. Which means it's pretty dark. But there will be some lighter stuff, too, that I hope you'll like. Sure, most of my stuff is about me, in some manner, but most of my stuff is like a story told in the third person. These--or most of them, anyways--are a bit more direct.

So, hopefully the entire Cold Iron song cycle will make it's debut in the next few months. In the mean time, click the links above or to your right to hear my other stuff--the Ashes and Bone song cycle, or the Mythophobia song cycle. Plus some other stuff.

Speaking of Mythophobia, I'm hoping I'll finally find the initiative to dive back into my screeplay for the (hopeful) film with that title and do another rewrite. I guess there's no hurry but I would like to have that in good enough shape to have people look at it. If I can get anyone interested in it enough to read it, that is.

Anyways, watch this space for updated, enjoy the tunes out there now, don't be afraid to let me know what you think. Input is always welcomed! If you love it, especially, let me know. If you hate it, let me know that, too--a strong reaction, even a negative one, is better than boredom. "Boring" is the absolute worst criticism one can level at any artistic endevour. imho

The Crawl lyrics

I spent the night looking for you

I started north and worked my way south

I can spot you from a thousand miles, I looked for you up and down

but you were nowhere to be found.

Then I found you, on the street chasing your pain

looking for your score to get you through your night

That's when I knew I was wrong about you

You're not the one that I thought you were

I'm not going to crawl for you

as much as I might want to

It's the only thing left for me to do.

So, goodbye to you my dear, my pain

I really don't want to see you again

Give yourself over to your addiction

And know that you are no longer mine

I'm not going to crawl for you

as much as I might want to

It's the only thing left for me to do.

words and music by J Franklin Evans