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                                                 As life rolls on, I have discovered what I think are the two great joys of existence.  One is watching oneself evolve and the other is watching one's friends evolve. On the second plane, one fellow who never ceases to fascinate me is 31-year-old Metro Nashville Councilman-at-Large candidate John Lasiter.

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                                                            For the past 35 years, my artistic and professional focus has been on live theatre. When it comes to movies, I love watching them but am not much interested in making them ---- something I decided in 1979 when I was a stand-in for Robert Blake and spent five miserable hot August hours sitting in the front seat of a convertible in a wool coat while lights were set to shoot a two-minute scene.

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                                                                        When Nashville artist Roxie Rogers decided to take her act to NYC, she went online to check out potential venues. After googling around, there was no doubt in her mind that there was really only one club where daydream met reality - Metropolitan Room, on W. 22 St. between 5th and 6th Avenues. (www.metropolitanroom.com) And so it came to pass, that on Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - despite flash flood and TORNADO warnings (well, she certainly wasn't in Kansas anymore) - Roxie had that daydream experience, playing to a house full of friends, associates and complete strangers in one of the sweetest cabaret and concert venues on the planet.

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                                                                                  My father and I were what you might call "estranged," and the only thing I got when he died was an odd little book with the rather cumbersome title Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey, Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, at the trial of Leo M. Frank, Charged with the murder of Mary Phagan. Hugh Dorsey was my grandfather and, after his frighteningly successful prosecution of Leo Frank, he was elected to two terms as Governor of Georgia, 1917 - 1921, From a very early age, I knew the story of Leo Frank.

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                                          Shirley Temple was a superstar at 6. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney hit their stride in their early teens. Haley Mills was a preteen when she charmed the world in The Parent Trap. And Lucy Turner is 11. I have no problem grouping Lucy with the actors mentioned above. Her performance in The Bad Seed gave me the creeps and her latest film, Miracles on Honeybee Hill made me cry a little. I was a fan the moment I first saw her step onto the stage of Nashville's Street Theatre Company (www.streettheatrecompany.org)

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It all began with a song.

Being a child of the 60s, my political mentors were all songwriters; Bob Dylan, Bufffy St. Marie, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick were the folks and forces who guided, shaped and molded my political and social consciousness. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill saw me through college.

And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?

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                   I have a new muse and her name is Maud Gonne. Maud came at me like some demented Mary Poppins, off of the pages of books about the history of Ireland. And for me, Atlantan that I am, she resonates like a half sister of Scarlett O'Hara in her determination and her raging femininity. And both women  - somehow  - held the hands of others to navigate, with some victory, the civil wars which raged around them. Sometimes they call Maud the St. Joan of Ireland; she is one of the mothers of that modern land whose truth still eludes us in the mysteries of leprechauns and the IRA.

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                                  If anyone were to ask me the best time to come to Nashville, I would have to say "come to Tin Pan South." This awesome week long event which is produced by The Nashville Songwriters Association really captures what our town is all about. This year, Tin Pan South celebrates it's 20th anniversary with performances by over 350 artists at some of Nashville's finest songwriter venues.

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                                        Folks, if we don't do something, we're going to end up sitting shiva on Music Row.

I know you're going "What the F--- is he talking about?"

I'm talking about all these nice Jewish folks from NYC who have moved to Nashville to write country music. For some reason, it's a fusion that kind of plays with my brain.