my activities--book, IBS, GEMS seminar

My book, USING YOUR ART & THE MEDIA TO COMFORT PEOPLE is scheduled to be shipped to the printer after March 20th, which means I'll have galleys late April. The book will be in New York City libraries and stores on my birthday October 15. It is a gift to the City and published by Free to Run books out of California. It's 100 pages, 8 X 10 and will be available in paperback for about 12 dollars. I have very limited copies, so unless you're interested in writing about it, you're encouraged to order it from stores like East West, or by mail order and from websites like Amazon.com and hopefully via the Ethical Culture Society and a few media-oriented sites.

I'm making appearances this weekend, March 13 at the IBS (website: http://www.frontiernet.net/~ibs/2K04convosched.html) at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan. The panels I'm working are: The Local Music Scene and College Radio at noon with INSIDE CONNECTION'S Mike Ferrari, WUSB/LIE PAPER/and PAINTER Jill Morrison, KOCH RECORDS' Scott Kuchler and other folks I'll meet for the first time.

Then comes the panel ACADEMIC PLANNING AND MEDIA CAREER CHOICES, and I'm looking forward to meeting other folks there.

IBS will have an evening with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and workshops with Mark Coppola, Valerie Geller and other media professionals who are legitimate household names. Go to their website and see if this is something you want to do.

April 3 and 4 is GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK'S summit with a lot of my friends, too. My panel is CREATING AN INDUSTRY OF INTEGRITY in which we'll discuss ways to be true to your own muse and still have a career. My panel includes www.mediachannel.org's Danny Schecther and filmmaker Robert Pappas (Orwell Rolls In His Grave) and my buddy publicist Carol Kaye.

It needs to be emphasized the the GEMS seminars (www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com) stresses the real way bands like Ani DiFranco, R.E.M. and the B-52s and filmmakers including Kevin Smith and Owen Wilson, Michael Moore developed their careers--INDEPENDENTLY through their own bootstrapping.

I'm now seeing established pros including my artists like Bruce Kulick, Melanie, Dennis Brooks and folks I admire such as Kevin Bacon following their passions and making money. They're not waiting till the big industry comes to them, instead they're creating their own works.