Yes,very thankfully so.And I am a dedicated and loyal employee.The music biz is just so full of highs and lows,the way you become steady with it is to be adaptable to different situations,have a valid passport, and have hooked up with good associations.For a long,long time I ran wild and free all across the USA.Rode the blinds on trains,you name it.Today's Tom Sawyer is how I felt about it.My book alone is my retirement.Times were easy and then times got tight yet you could always find a paying gig and sing and play for your supper,drink a little whiskey and carry on!Especially when the legal drinking age was 18 years old,the clubs all had live music 7 nights a week.Plus the after hours bottle clubs and you are talking about a lot of money floating about.yet even then would comes times in which say,you are frozen out of the clic and thus you are eating baby food and cutting some grass for a time to get yourself a roof and a bit of dinner.Even to be welcomed to sleep on someone's couch.And you were the perfect lodger and perfect guest.I was all good with that if need be,you would not much even know I was there.if you inyour house accidently dropped a 20 dollar bill on the floor it would still be there when you came back.You could go to work and trust that I would not make a pass at your wife.Maybe I would flirt some but she timed it.As I said the next gig would always come,almost every Holiday Inn had a pub in it with live music.I thought it would always be this way until the baby came and now I was a single Dad/Mom parent profile.I prayed to God and said "who is going to raise him?"And God said "You Are!"So let us run that down for you real quick,the baby has to eat three times a day,wants to be held and loved all of the time,needs to be taught lots of little things like how to chew rice pudding,has to have poop and pee-pee all cleaned up at least twice a day,has to have a home to live in with utilities,needs to have new clothes and toys,you must have health insurance and a pediatrician on call.They have to go to the park (and at this point you do too...)they must be bathed every day,they get cholic,they throw up without notice anywhere.You as such a big a strong macho man now have got to always carry a purse with extra big boy pants,first aid kit,baby wipes,treats and that special stuffed animal.I was so blessed in that my son was a boy!Not that I would not have loved and cared for just as much and probably moreso in some ways as the protector a baby girl.If he had been a girl I certainly would have stopped playing music completely.It was so easy inso many ways with my son when he was a baby,I took him everywhere with me including to work,had a miracle day care worker who took him into private care and I would say he spent about three years of his infant life asleep on my shoulder."Hanging with Daddy!"The number one thing is for a baby to fell safe and protected,yes they fuss and all of that,they whine and howl for not even an apparent reason,at the grocery store.Well he got tired of the shopping basket seat and wanted me to pick him up and hold him so he could take a nap.And perhaps a little snack or some juice as well before the nap.So who was the first to fall between the cracks of society in the United States?The single father and the offspring.Oh there is no way that a man could raise,care for and nuture a child say the women.My country The United States Of America has gone from the land of the cowboy hero to the way and by far most effeminate nation on Earth.Every law on the books favors women and stands against men.So very few are the men that run their household,they are busy watching pro football on television in HD as though that has any kind of damn importance to anything.And it is a totally rigged game now,not like the old days,how much to bet that one of the two of usa's most economically beleagured cities are going to win the super bowl this year?Take your pick Detroit or Buffalo.Like how New Orleans won it after Katrina?Men instead of discussing what the federal reserve is trying to pull off illegally printing our money consider it more important if Tony Romo is actually any good as a quarterback.It is all a staged act.Getting back on subject here yes I do work full time and have done so since actually three years before the baby came.I was being preeped for a blessing I never thought was going to come.Showbiz is fantastic in so many ways.You get your joy doing what you love to do,and if you love your work that is quite a blessing,but the thing of it is you bring a joy to your audience that they need to have.In this particular area musical entertainment.The world would go mad so much faster then it already is doing without music.You take a feeling and spread it out to the whole audience and everyone is feeling the same thing the same way.That is when you are rocking!And it takes a lot 10 people who do not know you are not likely to jump up crazy one your first number or even your first set,you have to learn how to pace your show,for a big star of course this is different,your audience is familiar with what you do and have paid for a ticket to see you do it live.There are levels to all of it from an unknown to an emerging to a world famous performer.So what is the difference from an unknown and emerging to a world famous performer?Mostly the luck of the draw and the person fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time doing something people related to and want to hear.The unknown and emerging may have just as much talent,maybe even more because they are a bit more hungry yet the world famous performer has the advantage of the most resources at hand to work with and much stronger connections with those of high level exposure in the business.They have the talent and the look and the image and are riding that crest as strong as they can.I see nothing wrong with that,go for it baby.And at the same time they are in the most awkward position as just a little bit of carelessness can lead to bad press and then that whole media machine that built you up is now going to turn against you and bring you down.You have got to be very strong to survive this,very aware of all that is going on around you.Everything you do in your personal life is public knowledge and it's a long haul,you started very inspired and now are very tired,your hard earned money is being siphoned off by parasites at every turn.And it comes down to that you or your band is one day going to have to pay for everything and are going to be charged the highest price for it.10 million people want to be your friend and you trust no one.You have got to be prepared like a vaudeville artists to do the same thing over and over again everynight.The needs of your hangers on become more important than yours and you have a bad cold or the flu and have got to go on tonight.And for as famous as you are it could all end tomorrow,as soon as the plug is pulled on your promotion.down you fall.You did two albums that went triple platinum and still owe your record company 3 million dollars.And even if you choose to run away you are not equipped to do anything else,you have a six hundred dollar a day drug habit to deal with and no sound concept of reality.You don't own the rights to your own music,don't own your own masters that you paid for and are beginning to discover just how bad your management is ripping you off.Plus you are tired and world weary,unhealthy and you have obligations to keep on going even if you have to be propped up to do so.You have got a 3 million dollar mansion that you call home and you live in one room of it and wonder who's house is this anyway?The fact that some of these artists survive all of this and continue on is amazing to me.Willie nelson is amazing to me,one who has been through all of this and more,the IRS took away every worldly posession he had and worked so hard for taking the stage just as happy as a clam.And with such grace and ease does his thing.On all of the levels thgis is a tough biz,toughest racket of all of them,and with a baby to take care of I had to become a working class hero,you can't feed and take care of the baby from the gig you have got next week.I have a college degree too that took me 28 years to acquire,I promised my mother I would get it,a Bachelor of Business Administration.I studied long and hard too, but the purpose of that to me after keeping the promise to my mother was to have a thing that the world cannot take away from me,an education.I am an educated person.I may labor as a layman yet I still possess the knowledge i was seeking to have.The piece of paper is not that important to me,the capabilities I obtained in my lessons is what I value,the perspective that I attained.Not a day goes by that the lessons I learned do not come into play.