I check My Space a couple of times every day, but I haven't had a chance to blog to you for quite a while. I run a small CD company, and let me tell you, "the times they are a-changin'." I'm traveling down a sharp learning curve in order to let web surfers download songs and albums from my website. Since I'm still more comfortable with two tin cans and a string than I am with the internet, this is quite a journey. But I'll get there. Meanwhile, the 4 Friends [me included] have decided to release our new live CD "Playing With My Friends" as what I call an independent release. It will be sold here and on my other pages, but not in stores. On a topic not business, I just got back from a trip to South America. Ok, so it was business since I was singing for Atlantis Events for two weeks on a ship, but we were in South America, people!! I'd never been there before and I couldn't see or do enough. Rio De Janiero is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. I walked on Ipanema Beach where Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote the song about that chick. And as a gay man, let me tell you, the Brazilian men are dynamite! [Women, too, boys, don't you worry!] It was a great 2 weeks. So now I'm working on the new CD, playing a concert of classical music for a friend of mine, planing the two new videos 4 Friends is going to shoot in June, and organizing two evenings of my music at The Gardenia night club in Hollywood for August. And in my spare time ... Ha! What spare time?

Making a living as an entertainer/musical director/ composer [that last one is where my heart is!] can be a treacherous thing. No steady paycheck, no secure job ... yet monthly bills like everyone else. Add to that the normal show business sensation of rejection, and I can easily understand why some people can't handle it. I know a very successful disk jockey who quit the biz entirely and couldn't be happier. Well, I love my work: I love producing CDs, playing piano for singers, ironing out the kinks in a new musical, and especially writing. What I don't love is the aforementioned insecurity. But, every now and then, along comes a really great job. Atlantis Events is a gay vacation group that buys out either a cruise ship or a beach resort for a week and packs it with gay travelers, male and female. In 1996 a singer named Lee Lucas asked me to play for him on Atlantis' first cruise in the Mediteranian. I did, got paid by going on the trip and had a great time. An unseasonal strom blew the ship out of the port for San Trope. There were no special shows planned for onboard that night since everyone had expected to go ashore. The owner of Atlantis, Rich Campbell, came up to me and asked me if I could do some kind of piano bar act. Now, I had been making my living in piano bars for 15 years and had recently quit in disgust. But I said, OK. Picture this: The piano was under a shelter on the aft deck. The storm passed, the sky cleared and under the sparkling stars were some 500 bored queeens, sitting there with thier arms crossed, waiting for me to entertain them ... or else. I hit the ground running, so to speak, and did basically one first act closing number after another. By the time I had finished my first set, they loved me and Atlantis had hired me. In fact, Rich scheduled me again for the following night, but forgot to tell me! I went wine tasting through the south of France with some buddies all day and got on the ship stewed to the gills. I took a cold shower, drank a lot of black coffee and went to work. I don't remember anything about that show, but I musn't have messed up too badly: I was still hired. Over the years Atlantis has sent me literally around the world several times, to Tahiti, Greece, St. Thomas, Sidney ... all over the map. I get to travel, look at beautiful men by the pool all day, do my act for people who actually like it, and get paid for it. A great job! Why am I telling you all this? Next week is my birthday and Atlantis is sending me to work on a 13 day cruise in South America, from Buenos Ares to Rio. I've never been to that part of the world before! It's a perfect birthday gift. Work has been scarce for the last month and a half, but whenever I feel the pressure of bills unpaid, I remember that jobs like this still happen for me, and really, I wouldn't want to be in any other business. My father, until the day he died asked me, "When are you going to get a real job?" Never, Dad. Never.

This Friday night - January 26th - I'm producing a live recording for my friend Bryan Miller. He has a wonderful, unique and very funny Piano Bar act that has never been recorded. We're going into the studio with a live audience so we can get studio quality recording with real audience response. I did this last year for my vocal group "4 Friends" [of which Bryan is a member] and the results were wonderful. The edited master for that CD is great! It would seem to be self-evident that it makes all the difference recording comedy if you have an audience there laughing. But few actually attempt live recordings. There are too many problems bringing recording equipment into venues that are not designed for it. My friend Mary Jo Mundy did that for her forthcoming CD and had a miserable time. She and her engineer Andy Waterman learned from that experieince and came up with a really good idea. They called it NOHO LIVE [that's short for "North Hollywood" for you non-LA residents]. For a set fee, you could come into the professional, high-tech recording studio Andy was using for his other projects, bring in an audience and get the best of both worlds. When Mary Jo told me about the project, long before it was actually running, I told her I wanted to be the first to record there. And I was. I twisted the arms of my fellow "4 Friends" [they thank me now!] and we were the first act to take advantage of this deal. Unfortunately, it looks like I may also be the last producer useing NOHO LIVE. Very few cabaret acts took advantage of the offer [Amanda Abel's new CD is a wonderful exception] and of those that did, more singers cancelled at the last minute than actually showed up! Andy was understandably disillusioned and moved on. He's actually coming back to this particular studio this Friday just to record Bryan with me. We all had such fun together recording and editing the "4 Friends" CD that he agreed to work with us again. I came up with an idea I think is pretty good, if I do say so myself! I bought a little bell and called it The Boo Boo Bell. During the "4 Friends" recording, if any of us did or heard something we knew we couldn't live with on the final recording, we rang the bell, everything stopped, and we started again. The audience loved this! Without fail, they would laugh at the same jokes harder the second time [or, god help us, the third or fourth time!] and the device worked perfectly. In fact, one of the tracks - "Comedy Tonight" - will be featured on the CD in it's edited form, and again as a bonus track with all the Boo Boo Bell nonsense included. My, we do get funny! Anyway, it looks like this Friday night will be the end of another era. Shorter in length and not at far-reaching as the Tower Records saga, but sad nonetheless. Thank you Mary Ju Mundy and Andy Waterman for giving some of us the chance to make really good live recordings with ease and high quality.

The big Tower Records store on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood went out of business today. They've been having a huge sale for the last couple of months. That Tower store has been a landmark in these parts for more years than I can remember. Whenever I told someone I lived just south of Tower Records, they knew exactly where I was talking about. I had a nightmare the other night. First I woke up in a sweat and then laughed at myself. I dreamed that the wrecking ball was swinging on a long cable toward the Tower Records building, ready to smash it down. We see inside the store where row after row of empty CD racks are sitting ... except for the last, unsold, unwanted lonely little CD. And it was one of mine, complete with the white divider tag that said "Wayne Moore." Isn't that great? The things we do to ourselves in our own minds!

Obviously, I'm not going to be able to say something about everyone who signs on to My Space as My Friend. Except that they are my freinds, and ain't I the lucky one? Lee Lessack owns LML Music - my parent company - and is a real rarity: an honest businessmen and a talented artist. Mary Jo Mundy and Jennifer Hasty are two women with outstanding voices who use them superbly. Mary Jo [all five feet of her] wraps herself around a song and makes you believe you've never heard it before. Jennifer can sing in any style, but I like her R&B Blues. Janice Joplin with better chops. I met Jim Carouso when he was just a kid in Houston, Texas. Now he's a mainstay of the New York cabaret scene. I honestly believe he knows everyone in show business and they all like him! In future blogs I'll probably talk about whatever comes to mind and I may never mention new arrivals on my friends list as they arrive. But know this: Everyone on this list is actually my friend, and I'm proud of it! One last mention: Friend Wayne McDonald is my partner of ten years. Yea, us!

My friend Gilmore [see previous blog] helped me figure out the My Space thing and I've updated my site with new pics I hope you enjoy. And here's Michael Feinstein! I love Michael. He and I knew each other when we were both starting out here in L.A. Then one day Michael was "discovered" and Boom! He's everywhere! I knew he was a star to stay when I was channel surfing and happened upon The Hollywood Squares. I overheard the contestant say "I'll take Michael Feinstein to block." and realized there was no going back. One of my best memories with Michael was on a trip to Tahiti where we were the two entertainers. On our day off, we decided to ride the banana [pause for joke] which was a big, banana shaped raft pulled by a speedboat. We nearly drowned, but I never laughed so hard.

The next two friends to sign on were Bryan Miller and Gilmore Rizzo. I've been friends with Bryan for some 25 years and his partner Gilmore has become one of my best friends as well. Talented people. Bryan is a master of the art of the Piano Bar. None better. Give him a piano and a room full of people and he can entertain them for hours. [He's also a very good actor, and I wish he'd do more of it!] Gilmore is a writer, a TV producer and an excellent singer. I think he watched a LITTLE too much TV when he was a kid because his favorite music is Bubblegum ala The Partridge Family. For an old rock 'n' roller like me, that's nearly sacrilege. Long ago Brenda and I, wanting to spend more time with our busy friend Bryan, put together a one time only concert for the three of us. "One Time Only". Ha! Add Gilmore to the mix and we've become "4 Friends" with one CD out, another ready to go and a fan club that keeps growing! Do what you love and see what happens.

It's appropriate that the first friend (after Tom, of course) to join my friends list is my Best Friend, Brenda Moore. It's a poorly kept secret that Brenda and I were married once. Somehow we got past all that and became friends again. She's also my singing partner. As "Wayne & Brenda" [I won two out of three falls] we've sung all over the world. I've uploaded a picture into my gallery of she and I "Then and Now". [Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it] Pretty frightening. The two kids in the "before" picture look as though they could be our children, merrily working now at the post office and gathering firearms. Brenda is an amazing person and an amazing singer. I'm glad to have her on My Space.

This has been a busy season. I was musical director for a new musical called "Dvorak In America" which was about twenty times the work I thought it would be!! Fortunately, I liked the people involved in the show, and I think it came out well. All the melodies in the show were taken from the compositions of Antonin Dvorak, a great Czechoslavakian classical composer. I arranged the score for piano and cello, and that was the best part, playing that music every night! Now I'm playing keyboards in the band for "Nuncrackers" a very silly show starring Sally Struthers. Again I like the people. Every "Nun" in this show and I have worked together before! It's like old home week. Old "nuns" week, perhaps. I also got an acting job on "Untold Tales of the E.R." I played an ambulance-driving medic This poor kid who got seriously injured on the football field and my aide and I rushed out, put him on a strecher, and rushed him to the hospital. We shot on location for two days. I pushed that damn gurney with that heavy kid across a football field about 20 times!! I was ready for the gurney when we were done! After "Nuncrackers" I've got a little down time I hope to fill up with private parties and the like. "Have piano, will travel." I've never bloged before. I guess I should tell anybody who might be interested more about myself next time. OK, I will!