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Monday October 31, 2005

Two words: Hurricane Wilma. If Wilma and South Florida were in a fight – it would have been a TKO in the first round. All the lights in South Florida were Gone With The Wind. Pardon the pun. Wait, Gone With The Wind was Georgia. Never mind.

It was like someone blew out birthday candles – all the lights went out. It just went black. You know, like in a CGI scene in a movie when there is a massive power cut. They reported it was the biggest blackout in US history.

However Floridians have united, irrespective of race, creed and nationality – unified in one cause…cussing out gas station attendants all over South Florida. It was so beautiful to see that kind of unity. It brought tears to my eyes. Just kidding, but that did happen, as the lines were longggggg!

A lady on the radio said people were to boil water and my mother quipped, “With what, the sun” (no electricity). 

My family and I are fine, however. We had hurricane supplies and one of our friends who is a chef brought us food and a portable gas stove. God bless her. I also used the portable gas stove to cook dinner for a few of my friends and my mom. We didn’t have to get in long lines thank God.

The black out gave me time to paint in the day. I hadn’t painted in over a year. I painted 3 portraits on huge canvases. The weather right after the storm was wonderful. Very cool and sunny. It was amazing to see that right after a storm.

I am posting this column from a hotel room on Miami Beach that I checked into. The beach got back power first and understandably so, as it is a tourist district. The lights should be back in my neighborhood in a day or so. Two blocks over from mine got their lights back today.

The new sound clips are online. To listen to them visit the store page and the music page. I remastered the album, to remove that live sound and added new songs and music to it. Most of the tracks have new stuff on them. I'm the only vocalist on the record and it seems like I had to sing a million parts between the album and the remix CD, but I love how it turned out.

I only used a inexpensive recording program that cost under $100 and a mic that cost under $100, now coupled with an audio clarifier that cost $99. I remastered the album in using an audio clarifier that removes that live recording sound. When you record a live sound - it loses fidelity. It's TV equivalent of watching a movie on a regular TV as opposed to a HD or flatscreen. It helps to clarify the fidelity of the sound, but it doesn’t enhance the vocals.

I played the instruments into the computer, punched them up a bit, sang right into the computer, but didn't pretty up the vocals like on a lot of contemporary records (No Autotune). At the end of the day, what's important is that I can go out there and sing it live with a band and it would sound better than the record. I got offers to do live shows in different places, but I want to wait and do a tour after I fully launch the album.

I’ll be adding more stuff to the site, so keep checking back for the updates.

Remember to click the Google links on the right side and the bottom of the page.

I heard "Isn’t She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder recently again on TV. Stevie Wonder wrote that song for his daughter named Aisha when she was born. My dad bought that record for me when I was born, which is the year it was released. However, my mom saw the name in a name book, liked it and remembered it as that of hr friend's.