HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My Dearest Pumpkins....

On this day of official "Thanks giving"-

I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you-

for your support with this whole thing in whatever way shape or form.

There is NO WAY i could have ever done any of this without all of YOUR help, and I am beyond grateful to each and every one of you for being so incredibly awesome the past two months. As some of you have received CDs by now, you can see that an entire page was dedicated to 'thank yous' but.....

as there was not nearly enough room to put down EVERYONE's name...

please allow me to thank:

Mike champlin

Dorothy champlin

Eric Blume 

David Gelman

brian mackewich @ Gizmo Enterprises

Tony Tyler play-it direct

Ron destefano

Donna accorso

Todd Michael Thomas

Ed Dixon

Andy arrow

Maurizio babaldi

Theresa Flanagan

steven jamail

Stephen cole

Michael Colby

Marshall grant

Grant Mitchell hunter

David Mate

Joel B New

Joel reid

Lewis cleale

Jay Atwood

Donna Eis

Glen roven

Dan gramkee

Glen roven

Jason Robert brown

Jason aylesworth & Mark sendroff

Tami tappan

Scott warrender

Megan gogerty

Jim bauer

Marc lipscher

Joy @ hipharp

Chris miller and Nathan Tyson

William Panek

D Toole

Christiane tisdale

Angie Christian

Mary Sheldon

Justin Squigs Robertson

Jayne paterson

Liz pearce

Lauren Molina

Jessica Wright

Brian Steblin

Greg Santos

Julian Rad

Todd almond

Brian DeVito

Bill Cox

Michael Moricz

Bruce Coughlin

Leah Hocking

Kerry O'Malley

Gregg Arst and the Company Management Team at BILLY ELLIOT

Valerie LaVarco and the injury recovery team at ACTORS EQUITY

Dr Bauman

The Hospital for Special Surgery

Merle Louise

Carole Shelley

Scott Warrender

Michael O'Flaherty

Goodspeed Opera House Library

Fay

SONY records

Michael McLean

James Kaufman

Roger DeWitt

Phil Bond

Olli Haaskivi

Cara Joy David

Sherry Boone

Stephen Cole

Dale Hopson

Dave kyle

Howard Emanual

Cassandra Kubinski

Julian Rad

Annalyse McCoy

Katrina Yaukey

Peter Filichia

David Anderson

Robert Armin

Tommy Krasker

Ben Magnuson

Elisa Winter

Jessica Wright

Liz Callaway

Malcom Getz

Laura Benanti

Lauren Leslie

Emily Skinner

Joy Parker

Christopher Corts

Christopher Dauphine

Jack Cummings III

Joe Calarco

Carol Burnett

Angie Horejsi

Chris Nichols at WERQ, inc

Jonathan Herzog

Jim  Bauer

Scott Warrender

Marc Kessler

Angie Christian

Lynn Pinto

Joan, Tony and Sergio at PLAY-IT DIRECT

Ann at TalkinBroadway

James Marino at Broadway Stars

Jena Tesse Fox at BroadwayWorld.com

Hilary Tuttle & Erik Haagensen at Backstage.com

Julie James at Sirius Radio

Robert Sokol

Heather Flournoy

Andy Propst at Theatremania

Leonard Jacobs at The Clyde Fitch report

Christine pedi

Hal Prince

Sir Alan Ayckbourn

David Hurst

Robert Viagas at Playbill

Jim Caruso

Dave Lefkowitz

Rob Lester

Richard Ouzounian

Michael Dale

My Post Office here in Manhattan Plaza and on 42nd Street

Phil Bond and the crew at The Beechman

The entire crew at CDBABY

and of course....

OF COURSE.....

THE BRILLIANT ROBBIE ROZELLE!!!

 

PR FUND ANGELS

Mr. Russell Lehrer - $100

Mr. Julian Rad- $50

Ms. Rebecca Van Dusen- $50

"Sweeney Todd Alumn"- $100

Ken Werther- $50

David Anderson- $75

Mary Beth Peil- $50

Michael Cassara- $50

Ken Denison- $50

Gail Parenteau- $50

Justin and Diana Hill- $50

Marc J Filippone- $50

B. D. Suisse- $50

Anonymous- $20

Edwardyne Cowan- $50

Drew Tappon- $250

Eric Blume and David Gelman- $400

Anonymous- $50

Nancy and Doug Jones- $100

Todd Michael Thomas- $100

Maureen & Don Dinero- $100

Michael McLean- $91

Joseph Cross- $50

Jared StGelais- $50

James Kaufman- $25

Rick Rinaldi- $51

Jeffrey Poole- $25

Tim Dunleavy- $50

Renee Calarco- $25

Marilyn Schneider- $25

Gregory Santos- $250

Robert and Phyllis Stock- $50

Evelyn Martin- $50

Judith Ranaletta- $50

Kerry O'Malley- $100

Mary Agnes and Phil Roy- $50

FABULOUS INTERVIEW ON BROADWAYWORLD!!!

Thanks so much Jena!

You're a rock star!!

YEAH BABY!!! 

Thanks BroadwayWorld.com!

You're the best!

Donna Lynne Champlin: How to Make an Album for $1,000

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009; Posted: 07:11 PM - by Jena Tesse Fox 

It’s certainly not unusual for a Broadway singer to record an album of favorite songs—in fact, it’s almost more uncommon to find a Broadway singer who hasn’t signed with a major label. But it’s certainly rare to find a Broadway singer who finances, records and mixes her own album, all for less than $1,000.

“For years and years, I’ve wanted to make an album,” says Donna Lynne Champlin, whose debut CD, Old Friends, will be released this weekend. “But sadly, I could never afford the ‘traditional’ route of hiring a label, producers, studio time, etc.” After an injury sustained during Billy Elliott, where Champlin is a singer and dancer, she found herself with six weeks to work on a new project. “It just seemed like a no-brainer all of a sudden,” she says. “The medical leave from Billy was really just a freak-timing thing but, I figured since I was going to be sitting around anyway—why not park my ass in front of the piano, be productive and have some fun. I literally woke up the day after I got my ankle cast and thought, ‘I’m doing this. Today is the day.’”

With a limited budget and some creative ingenuity, Champlin recorded the album in a different kind of studio: her studio apartment’s bathroom, specifically, which she describes as “incredibly convenient. If I was feeling inspired and in good voice, I’d just set everything up in five minutes and record. I’d record when I wanted, for how long I wanted without cost or time restrictions. It was marvelous. Plus, as I live in a studio, it’s the only ‘room’ in my apt with an actual door. So the only ‘controllable environment’ was either the bathroom or the closet.” (“Although how fun would that CD title be?” she quips as an aside: “‘Songs I Sang In The Closet featuring duets with Tom Cruise,’ or something. I dunno.”)

To turn her bathroom into a studio, Champlin simply closed the bathroom door, hung towels around the walls to dampen up the sound, set up her mike and popscreen, plugged in her headphones, put her computer on the sink and her notes on the toilet, and recorded to instrumental tracks she had already laid down. Of course, recording in the bathroom had its own problems. “Every time I was doing a great take of some really delicate and quiet moment, one of my neighbors would inevitably flush their toilets, or run their showers, or drop some sort of anvil, or whatever. That wild-card sound stuff got old really, really really fast. I lost numerous A+ takes with that nonsense.”

“Musically, I knew exactly what I was doing,” she continues. “No question. That was really the main reason I felt I could take this on—because I had no doubt that, musically, it was going to be all right.” Arranging, orchestrating, playing the instruments and singing were “not a problem, massive fun and totally in my wheel house.”

But all the other aspects of putting an album together?

“Oh, dear God,” she says. “I admit, the learning curve for ‘all the other stuff’ was…much more intense than I had expected. And had I not been so incredibly naïve as to how much non-musical work actually goes into making a solo CD, I might not have done it. Of course, I’m thrilled that I did, but…there were many times I felt like I was trying to bail out a boat with a strainer.”

Rather than look on the project as one enormous task to overcome, Champlin tackled each part individually. “And I tried to not leave things hanging either,” she says. “If I started a song, I tried very hard to work on it until it was done. That way I could mentally check it off the list, instead of feeling bits and pieces of this and that hanging over me like a net.” She describes the process as similar to that used in the recent revival of Sweeney Todd, in which she played Pirelli and numerous instruments. “When John (Doyle) would see our brains start to explode he’d say, ‘You just have to do this little bit right now. That’s it. Focus on this little bit. Nothing else matters.’ Actually, now that I think about it, this whole thing had a very similar feel to Sweeney rehearsal. That ever-present (yet ironically awesome)WHAT THE F***??!!! feeling that never goes away until….it magically just….goes away one day.”

Champlin documented the project online at http://donnalynnechamplinsfirstsolocd.blogspot.com, which enabled her to connect with a host of volunteers. “I really owe 99% of my team to the blog,” she says. “When I started, I had no team. Nobody. And I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone to work for free during a recession. Then my brother suggested I document the whole adventure with a blog so that other people could learn how to make their own CD for a $1,000…and so that I could drive my mom crazy by swearing in public all the time. Obvious win-win there, so I started the blog on September 3, and as of today I have 86 posts on it ranging on everything from the musically hilarious to the technically tragic.”

As the blog picked up steam, various people in the field contacted Champlin and offered their services. “The only person I called personally was Jessica Wright, my violinist. Everyone else called me, offering songs for free, talent and skills for free, graphic design, mixing, studio equipment, PR help….all for free. My mind still can’t comprehend the incredible selflessness of all those people…I still feel quite undeserving at times, of all the kindness that people have shown me through this project. 

“The really fun part was when people would offer things I didn’t even know I needed,” she continues. “I can’t tell you how many times I learned I needed something only after someone offered it. Phil Bond offered to host the CD Release party at The Beechman—and then had to explain to me what the hell a CD Release Party was. Insane.”

Champlin reserves particular praise for one member of the team who, she says, “helped me above and beyond what I would even expect my own family to do.” Robbie Rozelle, of PS Classics, started off doing Champlin’s graphics work (“When I brought them to Play-It Direct—the CD Reproduction house—they all started to cry just looking at the art, because his work is so beautiful.”), and moved on to press releases, ad banners, sell sheets—“he’s like a whole Production Company in one man,” Champlin says. “He knows everything about this whole business. He’s a total rock star. I don’t know what I did to deserve Robbie Rozelle in my life, but it must have been some kinda Mother Theresa stuff…I’m sure the amount of work he’s done for me on this CD adds up to at least $15,000. At least. If not $20,000.”

Describing the record as a “concept album,” Champlin narrowed down her song options from lists of songs she likes to listen to and songs she likes to sing. “But if I’m totally honest here, I would work on one song and then I would sit at the piano and think, ‘what would make me the happiest to work on next?’ And whatever song popped into my head is what I’d do. I didn’t worry about patterns, or arcs…I just listened to my heart and worked on whatever would make me happy. That’s how ‘Hard Times’ got on here. I hadn’t even thought of that song in years and yet all of a sudden, all I wanted to do was work on ‘Hard Times.’ So I went and dug it out of some box and I have to say, it turned out so cool we made it the first track on the album.

“Not to sound completely bonkers,” she continues, “but I really believe the ghost of my Grandma has been strongly present during this whole thing. She’s definitely been pulling some angel strings up there and I’ve felt her so strongly the past couple months. There have been too many things that should have gone wrong with this whole project that didn’t, and I know she’s been helping out from up there.”

Champlin describes the album as “chilled-out and very warm and comforting. The reason I named it Old 
Friends is because every single one of these songs is a tune that I have personally turned to in my own life for healing and comfort. Every one of these songs has been played on a loop by me—over and over and over—because I needed its help at some point in my life.” Likewise, she hopes that the album will be a source of comfort to other people. “That they might turn to it when they just need to sit back and listen to some really cool tunes, or maybe they’ll just need to listen to one track over and over and over until they feel better. That’s my hope, anyway, that its warmth might have a healing touch to it.”

Overall, Champlin calls the experience of creating an album for $1,000 “very humbling…I went into this perhaps to show why you don’t need to pay all that money to all those people, but I’ve sure as hell walked out of it convinced that all those people don’t get paid nearly enough for what they do. Producers, sound engineers, graphic designers, PR people….those people earn every penny.”

The convenience and the freedom of recording at home was “awesome,” Champlin says, and adds that everyone for whom she has played the CD “has been absolutely shocked that it wasn’t done in a studio. And I owe a lot of that to Steve Jamail, Terron Darby and Chris Nichols. Those three sound engineers transformed my vocal tracks from hissy, cheap-sounding crap to extremely expensive sounding sassiness. They’re modern-day magicians, all three of them.”

Champlin had only intended to do the album on a lark: “Put in $1,000, lose $1,000, have some nice stocking stuffers for the family and something to sell in the lobby at the occasional concert, and that’s about it. The fact that it’s sort of taken on a life of its own has been a total surprise and a complete kick in the pants.” She hopes that people will take a lesson away from her odyssey of creation: “I highly recommend anyone who has time on their hands and a creative project they’ve always wanted to do….to just do it. I have not felt this happy or fulfilled in so many years. Whether you sell it or just give it away, the making of it is just so incredibly satisfying. Please, I’m begging you…do it.”

 

THE CD RELEASE PARTY IS A WEEK AWAY!

For more information:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=174014239117&ref=mf

Reservations are strongly recommended my lovelies!

Just made my 'karaoke/music minus one" CD to practice to....

yes, I will be singing to my own stylin' tracks so you can hear all the orchestrations and vocal harmonies.

oh yeah.

Gonna be a rockin' time at the Beechman ya'll!

Can't wait to see ya!

xo

dl

ALL THE CDS ARE IN THE MAIL!!!

Alright my lovelies-

Heads up!

IF YOU HAVE PRE-ORDERED from me prior to TODAY-

or if you have GIVEN A DONATION prior to TODAY-

your CDs are IN THE MAIL!!!

Andy (the bf) and I dropped off three garbage bags full of envelopes at the post office this morning...

and you should hopefully get them by Monday-

Tuesday at the latest.

If you do not receive your order by Thanksgiving-

please email me at dlc@donnalynnechamplin.com.

I've had a couple people email me the past few days-

already thinking they'd pre-ordered, but actually hadn't...

so please feel free to get in touch with me if an order you're expecting does not arrive by Thanksgiving, and we can figure it out.

You can still continue to order through my website:

http://www.donnalynnechamplin.com/buycd.html

And as of December 1st, the album should be available in a bunch o' places.

That is my next phase of the project-

to sort all that out and get back to you about that.

I am in the middle of a really busy week at BILLY what with the Thanksgiving holiday-

but I will do my best to finish the blogs posts about the three remaining songs and to keep you updated as this whole adventure continues.

So YAY!

you'll get your CDs soon-

and I hope you all can come to the party on sunday the 29th at the beechman.

whee!!!

ok.

must.

sleep.

teaching a class...

at.

10am.

then matinee.

then visiting with family.

then evening show.

then collapsing.

hopefully.

NIGHT ALL!!!

xo

dl

ok?

MUSIC TRACKS ARE UP DARLINS!!!!

I thought i posted this last night but...

i think i was so bleary eyed that I must not have....

ANYHOODLES....

on my website http://www.donnalynnechamplin.com/buycd.html

I've posted 30 second tracks of each of the songs....

go ahead and have a listen.

;-)

ok...

gotta get onstage...

dead mum tonight.

xo

dl

THE CDS ARE HERE! THE CDS ARE HERE!!!

Couldn't sleep all night, of course.

They were to be delivered today between 9:30am and 11:30am.

Of course....

they came at like, 11:29am.

Finally, the phone range and the doorman was telling me i had a 'delivery'.

i'm thinking,

A 'delivery'? A 'DELIVERY'? This is no random book from Amazon.com baby! Whoo hoo!

'delivery'. 

Please, suckah.

A knock at the door.

And there they were.

A bunch of boxes on a trolly and a very nice man now helping me bring them inside.

I didn't know what to expect.

Too many boxes to fit in my apartment? 

no. yay.

How many boxes? 

9 big boxes.

Will it be boxes within boxes? 

yes. indeed. boxes of 30 CDS- 5 to a big box? I think? I don't know, forgot to count. I had to run to BILLY rehearsal.

My heart was RACING.....

I picked up a big box...

opened it...

picked out a smaller box...

opened it....

and there they were.

All lined up i saw...."Donna Lynne Champlin "Old Friends""

times 30.

All staring up at me from the spines of the CDs.

I took one out.....

oh God....will the color be right?

Will it be a mistake and I'll now have 834289374 CDs of someone else's stuff?

what the hell is it REALLY going to look like because I don't really know....

The cover.

Oh my God.

It's perfect.

It's....PERFECT.

There was a slight concern a week ago at Play-It Direct that the actual colors of the CD were going to be a lot different than the files we sent so this was a major concern.

But.

It's PERFECT.

HOLY mother of God.

I take it over to my chair....

and...

I don't know why THIS was the coolest part about it but....

it's already got plastic wrap on it.

Like a real CD.

That you would actually buy in a store.

It's....got....PLASTIC wrap on it.

aaaaannnnnnnnndddddddd, I start to cry.

OVER PLASTIC WRAP, PEOPLE.

OVER PLASTIC WRAP.

I sit in my chair for at least two whole minutes...

just looking at it.

The front, the back....the spine....

over and over and over.

NOT wanting to break the beautiful plastic wrap that is proof that this is the 'real' thing.

Finally.....

I take the plastic off.....

and I open it.

Damn you Robbie.

Because...what he's done, which of course I didn't realize because I've only had PDFs...

is have the cool 'posed' un-touched up picture of grandma on the front but...

when you OPEN it....

you see this this GLORIOUS 'outtake' picture of my grandma all smoothed over in this beautiful green backdrop....

where she and her sister Catherine are laughing about something.

It's as if you look at the front and think...

"Hmmmmmm this might be a rather serious CD..."

and then you OPEN it....

and it's like grandma saying,

"Ha ha. Nope. Just kidding! This is gonna be fun ya'll!"

The label on the CD is just awesome.

Slightly lonely with one little tree but the falling leaves give it the life of...memories?

you know?

I am now, pretty much just sobbing.

I take out the booklet....

it's just..

i mean i've seen proofs of all this stuff like A MILLION times but...

seeing it?

For real?

it's just..unbelievable.

I kinda.....as hell froze over...don't have the words.

Well, that's a conundrum for a writer, isn't it?

After just sitting with the CD in my hands for about ten minutes....

I finally work up the nerve to put it in the CD player.

This is the scariest part.

Just because having done all this myself...

I've been having nightmares that there's some sort of bullshit file changy renaming whatever the shit thing that 'everyone' knows they're supposed to do...

except me.

I put it in.

It plays.

And it's the RIGHT song...

Hard Times....

coming through.

Loud and clear.

I call Robbie....

i hear on the other end of the line....

"I knew I would get a phone call at noon. How are they?!!!"

I tell him everything....

tell him how brilliant he is....

tell him how happy he'll be with how it all turned out.

I hold the phone up to the CD player....

like, if someone else hears it too then it's really really real.

Then my mom calls.

She's so awesome...

she's so happy and exciting and also crying.

Bless.

I call Joan at PLAY-IT DIRECT who's been so amazing...

she had sent me an email in the morning-

"Call me the minute you get them...I'm excited tooooooooo- they turned out GREAT!"

I tell her how thrilled I am...

they're JUST what we wanted....

and she said,

"Yeah, when we got them back....and the color issue that we were concerned about had been solved...we were all so excited for you. The minute we saw them, we knew you'd be so happy...so we were happy!"

I wish her a Happy Thanksgiving....

and then run around trying to get all my stuff together to head to BILLY rehearsal, and then PT and then the show....

and the CDs still playing....

to the last minute...

UGH!!!

I have to LEAVE them now....

so horrible!!!

I want to VISIT more....

but i have to get going.

And then....

just as I'm about to turn everything off to leave i think...

"wait a minute....

wait...

that's...

not....

right...."

I was listening to COUNTY FAIR when I should have been listening to CRY.

Oh no...

oh no no no no no no no noooooooooooooooooo....

I look at the booklet...

"Right. CRY then COUNTY FAIR. Not COUNTY FAIR then CRY...."

Immediately, my stomach drops.

Oh no.

Is the whole CD all jumbled?

what HAPPENED??!!!

All this beautiful art....

and...

oh my god oh my god oh my god...

I quickly scan through the rest of the tracks....

ok-

ok-

ok-

ok-

ok-

through to the end.

Slight sigh of relief there...

those are the only two tracks switched-

and not for nothing but NO ONE is going to listen to a song about a county fair and think it's cry-

and no one is going to listen to a song where i say 'cry' 23423 times and think it's about a county fair....

but...

WHY?

HOW?!!!!

oh god....

I call PLAY-IT DIRECT....

I tell them what happened....

they tell me very gently to check the master i gave them one more time...

because if there's a track mixup- it was on the master.

I think.....

"no fucking way!!! as much as i LOVE you guys...

i checked that track list OVER AND OVER AND OVER before i brought it in.

there's NO way....

i mean...

granted i TIRED...."

while I'm on the phone...

i'm scrolling through my Itunes......

and there it is.

On my master.

COUNTY FAIR #5

then...

CRY #6

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh mother FUCKER.

BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BALLS BAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no.

no.

no.

no.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I tell them that, indeed...

Yes.

It was entirely my fault and there was nothing to be done....

and it will just add to the 'charm' of the whole 'it takes a village' vibe.

but inside, i feel just terrible.

and scared, honestly.

I am SO terrified of putting this out there.

Not because I don't think it's fucking AWESOME...

but because i actually DO think it's awesome.

I believe in every fucking note and breath on this thing.

completely.

and that makes it harder to put out there.

really.

in a weird way...

I've also done what i thought was awesome work in what i thought were awesome shows...

granted the opposite happens as well...

I've done work that I thought was not my best and ended up ok in the press....

but the worst is when...

you really really believe in the work you've done-

and the end result is something you're so proud of...

and then, you read some critic's pan-

that probably took them 30 minutes to write-

taking a big dump  on something that took someone-

maybe even you-

years to finally make happen...

and I'm sorry.

it's impossible to not be hurt and confused by all of that.

Of course-

the golden rule is NOT to read them.

Yeah.

I've tried that.

It doesn't work.

I remember one time i did REALLY well with not reading any reviews-

especially the NY Times which is always 'the big one'...

and I was talking to people after the show (which was a fucking kick ass show btw)-

and a friend's mom said to me,

"well, I loved it. I really did. That guy at the Times doesn't know WHAT he's talking about."

yup.

totally happened.

So THEN..

i had to read it because i knew in my mind it would be so much worse than what it probably actually was.

Which in that case...was true.

But still...

it's impossible to ignore 'the outside world' when you're an artist..

but i guess....

somewhere, after a while, you realize that....

no matter what you think...

other people will think what they think...

and there's no CONTROL over that.

And as an admitted control freak-

this part of my life and my business is a constant and never ended panic-attack inducing cycle that you would think I would get better at dealing with.....

and i guess I have but...

you know.

Some gigs mean more to you than others....

and this obviously...

mean everything to me.

because i have absolutely nothing to hide behind.

and this album is about as bare as I get.

I'm totally a snail without a shell, people.

and it is really...

anyway...

and so....

I'm terrified honestly.

and now...

NOW!!!!!!

With all the things that I'm worried about that i didn't catch...

with all the things OUTSIDE of my control....

that people will have a problem with...

I SWITCH THE TRACKS ON THE MASTER???!!!!!

oh JEeeesssuuusssssss Christ.

TALK ABOUT A 'ROOKIE MISTAKE'.

God DAMMIT.

I call Robbie.

He tells me there are worse problems...

and procedes, God bless him...

to rattle off like three famous CDs who have some serious bloopers in them.

"And those CDs had tons of people working on them, with tons of money....so....it happens."

I am now running late...

I have to go.

As I start to berate myself for making such a stupid mistake.....

as I'm going down the stairs in my apartment building..

i start to laugh.

it was really...

like a horribly scripted moment from an ABC After School Special or something....

but by the time I had gotten down the 6 flights of stairs to the lobby....

I had kinda 'laughed it all out'.

how retarded is that?

seriously.

it was a scene from a really shitty TV show starring that really skinny lady from Who's The Boss that you'd watch and think, 

"oh yeah. right. I wish my life was as simple as going from devasted to happy again in 6 flights of stairs."

But it's true.

Because there was just NO fucking way...

that I was going to let one mistake-

yes a totally preventable and stupid mistake-

that most likely 50% of people are going to notice anyway....

RUIN THIS AWESOME MOMENT IN MY LIFE!!!!

This CD has been a dream of mine for over THIRTY YEARS.

FUCK IT!

FUCK THE MISTAKE!

FUCK IT!

it's done and i own it.

FUCK it.

And if anyone has a problem with it then they can SUCK IT.

yes.

that's right.

they can SUCK.

IT!!!!

Because today...

one of the biggest dreams I've ever had for myself?

IT CAME TRUE.

My apartment is now OVERFLOWING full of CDs that I made...

by myself.....

with the help of ONLY the people that I know and trust really love and care about me....

that hopefully will go out to people who will dig it....

and enjoy it...

and not judge it too harshly....

and TODAY...

IS A GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT DAY everybody!

IT IS A GREAT DAY today.

and I'm so incredibly grateful that you're all 'with me'-

even if it's cyberly.

OK.

I gotta go move some really heavy pit gates now.

'cause I work on Broadway.

And that's pretty fucking cool too.

TONIGHT....

CD STUFFING INTO ENVELOPES!!!!

AND TOMORROW...

THE POST OFFICE!!!

AND SOON....

IN YOUR MAILBOXES!!!!

WHEEEEEE!!!

xoxo

dl

30 SECOND CLIPS ARE UP ON MY SITE!!!

Dear God...

Please be gentle everybody.

This is...

the first 'outing' my little music tracks have taken into the big bad world.

Hope you like.

If not, lie to me.

http://www.donnalynnechamplin.com/buycd.html

xoxo

dl