Funny you should say this - I was trawling through the channels tonight including Netflix and Amazon Prime and I couldn't find anything that I hadn't already seen or wanted to watch - I ended up watching Hitman 47 again - mainly because I like Rupert Friend - especially his part in "Homeland ". I haven't heard of Secret City, if it's on a channel I can get I shall look out for it. Have you watched "The Americans" I really enjoyed that. I hope you do get a guitar and get back to song-writing - if I may offer you a word of advice based on my own experience - when you write a song copyright it immediately before you show it to anyone or submit it to any company. The music business puts "Jaws" to shame.

I learned the hard way on that. I lost so many songs. I won't talk about it because 1-nobody would believe me, and 2- it is depressing to think about. I made up a load of songs as a young teenager, and the music for them. Some of them I made up as I went along, just picking lines out of the air so to speak. And there was one song I made up in college and played in the stairwell because of the acoustics. Someone recorded that one also. I have no proof so I refuse to say which songs they are. I would only sound like a crazy person. I have come to terms with it. I am happy with my life and don't worry about how it might have been.

Yes I watched The Americans as it aired. I liked it a lot. I especially liked the earlier seasons. It is that way many times with me and TV shows. The early seasons I find better than the later ones. Either the writers find it hard to keep it as good, or perhaps, once the show becomes successful the writers seek to use their successful platform as a vehicle for pushing social agenda, or political issues they champion, and they get away from what made it good in the beginning. I loved the hard, edgy, almost emotionless approach they brought to their work in the first season especially.

Speaking of hitman movies, there is a funny one called In Bruges with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes. Strange to speak of a hitman movie as funny, but this one is. I guess it is really a dramedy because it does a story which is serious running underneath the comedy. Anyway, if you have not seen it I think it is worth a go.

I am sorry to hear of your bad experiences with song writing - still - you obviously had a lot of talent and it is going to waste if you don't return to it - at least as a hobby. Another bitter lesson I learned was that the word "assign" actually means "give" your copyright to a publisher - once you assign a song to anyone it belongs to them - I thought it was just giving them permission to plug it - found out differently to my cost. You are right about writers using shows to push their own agendas - I think there must be a lot of gay writers out there because no show seems to lack a gay storyline these days - a lot of politicos too because sometimes it is so obvious that they are using their characters as mouthpieces for their own views. I was disappointed with the end of "The Americans" I thought it was a bit of an anti-climax - "We'll get used to it" is not a particularly thrilling line to end a six part series on !! I have see "In Bruges" I quite enjoyed the dark humour in that. Have you seen "Seven Psychopaths" - also Colin Farrell - again a dark comedy.

I will look for Seven Psychopaths. Thanks for the tip about "assign". I know if I write anything else I will get my own attorney before I do anything. I may buy some software which reduces audio to sheet music also. I don't know. First things first, I need to get a guitar and start jamming on my own again. I know what you mean about gay storylines. I realize that there are gay people and it is normal that some characters will be gay, but so many plots involve some form of anti-gay issue. There are plenty of other issues and types of stories which are never or rarely covered. I feel like it is some kind of social engineering program sometimes. I have nothing against gay people, but the in your face stuff gets old. Also, there are some militant types, super sensitive, who can find offense or bigotry in the most benign comment or opinion. And they look down their noses at you if you don't understand what they are having a histrionic fit about. You're not "woke" they tell each other while rolling their eyes. I think that kind of victim mentality is a form of mental illness. And they would probably say that means I am six kinds of "-phobic". As this sort of thinking makes it's way into TV show plots it becomes normalized, and a generation of kids learns to find offense where none exists, and play the victim to manipulate others. That is a real shame. It is teaching mental illness to young people. "It isn't what happens to us, it's what we think of it that screws us up." I read that somewhere and it made a lot of sense to me. Trauma is part of life and it will hit everyone sometime. But how we respond to it makes the difference. Taking responsibility for our own feelings, instead of blaming them on others, is the healthy course of action.

There is no "right" to not be offended by someone else's opinion or point of view. The current trend to criminalize opinions is dangerous. Because it is untenable in a free society. The only way it works is if people are not free to have their own opinions, and those in power determine which thoughts are permitted. That is where we seem to be headed. Like the novel "1984", Big Brother calls censorship 'free speech' while dictating what you may and may not say.

I have to laugh sometimes at the posts on facebook where people post a list of what they believe people should feel regarding social issues and if you don't feel the same way they say then you are an a-hole. It never occurs to these self righteous morons that by judging me an a-hole they become a-holes themselves! It is 1984 here in Britain already - the indigenous people have been muzzled for years now - we cannot comment on any racial issue for fear of being labelled racist and prosecuted - you cannot use the words white or black in any discussion because you are immediately labelled a bigot. One book written many years ago by Enid Blyton has been withdrawn from sale in case it offends minorities - (Nazi Germany anyone?) certain groups are suggesting that we stop celebrating Christmas and Guy Fawkes night for the same reasons. I don't blame the ethnic minorities for this - there are no demonstrations by them during these festivals - it is just the pc brigade being ridiculous. One wonders at their true agenda however because such suggestions can only cause racial hatred not diminish it. In London there used to be a place in Hyde Park called "Speakers Corner" where anyone could get up on a podium and rant to their hearts content about anything - they don't dare do it now - free speech is dead and gone in Britain. We are no longer a free society - we are no longer a democracy - and that is why the Brexit party annihilated every other party at the European elections because it gave a voice to those who object to being told what our levels of immigration should be. It's coming to a point where people are simply walking out of their own countries (Honduras, Africa etc) without attempting to combat what is making them leave. There will come a point when the world is going to have to take over these countries to control their populations by compulsion if necessary because that is the driving force behind all of their problems. To return to music - you must be very talented to be able to write music - my brother used to use something called "cakewalk"? but that was years ago - there are probably many more apps available now. He can read and write music as could my father - also arrange and transpose. It is such a huge advantage to a songwriter - I am quite excited for you exploring your creativity again and in a country that has so much more opportunity than here in Britain. By the way - what is your preferred genre of music?

When I was a young teenager and making up my own stuff (about 14 yrs. old) I was into that era's rock. I also liked blues. I found a cheap cord book for blues guitar and liked playing blues sometimes. Some of my stuff was sort of pop, more lyrical than instrumental. I learned a little Spanish stuff and made up one Spanish instrumental that was alright. I improvised a lot. At the time I felt I wasn't good enough to do anything. I listened to Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and others and knew I couldn't do what they were doing so I thought I wasn't good enough. I was self taught mostly, plus what I learned from those cord books. Much later I figured out that the stuff I could do was good, my own style was fine. It's not necessary to be a technically proficient guitarist who can do covers of other songs and sound just like those artists. My own stuff was popular. My friends told me it was good, but I could not accept it. There was a very creative period when in the evenings I used to go riding around in a friend's station wagon. It was me, and a couple of friends. This was in the early 1970s and we liked to smoke marijuana and ride around. I would have my guitar with me and they would encourage me to make up stuff. I figured out later that James must have had a cassette recorder in the car. They kept pushing me to make up another song and I kept saying I needed some time in between to let the music come to me. Some of the stuff I made up those nights we went riding around getting high wasn't good because they were pushing me to come up with more stuff right away, I mean right after one song they kept saying make another one. So I would sometimes just make up junk. The better stuff would come to me when I was able to feel the music, to hear it in my head and try to figure it out on the guitar. Sometimes I would find a short riff and then the rhythm would just fall into place. I tried to put emotion into sound. After I moved down to Florida to live with my dad I got a job busing tables at a restaurant a friend of his owned. I got a piece of glass in the middle knuckle of my little finger on my left hand, the one I make cords and riffs with. The surgeon took out a piece of the tendon for some reason. It tends to bend toward the other fingers now. It is difficult to do some of the instrumental stuff I used to do. I sort of got fed up with playing after that. Later when I heard my music being played it was depressing. I tried to block it all out of my mind. But I got over that and I don't mind hearing my stuff any more. I don't talk about it with anyone. I guess since you don't know me, and this is anonymous, I don't mind telling you what happened. You already know how music gets stolen. And even if you thought I was nuts, it wouldn't matter. lol And now I would like to pick it up again, make music again. I played coronet, baritone, and tuba in school bands. I could read the music for those instruments, but I don't know how to read the notes for guitar. When I find a decent guitar for a good price I will try to get the old feeling back.

I have heard of cakewalk. That was the one I was thinking of. It might be a good thing to get it on paper, on sheet music. I don't know patent or copyright law at all. I will need wise counsel. I don't suppose the sheet music is necessary. I doubt other artists had to make sheet music to get their stuff copyrighted. But there is something about having it on paper like that which appeals to me.

The pc brigade (nice term) isn't driven by egalitarianism or even logic. I think that those at the top, the leaders who have been and are pushing this nonsense are after global governance. There is a group called the Club of Rome which was started by David Rockefeller in 1968. Their goal is a global government, with a global bank, a global currency. The proposed government would NOT be democratically elected; they explain that democracies have run their course, cannot respond to situations quickly or effectively enough, and so on. It would be a government by the world elites. These people are the driving force behind the dumbing down of education, and the behavioral conditioning of our young people by various methods.

Kids are taught to feel, and reach their conclusions that way, instead of through dispassionate critical thinking. Thus they are easy to manipulate. They are taught that their parents' values should not be their values; rather they must come up with their own values. Of course the teacher who tells them this uses subtle methods to guide them toward their "own values". And all the students are led to place high value on group conformity; individuality is out, group think is in. Students today speak of being "triggered", i.e. becoming emotionally overwhelmed and traumatized by....just about anything it seems, but by anything with does not conform with the "group's" dogma, positions, language, politics, etc. Triggered is an apt term because those students are responding to post hypnotic triggers in many cases. They have been brainwashed, conditioned, to respond in predictable ways to various stimuli. So we see these unthinking, young people immersed in this crazy 'outrage soup', posturing as victims, claiming to be injured by a variant opinion, and demanding "justice" for the "assault". "Oh my God, I am literally SHAKING right now!" I have heard college girls say that exact sentence several different times. They have been trained to say that, and to undergo actual physical discomfort in some cases. The way they are socialized, it becomes a badge of righteousness for young people to be "triggered", or feel and express outrage over any instance of possible bias or prejudice. They call this "value signaling".
For the young people this posturing serves more than one purpose.

It establishes that they are "woke", that they adhere to the values they were led to adopt, the ones the teacher helped to them devise 'all on their own'.
It affords them a (false) sense of moral superiority. It positions them as injured victims, with all the benefits that gives them. This serves as a basis for demanding "justice". It is a means of manipulating others. And it elevates them in the group.

So we see many of these dumbed down young students competing to discern an offensive comment or action, and become outraged over it. It makes no difference to most of them whether any offense was intended, whether the comment was innocent, or whether the offensive word has more than one definition, and the definition used and clearly intended couldn't offend the most super sensitive among them. They may KNOW that the comment wasn't racist or sexist because of the clearly intended definition of the word in question.
They will nonetheless, knowingly and intentionally infer the unintended definition of the word so they may become offended and "oh my God" start literally shaking! OR- These dumbed down students might not be familiar with dictionaries, and may not know what the word means. But even if they are informed, it matters not. They hold the speaker responsible for any 'damages' caused to them by their own ignorance. The goal is outrage. We see them competing to be the MOST offended. There is a new pseudo science in the outrage culture called "intersectionality". This refers to the number of ways an individual may claim to be offended and injured.

If someone makes a sexist comment, you as a woman may claim to be outraged and victimized by them.
But if the comment also had an insult for latino women, then the intersection of ethnicity and gender gives the Mexican heritage lady TWO ways of being outraged and victimized, so her status is higher than yours. She is the bigger victim and moves up in the group pecking order at that moment. I have watched girls competing like this. It is nuts.

In America (and probably in the UK and Europe) there is a movement (funded by billionaire leftist George Soros) called Antifa, which is supposed to mean anti-fascist. They dress in black uniforms, with bandanna masks over their faces. They harass speakers, they physically assault people who don't support their preferred political candidates, they sometimes riot. They act in ways very similar to Mussolini's black shirts. They act like fascists, and call themselves anti-fascists. Facts, logic, truth; these are not important to the pc brigade. They are interested in gaining power. They have convinced themselves with their own lies that they are righteous and justified in using any means, whether unethical or illegal, to gain power. (There was one television commentator who said almost exactly that after Trump was elected. His comment was that all efforts should be made to remove Trump from power, no matter whether they were "unethical" or "illegal". And many unethical and illegal attempts have been made to paint Trump as a traitor, but after years of investigations no evidence of any collusion with Russia by Trump has been discovered.)

Various Antifa spokespeople have hinted that massive and violent actions may be taken by them in their quest for "social justice". The way these people misuse language disgusts me. These people act like fascists, and they care only about power, and nothing about actual justice. Most people are not concerned about civil unrest or civil war. The majority of the country is patriotic and supports the rule of law. And so many of us are armed and proficient in the use of firearms that any attempt by Antifa to start a civil war would be quickly stopped. As soon as the bad guys realize you are armed, they usually decide to go away very quickly. In my experiences, no shots ever needed to be fired. These Antifa people are very similar to street thugs who act tough as long as they perceive their intended victim to be weak and defenseless. They don't want a fair fight, and they certainly don't want to face a superior opponent.

The very concept and term "political correctness" is abhorrent to free people. Our founding principles recognize that each person has natural or God-given rights, and is sovereign over himself. And these rights include the right to say what you believe is true, no matter whether others agree or not. (But there are no rights over other people. There is no right to censor people you are not in agreement with, and there is no right to never feel offended.) As a people we must not humor those who pretend authority to censor others. We should not take them seriously when they infer offenses where none were intended and none occurred.
Somehow we must find a way to reach young people with rational thought, and we must defeat the totalitarians who seek to deny our liberties.

Wow, I feel like I just gave a speech or something! LOL Sorry, I have a tendency to talk on and on. If you're interested in the Club of Rome and its subsidiaries and cohorts, who they are, revealing quotations and information, check this link.

The first page has some amazing quotations. Then the second page "The First Global Revolution" shows how they are trying to sell us on the idea of a dictatorial global government as though it is a good thing. http://www.green-agenda.com/index.html

I think all of what you have written is quite frightening to me - not to mention depressing - are young people so brainwashed that they act in this way without realising how they are being manipulated? How can anyone with any intelligence not realise that they are being fed thoughts and feelings they don't actually have? Has education really been dumbed down to that degree? I fear for the future. I think sheet music is a great way of copywriting your work - date- copyright symbol- your name and address - even the time - can all be noted down on hard copy - sealed in a plastic envelope and posted to yourself - I used to number my envelopes and make a note of the name of the song corresponding to that number. I used to belong to the International Songwriters Association based in Ireland - such associations can give you great advice and tip sheets on how to do things properly. But in my view correctly copywriting material is the first and most important step of all. I believe what you have described about your songs being stolen - I have had similar things happen to me. But now you know what people are capable of - even friends - you can protect yourself against it. I can't remember the name of the song - it was a big rock ballad that was a huge hit - back in the seventies or eighties I think - anyway the writer didn't copyright it and ended up having it stolen out from under him - he hanged himself - credit for writing the song has been claimed by just about every member of the band and even the road manager - so yes - I absolutely believe you.