Reg,

You're right, of course.  I like censorship even less than I like stupidity and ignorance.  So, please, feel free to air stupid and ignorant views, along with the intelligent and educated ones.  And re the Albigensians, for me, anyway, their fascination lies in the fact that theirs was among the first of the roads not taken in the earlier years of our civilisation that could have redeemed it.  As a species, it seems we've almost always chosen the wrong road-- the narrow road, the greedy road, the fearful road, the bigoted road.  The hierarchical road. The Albigensians stood for an alternative, but underestimated the ruthlessness and desperation of their opponents, as decent and peaceful peoples often do, and died horribly for the error.  And, yes, Gnosticism is close to my heart.  The reason that I picked the guitar as a young man over the piano was that I wanted to feel the strings vibrate under my fingers-- I didnt want a key or piano mechanism in the way-- much as when I think about God, or Creation, or the Infinite, I want to feel that mystery and magic in my soul and heart, and not experience it through a translator of any kind. (Particularly an undereducated bureaucrat with a suspect sexual agenda.)

Regarding musical endeavors, I'm working on a movie called "Runaway Jury", from a John Grisham novel, and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz.  I'm not sure what my title will be on the film, but I can tell you that "Bitter Tree" from "Triage" is now an instrumental about 13 minutes long, and goes through a whole lot of different musical styles, with strings, horns, penny whistles, opera singers, bop piano, and other fun sounds.  I'm sort of waiting for some studio construction to be finished, and also my "composer rig", which is a sort of instrumental database mostly consisting of 9 computers called "gigastudios" which provide access to Hans Zimmer's truly amazing collection (over a terrabyte) of sounds and instruments.  Musically, I'm very excited overall, though bored at this particular moment as I can't really get working until this and that is resolved.

I'm also working on a "jazz" album for a trumpeter named Chris Bodie, along with  an entertaining crew of miscreants including Burt Bacharach and Dr. Dre.  That starts on the 20th, assuming we're not all under our beds in a fetal position sobbing for our mommies.

David