Dear Mr. Randy Newman,

I've been a fan of yours since the "Short People" day's. Don't get me wrong that was a brilliant song but what won me over, well... I was just eleven or twelve years old flying on an airline that don't exist anymore called Northwest Orient and on their country music channel was some of your earlier work along with Tom Waits. I was going from Anchorage, Alaska to Washington D.C. to see my Daddy who was from Texas and I've been a fan ever since and anyway my wife and I have tickets to the Anchorage show and I was just wandering if you could play a song for me, maybe as dedication to our last Governor .just a thought?

Sarrah Pallin's Alaska

It's a T.V. show a dream, a fantasy it's a dream and that's okay. On the one hand the show sells Alaska and it's a wonderful place and it's people are proud people in the video above is a white sounding guy from Spenard performing rap in L.A. that might only make sense to Alaskans (You might get the feeling behind it but it might be hard for you to fully understand it unless your from here), now that's balls and we're like that. On the other it seams to be about selling Mrs. Pallin's beliefs and that's okay, I guess. That's what makes it a dream. A dream may seam real to the dreamer and it might be close to reality but it's still a dream. So, I just got to be an asshole and say. "Shit ain't like that!" There's more nuances and stuff.To wit we;re all republican and shit but 48% of us who bother to vote will vote for any proposition to legalize weed and well ..... Enjoy the show but it's not like your Alaska or my Alaska and it's not like others Alaska.

Like sheets of glass

Polished to a mirror finish as I rode home tonight. A mirror that reflects back ones soul and the face of that one you love dear, the one you can't bear to say to once again. "Honey, I hurt myself again, sorry." Winter hits fast and she hits hard, blink for a second and the sparkly, soft and wet becomes hard, cold, slick and dry, As you rode the sheets of shiny ice on the new longtail bike you thought. "How can I be happy when so much is just so fucked up?" That mirror reflects back whats going on behind your back, the things you see ahead aren't much cause for joy but you remain upright, you ride and you try to enjoy the happy while you have it. Like sheets of glass, shiny like a mirror, and now home and warm I think about what a friend in the emerald city wrote.

When the streets sparkle like diamonds.

During those between season times, when fall turns to winter or when winter turns to spring. In the daytime pavement is naked and exposed but wet. You wait out the rush hour traffic it gets colder, water freezes and the streets sparkle like diamonds as you ride home drunk, just a tad, and the tires are quiet and it is good, instead of slushy and nasty the streets sparkle like diamonds.