One of my favorite things about Blurbomat is the Whore section. Jon basically calls it like he sees it. If you are prostituting yourself to the public, whether you be a celebrity, politician or even a car wash, you are a whore. Plain and simple.

If I were to incorporate a similar section for cheap blue guitar, mine would be called Cheese. The current cheap blue guitar Cheese would be Jim Brickman.

The roommate was given tickets to see Mr. Brickman performing with the Phoenix Symphony as part of their Pops series. Neither one of us knew anything about him other than he played piano. When we got to our seats, we started reading the program and learned more about this performer. An uneasy feeling washed over me as I read his discography: Valentine, My Romance, Ballads, By Heart, Visions of Love.

Ugh. I knew I should have had a few beers at dinner.

Jim Brickman is apparently America's newest romantic song writing sensation. I know this only because he mentioned it about 10 times during his show in an effort to be self deprecating. What he neglected to mention is that his songwriting career is also built around I would guess 4 chords, usually in the same progression. The only song I could distinguish as being different from his repertoire was the one in the minor key.

His lyrics to quote one of his song titles and a book he authored by the same name (WTF?), are simple things. Love, tenderness and affection all conveyed with frothy heartfelt sentiments with two or less syllables.

When relaying my experience to a friend I stated, "I could write a Jim Brickman song."

She retorted, "Well, why don't you?"

Simple. I have a soul and a conscience. If I wanted to write music like that, I would be working in advertising and writing jingles (which is, no surprise, how Mr. Brickman got his start.)