always pleased to welcome steve earle to this program. he is out with a new project "called on never get out of this world alive." a book by the same title is available. good to have you back on this program. how is that little baby? >> he turned it won about three weeks ago -- he turned one about three weeks ago. this was last november here in l.a. when we were making the record. tavis: i wonder if he even has a choice. his daddy is an artist, his mother is an artist. what choice does he really have? >> he got a ukuleles for his birthday and he has a guitar and piano. my friend has a guitar shop and he says people are always complaining about what instrument their musical kid can play. tavis: i thought about that old joke, the chicken and the egg, which won came first? >> as far as the title goes, i have been working on the book for almost eight years. it seems like it should be a bigger book. [laughter] it is not my day job. it is a novel that i started about nine or 10 years ago. most of it was written in the last four or five years. i

. >> hi, next time we have james stewart plus a performance from steve earle, that's next time. see you then. >> all i know his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all look better. >> nationwide insurance supports "tavis smiley," we are proud to help remove economic obstacles one at a time. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television]

there were a lot of novels coming out right now by musicians, steve earle, i will never get out of this world alive. joe henry's line creek. this is about a classical musician, classical pianist. he was a prodigy in bulgaria where he was born. he started studying when he was four years old. he won his first competition at age 10. and ended up as studying jazz in boston, one of the premier places to study jazz in this country. and then he went to a monastery for several years and became a buddhist monk. quite a change. he wrote a memoir called turtle feed that you might know about the cover that part of his life. clearly he is the model for the character in this particular novel constantine who is a talented and audacious young pianist studying at a school for the gifted. that is where the students are rewarded as long as they toe the party line. but the truly talented resist by drinking, smoking and having lots of or the difference between this and that standard a coming of age story is a typical coming of age stories, this is just sheer desperation. the novel is following constantine t

let's go to steve. >>> coming up, mostly cloudy -- machine, mostly cloudy. watch how in last few frames, see how the clouding keep rolling in -- how the clouds keeple rolling on in? we had some cool readings today. a lot of low and mid- to upper 40s. the moisture continues to stream in. sun, cloud, breezy. more clouds to the north and just a little bit warmer. 50s, 60s. 60s around the bay. upper 60s and low 70s inland inland. way below average temperatures for this time year. i think we'll see an increase in the drizzle on friday, saturday should be all right. sunday and monday, windy and cool. >>> 8:25. toad venom and arsenic. both of those things have been tied to a sale. >>> welcome back. pg&e has a new plan to change the rates that it charges customers and in just a couple of hours state regulators will take a close look at that plan. claudine wong is live to tell us what customers should look out for. >> reporter: well, the meeting actually starts in about 30 minutes at the california public utility commission. we're told the vote on this proposed rate