the South by Southwest festival. He subsequently appeared in an episode of VH1's Storytellers television show, where he performed several tracks. In the later part of the year he embarked on the Mule Variations tour, primarily in the U.S. but also featuring dates in Berlin. In October, he performed at Neil Young's annual Bridge School benefit gig. That year, he also appeared in the Kinka Usher film Mystery Men, a comic book spoof, where he played Dr A. Heller, an eccentric inventor living in an abandoned amusement park. In 2000, Waits produced Wicked Grin, the 2001 album of his friend John Hammond; the album contained several covers of Waits songs. Also in 2000, Waits began writing songs for Wilson's production of the Georg Büchner play, Woyzeck, scheduled to start at the Betty Nansen Theater in Copenhagen in November 2000. He initially worked on the songs at home before traveling to Copenhagen for rehearsals in October. Waits stated that he liked the play because it was "a proletariat story ... about a poor soldier who is manipulated by the government". He decided to then record the songs he had written for both Alice and Woyzeck, placing them on separate albums. For these recordings, he brought in a range of jazz and avant-garde musicians from San Francisco. The two albums, titled Alice and Blood Money, were released simultaneously in May 2002. Alice entered the U.S. album chart at number 32 and Blood Money at number 33, his highest charting positions at that time. Waits described Alice as being "more metaphysical or something, maybe more water, more feminine", while Blood Money was "more earthbound, more carnival, more the slaving meat-wheel that we're all on". Of the two, Alice was better received by critics. In May 2001, Waits accepted a Founders Award at the 18th annual American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Pop Music Awards in a ceremony at Los Angeles' Beverly Hilton Hotel. That same month, he joined singers Nancy and Ann Wilson (of Heart), as well as Randy Newman, in launching a $40 million lawsuit against mp3.com for copyright infringement. In September 2002, he appeared at a hearing on accounting practices within the music industry in California. There, he expressed satisfaction with Anti- but declared more broadly that "the record companies are like cartels. It's a nightmare to be trapped in one." In September 2003, Waits performed at the Healing