Christopher Cross has turned 60.

The singer, songwriter and guitarist, known as Chris Geppert when he attended Alamo Heights High School and made music with the band Flash in the '60s, won five Grammy Awards and an Academy Award in the '80s. He's feeling his age.

"I'm getting older and hopefully a little bit wiser," he said with a slight chuckle in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home.

The new Christopher Cross CD, DOCTOR FAITH (Eagle Records, in stores today), opens with the songs Hey Kid and I'm Too Old For This.

"I don't think we've dealt our kids a very good hand of cards," Cross said. "If I've learned anything in my 60 years, it's that no matter what side of the aisle you're on (politically), they're not doing a good job. I'm Too Old For This is my Bill Maher rant. Rob (Cross' longtime lyric-writing partner Rob Meurer, a veteran of the band the Zilches) and I are upset that it's raining morons. We don't pull any punches as we get older."

Cross' words are tougher, but the music remains the fusion of rock and pop with jazz touches here and there, the fusion that made songs such as Ride Like The Wind, Sailing, Never Be The Same, Say You'll Be Mine and Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) big hits.

"Rob and I have known each other since high school. We've been writing together since 1988," Cross said. "We get a seed of something and go from there. We used to hammer out songs on a legal pad, now it's email. It's a wonderful collaborative relationship. When Rob and I started writing together, we would hammer out songs together. On DOCTOR FAITH, the music was more me, and Rob did the lyrics. We've found our corners, our individual strengths."

Racking up five Grammy Awards, including best new artist and song of the year, not to mention an Oscar, is something that's awfully tough to try to duplicate.

"I'm never going to outdo that," Cross said bluntly and quickly. "It did plague me. That best new artist Grammy has plagued other people. When Rob and I recorded the first record with Andy (Andy Salmon of the Laughing Kind) and the other guys, we did so with no expectations. Now we're back to the same thing. It's a lot like it was with the first record. We sort of got over ourselves. We're as proud of WALKING IN AVALON and DOCTOR FAITH as we are of any album. I think they're solid."

The business has changed considerably since Christopher Cross first struck gold.

"DOCTOR FAITH is dedicated to Joni Mitchell for all the inspiration I've gotten from her," Cross said. "Now it's going to be difficult to create a career. Look at Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan and maybe some of what I've done, but I was never in their league. It's so much harder to build a career and build such a body of work."

Cross grew up playing live, working teen clubs, parties and bars. Still, he doesn't slam television shows such as American Idol that seem to encourage a win-it rather than earn-it attitude.

"In all fairness to the Idol people, and I don't know any of them but Bo Bice, they've been hammering it out," he said.

"Bo Bice had a similar career to mine. I was 30 by the time I had success. We all did the same clubs, frat parties and proms. It's a different model now. These shows give a very small number of people a chance."

Cross is comfortable working live and working in the recording studio.

"I love playing live. I'm a guitarist," he said. "In the studio, the biggest thrill is when Rob and I write a song; when we feel there's something there and see it come to fruition in the studio, it's such a high. Going from the writing to the recording, it's magical."

Christopher Cross was not involved with the remake of the movie Arthur.

"They did speak to us about something to do with it," Cross said. "We kind of took a pass. You can't stop them from recording the song, which they did, but, for us, Dudley Moore is Arthur. I don't have a whole lot of interest in it, but I also don't want to say anything bad about it."

Despite his individual and collaborative accomplishments, and being friends and working with the late Carl Wilson and his Beach Boys brother Brian, there was something Cross did not have.

"I told some friends in San Antonio that I've had a big career but I wish I'd graduated from high school," he said. "I dropped out of Alamo Heights in my junior year because you couldn't have long hair in those days. I played my 40th reunion. As a thank you, they gave me a high school diploma. And they don't have honorary high school diplomas like they do honorary college diplomas, so I have an actual diploma."

Though he's been based in Los Angeles for years because it's more conducive to the music he makes, Cross is in the process of moving to Austin, at least part time, to be closer to his mother, his siblings and his three kids. So there's one gig he'd like to land.

"I've been doing a lot of symphony dates, and I'm trying to get a date with the San Antonio Symphony," he said. "It's something my 90-year-old mother would love to see. She's seen my rock show, but for my brother to bring her to the Majestic Theatre to see me with the symphony would be something else. I'm really hopeful. I love playing with symphonies. I have all my own charts. I even have my own baton."