DTMX

I get up at 4AM during the week. If I'm out late the night before, I may not go to bed until the following night. I'm usually in bed by 10PM. I have two radios in my bedroom. One is tuned to NPR, the other to WSB (local news, talk radio). At 4AM the WSB radio turns on, replaying broadcasts of Neil Boortz' show. That will usually destroy any chance of falling back asleep. On the weekends they broadcast a different show and I sleep right though it. On the weekends I wake up about 6AM, turn on the other radio and fall back asleep listening to NPR playing classical music. At some point the format changes over to news and I start having dreams about Iraq, the economy or global warming. Sometimes I wake up with an urge to donate money in exchange for a free download of a Garrison Keillor podcast or an NPR coffee mug. That's why I keep my telephone in another room. Sometimes I forget which day it is and I have both radios playing when I wake up. With a headache. Oh, and it goes without saying that I sleep alone.

The first time they were on I think they did Take Me to the River and Artists Only. Weird moment on SNL: watching David Bowie perform The Man Who Sold The World with Klaus Nomi singing back-up. Weird moment while watching SNL: Watching Gary Numan sing Praying to the Aliens two months after the Bowie performance and having my mother say "I know who that is! That's that same guy that was on there a couple of months ago!" Not sure if she meant Bowie or Nomi.

Yeah, I remember that one too. That was another memorable one, as Costello was in full early-anger form and freaked everybody out by changing songs midstream, starting "Less than Zero" getting a few bars into it, stopping abruptly, and then kicking hard in "Radio Radio". No idea if it was planned or not, the given explanation post-show being that Costello thought that the originally planned song was too British-specific so he called an audible, an yeah, ok, but planned or spontaneous it made for a riveting TV moment, and if you're old enough to remember that little window where all things "punk" (and how ironic in hindsight now to think of Costello as such) carried with them a genuine anarchy, hey, it was a moment. I remember watching that as a teenager and wanting to turn around to someone and say "What the hell was that?" - suddenly that worn-out copy of KISS Alive II just didn't seem as important to me anymore.. The next day I was on my way to the record store for a copy of My Aim Is True. I haven't watched SNL for years but recently the Beastie Boys were on it and were playing "Sabatoge" when EC runs onstage and gives the same I'm-sorry-but-this-song-is-not-appropriate speech. After that, the quartet jumps into "Radio Radio". That was cool. Seeing Devo play "Satisfaction" on SNL freaked me out so much I couldn't sleep. So did Fear.

But you get caught whipping the weasel in a public library and you're banned for life. Or so I've heard...

I heard a bit of this on NPR as bumper music. Sounded interesting.

A friend of mine had taken some lessons from Bergonzi some years back and was the one who introduced me to Bergonzi's music. That version of Caravan from Brubeck's Down Home recording is pretty bad-assed.

I like it. I think it got its title because the recording studio overlooked a skateboard park. I read a really weird review by some skatepunk kid who bought the CD because it had the word "skateboard" in the title. He was expecting something that sounded like the Offspring. I'll have to unleash my Google-fu upon the internets to see if I can find it...

Enjoy a live performance by renowned artist Kenny G this Valentine's Day. Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Could apply to artist as well...

I'm on my second one. My first one was filled with stamps for all of my trips to Japan. I also visited six countries in Europe and it never got stamped once. My crystal ball says that there are some trips to India in my future so maybe I'll get some use from my current passport. I'm kind of concerned about traveling to India though. I've been watching Bollywood movies to learn a little more about the place and I fear that I'll be out of sync with the crowd if an elaborate dance number suddenly begins.

Thanks for posting that article. About the only thing I remember about that Atlanta concert was that I was there (I think) and that they also played Singleton's Secret Desire to be Black . Edited to add: Singleton may have been in attendance that night. He used to be the composer-in-residence for the Atlanta Symphony and turns up now and then for Atlanta-area chamber music performances of his works.

A question for those who knows: About 20 years ago I went to a Kronos Quartet concert in Atlanta. Terry Riley sat in with them on a piece called "Crow's Rosary" or something like that. Was that piece ever recorded and released?

Not Muzak, but supermarket related: When I was working in the small podunk town of Honjo in Japan there was a grocery store (not the Apita store - the other one with the grocery store on the first floor, department store on the second and the bowling alley on the third. The one nearest the train station, over behind the MOS Burger. That one.) that played a single song on a loop for the entire calendar month - the same song, over and over. It was never a Japanese song and it was never classical, but occasionally it might be some jazzy instrumental or something. But the one song that inspired this post that was for the month of January the song was the Carpenters' Top of the World. On February first they changed to a different song: Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols. I left town a week later and they were still playing it - I could hear it from the shopping center parking lot as I walked to the train station.

I think I did once - for the Elvin Jones release. Or maybe it was Sam Rivers - it was a while back...

It's a great label. I've bought tons of their recordings.

Hell, the human ones have an off switch; I'm more concerned with the on switch... Very true. A "mute" button might be nice though...

Is there an OFF switch?

Sorry to hear about it, but things will work out. I think Alan Thicke said it best when he wrote: Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum, What might be right for you, may not be right for some. Not trying to make light, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. With your sense of humor, you'll be fine.

Asia Minor by Tom Harrell, not to be confused with the album Asia Minor by Dizzy Reece.

Or with Zombie Joe Farrell! With all of the advances in medical technology these days, it's only a matter of time.

Some of my favorite violin concertos (that aren't too far out) include the ones by William Schuman, Miklós Rózsa, David Diamond, William Bergsma and Arnold Bax. And seconding the two violin concertos by Walter Piston.

My father had a huge warehouse where he would store our gifts and the gifts of various friends of the family. Note: Only the warehouse was huge. The quantity of gifts, not so much. Anyway, he was dropping off something after hours on Christmas Eve at another family's house and they had him back the truck up to the basement door to unload whatever it was. The next day the kids saw the tracks in the grass that the truck had made and thought they were sleigh tracks. We all did. The greatest scientific minds of Miss Waithe's first grade class declared that there was now empirical evidence of Santa Claus' sleigh, in addition to various half-eaten cookies and consumed glasses of milk (was never sure if we left those out as a thank-you gift or as bait). Plus one year I heard Santa swearing in the living room just before dawn. Not only was he thoughful enough to put the training wheels on my bike but he used my father's tools to do it - and left them next to the tree.

When I was in the first grade, I got a BB gun for Christmas. I had asked Santa for a file cabinet. Don't remember why. About a year later I shot out one of the windows in my father's truck with the BB gun. Shoulda gotten me the file cabinet.

If he can fix a leaking toilet, send him to my house.

John Cage.

Well I was given one and I can honestly say it was the worst Secret Santa gift ever. Stupid co-workers.