Randy Twizzle

I did the "whack thing" back in the 70s.

Are there any studies of kids who think that their sex life (or lack thereof) is nobody's elses business?

And never play cards with any man named Doc.

Wake me when she apologizes for those exercise videos.

MYSTIC, Conn. (AP) -- After bringing in a parade of males and watching for years as nature never took its course, scientists at Mystic Aquarium have performed what is believed to be the first artificial insemination of a beluga whale. Aquarium scientists, with help from their peers at Sea World, artificially inseminated Kela, a 24-year-old beluga, on Thursday morning. After giving the whale hormones to induce the release of an egg into the reproductive tract, workers used a crane to lift Kela out of the water and place her on a mat. Frozen sperm from a Sea World beluga was then inserted. The process took only a few minutes. Scientists plan to use ultrasound and blood tests over the next few days to monitor the 1,156-pound whale with the hope that the procedure worked. Beluga whales have been born in captivity, but never through artificial insemination. Kela would deliver a calf in about 14 months if the procedure was successful, but scientists believe there is only a slim chance of that happening. That is because little is known about beluga reproduction, said Todd Robeck, a veterinarian and reproductive physiologist from Sea World in San Antonio, Texas. ``We don't know whether it will work or won't work, but things went well,'' he told The Day of New London, moments after placing thawed sperm inside Kela with an endoscope. Tracy Romano, the aquarium's director of research and veterinary services, said the birth of a new beluga may not happen because many things can go wrong. ``It's mostly a learning experience and to get information for the future,'' she said. There are about 30 belugas in captivity. Aquariums and water parks across the country want to increase that number. Because it is difficult to get permits to capture wild belugas, the focus has shifted to trying to breed them in captivity. This has meant moving whales from one location to another, which can be stressful for them. Scientists say it would be better to inseminate whales with sperm that can be shipped around the country. They say the work will help them learn about how wild belugas breed and how to better protect them. Robeck has been successful in attempts to artificially inseminate killer whales and dolphins. He and other scientists spent the past three years doing research in preparation for Thursday's procedure. Kela and Naku, the aquarium's female belugas, were not ideal candidates for the procedure because neither had ever been pregnant and because of their advanced age, Robeck said. However, they are extremely well trained, which made the procedure easier. ``There is just an incredible amount of variables involved in this,'' said Gerard Burrow, president and chief executive officer of the aquarium. ``But it's really important for us to understand the reproduction of these animals.''

It's too late for a death watch but I just read that Frank Perdue has died

If AMG is to believed, Jim Nabors once played Trumpet on a 1961 Lil Hardin Armstrong record produced by Chris Albertson. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&t...9l98b5b4tsqs~T4

One of the few things I remember about the short reign John Paul I is that when news of his death came during a broadcast of a NY Yankee game, announcer Phil Rizzuto said "that's puts a damper even on a Yankee victory."

In 1979 when the Pope visited Washington DC there was a motorcade through the city. There were a lot of souvenir vendors on the streets and money was rapidly changing hands, which is probably why I found a $20 bill in the middle of a busy sidewalk. It was my own papal miracle. I spent some of it on "Someday My Prince Will Come" and since then I've always associated the Pope with that album.

Apparently some of the bixophiles at the bix forum also have some doubts http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?for...geid=1111068455

Perhaps "scam" was a little harsh, but I'm sorry if I find the item description a little suspicious. And how the hell does showing a picture of Bix carrying a instrument case validate the item's authenticity.

Miles traveled to Cedar Rapids for this....? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...7501306793&rd=1

From the NY Daily News iPod users had better start keeping their eyes - as well as their ears - open on trains and on the streets. Thefts of the music-playing gizmos, game-playing cell phones and other popular electronic devices are the new trend in subway crime - and are partly responsible for an underground crime surge this year, police said yesterday. But it's not just subway riders who are getting hit - iPodders are increasingly being targeted above ground, too, police sources said. "iPods have made bus stops a choice location for purse snatching," one police source said. Subway felonies overall are up 14% through mid March, compared with the same time period last year. Underground robberies are up nearly 20%, according to police statistics. "The robbery increase is linked to a rash of forced taking of cell phones and iPods by juveniles from other juveniles," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said. Another police source, however, said it's not just teens committing the crimes. "Kids are shaking down other kids for iPods, but adult crooks like them, too," the source said. "Word is out that teachers wear iPods, so snatch-and-grabs are big around schools." Police have been attacking the trend in the subways with "impact teams," each with eight officers and a sergeant, on lines and at stations where robberies are up, Browne said. The iPodders stand out with their telltale white earphones - a dead giveaway they're plugged into a music machine that runs hundreds of dollars. Glen Fox, 26, an advertising agency editor, nearly had his iPod lifted on a Manhattan subway three weeks ago. He felt a series of bumps and spied a young man pulling his iPod out of his jacket pocket. "I yelled and cursed," he said. Eric Diaz, 19, a teacher's assistant in the Bronx, had an unattended iPod stolen from his office at school. He has no fears, however, on the subway. "I'm a black belt [in karate] so I'm not worried," he said. One cop who works the L line in Brooklyn said the thefts often take place at night. The crooks grab an iPod and jump off trains just as the doors are closing - an old-time technique that's proven useful in snatching the high-tech devices. "They time it right and they're home free," the officer said. Browne stressed that although the crime spike has brought the subway system up to about 10 felonies a day, that's well below the 12 to 17 seen daily in 1995-2000.

Straight from the pages of The Onion LAS VEGAS—During a Tuesday press conference at the National Gonzo Press Club, members of the nation's foremost organization of gonzo journalists vowed to carry on the mission of its founder Hunter S. Thompson, who took his life last month. "Now that the whore-beasts and the scum-sucking degenerate rat bastards in Wall Street and the White House are hell-bent on turning us all into pliant, Scripture-mewling puppet-slaveys, we must take up Hunter's fallen colors and charge into the fray," said NGPC president Gene Zolonga, who is the National Affairs and Shark Hunting Editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer. "The next four years will be an unprecedented monument to bestial human ugliness, but I'd sooner let Yakuza thugs strap a rabid wolverine to my groin than shirk my responsibilities as a gonzo journalist." The heavily sweating, speed-frenzied Zolonga then removed a Luger automatic pistol from his coat and shot the microphone with a deafening blast. The NGPC is composed of nearly 3,000 journalists who practice gonzo, a subjective, emotionally charged observational reporting style that is often fueled by recreational drug use. Members of the 34-year-old organization cumulatively hold 14 Pulitzer Prizes, including eight in the Distinguished Weirdness In Feature Writing category. "It's up to us to carry on the mentor's vision and expose all in American life that is strange, terrible, bad, crazy, or bad crazy," Zolonga said. He then climbed onto the podium and emitted a blood-curdling screech. "I am full of love, you motherfucking bastards. Pardon me, I believe my heart just stopped." Gonzo stringer Zach Kiel, who most recently wrote "Fear, Loathing At The Owensboro Parks And Recreation Department" for the Louisville Courier-Journal, said Thompson will go down in the history of American letters as "the greatest gonzo reporter there ever was." "Hunter opposed the editing of half-truths in all of his endeavors," Kiel said. "He had balls like an elephant and a cruelly beautiful prose style to match. He had stiff competition, but I'd say he bested even a hardened pro like Del Armbruster, who once wrote a story about Amazon gold prospectors while engulfed in fire head-to-toe." Even gonzo journalists who have disagreed with Thompson in the past, such as award-winning New York Times columnist Heck Murdo, count him as a freak comrade. "We did have sharp differences in opinion," Murdo said. "He thought Richard Nixon should have had his intestines slowly unwound onto a giant cable spool. I thought he should have been lashed to an oceanside cliff near San Clemente, so that ospreys could feast on his eyes. We feuded for years, at one point conducting a bourbon- and mescaline-fueled motorized-cart demolition derby on a Lake Tahoe golf course. But we patched things up when Dubya was elected, agreeing—to our mutual horror—that Nixon far outclassed that Jesus-loving pinheaded man-child." During the past four decades, gonzo journalists have encountered their share of critical backlash, with college journalism departments around the nation reducing funding for gonzo-journalism programs and local editors questioning the wisdom of covering school-board meetings and slow-pitch softball matches on amyl nitrate. "The gonzo philosophy is not always an effective or practical way to convey fact," Tulsa Daily Courier managing editor Patrick Jacobs said. "Average newspaper readers want to turn to the weather page and see the next day's forecast. They don't really have much use for a map captioned, 'Leeches are sucking my spinal fluid!' And when the sports page contains an unintelligible 3,000-word screed about ballpark hot-dog buns in place of the major-league scores, I get mail." Gonzo entertainment writer Gail Nucci said 14 publications dropped her syndicated gossip column "Vacuous Sluts And Perfidious Dandies" over the course of the past year. "The scores of out-of-work gonzo journalists say it all," said Nucci, an angel-dust abuser who tried to place Hilary Duff under citizen's arrest at the world premiere of Raise Your Voice last October. "Save for a handful of maverick magazine publishers, editors are too busy slobbing the knobs of the men on high to risk publishing an original voice." In spite of these challenges, Zolonga is adamant that gonzo journalism has a place in this century. "The world is growing assuredly weirder," Zolonga said. "Just as history remembers such prominent journalist-commentators as H.L. Mencken and Mike Royko, I have faith that future generations of swine will know the name of Hunter S. Thompson."

Here's a review of a SF concert, that appeared in the July 9, 2001 SF Chronicle. It isn't pretty: Shuggie Otis stumbled going through the door. If the reissue of his 27-year-old lost psychedelic soul masterpiece, "Inspiration Information," on rock star David Byrne's label gave the 47 year- old guitarist a second chance, he didn't help the cause with the debacle of a performance he gave Saturday at the Fillmore Auditorium. Bad enough that a musician missing in action for the better part of a quarter-century should show up for a major headline concert appearance before a near-capacity crowd so obviously unprepared -- he hadn't even bothered to tune his guitar before going onstage and the band clearly didn't know the material -- but by the time he finished his haphazard, inept performance nearly two and a half hours after it started, only a handful of diehards remained in the hall. FLURRIES OF NOTES Even his unquestioned skills on guitar, which earned him an invitation to join the Rolling Stones when he was barely out of his teens, were poorly displayed. His solos were never focused or pointed, just flashy flurries of notes and runs up and down the fretboard that reeked of desperation, a man hopelessly flailing in the water while he drowned. It was a sad, discouraging sight. Otis has lived in near obscurity since the 1974 release of his third solo album, playing as a sideman in bands led by either his father, R&B pioneer Johnny Otis, or his father-in-law, big band jazz arranger Gerald Wilson. He wasn't even working either of those gigs when the CD rerelease hit earlier this year to great critical acclaim and actual sales (the CD has stayed on the best-selling lists, for instance, at the main San Francisco Tower Records store). BAND HADN'T PRACTICED His band, which included his younger brother Nicky on drums, obviously hadn't practiced much (if at all). The three-piece horn section clearly didn't know what was coming next and, while they stayed game throughout the evening, playing riffs from other people's records, they wisely backed away from the microphones early in the proceedings unless they were taking solos, and there were plenty of those. The evening was little more than a pointless blues jam -- something that was made abundantly clear early on, when the trombonist took his second solo by the third song -- and not a very good one at that. Otis switched between guitar and organ, aimlessly, without any strategy. He would just wander over to the organ after laying his guitar down on the stage (since he didn't bring enough stands to hold his three guitars) and noodle to no effect. Sometimes he would change his mind before playing a single note on the keyboard and meander back out front to play guitar. He strapped on an electric bass and, in front of nothing but the other bass and drums, played "lead" bass for about 10 minutes. FORGOT TO PLUG IN He even had trouble simply handling his equipment. He started playing one of his guitars before he remembered to plug it in. He caused feedback when he didn't turn his guitar off and screamed at the sound engineer to stop the feedback (something only Otis could do by turning the guitar down). In fact, he worked over the sound man mercilessly throughout the evening. Usually musicians straighten out these technical problems in advance or pretend they are not happening. To call them out over and over again is an embarrassment to all involved. There wasn't a single moment in the show where Otis seemed on top of his game. Toward the end of the second hour, he suddenly discovered a set list on the back of an amplifier and started consulting it, which may be why he played two songs that he had already performed earlier. If these guys had been auditioning for some low-life dive of a blues bar, they wouldn't have gotten the gig.

The IMDB has this bio for Hundley: "Popular child actor of the 1960s (most remembered for guest roles in "Star Trek" and "Bewitched"). He originated a band named the Craig Hundley Trio in the late 60s and went on to a later successful career (as Craig Huxley) in new age music as a performer, composer and producer.

From the WSJ: One recent Tuesday night at New York's Bowery Ballroom, the Crimea had just finished its second song. The Welsh quintet's first song had gone over fairly well, the second less so, and singer/guitarist Davey MacManus looked out at the still-gathering crowd. Then, from somewhere in the darkness came the cry, "Freebird!" It made this night like so many other rock 'n' roll nights in America. "Freebird" isn't the Crimea's song; it's from the 1973 debut album by legendary Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band's nine-minute march from ruminative piano to wailing guitar couldn't be less like the Crimea's jagged punk-pop. But it was requested nonetheless. Somebody is always yelling out the title. "I don't know that I've ever seen a show where it hasn't happened," says Bill Davis of the veteran country-punk band Dash Rip Rock. "It's just the most astonishing phenomenon," says Mike Doughty, the former front man of the "deep slacker jazz" band Soul Coughing, adding that "these kids, they can't be listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd." Yelling "Freebird!" has been a rock cliché for years, guaranteed to elicit laughs from drunks and scorn from music fans who have long since tired of the joke. And it has spread beyond music, prompting the Chicago White Sox organist to add the song to her repertoire and inspiring a greeting card in which a drunk holding a lighter hollers "Freebird!" at wedding musicians. Bands mostly just ignore the taunt. But one common retort is: "I've got your 'free bird' right here." That's accompanied by a middle finger. It's a strategy Dash Rip Rock's former bassist Ned Hickel used. According to fans' accounts of shows, so have Jewel and Hot Tuna's Jack Casady. Jewel declines to comment. Mr. Casady says that's "usually not my response to those kind of things." Others have offered more than the bird. On a recent live album, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock declares that "if this were the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and you were going to die in 20 minutes -- just long enough to play 'Freebird' -- we still wouldn't play it." Dash Rip Rock often plays "Stairway to Freebird," a mash-up of the Skynyrd epic and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" that Mr. Davis boasts lasts "less than two minutes. ... You're finished before people get mad." A few years ago, Mr. Doughty started promoting the Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men" as the new "Freebird," asking audiences at his solo shows to call for the disco chestnut instead. Now, he says, he gets yells for both songs at every performance. A harsh reaction to "Freebird" came from the late comedian Bill Hicks during a Chicago gig in the early 1990s. On a bootleg recording of the show, Mr. Hicks at first just sounds irked. "Please stop yelling that," he says. "It's not funny, it's not clever -- it's stupid." The comic soon works himself into a rage, but the "Freebirds" keep coming. "Freebird," he finally says wearily, then intones: "And in the beginning there was the Word -- 'Freebird.' And 'Freebird' would be yelled throughout the centuries. 'Freebird,' the mantra of the moron." How did this strange ritual begin? "Freebird" is hardly obscure -- it's a radio staple consistently voted one of rock's greatest songs. One version -- and an important piece of the explanation -- anchors Skynyrd's 1976 live album "One More From the Road." On the record, singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was killed along with two other bandmates in a 1977 plane crash, asks the crowd, "What song is it you want to hear?" That unleashes a deafening call for "Freebird," and Skynyrd obliges with a 14-minute rendition. To understand the phenomenon, it also helps to be from Chicago. When asked why they continue to request "Freebird," Mr. Hicks's tormentors yell out "Kevin Matthews!" Kevin Matthews is a Chicago radio personality who has exhorted his fans -- the KevHeads -- to yell "Freebird" for years, and claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980s, when he says he hit upon it as a way to torment Florence Henderson of "Brady Bunch" fame, who was giving a concert. He figured somebody should yell something at her "to break up the monotony." The longtime Skynyrd fan settled on "Freebird," saying the epic song "just popped into my head." Mr. Matthews says the call was heeded, inspiring him to go down the listings of coming area shows, looking for entertainers who deserved a "Freebird" and encouraging the KevHeads to make it happen. But he bemoans the decline of "Freebird" etiquette. "It was never meant to be yelled at a cool concert -- it was meant to be yelled at someone really lame," he says. "If you're going to yell 'Freebird,' yell 'Freebird' at a Jim Nabors concert." Still, Mr. Matthews treasures his trove of recorded "Freebird" moments -- such as baffled comedian Elayne Boosler wondering why the audience is shouting "reverb." And he argues that good bands simply acknowledge it and move on. "The people who are conceited, the so-called artists who get really offended by it, they deserve it," he says. But did "Freebird" truly start with the KevHeads? Longtime Chicago Tribune music writer Greg Kot says he remembers the cry from the early 1980s. He suggests it originated as an in-joke among indie-rock fans "having their sneer at mainstream classic rock." Other music veterans think it dates back to 1970s audiences' shouts for it and other guitar sagas, such as "Whipping Post," by the Allman Brothers Band, and "Smoke on the Water," by Deep Purple. They may all be right: It's possible "Freebird" began as a rallying cry for Skynyrd Nation and a sincere request from guitar lovers, was made famous by the live cut, taken up by ironic clubgoers, given new life by Mr. Matthews, and eventually lost all meaning and became something people holler when there's a band onstage. But as with many mysteries, the true origin may be unknowable -- cold comfort for bands still to be confronted with the inevitable cry from the darkness. For them, here's a strategy tried by a brave few: Call the audience's bluff. Phish liked to sing it a cappella. The Dandy Warhols play a slowed-down take singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor describes as sung "like T. Rex would if he were on a lot of pills." And Dash Rip Rock has performed the real song in order to surprise fans expecting the parody. For his part, Mr. Doughty suggests that musicians make a pact: Whenever anyone calls for "Freebird," play it in its entirety -- and if someone calls for it again, play it again. "That would put a stop to 'Freebird,' I think," he says. "It would be a bad couple of years, but it might be worth it." So what do the members of Skynyrd think of the tradition? Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie's brother and the band's singer since 1987, says "it's not an insult at all -- I think it's kind of cool. It's fun, and people are doing it in a fun way. That's what music's supposed to be about." Besides, Mr. Van Zant has a confession: His wife persuaded him to see Cher in Jacksonville a couple of years ago, and he couldn't resist yelling "Freebird!" himself. "My wife is going, 'Stop! Stop!' " he recalls, laughing. "I embarrassed the hell out of her."

...wrapped in Nelson Riddle

You need to hear my opinion like a moose needs a hat rack.

I just hope and pray that no broadcasts of Columbia baseball games are preempted by this festival.

ANDOVER, N.J. (AP) -- Wildlife officials set a trap, baited with bacon and molasses, in hopes of catching a bear Friday that killed a pony and dragged its carcass away. ``No other animal would have the strength to do that kind of harm,'' said Elaine Makatura, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection. The owner found the pony's body Thursday at her farm in Sussex County in northern New Jersey. The 15-year-old pony, named Phantom, suffered a broken neck and was dragged through two electric fences and up a hill. Bear prints were found. ``It was a big, big print,'' Patrolman Rod Mosner said. ``It's amazing (the bear) had that much strength and power to drag a pony that far.'' The pony weighed at least 250 pounds. This time of year, bears are starting to leave the dens where they hibernated in winter, and spring plants have not grown enough to be a substantial food source, wildlife officials said.

He was also a Son of a Dentist.

I thought Ray Noble said that during a broadcast from the Rainbow Room

Well my brother has lived in Greenbelt, Prince Georges County MD for 15 years and there's a lot of trafffic, strip malls and unconcealed weapons there also. However I don't think there are many Republicans running around. Of course I realize that PG county isn't nearly as prestigious as Montgomery Co. My brother can only dream of one day living in Rockville, Chevy Chase or Bethesda.