Alexander

That reminds me of a famous incident when I was in high school. Our English teacher was going to screen "Romeo and Juliet" for us (or some such film). She pops the tape into the VCR, hits play, and "Debbie Does Dallas" starts! Hello!

B.B. King was doing it before Stevie. I don't mind melisma at all, when it's done by someone who actually knows what they're doing. And while Whitney and Mariah kicked off the trend, it's the younger singers (Christina Agulara, for example) who have turned it into self-parody. Christina sings so many notes that she sounds like she's yodling. That's what the "American Idol" contestants emulate. Would that they would TRY to sing like Whitney or Mariah! They seem positively tasteful next to Christina or the latest AI bonehead!

Too many boxing "experts" (and non-experts, as in the case of Crouch and Early) and not enough damn boxers! So far, there's only been one in the whole film!

Alphabetical by artist, then chronological by recording date. Everything stays in its place, and I never have any problems.

In the mid to late 80s, Frank Miller (who created Elektra in the pages of "Daredevil") and Bill Sienkiewicz produced the superb "Elektra: Assassin" mini-series, which has been collected in paperback form for those who are interested. To me, the series is the final word on the character.

Agreed. Got rid of my copy because of the damned organ! I like the OP, btw...

Truely, MLK was among the greatest - if not THE greatest - Americans of the 20th century. We'll not soon see his like again. When I'm teaching, I'd like to dedicate a week or so around this time each January (in both English and Social Studies) to studying Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, regardless of what we're working on. Just take some time out to learn about and discuss the life and work of a really great man. I've said it before, but if there's ever a man who DESEVES to be on a dollar bill, it's MLK.

Exploitation is exploitation, pure and simple. Justify it however you like, but the fact is that sex performers are exploited horribly regardless of the industry (porn, stripping, etc.). I know you have some experience in the phone sex industry, Dan. You can't tell me that there was no exploitation going on there. When I was in grad school (getting my Master's in English), as a matter of fact, I worked as a graduate assistant to a professor who was writing a book on porn. I participated in several interviews with both actors and actresses who worked (or were still working) in the adult film industry, and I can tell you, these weren't bedtime stories. Most of not all of these people (men and women alike) came from backgrounds of abuse (sexual and otherwise). Many told hair raising stories of rape, drug addiction, extortion and worse. This went for men and women alike. Yes, I know that women generally make more money then men in adult films, but the MOST money is made by the producers who are the ones making money off of the misery of others. As a Marxist (and no, Marx didn't write about stripping and/or porn films per se, although he did address prostitution) my beef isn't with the morality of porn or stripping, but with the abuses of power and the havock it creates in the lives of those who are exploited. If a strip club were owned and operated by the women who stripped there (the workers own the means of production), I would have no objection to it. But you and I both know that if that ever happens, it is extremely rare. I do have some objection to the commidfication of sex and the objectification of women, however, but that's a subject for another discussion. Are there happy, well-adjusted porn stars? I'm sure there are. But the majority of the ones I came in contact with were not among them. BTW, I do know a stripper. I went to high school with a woman who wound up stripping to pay for school. She's not doing it now, and while she has few regrets about doing it, she does worry about what she's going to tell her kids about it in the future...

Being a Marxist, I can't help seeing things in terms of power. The fact that strippers may or may not be well-paid is beside the point. The point is that displaying one's naked flesh for money is an act of desparation and degradation. Individuals who strip are being exploited, no matter how good the pay. How much money is dignity worth? What about self-respect? It's not that a naked body is shameful, far from it. Our puritanical culture has, paradoxically, increased the monitary worth of naked flesh by covering it up. I've actually visited a strip club on a couple of occasions. In the first couple of cases it was because I was young and with friends who wanted to go there, but on the third and most recent occasion, it was simply to see what the big deal was about. Well, I don't know about other men, but I didn't find the experience erotic at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. To see a woman put her self on display for a group of shabby looking men (none of whom looked all that interested in the first place) was really quite disgusting. A line from Alan Moore kept running through my head the whole time (about 15 minutes) I was there: "This is the only dance that's ever been going on. Pussy dance. Money dance. Poverty dance. Need dance." It was the first time I'd been in such a place in over ten years, and I feel no need to do it again... Anyway, yes it was extremely inappropriate to discuss such a thing with 8th graders. Point of fact, it would be equally inappropriate to discuss such things with 12th graders or even college students. Stripping isn't a profession. It's a last resort before homelessness.

I recently got that Bechet album. Great stuff, ain't it? B-) I'm at work, so I'm not spinning it now, but I recently got a copy of "Sonny Stitt and the Giants" which I've been enjoying immensely. A patron here at the library where I work part-time gave it to me after I told him I'd gotten a record player for my birthday! Very nice indeed! It features Howard McGhee, Kenny Clarke, Tommy Potter, and Walter Bishop, Jr. I'd never heard anything with McGhee from this late date before (1967).

Jesus! See, I always liked the "Hitsville USA" box set better than any of the Stax boxes *because* they didn't try to go the "complete" route, making "Hitsville" one of the best set ever. A twelve volume set? Too much! Who in the world NEEDS that much Motown?!

That threw me too.

Hey! This is NOT a pipe!

You may be right. I haven't heard that album in many years. My recollection was that there were some pretty weak songs (except for "Eight Days A Week"), but if "Yes It Is" is on it, than that does make something of a difference. I don't know about "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," though. I always thought it was the least of Lennon's rock and roll covers ("Twist and Shout," "Money," "Bad Boy" and "Rock and Roll Music" are much, much better). I don't know. The post "Hard Days Night" pre "Rubber Soul" material always seemed tired to me. With the exception of a few songs, both "Beatles for Sale" and "Help!" lack both the exuberance of their earlier work and the sophistication of their later work. It's a weak period, and given that in the US "Beatles 65" and the "Help!" soundtrack had used up most of the A material on those albums, "Beatles VI" was a pale reflection of something that wasn't so great to begin with.

I've been listening to the Brookmeyer Mosaic Select, and he's one artist who always manages to bring a smile to my face. His playing has the same ascerbic wit that is demonstrated in his liner notes. It's impossible to listen to Brook and not smile!

Here's a little tid-bit... Although "Meet The Beatles" was the first Capitol album, it wasn't the first American Beatles release. Roughly a year earlier, after Capitol initially declined to release the Beatles in the US (and *they* were the friggin subsidiary of EMI, not the other way around), there was an unsuccessful attempt to release a version of "Please Please Me" stateside under the title "Introducing the Beatles." The lable? None other than Vee Jay! I believe it was the entire "Please Please Me" album (minus the title track and "Love Me Do"), and this was essentially what Capitol released as "The Early Beatles" (right down to the two missing tracks) a couple of years later during Beatlemania. To me, the most USLESS Capitol album was a thing called "The Beatles VI." This excrement was made up of all the tracks from "Beatles for Sale" and "Help!" that hadn't been released on their US counterparts. Since this stuff was filler anyway, it combined to create the limpest, most deadly DULL Beatles album of all time (except for "Eight Days A Week," which is an awesome song). I did cave in and buy the box set, btw. Since I grew up listening to these albums (especially "Beatles 65" which was a favorite of mine), I must grudgingly admit that it is a hoot to hear these albums again in all their cheesey fake-stereo glory. Man, they are short albums though! I was able to listen to all four (stereo mixes only) in about an hour or so!

I always wonder what goes through the heads of people who create hoaxes like this. It's bad enough when disasters like the Tsnami or 9/11 happen, and there are plenty of real horrors vying for our attention. But then some schmuck who's starved for attention decides to play on people's sympathy and the end result is that everyone is a little more jaded, and little less trusting... Pathetic.

Laugh all you want, but there's a reason for these warning lables. Somebody somewhere was dumb enough to try at least some of these things at some point. KENT BROCKMAN: There's only one cure for "football fever..." Take two tickets, and go see Saturday's game! ANNOUNCER: Tickets not to be taken internally. HOMER: See? Because of me, they have a warning!

Ethiopia is regarded as the spiritual homeland of Rastafarians. The Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie is regarded as having been a living incarnation of Jah. While many Jamaicans might object to this move, serious Rastafarians will probably support it. As to whether one would "give up a continent for an island," it is important to remember that Jamaica was essentially a sugar plantation up until the 19th century. Not only are all black Jamaicans decendents of slaves, but it was an especially brutal slavery (much worse than that experienced by American blacks). Think of it: Of the millions of Africans brought to the west as slaves, only 8% went to the North American Colonies! I'm serious! The rest went to the Carribean and South America (mostly Brazil). Treatment of slaves in Jamaica was so severe that they did not have a self-sustaining black population until the early 19th century! No kidding! They worked the slaves to death, and then imported more to replace them! And this went on for 200 years (the earliest plantations in Jamaica date back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries). All of this is to say that blacks in Jamaica do not have a happy history. Remember what Peter Tosh said: "Don't matter where you come from, as long as you a black man you are an African..."

That happened to my cousin while she was working in her step-dad's shop. She didn't like to talk about it. I imagine it must've been pretty traumatic! You have my sympathy!

My wife is a big fan of the original BSG series, and she watched the mini-series last year. I know she was disappointed on a couple of counts. Being a huge Dirk Benedict fan back in the day, she's outraged that Starbuck is now a girl. She also doesn't care for Edward James Olmos as Adama (the Lorn Greene character).

"M" and "The Wages of Fear" (Le Salaire de la Peur) are both amazing suspense films. "M" was directed by the great Fritz Lang and stars Peter Lorre as a child murderer who is pursued by both the police and the underworld (Lang's use of the Peer Gynt suite as the killer's theme is brilliant and creepy). "The Wages of Fear" is a nail-biter involving (I believe) a prison work team forced to drive a jeep full of nitroglycerine over a bumpy road. It stars Yves Montand. **edit to correct my horrendous French**

Congrats! Mine is almost five now. It never stops getting better...

Well, apparently for Americans who don't follow the news CAREFULLY, it's new news...

Here we see the common prejudice against guitarists and trombonists. Damn those guitarists and trombonists anyhow!!!