The Mule

Not on cd, but on Argo there's The Three Souls' DANGEROUS DAN EXPRESS featuring Sonny Cox on alto. Great version of "Milestones" on that one...

To all Cubs fan (me among them): "Forget it, Jake. It's Wrigleyville...."

I dunno about all this "it was just a natural reaction" talk. I saw pictures in the newspaper today that very clearly show every other fan in the area with their arms against their bodies leaning AWAY from the ball to give Alou a chance to catch it EXCEPT this jamoke and the other idiot. Seems a few people had enough sense to steer clear of the ball. PLUS that was very close to a fan interference call. That ball was right on the edge of the stands. Yet another reason they should have stayed in their seats.... ugh..

I don't disagree, but it had more to do with that blown doubleplay that would have ended the inning.... As a lifelong Cubs fan I finally recognized the team I grew up with last night. Word of advice to that fan: Move to Nebraska.....

Thanks, Weizy, but I'm not as panicked about Schwarzenegger as some of my brethren. Given the choices, he wasn't the worst, although his abuse of women may continue to haunt his career in politics... I'm more pissed off about EMusic!!!!

....and I've been downloading while all you East-Coasters are sleeping......

Yeah, this new system stinks compared to what we enjoyed previous. However, I agree that when the average download service charges $1 a tune, 40 tunes for $10 or 65 for $15 is still a bargain. It's nowhere near as good a bargain as it once was, but I'm not cancelling yet.... And, yes, for the first time since I've been on EMusic the download system was all jammed up this morning...

I agree. Clint seemed to have one question: "So who first inspired you to play the blues?" Otherwise it was a pretty good show. A bit scant on historical information, but at least he let people play entire tunes.

Sounds like Bob... I witnessed a couple of his fits when I was a customer. Hey, Chuck, were you ever involved in any of those 16mm screenings of old soundies and musicals Bob used to have at the old JRM?

Well, I'm glad there are some more favorable reports of the Burnett episode. I'll be sure to watch it. I enjoyed last nights as well and agree there was a little too much time spent with Tom Jones. I thought some of the interviews--especially with the older guys--were really interesting. What did you guys think of the Chicago blues episode? I haven't seen that one yet but a friend of mine (who is from Chicago like I am) loved it, although he admitted it might have been pure homesickness and nostalgia...

I've taped this segment but haven't watched it yet. I spoke to a friend who has really liked the first three episodes of the series and is a big Charles Burnett fan and he thought the Burnett episode was a disaster too. I'm almost afraid to watch it now....

And he fucked Salma Hayek! Oh, wait, that was the movie.....

Well, I've got a long fuse but when it blows people tend to duck and cover...

Totally agree. I honestly believe that it's big biz corporate policy to treat the customer with contempt. Tried to deal with your cable company lately? The phone company? A bank? Yeah, I know....This is the thing, tho, I start out very pleasant and professional, then I move to firm and quietly authoritative, then I move to terse and steely, and then and only then do I threaten. But I don't usually raise my voice. I just sound like I mean it....

Instantly forgiven!! I'm glad you understand!

I actually had the 10" Sadi Blue Note record in my hands at a used record store in Santa Barbara, CA, but the owner wanted $500 for it!!!!

Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that this a problem when you've got that job. My only point is that in America these days there seems be a distinctly hostile attitude toward the customer--all customers--and companies make it almost impossible to get any kind of satisfaction if you've got a problem. I was in a cell phone store the other day and the girl behind the counter acted like she couldn't be bothered to deal with me. I'm talking she wouldn't lift a finger to make a sale. If I owned that store it would make me insane. She was literally driving people out of the shop with her horrible attitude.

Not here, man. These days I'm convinced that the first page of the customer service manual sez: "Make it utterly frustrating and time-consuming for the customer to get any satisfaction. It is our hope that the customer will then simply give up and go away and no further action need be taken." To tell this story fully would take up about 150 paragraphs, but here's the short version: I recently purchased a rather expensive chair for my home which broke (a spring bracket) about two weeks after I purchased it. I called customer service and they quickly dispatched a repair man to my home. I take the morning off to wait for him. He showed up, looked at it, and said, "The bracket is broken." No friggin' kidding as that's WHAT I TOLD THEM. I said, "Great! Fix it!" He says, "Oh, no, I'll have to come back. I'll have to order the part." I sez, "How long?" He sez, "Six weeks." SIX WEEKS?!?! He leaves. I call customer service back and they tell me, "Oh, no, we never told you he'd fix the chair on site. That was a consultation." "Funny, you didn't make that clear to me on the phone when I scheduled the visit. Indeed, I'll bet you purposely don't tell your customers that because they wouldn't stand for it. You're telling me that it's your POLICY to make the customer take AT LEAST two days off work to get their furniture fixed?," said I. "Well, sir, it takes six weeks to get the part because it has to be ordered from Europe. From Italy," she sez. I finally lost it then. "You mean to tell me that you don't have ONE lousy spring bracket for this chair in the ENTIRE UNITED STATES?" Long and short of it is, I asked for her boss and then the boss above that one and then spoke to the manager of the store I purchased the chair from (because of course the store employs an independent contractor to repair their furniture) and then I spoke to the person above her. I lost my temper and one point and said I'd be returning the chair by tossing it through their store window if they didn't give me satisfaction. Miraculously, the Italian bracket suddenly appeared in the city of Los Angeles and my chair was fixed four days later....

Hey, now! I only lose my temper when a conservative posts a stupid or untrue thought. I don't think you guys are always wrong.... Besides, I'm a Sicilian from Chicago...we have tempers and we lose them on occasion....

To question number one: Hmmm....let me think.....NO! I admire your restraint and politeness. I think I would have lost my temper once I realized what he was implying. As to the rest of it, I would either call or go there in person and demand an apology. I would also ask to speak to the manager or owner and inform them of what happened. I would also find out who the corporate parent of this company is (assuming there is one) and write them a letter explaining what happened. They should know. I don't take things like this lying down. I think every consumer who has had a bad experience with a company or product should take their beef as far up the corporate ladder as they can get. I've often found that the higher-ups are actually glad to know what's going on in their stores that they never hear about. Don't take no for an answer when dealing with customer service. Always get the names of the people you're dealing with and ALWAYS ask to speak to their superiors if you're unhappy.

Dude, if that actually happens it will begin raining frogs shortly thereafter and then the plague of locusts will come....

As a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan who had his heart crushed in 1969, I'm still pretending this isn't happening.... Must....Not...Let....Self....Hope......

Eastwood's sounds interesting, but not exactly all about the blues.... VARIETY Posted: Tue., Sep. 30, 2003, 1:19pm PT Piano Blues (Documentary; PBS, Sat., Oct. 4, 9 p.m.) Filmed in Northern California by Vulcan Prods. and Road Movies as part of "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues." Producers, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Ricker; co-producer, Susan Motamed; associate producers, Salinah El-Amin, Agnes Chu; director, Eastwood; writer, Peter Guralnick; With: Marcia Ball, Pinetop Perkins, Dave Brubeck, Jay McShann, Ray Charles, Dr. John, Henry Gray, Pete Jolly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By PHIL GALLO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The final chapter of "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues," Clint Eastwood's "Piano Blues" takes the greatest liberties in defining the musical form. Eastwood adds a more personal touch than the other six films -- the director is seen onscreen asking broad questions and eventually even answering his own query -- as he looks at a baker's dozen of keyboardists, most of whom would find their work filed under jazz in record stores and personal collections. While the program lacks spelled-out links to connect jazz greats with the blues, "Piano" fulfills in providing lengthy performance segments and fabulous footage of the great New Orleans stylist Professor Longhair. To accept Eastwood's definition of a "blues pianist" requires a redistricting of the blues terrain. He establishes ground zero with boogie-woogie pianists Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, though he gives no dates (they emerged in the 1930s) or historical data (they were Midwesterners who found a broad audience after the Carnegie Hall "Spirituals to Swing" concert in 1939). Building flashy styles with roots in ragtime, boogie-woogie, more than any other blues style, had a run in high-society circles before petering out as most fads do. The boogie-woogie champs certainly had an impact on the New Orleans pianists over the two decades that followed the style's popularity, though "Piano Blues" doesn't draw a direct line to Fats Domino or Professor Longhair (and completely ignores Roosevelt Sykes). Ray Charles is seated on the piano bench next to Eastwood, and as much as the two share their enthusiasm for similar musicians, interviews don't move along the story. Also, it's curious that among his other partners at the piano are jazzmen Dave Brubeck and Pete Jolly, both of whom have recorded fine work that involves shifting meters and obscure time signatures. No matter how much they plead an affinity to the blues, the simplicity of that style runs counter to their own compositions and perfs. Dr. John and Marcia Ball, who join him later on the bench, explore New Orleans styles, and Muddy Waters' pianist Pinetop Perkins presents the Chicago side of the story. Henry Gray, a former Howlin Wolf sideman and possibly the most obscure player in this entire series, provides some gut-pounding downhome blues and Jay McShann, in new and historical footage, brings together blues and big band, Kansas City style. With Charles as his guide and a voiceover in "Dirty Harry" diction, Eastwood's historical footage overloads on jazz players. There's Art Tatum, the underappreciated Phineas Newborn Jr. and an abundance of Oscar Peterson, even a series in which he duets with Andre Previn. Add to that an unnecessary perf of Charles doing "America." Footage of Nat "King" Cole is accompanied by Charles' commentary on his early work, but tapes of the late Charles Brown appear out of nowhere. The link between those three is vital toward understanding West Coast blues in the late 1940s and early '50s, when Brown and Cole were the trendsetters and Charles was a young upstart in Seattle. Like the boogie-woogie players, their music was rooted in the blues but decorated with soothing flourishes that had an appeal to both black and white audiences; only Brown stayed with the style as Cole went into the pop arena and Charles changed the face of popular music by incorporating gospel into his work. None of this is mentioned in Peter Guralnick's expansive text. The treat in "Piano Blues," however, is the artful and sinuous camera work of Vic Losick. He gets a limited canvas -- a recording studio -- and his work exquisitely frames the pianists at work. camera, Vic Losick; editor, Joel Cox, Gary Roach. 92 MIN.

Well, this movie has always been a guilty-pleasure for me. It's so over-the-top and operatic that it's impossible to really take seriously. From Pacino's performance to the level of violence to the huge piles of cocaine it's all just TOO MUCH. But it's really entertaining... As far as the cult, I really think it goes back to the appeal of every gangster film since the 1930s. Americans like their outlaws. They like the fantasy of the little guy outside the system who ruthlessly builds an empire for himself against all odds. They even dig the price one inevitably has to pay--death. The remake of SCARFACE introduces an even stronger element of machismo to the whole thing which, I suspect, appeals to the hip-hop generation. Hip-hoppers are big fans of THE GODFATHER films, too, but SCARFACE is bigger, louder, more defiantly in-your-face. I just picked up the dvd and there's a 30-minute documentary entitled: "Origins of a Hip-Hop Classic" which contains interviews with P. Diddy, Eve, Method Man. The package claims that they'll tell us how this classic film (their words, not mine) has influenced their lives and music. Once I view this I will report back...

FWIW, some reviews of upcoming episodes in the series from VARIETY: Posted: Sat., Sep. 6, 2003, 12:00pm PT The Road To Memphis A Road Movies and Vulcan Prods. presentation in association with Cappa Prods. and Jigsaw Prods. as part of "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues." Produced by Robert Kenner. Co-producer, Melissa Adelson. Directed by Richard Pearce. Written by Robert Gordon. With: B.B. King, Bobby Rush, Ike Turner, Little Milton, Rosco Gordon, Rufus Thomas, Calvin Newborn, Hubert Sumlin, Chris Spindel, Don Kern, Louis Cannonball Cantor, Cato Walker III, Little Milton Campbell, Sam Phillips, Jim Dickinson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By PHIL GALLO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Memphis isn't what it used to be -- especially Beale Street, the former center of the black community, now a haven for tourist traps and mediocre blues bands. Richard Pearce, who shot "Woodstock" and Neil Young's "Rust Never Sleeps," uses the city as a metaphor for the road warriors who got their start in west Tennessee: B.B. King, Rosco Gordon, Ike Turner and Bobby Rush. With its tone of disappointment and resignation, "The Road to Memphis" is a vital testimony in support of Martin Scorsese's "Blues" project: Wait any longer and all the city's artists will be dead -- and all the studios, save for Sun, will have met the wrecking ball. Sadness permeates "The Road to Memphis," which tells less about music than it does about its musicians; Memphis has institutionally turned its back on its black heritage since the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and for the last 30 years, the road out of town is the one black artists are far more likely to have traveled. Pearce trails his subjects like a hunter waiting for birds. He allows some of that downtime to creep into his piece, which posits blues musicians as everyday workers, stripping them of celebrity or glamour. "Road to Memphis" is about the blues in the here and now -- historical footage is kept to a minimum -- and it establishes the notion that this remains a hard life for anyone who chooses it. Jim Dickinson, a member of the North Mississippi Allstars and a longtime Memphis producer, is Pearce's proof that some still find validity in the lifestyle. Pic's cornerstone is a reunion show of the four Memphis artists, and Pearce introduces them in a hierarchical scale: King is a passenger in his well-appointed bus; Rush is his own bus driver. Everyone seems to know Ike Turner, whose musical reputation keeps doors open; Gordon pleads for recognition. King's presence is the obvious mainstream appeal here. He got his start in Memphis on KDIA, the radio station he revisits in "Memphis" and, with two current DJs, reminisces about jingles and the former station owners who turned it into the first station run by black people in the U.S. He is a weary traveler, yet a model of graciousness. Rush is the contrast. He drives and repairs his three buses as he roams the chitlin circuit he has been performing on since he left Chicago and its pure blues in the late 1960s. Rush, like Little Milton, who is also prominently featured in "Road to Memphis," plays a funky soul version of the blues that parlays temptation, fortitude and the prurient, and one of the best scenes in this series is Rush on the dance floor with one of his backup singers shaking her elastic rump. Proof that it's all just a show hits home when he drives all night to attend Sunday services that, in the tenor of the music, are just as rocking as Saturday night. The indifference of locals to Memphis' black musical roots exasperates Gordon more than the others. His story is one of a man skipped over: Turner discovered him in the early 1950s, and although he never had any major hits, the loping beat on his records was a major influence on the Jamaican musicians who created ska. Gordon dies soon after the concert, and thankfully Pearce doesn't sentimentalize his passing. Posted: Tue., Sep. 2, 2003, 9:38pm PT Godfathers & Sons (Documentary) A Road Movies and Vulcan Prods. presentation in association with Cappa Prods. and Jigsaw Prods. as part of "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues." Produced by Daphne Pinkerson, Marc Levin, Margaret Bodde. Co-producer, Richard Hutton. Directed by Marc Levin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By PHIL GALLO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Levin draws the assignment, in Martin Scorsese's "Blues" project, of finding a new way to examine the most oft-told blues story this side of the crossroads: Electric Blues 101. Story consists of a neighborhood (Chicago's Southside), a record label (Chess), two superstars (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf) and a songwriter (Willie Dixon), but Levin goes the extra mile by connecting the legacy of Muddy and Wolf with modern hip-hop artists. "Godfathers & Sons" succeeds in making the blues come alive for a new generation. Bonus is Levin's technique -- he adds a cinema verite take on the city's contempo club scene to his blues 'n' rap story and adds a few B&W clips from the 1960s that make the blues appear regal, vital and thriving. For story and filmmaking technique alone, "Godfathers & Sons" is the crown jewel in the Scorsese series. Levin's project is smacked with good fortune at its outset as rapper Chuck D (Public Enemy) has just contacted Marshall Chess, son of label co-founder Leonard Chess, about a project involving Muddy Waters' much maligned album "Electric Mud." Point of view for much of "Godfathers" is that of young Chess, and he sees the "Electric Mud" update as a bit of redemption; in 1968, when he was trying to make his mark in his father's shadow and revive Waters' career, he wound up making what purists considered the worst blues album ever. Chuck D's interest in the album energizes Chess, who learned the record biz from his father and then ran the Rolling Stones' empire for seven years. The two men hit city haunts -- the original Chess studios at 2120 Michigan Ave., Maxwell Street, a club or two -- and embark on re-assembling the Electric Mud band. A portly crew, the band members arrive in New York and reminisce about their misunderstood project, bash critics and get to work making a modern version of the recording. What we hear is very solid funk that sounds more in tune with modern R&B than the blues of the 1960s. Levin further personalizes the city's scene via Sam Lay, the Chess session drummer who played with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the act that made the blues cool for many a teenage rocker in the 1960s. Butterfield, who few will argue was the greatest white blues artist ever, led a multiracial band that kept a parochial view of how the blues should be played and in turn attracted an audience that would be receptive to the genre's originals. Via Lay, who supplied compelling home movies, Levin is able to directly connect his generation and its idols -- Bob Dylan, for example -- to the music Chess recorded in the 1950s; throughout the piece, fathers and sons are a recurring theme. Visits with legends occur in two places: a darkened club where Koko Taylor is giving a whale of a performance, and the stage at the Chicago Blues Festival where Sunnyland Slim is trying to entertain 250,000 people. Outdoor footage at the fest has a news footage feel that's out of character with the rest of the film and has the lightest impact on the overall story; curiously it works as a break from the intensity of the rest of the pic. Mark Benjamin's camera, however, is consistently in the right place throughout. Grainy black-and-white is so perfect for the music it creates a sense of urgency on par with the music playing. The heat and sweat is palpable. PBS will air "Godfathers & Sons" Oct. 2. Posted: Sat., Sep. 6, 2003, 12:00pm PT Red, White And Blues (Docu) A Road Movies and Vulcan Prods. presentation in association with Cappa Prods. and Jigsaw Prods as part of "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues." Produced by Louise Hammar, Shirani Sabratnam. Directed by Mike Figgis. With: Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, John Porter, Humphrey Lyttelton, George Melly, Lonnie Donnegan, Chris Barber, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, B.B. King, Albert Lee, Chris Farlowe, Bert Jansch, Eric Burdon, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Steve Winwood, Davey Graham, Georgie Fame, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Lulu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By PHIL GALLO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Van Morrison is the first performer seen in Mike Figgis' didactic recounting of the blues' effect on rock musicians in the 1960s. The idiosyncratic genius, hanging his hatted head over a microphone and expressively mumbling lyrics, Morrison demonstrates he intuitively knows more about the genre than virtually anyone practicing the art form today -- never mind that he hails from Belfast, a good 6,000 miles from the birthplace of the blues. It's Morrison's performance that stands out in Figgis' "Red White and Blues," an assemblage of talking heads recalling the assimilation of American roots music into British pop. In their world, there was little distinction between Robert Johnson or Bunk Johnson, the Mississippi blues legend and the New Orleans jazz originator, respectively. But from World War II to the mid-1960s, Brit musicians absorbed anything American, so long as they saw it as authentic. Figgis sheds light on a portion of rock 'n' roll history that has often been misunderstood or at least not told in its entirety. Incorporation of American roots music into British popular music dates back to the '40s when English acts championed an exact replication of early jazz. As that phase petered out, skiffle music set American folk music to a backbeat, with Lonnie Donnegan making an unlikely hit out of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line." Sequentially, the next stop was obviously the blues. The well-known part of the story is that British acts of the 1960s -- Rolling Stones, Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Them, Cream, Spencer Davis Group -- championed American blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Sonny Boy Williamson. Unknown to the young Brits, though, was that these musicians were largely forgotten at home; the American blues revival that preceded the British Invasion focused on the acoustic folk side of the blues and not the harder-edged electric music that influenced the likes of Eric Burdon and Mick Jagger. It's the lesser-known players, Georgie Fame and Chris Farlowe, who proffer the great stories in "Red White & Blues," with John Mayall and Mick Fleetwood supplying lucid accounts of performing with the legends themselves. Jeff Beck -- who has a scrumptious duet with Lulu and less successful workouts with Tom Jones -- explains string bending, a bit of inside baseball, but the sort of detail that gives "Red White & Blues" its heft.