Dave James

I think Bev is trying to disrupt the intent for which this thread was designed, prepositionally speaking.

BINGO! Sometimes I think folks are just trying to demonstrate the depth of their musical expertise by coming up with names a lot of us have never even heard of. Same with the "What Are You Reading" or "What Are You Watching" threads. Seems like there's a need to authenticate a level of intellectual superiority that I find off-putting.

No doubt, my prepositional predilection is the result of a strict Jesuit education. While I don't remember having my knuckles rapped with a ruler to drive home the point, I'm not saying it didn't happen either. Nonetheless, I will do whatever is necessary, up to and including abandoning a thought altogether, to avoid ending a sentence with a proposition. New Age grammarians be damned.

Winston Churchill is known for saying, "That is something up with which I will not put." Being a proper grammarian, he was careful not to end a sentence with a preposition.

I'd be all over a BOB/Pacific treatment of the war on the Eastern Front. Problem is it doesn't involve the American army or even the Brits. I'm afraid that might make it a ptetty tough sell to HBO or an HBO-like underwriter.

If you haven't seen this one, you're missing a cracker jack film. Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto and even Demi Moore give bravura performances in a story about one New York firm's last day run-up to the 2008 financial meltdown. I've seen it twice. Exceptionally good.

Agreed. Must see TV. The Killing followed by Mad Men makes for a nice Sunday evening's worth of top drawer entertainment.

One Was is. One Was isn't. Was not Was.

Seems to me there was a thread not so long ago that was either about Peter King or involved him. I know it caused me to go to the mattresses for an hour or so listening to some of his music. Definitely sponge worthy.

Hailey Niswanger.

Jeez, I finally think I've got one that will take a little time and FFA nails it inside two hours. No fair.

Yeah, but he'd make it sound better.

I remember when he broke into the majors and everybody was raving over his pitching prowess. Sorry to see it end this way, though. Yet another indication that the human arm was not designed to throw overhand. The baseball boneyard is littered with careers that never materialized, were never fully realized or that were cut woefully short. Just ask David Clyde.

The Yankees are 3-60 with runners in scoring position during the month of May! Mark Tiexiera, the worst offender in a group replete with offenders, says he might take a day off this weekend (emphasis on "might") but that he's in the starting lineup for the long haul. Interesting. When, if I may be so bold, did players begin making decisions about who would take the field? No doubt, this the result of the mega-contracts that baseball in general and the Yankees in particular have been throwing around over the last decade. I guess when your deal is in the nine figure range, all kinds of clout accrues regardless of one's performance. Maybe a fall from grace along the lines of the late 80's and early 90's is just what the doctor ordered. For a Yankee fan, this is pretty discouraging.

Oh, it's flakey alright, but I love this kind of stuff. It's similar to a couple of questions I like to ask people after I've gotten to know them a bit. 1) If you had to spend the next six months confined to a hospital bed, who (living or dead) would you like to have in the bed next to you? 2) If you were stranded on the proverbial desert island and you had all you needed to drink, which three foods would you take with you? I'll have to give some additional thought to my dinner guests. The only one I know for sure would be John Lennon.

In the early to mid-60's, there was an equipment innovation in hockey that wound up profoundly changing the game. The curved blade. This began when some players experimented with creating curvature by heating the blades of a stick with either steam or a hand held torch and bending it while holding it in a grate or underneath a door. All kinds of weird things ensued depending on how the stick was shaped and since, at the time, league rules did not address such modifications, they became very bizarre. Bobby Hull used sticks with as much as a three inch curvature. What that caused the puck to do was even stranger. Much in the manner of baseball's split fingered fastball, drops, dips and knuckling were all part of it, but it also increased the speed of the puck as it left the stick. Since this was an era when most goaltenders were still not wearing masks, this new development made their lives even more difficult and dangerous. Terry Sawchuk's face, shown here, is a good example: At that point, the league stepped in an began regulating sticks. In today's game, the maximum allowable bend is just 3/4". The rule of thumb is that if you can pass a dime underneath the blade, them the bend is excessive. The composition of the sticks has also changed. Everything used to be laminated wood. Then the material morphed from aluminum to graphite, carbon fiber, titanium and even kevlar but, even in the face of these technological improvements, there's never been anything like the curved blade. Point being, in the "renegade" days of the early '60's, there was more behind the so-called "heaviness" of certain player's shots than just the men who were shooting them.

In 1964, when I was 15, my Dad, my brother and I went to Chicago Stadium to watch the Blackhawks play the Canadiens. Glenn Hall was tending goal for Chicago. In the third period, Bernie Geoffrion had a mini-breakaway, but the Blackhawks defensemen had the angle on him, so he cranked up a slap shot form just inside the red line. It was in the net before Hall could move his catching glove less than a foot. Not for nothing did they call the guy "Boom Boom". I have also heard a story about Bobby Hull scoring after the goalie caught his shot, but the momentum of the puck tore the glove off his hand and the glove and puck both wound up in the back of the net. That's a helluva way to score.

I was checking out the availability of the Lenny McBrowne album when I noticed that Don Sleet is part of one of his bands. That reminded me of Sleet's All Members and what an overlooked gem it is. Here's a link to a website where you can listen to Eastern Lights. My link

That's so many kinds of weird, I don't even know where to start. You're certainly right about the sound being unique. And the video. Wow. It reminded me at times of a movie soundtrack. At others, I expected that an appearance by Salad Fingers was imminent. To say this is interesting would be something of an understatement.

Last night, I checked out some Silversun Pickups video on YouTube. My first impression was "no way" but the more I listened, the more interesting it became. Call me crazy, and it's not just because they have a female bass player, but I kept getting a Pixies vibe. What I need to concentrate on most, though, is decoupling from the idea that Justin Bieber is singing lead. BTW, that's not meant to be derogatory. It's just that there's a certain, "poppy", Top 40-ish element to Brian Aubert's voice. BTW, I went ahead and DL'ed this from iTunes. It definitely warrants some additional investigation. I'm always looking for something new and a little different. Thanks for the recommendation.

The RIchards isn't for everyone, but there's some mighty fine music on that one. Keep an open mind and you shouldn't be disappointed.

Walter Benton - Out Of This World Flavio Ambroscetti (alto sax - father of Franco) - Anniversary

I've been a Hicks fan for a long time. My favorite album is Strikin' It Rich. The original Hot Licks, Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg, are on board and it includes my two favorite Hicks songs, I Scare Myself and Moody Richard.