BeBop

Happy Birthday!

10K reports are available online. Cash flow statements and sources and uses recaps are enlightening. Here is Sears'. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1310067/000131006714000007/shld201310k.htm Not as much fun as a government conspiracy.

But remember, Radio Shack is basically a franchise operation. They get fixed fees from all the people with the (struggling stores), so the corporation can hang on for a while longer. Yes, there are also variable payments based on sales (I'm guessing), but they're getting something, even on no sales at all.

Thanks. Sounds like our paths won't cross for a while yet, but I'll watch that calendar.

Likewise. Keystone Korner, Great American Music Hall...

You could add book store owner to your list - especially in the U.S. (although some are hanging in there, including a friend of mine.) Book stores in France are in a different world, fortunately. Yes, I could add book store owner as one of my dreams. I've been reading a lot about Shakespeare and Company (Paris) lately, since you mention France...

Jim, I'd love to catch you live again. Are are mainly playing locally? Is there a show/tour schedule somewhere? (The website just tells me "organissimo is not playing today. " ) I know Janiva Magness is playing Agoura Hill (in a show with George Thorogood) when I'm there in December, but I can't tell if you're still with her. (I saw you with her in Seattle, I think it was.) Sorry if all this stuff is on Facebook or something: I don't use FB.

Sad to see/think what's become of my club house. As a kid, I'd pick up non-working televisions from Styles TV and fix them (sometimes) with diodes, resistors and capacitors from Radio Shack. I guess they sold other stuff back then (60s), but I just lived for the pegboard full of stapled-closed (sometimes more than once...hmmm) plastic packs of parts. I spent a summer working there after summer school let out. They let me restock and "front" the shelves. That was about as far up the responsibility chain I got. As a sideline, I tested 9 volt batteries with my tongue. "Yep, this one's still got juice." Now, they join my other dream jobs - travel agent, record shop owner, bike shop owner (did I say "musician") as victims of progress and that old spider, Bill Gates' World Wide Web.

A recording of my late wife's voice. But if it had to be music, I'd be delighted with...

Happy Birthday 2014!

There's a great show at the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels, if you happen to be in that neighborhood. I was thankful that the focus (90 percent) was on non-development, jazz history and application. Pictures of Coleman Hawkins and recordings of Charlie Parker advance my knowledge only so far. Stuff about Sax family business and competition to the saxophone is cool.

Thanks for all the information, thoughts, and tips. The Amazon.Fr site has samples up, for anyone who cares to explore.

"...small size, physical keyboard and trackpad..." Yeah, that's why I cling to my old Blackberry. But the world has gone app-crazy. And Blackberry doesn't have 'em, not enough to compete even with Windows.

$5 off $25 in stores through 11 November.

I enjoyed the frivolity so much, the fact that they actually knew something about cars was incidental. I'll miss the show very much.

My Quincy Jones autobiography.

I hope it's black, flat and groovy! Happy Birthday!

I heard their version of Bird's Anthropology "in the style of the Hot Five/Seven" yesterday. Anyone familiar? http://www.allmusic.com/artist/anachronic-jazz-band-mn0001201580/biography

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/357428287/tom-magliozzi-popular-co-host-of-nprs-car-talk-dies-at-77 When I was in the US on a weekend, "Car Talk" was a delightful indulgence, going back 20 years for me, I'd guess.

Wishing you a speedy full recovery and a Happy Birthday!

I've had a copy of the Chambers book waiting in my mailbox for about six months.

Tentsletje (According to the Telegraph, Flemish word of the year): tent-slut, a word for a woman who has multiple sexual partners at a music festival, a popular summer pastime for young people in Flanders.

Happy Birthday to the Magnificent One!

Amazing how close you can feel to people you've only known over the internet. Or maybe not: I remember losing a pen pal as a kid. I'm grateful to have crossed paths. I wish him peace. Damn cancer.

Follow-up: Not such a big deal. He'd just returned from Liberia. Hopefully he didn't infect anyone in the US.