BeBop

I guess I have to consider myself fortunate, though with a bit of "bummer" mixed in. I'd been scheduled for three weeks of work (income!) in New York beginning today. But my flight from the Left Coast was cancelled yesterday and now I'm looking at three weeks of unemployment. But, having been through a few natural disasters, I send my positive thoughts to people going through this.

None taken; I knew that was the reason. We prefer our sports odd and complicated. Now that cricket thing has some possibilities; I can't figure it out for shit. I'm with you on cricket. Popular sport. Followed enthusiastically by one of my friends (incidentally met through the Blue Note bulletin board, I think it was). And I don't get it. I don't know a damn thing about baseball, but I'm thinking - in any context - you got a bat and a ball, so you ought to be trying to hit it was hard and far as you can. If God didn't want us to do that, why'd " He" give us steroids?

Shout: "Happy Birthday" (wait for echo)

Ground-up (but previously unplayable) Dial 78s. Okay,not really.

The happiest of birthdays to you!

If it wasn't for this board, I would assume no one did. I've never met anyone who had any interest in professional cycling, except here. True dat! Because you're both Americans. No slight intended, but bicycle racing was the second biggest spectator sport in the world (after football/soccer) when I was racing. It's undoubtedly taken a big "hit" since. Europeans, sure. But I had fierce competitors from Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, CIS...

If I illegally download Louis Armstrong group recordings from the 1920s* do I then have "hot" Hot Fives and Sevens? * copyright expiration questions aside ** "hot" colloquial English for "stolen"

One of my favorite jokes/tales. Man to Woman: Would you have sex with me for a million dollars? Woman: A million dollars? Uh, sure. Man: How about fifteen bucks? Woman: What do you think I am, a prostitute? Man: Actually, we've already established that fact; now we're just haggling over price.

No, I believe that's Cherry, not Apple.

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The answer to "why cheat" in cycling is largely that it's the second-largest spectator sport in the world. (Or at least it was.) If one seeks money or fame, winning is the ticket. But that's not the answer to the "humanity's gain" part. That I don't know.

I'm a definite outsider now, but I do feel like the sport is cleaner, at least among the very few participants I have contact with. So I hold out a little, tempered hope. It can really be a beautiful sport in which to participate. (I've never appreciated the spectator angle on any sport, but that's just me.) And for whatever bitterness I hold, I recognize that I was never really very good at it, even as a domestique.

I've got the complete Buddy Bolden collection. But seriously, I spent almost forty years trying to complete one artist. I failed and I've moved on with my life. Even the internet wasn't enough to make the completist thing possible.

They've already been banned or lost their "victories", for the most part. Armstrong, as the "big fish" had the resources/power to evade for a longer time. But the many, many riders already "outed" from that period is why it's so tough to find successors to the now-stripped Armstrong. I also believe, personally, that Armstrong's celebrity made him harder to fully prosecute - another reason he stood for so long. To be fair, it also made him a bigger target. Add in the fact that Armstrong worked for the United States almost-Government(Postal Service)... Full Disclosure: Yes, I have a personal thing against Armstrong. He's an a**hole. He made me and all U.S. riders look like shameful, disrespectful cretins. Since he controlled "the microphone", we were unable to defend ourselves.

Set up can be quite an undertaking: overhang, antiskate, perpendicular alignment for optimal crosstalk, tracking force, vertical tracking angle...many of which "play off" one another. I've paid $200. Back when I cared more. You could probably get the essential tools for $100 and do it yourself (living without the ocilloscope). Or you could do what most people caught up in the turntable fad do: set the tracking force...or nothing at all.

At this point, I don't think we're working with an "announcement"; rather, there was a conversation... When there's an announcement, I'll start counting.

One, please. Some really great music in the 1940s bands, to the extent the recording ban "let it through". And there are rumors of even more things from the Wardell Gray/Kermit Scott/Bennie Green/Willie Cook/Bluebird(?) years than have already been (legitimately) released.

But does drug use in music reliably and measurably enhance performance? Does it directly lead to financial advantage (and at the zero-sum based "suffering" of others)? Sorry, I don't mean to be bitter, but by some measures, my decision NOT to dope or encourage/allow the riders I coached to dope did put me at a disadvantae.

Not that it's any excuse for athletes' cheating, but I think the UCI's former "50% hematocrit" criterion for cheating was a total invitation to dope. It appears that cyclists used the 50% limit as license to drug/transfuse themselves right up to the 50% threshold. Could (1) the UCI have been incredibly stupid? (2) there have been no effective EPO test at that time? (3) the UCI have been aware of their rule's "moral hazard"? I'd say some combination of (2) and (3)... The 50% threshold was a derivation of medical and statistical research. Beyond that threshold, the likelihood of manipulation was high enough that it merited further investigation. Some riders apparently had natural levels above the threshold. (I say "apparently" and "natural" based on the beliefs and science at that time.) No, there was no medical means by which to directly test for EPO or most other blood boosting techniques. Therefore, this indirect method was used. Certainly some athletes artifically raised there levels to just below 50%; some were caught in the manipulation. A lower threshold would have led to many, many positives (even without manipulation) and little chance to "prove" anything - again, no medically sound, direct test. There were, of course, many "raids" and attempts to catch users "in the act" or "near the act". I can recall hotel raids and various products discovered in the trunks of team and non-team cars. There were unschedule in- and off-season tests which potentially could have caught riders experimenting around their 50% thresholds or engaged in other "activities". So what more could the UCI have done? To the best of my knowledge, no other sport had anything better. And many had nothing. So, in my mind, the "stupid" was elsewhere. Postscript: Whatever UCI did or did not do, the cheating and doping (two different things) problems were evident long ago. I'd pointed out the nearly inarguable points to be made against LA and others before 2000; frustrated, I left the sport. And I use the term "sport" only in a broad sense.

(: Whew. Thought I was gonna open this and it would say I was half-ass. Which I wouldn't deny... As for myself, I've given up trying to keep up with Bird practicing. My new, readjusted target: Tweetie Pie.. If that doesn't work out either waiting in the, um, wings are Heckyl and Jeckyl... If you ever heard me play, you'd know I have no business calling anyone else's playing "half-ass".

Yep. One of my favorite things (lower case). Not rare or valuable, but I remember picking it up as a kid and thinking it was pretty cool.

Another year. I hope it's a great one.

Playing through some Charlie Parker "originals" today. "Throckmorton the Plumber", "Yashitaki-Mikimoto" and "Half Pass Fass", it was tough not to think of Fasstrack on that last one.

Wow, a bad couple of weeks for jazz. RIP Borah Bergman.

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