JSngry

AAA ball has better fights than MLB. Story: http://www.krem.com/news/slideshows/Spokane-Indian-125386733.html Video: http://www.krem.com/video/featured-videos/Unedited-Brawl-at-Spokane-Indians-game-125387538.html Who knew?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0D62CGa9gY I gotta say, the one @ 2:23...that's how dead people get brought back to life.

The concept itself doesn't bother me at all, blindness being a longtime reality/fascination-of-sorts/marketing prop in music for as long as I can remember, but this copy from the Amazon site makes me almost wish I was blind: This is a construct that begs for the word "Negro" to be included, just so you don't have any doubts about how "authentic" it all is. POOR! BLIND! NEGRO! RAW!!!! Getcha tickets here! In spite of all that, this may not be the set that does it, but I do think the notion in and of itself has some legitimacy.

Morris Levy, dude. And not just in the 70s.

That's not bad for 8 CDs.

That tells me what I wanted to know, thanks. Oh, one more thing - what was your download time for the entire set?

"...and help me across the street." How many artists on this compulation are/were actually called "Blind Boy XYZ"?

Would there be any annotation in previous issues that would be grievously missed by going the download route?

Stan Mikita Stan Musial The Man

I can't see where the link goes. Can you tell me what it is?

Barabas Barbarella Barbosa Mechanical: http://www.barbosamechanical.com/

Different brands, different foci, but same concept - a "real player" is absent from the record and you take their place in the comfort of your own home (or in some circumstances, your own gig!) I would imagine that methods of production for MMO varied by project, some had the "real player" (or singer) actually there, some not. But the Aebersolds, I'm pretty sure they always have somebody in the studio playing along. That "feel" is a big part of what made them unique when they first hit the market.

Little known bit of perhaps useless information - many of the Jamey Aebersold records that people buy to play along with were recorded with Jamey playing in an isolation booth while the rhythm section accompanied him. They could hear him, but he was not being recorded. A notable exception to this, allegedly, was the Woody Shaw play-along, because it is Woody himself that is said to have been playing in the isolation booth. Whether or not he was actually recorded, I don't know. But if he was (and if the "allegedly" part of this scenario is in fact true, there's a "lost session" to be had there...

Don't know about this one, but Lynch himself has historically turned up in interesting places, ranging from Eddie Palmieri to Monday Michiru to James White/Chance to Art Blakey to...everywhere, it seems. I've never heard him sound bad or disengaged. That kind of openness is always going to be ok with me.

Perhaps enjoyment awaits!

Never knew about that one, Jeff, but Garrett at that time and in this band is something that I think I would enjoy. He was a much more "cattin'" player than he later became, and a good cattin' is something I always enjoy. Jean Toussaint (also on Keystone 3) was a big plus in that band too, at least to my tastes. Is this thing still in print?

Joe Benjamin Joe Blow Joe Schmoe

The only one I really would recommend for anything other than a "see, The Messengers could still do it!" vibe is Keystone 3, although the two Roulette sides (Backgammon & the aforementioned Gypsy Folk Songs) are pretty damn nice, if also a little sloppy and foreshadowing of the whole "retro" thing that the Messengers would eventually become (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

Curtis Granderson can play. He'd make any team better. His glove commercial bugs the dog piss outta me, but the guy can play.

Yeah, between your guys' staff and that of the Angels, along with the as-of-yet unproven ability of the Rangers hitters to collectively and consistently perform up to potential, the schedule leaves the M's plenty of room to get back into the race. Next time Matthew stops in, I'd like to hear his take on the Angels' chances of holding up over second half. They worry me.

Well, since the official scorer is always a home-town denizen, and since the attempted catch was on my "point" ...it's my call!

Then your attempted catch must be scored as an error. Most people ultimately have the final say as to their self-respect. That they too often fail to realize that, that they are not even encouraged to recognize it in any other than "fantastic" terms (i.e. - "YOU can be a STAR!!!!") is the main evil of our time. What is too often romanticized/sentimentalized is jobs, not work itself. Work itself is a basic human need, and quite a wonderful thing. "Jobs" otoh, are the devil's playground.

So by those lights, 70% of the time Josh Hamilton is a shameful failure who did not work, did not execute successfully, and that's not how it's done. Hell, in any other line of work Josh Hamilton would probably get canned! Even the most inept, stagnant, poorly-run businesses tend to demand a better than 30% success rate when it comes to successful completion of tasks. I know what you're saying here, but that's where that logic ultimately ends up. I'm not trying to denigrate your standards for how you enjoy the game. You're looking at it through your own eyes and digging it in a profound and personal way that connects with how you go through the world and what you see in it. Others may have a different set of experiences and may view it differently. That doesn't make them suckas, whores, chumps, idiots, phonies, or what have you. I'll tell you what I see too much of in the world, what brings out my inner curmudgeon: cynicism, bitterness, anger, fear, out-of-whack value schemes, dearth of genuine feeling and empathy, a culture of vitriol, attack and arrogance, self-righteousness, self-pity, self-obsession, ersatz pessimism and negativity, willful blindness, hypocrisy, spiritual lassitude, souls grown fat, souls malnourished... hell, I'm just getting started. There's plenty for my inner curmudgeon to feed on, should I choose to do so. The reality we're in today is complex, it's messy and screwed-up, it's not going to be changed by any one person, any one legislative body, or any Gigantic Creator Force. All I can do is acknowledge it for what it is and yeah, *work* to put whatever good I can into my life and into the world, do my best to make up for past mistakes, omissions/failures, etc., and treat other people with as much love and respect as I can. Wow, that's really....MOIST! And totally misunderstanding my point, which is merely this - All jobs have their standards of success. That a major league hitter is viewed as a superior talent with a 30% success rate speaks only to the difficulty of the task at hand, not to the greater work ethic required to succeed. A janitor can have good days and bad days (I've been one, so I know). It's still work, all of it. And like all jobs, some days are better than others. When a good job has been done, it is a good thing. And when an honest effort fails (even if it's in an occupation where a 70% fail rate is acceptable), that too is a good thing, although not as much fun as when it does, obviously. A less than honest effort, though, is nothing to be rewarded, no matter what the outcome. But that is not where we are. The fling with the bling is a toxin in our society. It has become an end unto itself. I want to see honest effort and honest results, with the rewards to follow accordingly. Beyond that...not interested.

And there's no mention of an album currently for sale, which there almost certainly would have been on an appearance like this. The first album came out in 1965, so I really think that that's where we are here, somewhere in 1965, just before the first album had been released. An marvelously..."fluid" time in pop music, that was. Edit to add "OOOPS!!!"