JSngry

The Master on Muse. Must-have, imo. Bob Stewart used to jam "My Shining Hour" off of this one a few times every week during afternoon drive time on KSAX-AM, & let me tell you - HOO BOY!

Not yet. But in all honesty, after seeing what a society looks like (even if it is at least somewhat staged) that by tradition (and we're talking millenia of tradition) gladly accepts a smaller gap between individual abandon and collective responsibility in the name of achieving the common good (even if that society currently is still too derelict in terms of the benevolent application of this paradigm relative to where it once was) & not look at all the idiots running around America (especially on the TV screens...) who are oblivious to the real responsibilities of freedom and the real need to serve the collective goodwill, people for whom it's all ME ME ME, and not think that these are our real enemies, our most clear and present danger. The man said we would destroy ourself from within. The man might have been right.

Took us three counselors (all women, btw, I insisted) to find one who was right. The first one hated me the second I walked in because I was making my wife unhappy (I did walk out of that one about halfway through), the second one liked me, loved the fact that I was a musician, but focused entirely on what I needed to do. I finally cjhallenged her to come up with something that Brenda needed to do, and she confessed that since Brenda solicited her (true) that she was serving as Brenda's advocate. Finally, we found one who broke it down 50/50. Brenda's jaw nearly hit the floor and you could see panic in her eyes, but I looked at her & said, "we got into this together, we're getting out of it together". And so we did. Point being, "counseling" is like chiropracty. For ever good practitioner, there's a gazillion more quacks. The second one we had actually said as a joke one time, "I used to not to be able to spell psychotherapist, now I am one!" "Are you really?" "Well, uh, no, not really....uh, it was just a joke...so, Jim, uh.... let's work on your sensitivity skills today..." I gladly stipulate that most men are jerks of one kind or another. It comes with the territory unless/untill there's cause for change. But it does not follow that most women are angels. Far from it. Unless it's a truly abusive or otherwise harmful situation, if both parties ain't getting bruised, the counselor ain't doin' the job. Demand nothing less than mutual misery!

Not saying your advice is not good, but it may not be in Alexander's best interest to make a commitment like that. I think Alexander mentioned he was not employed at the moment and may not be able to afford a purchase. Plus, what happens if the marriage still fails? Now you've got real property to worry about. After all, he's saying this situation was not totally new and unexpected, they've talked about it before. Sad as it is to say, sometimes you just need to call it quits. Just my opinion. It might not be about the house itself, though. the house might just be a symbol. In which case, there is still room to work with if both parties still have the desire. If not, hey. And even if it's there, it might not survive. But I'm of the school that if two people fall deeply in love and then at some point fall just as deeply out of love that it's worth making every effort to see if it's dead, or if it's just been deeply buried under the shitpile of life before making a final call.

One of the things i learned in counseling with Brenda that should have been the most obvious but was one that I most overlooked was that for her (and for many women), having/keeping a "house" (a home, really, doesn't necessarily have to be a house) isn't just an act of responsibility or a thing that offers "security", it's a vehicle for the expression of their love towards their family. Keep in mind, now, this has nothing to do with career goals, gender roles, or anything like that. Those can all still exist perfectly fine. This is all about instinct, something so primal that it can never be fully suppressed or diverted. Not all women have it, and men like me who were raised to look at women as equals in every regard might tend, as I did, to brush off this notion as sexist and/or old-fashioned romanticism. But equal and identical are not the same thing, especially when it comes to instincts. All I'm saying is that if somebody is instinctually motivated to express their love a certain way, anybody who for too long fails to get what is going on & does not respond in such a way as to signal that that love is appreciated, welcomed, and desired through some concrete action that is played out on at least part of the same field of expression, will sooner or later be sensed as not wanting that love, and perhaps even as being hostile to it (and therefore to the one offering it). Then you become "the enemy", not because you're a bad guy, but because your partner is offering you all this love in their own way, and you're acting like you really don't give that much of a shit. And you really don't realize that you're doing it. But you are. Never think that words are just random words, or that things are just random things, or that desires are just random desires. Relationships of intimacy function every bit as much on the subliminal level as on the conscious one, and things are very, very seldom as simple or as obvious as they appear. The general nature of intimacy is to pursue itself, not to avoid itself, and that permeates damn near everything that goes on between the two principles.

First of all, I too am very sorry to hear about this & hope that whatever the eventual resoluiton is, it is as clean as possible for all concened. Now, as far as the house thing, and what the implications might be... Never, never underestimate the power of the "nesting instinct" in many women. This is not an attempt at sexism or rigid role definitions either. It's simply a realization of the yin-yang balances in life. There's a reason why we've evolved into the "nuclear family", and it's not because of any dominant male impulse for stability of home & mate, dig? Brenda & I went round & round with this "domesticity" issue more than a few times, sometimes quite seriously so. Now, she's a strong, smart woman who's always had a "good career". But she needs her home to be in order, and there were times when she didn't have the time to make it happen, and when I, not feeling any particular urgency about the matter, didn't really give a rat's ass. When she complained about it, I took the "hey, I'll get it done, chill out" attitude, not realizing that this was not just offensive to her personally, but also a denial of a need that she had that sprung from an impulse deep within. To me, it was just a pile of dirty dishes, some newspapers piled up, and some laundry that needed doing. To her, it was her a profaning of her home, the place where her loved ones lived and were nurtured, and if she couldn't always get it done herself, and if I didn't respect our home and her enough to male at least some token efforts to asist her, then it was like her "nest" was being held captive by predatory forces, not occupied by loved ones. And when I positioned her as simply being anal about it, I was actually denigrating one of her most primal impulses - the impulse to keep her "nest" safe and positive. She felt that her most sacred territory - her nest - was under attack, and that not only could I not be counted on to defend it, I could not be counted on to not be one of the attackers. Once I realized what was really going on here, I felt like a total asshole, idiot, and barbarian, all towards the woman I claimed to be my soulmate. Pretty hard to be more wrong than that... I'm still nowhere near as focused on domestic order as she'd probably like, but at least now I understand what it really means to her, and I try, really try, to do my best to show her my love and respect by doing things that will show love & respect to her in her "language". It wasn't so much that we had grown apart as it was that we were failing to grow together, learning each other's "language of love" and how to communicate to each other thusly. We had a few "moments of truth" along the way, believe me, one of them particularly terrifying, but we held on and finally saw that it's almost impossible for two to become one if the two never allow themselves to surrender themselves to the other in ways that are at first strange, or maybe even uncomfortable. It may be that your wife is sending you signals that her "nest" is not feeling particularly safe or secure right now, and that she's feeling the need for more of that. I'm not saying that you should reflexively give in to all that, just that if this is the woman you still feel is your soul mate, and if she still feels the same about you at some level, that there might be some benefit in exploring all this in counseling, and that if it's not impossible at this point, that you both might be able to better understand each other on a more "primal", instinctual level. Trust me when I tell you that even the most open-minded & intelligent people can overlook some pretty key things in this regard. If it works, great. If not, you gave it your one last, best shot. No shame there. But to sever a bond like the two of you appear to have had is not something to be done w/o both of you digging waaaay deep to find everybody's bottom line. Good luck, and blessings for all of you. in whatever form you perceive them to come.

Sorry, gentlemen, but annoying as the writing is, I found myself learning details about Mingus' life (especially his later life) that I had then not yet known (and I've always tried to learn/read/hear/etc as much about Mingus as possible). Of course there will always be more to uncover, & nobody will claim (and nobody claimed then, iirc) that this book was an exhaustive biography, but I don't recall there being any dispute as to the veracity of what was included in this book. I still maintain that unless you're a hardcore, front-line Mingus scholar and/or family member that there are things to be learned from this book if the writing style doesn't totally repel you. I still say that finding a used copy cheap (or checking a copy out from a library) is the best way to experience this one. Unless, of course, style is deemed to trump substance. In which case, by all means, feel the zeitgeist & ignore the information.

imo - "highly stylized" writing (and make of that what you will ) but still a good source of information, and in it's own "peculiar" way, flayva. Look for a used copy, I say.

Sometimes the first step to winning the next one is admitting that you've lost this one.

Geez, can't the guy keep a gig?

How 'bout them Spains makin' them Americas work they asses off, eh? I saw a side of Kobe Bryant that I'd never seen before. It looked like he had genuinely/finally found something bigger than himself to believe in. I found myself...feeling happy for the guy. Weird. But right.

Amazing deduction, Jim. Not everybody here is old like us, Chris. People might wonder under what circumstances Blue Note/StrataEast stalwart Larry Ridley came to play with people like Norvo & Lamond.

Ooooooh, PanArt!

Also had to chuckle at the announcer for the men's marathon, who was just so sure that the rapid pace set by the Kenyans, etc. wouldn't hold up, that there would be "damage" by the race's end, and that the US runners, who stayed in the middle of the pack from the git-go, would be well positioned to move up once this insane pace imploded on itself. OOOOPS! I got co-workers from Kenya, groovy people all. Gotta say i felt just fine watching a Kenyan runner win his country's first Olympic marathon gold, and in Olympic record time at that. Oh, the Americans? 10th & 11th, I believe, pretty much where they stayed the entire race. A metaphor for Americans underestimating foreign competition in non-athletic arenas leading to America being left behind? You tell me. Either way, splendid race.

Great, gutsy race by the women's 4x400 for the gold. I was yelling at the tv like I was there in person, full volume, and I usually don't do that. Oh, btw: Allyson Felix is just plain beautiful. And I mean that in the purest way.

I think most of the world paid significantly more attention to Bolt than they did to Rogue, or Rug, or whatever his name is. Rogge is the reason people hate the Olympics. Bolt is the reason is the reason people love them. Put me down for Bolt.

Indoor, beach, or both? Either way, I feel ya' on that one.

The technology now exists to this this same type of "borrowing" to take place online, which is exactly the point, as is that this same technology allows for outright theft as well as harmless borrowing. That the law/industry/establishment still has its head up its ass as to what to do about all this shows yet again how totally unprepared any of them were/are for the full implications of digital media. They simply saw it is an immediate sales boon. Well, hey, guess what. That ain't nowhere near all it is. As a Classic American, it is my birthright and moral obligation to respect any & every law, but only to the extent which it respects me. The difference is, it's not being controlled by anyone when it's done in an unlimited manner online, and by whomever desires to share or obtain those files. Also, when it's done online, people have the ability to simply take any and everything they want, for as long as they want. Effectively owning the content, without paying for it. Try doing that in a record store. You won't get out the door with a copy of the music, unless you're ok with theft. ======================================================================= I know illegal downloading is part of the game and landscape too, I just don't care to participate in it, and think it's done far more harm on balance than good (at least for those of us who actually like to own physical copies of music). I think it's contributed to dwindling cd sales, which in turn reduces the number of artists that labels sign, promote, and issue recordings of, as well as reducing the demand for reissues of things I'd be interested in owning. Your points are valid ones (although I think the real reason - or, at least, the most mainstream one - for decreasing CD sales is a combination of A) the simple decline of stuff worth buying, of mainstream consumers of mainstream music getting burned by paying $17.00 or so for an album with just one good song on it - the hit - once too often & deciding to go for those individual songs rather than entire albums; & B) the failure of the commercial media delivery system to keep pace with the evolution of mainstream media players. When was the last time that you had media that was larger than the player? Never? Bingo! but here we are with CDs being bigger than iPods. Argue "quality" all you want, but if this is to be a discussion about the economics of the business, quality, at least as we know it, is at best a tangential factor)) but it's based on applying analog standards to digital media. I can't stress this enough - digital is of a fundamentally different nature. The broader/broadest implications of this are something I've felt intuitively for years now but couldn't quite put a finger on. But as it unfolds, here it comes - for better, for worse, or for values yet determined - hard copies are now optional. Unquestionably & irrevocably. In fact, sometimes (often, for many), they are even less desirable. That means that the uses to which the content can legitimately be put are now different. If I download (legally or illegally, and really, is not the actual act identical either way, the only difference being the conduit?), listen a few times, and then delete, have I "created a new copy"? And even if I have done so by downloading, if I delete it after a few days, does not the net creation of new copies = 0? And if indeedier I use this audition to ultimately purchase music, hey - net gain of purchased copies = 1. If that's a problem caused by illegal downloading, I fail to see it. So yeah, it's a wild & wooly new frontier. Indeed it is. But although one can turn back the hands of a clock, one cannot turn back time. The sooner everybody involved in this wakes up to the new, still unfolding reality of water (wood, really) now being wind, the sooner we can get on with protecting basic legitimate concerns & encouraging responsible, ethical, & productive behavior. As it is now, all we got is a bunch of people not getting it wondering why them not getting is stopping things from getting worse. Good luck with that.

Aside of the promo issue, my interest is in purchasing music legally. If artist's contracts are structured that way, as a consumer that's not my issue. Well, at least you're honest enough to admit that your concern for ethical behavior does not extend to artists' contracts.

The technology now exists to this this same type of "borrowing" to take place online, which is exactly the point, as is that this same technology allows for outright theft as well as harmless borrowing. That the law/industry/establishment still has its head up its ass as to what to do about all this shows yet again how totally unprepared any of them were/are for the full implications of digital media. They simply saw it is an immediate sales boon. Well, hey, guess what. That ain't nowhere near all it is. As a Classic American, it is my birthright and moral obligation to respect any & every law, but only to the extent which it respects me.

Well, between Isaac Berlin & Irving Berlin (and the Berlin Wall), I think we can see why people be runnin'!

Freedom without a feeling of confidence and trust is no freedom at all. I give you Billy Strayhorn's Four Freedoms, the credo by which he tried to live his life: Think about that.

This would be a George Wein Newport All Stars group, would it not? Looks like Wein doing the MC work.

I don't burn copies of DVDs or download them, if that's what you're sort of getting at. And sure I've watched movies at friend's houses, but doing that doesn't create extra copies of the DVD like downloading would. I'm not sure I get the point about reading a magazine in a doctor's office or somewhere - you're not generating additional copies of something for which nobody is paid. The issue is "trying before buying", not generating additional copies. Are you suggesting that the "rules" by which I'm playing aren't really rules? They aren't the law? It *IS* ok to download whatever you want, from wherever you can get it, artists/producers/record companies be damned? I'm not sure I get that. So, it's all about "following the law", nothing more? A slippery sl9ope to argue "situational ethics, I agree, but the notion that something such as downloading something for trial purposes, then deleting it = murdering somebody becuase they pissed you off is...stupid. So I hope we don't go there... ................................................................................ .............................. Promos and BMG are different issues to me. BMG items are legally offered and sold, so I'm not sure why I should feel wrong about buying them. Because under most contracts, they are considered promotional items, and as such they do not return royalties to the artist. So if the purpose of the objection to illegal downloading is that it deprives artists of royalties (and how much in royalties legit sales for 99% of all jazz releases actually generate is going to have to come into this at some point. Most people get the advance, and that's that...), then buying BMG, etc. items runs counter to that purpose. Promos are murkier for me, but I own a number of them. I buy them in used shops, and they've obviously been sold to the shop by radio stations, reviewers, etc. But aren't they manufactured with the artist's consent? Manufactured by artist consent as part of a standard contract that you pretty much sign if you want to get a record released. Regulated by the record companies in theory, but never in reality.That being the case, once they are "out there" in the world, in whatever quantity, there's no way to control whether they are sold and repurchased. If there was a promo and a regular used copy of a title in a bin, I'd buy the regular copy every time. And if there's not, you go ahead and buy the promo, right? Instead of holding out for a "regular" copy, even if it might take a year or three to find one? Or...maybe going a few blocks down to another store... Don't blame you, I'd do the same myself. But - let's keep it real about who gets the money. It ain't the artist, and in this case, it ain't even the label. It's the store, period. Ok, that's a good thing, for sure, but it ain't any "cleaner" a deal than illegal downloading of in-print for audition purposes resulting in either legit sales or file deletions (which is different from going into a used store, pulling out a pile of discs, and listening to them all on the in-store headphoned units before deciding to buy them in what way? I admit to possibly some hypocrisy with the promos, but I haven't resolved that one completely in my head. There's nothing to resolve, imo. Most of use the tools at hand to make the best decisions to do the right thing as often as possible. Digital changes the tools, but not the final decision, at least not for people of character. And character is neither digital nor analog.

Just curious, are you like this with everything? "If I'm curious enough to be curious, then I'm curious enough to buy"? Do you refuse to go over to a friend's house to check out a movie? Ever use a public library? Ever read a magazine in a doctor's office? It seems that there's not too many "real life" items where there's such a prickly resistance to the "try before you buy, borrow first if you can" idea as there is with recorded music. Hell, you can even get a car for a day or two if you know the right people at the dealership. And dig - places like Wal-Mart will let you return damn near everything you buy, no questions asked, which pretty much is the same as "borrow it, and if you don't like it, bring it back", with the sales price essentially serving as a security deposit. Fraud is rife there, I'm sure, and nobody's talking fraud here. Even when there was no small good reason for buying into the "always buy, no matter what" mindset, there were always circumstances where it was also kind of a brain-dead, Pavlovian tool-of-the-industry type thing to do as well. Things have changed a lot lately, but not in that regard. I mean, if that's your own code, cool, I mean, hey, to thine own self, etc. Just don't go thinking you're "playing by the rules", because truth is, you're not. You're playing by what a few vested interests are wanting you to think are the rules. Remember that the next time you find a promo copy in the used bins or hear about albums for "name" labels being pressed in incredibly small quantity & then going OOP in a year or two because they haven't sold or anything industry-generated that willingly and knowingly disrupts the pure linearity of the "I want, I buy" paradigm for all but the diehard (and financially able) few. Hell, even think about it if you buy from those clubs like BMG or whoever (are any of those outfits still around?) where the albums they sell you are ones that are specifically set aside so as to not return sales royalties to the artist. Ask yourself, if maybe, just maybe, you're not being played for a chump every once in a while, and then ask yourself why that is.