patricia

I have a wonderful dilemma. I was GIVEN a turntable the other day, brand-new condition, much newer than the one I have been using up until now. The new one has much nicer tone and balance, although the old one was perfectly fine. The problem is that it has only two speeds, 45 and 33 1/3. My old one also has 78 and I have several records that are 78. If I retire the old turntable, I won't be able to play the 78's. So, if it were you, would you set up both turntables, in order to be able to play the 78's, risking ridicule and persecution from members of your family? I can set up both, connected to the same sound system, sided by side, but apart from the 78 speed on the old turntable, the new one has rendered it redundant. What to do??

Just finished Molly Ivins' "Who Let The Dogs In?" I don't always agree with her politically, but she has the present administration pegged. Recommended. About to start the latest Patricia Cornwell offering, featuring her character, Kay Scarpetta in "Blow Fly". Cornwell took some time, a couple of years ago, to write a non-fiction account of the results of her research into the Jack The Ripper case, "Portrait of a Killer". It was very convincing and worth checking out. Facinating to apply today's forensic methods to that, as yet, unsolved case.

My wife loves that one too. Especially when we go to Costco. Carts all over the place. Chaining up the carts and charging you a refundable quarter was supposed to alieviate that by the incentive of getting your quarter back when you returned the cart to the corral. The only think that I can think, when I see carts all over the parking lot is that this is some people's way of saying that they are so rich that they don't need the quarter. That's as impressive as telling a convenience store clerk to "keep the change", when the change is eight cents. Wow!!

YES. It may take a few years, but I had a back moler extracted about ten years ago and my bottom-front teeth shifted. The alternative was to repair the molar with a crown, which would have cost tons and I rationalized that nobody sees your back teeth. So, unless the tooth is totally ratched, try to save it.

Salvation Army Thrift Shops and yard sales are great sources. The former at $1 per disc in my neighbourhood. It doesn't matter whether they are just Mitch Miller or original Pee Wee Russell or Lee Morgan or....................... Straight one-price policy. The only rule is first come, first served. Yard sales are a crap-shoot, but you have to be patient. Just cruise all the ones you can. Even the ones that don't say they have vinyl, sometimes do. Time is the only barrier and I know that I just don't have enough time to go to every possible place. Vintage vinyl stores are good sources, but they know what they can get for various sides and are quite often too rich for my personal exchequor. However, the records are usually in excellent condition. I've found though, that old jazz, particularly original Dixieland tends to have belonged to people who look after their records and are in surprisingly good shape, especially at yard sales and second hand stores. So don't scoff, just because you have to forage through a bunch of household items to find them. Well worth it, I think.

Yes, to the bear question. Hadn't heard the others, but they made me smile. So, Dan, IS the Pope Catholic??

Good grief, Chris!! Did you rent some of that extra head-fur?? You had hair where most people don't even have places for hair. I'm impressed!! B-) At the same time that you were top-heavy, I affected the Mia Farrow look, going to my father's barber to get the back just right. As a matter of fact, the year I got married, my hair was so short that it dried in about five minutes. It was about two inches long on the top and barbered [short back and sides]. That was coupled with four inch gold hoop earrings, every day, although nobody had more than one hole in each ear. I also wore a LOT of eye-makeup. My wedding dress, in 1969, was a mid-thigh mini, with bell sleeves, that was a real wedding dress, white brocade, with flowers in my very short hair, instead of a veil and satin chunky-heeled shoes to match. I looked like a little kid, toes turned slightly inward in the wedding portraits. My girls are facinated by them, thinking, until they saw them that I always dressed the way that I do now [silk shirts, pressed jeans, tailored pants, suits..................like that].

Real goldfish, Noj??? COOL!!

I almost forgot to ask about Chris' shoes. I wonder if they were platforms. I fell off a pair, walking down a slight grade, spraining an ankle, during that period. "Famolare" platforms [they had a script "f" on the side of the heel] were particularly hazardous. Each shoe weighed about a pound and the heel was about 4" above the sidewalk. That in itself would have been OK. I'm used to wearing regular high-heels, but the rest of the shoe's sole was about 2" above the sidewalk, so it was difficult to judge where the sole of one's foot was, in relation to the sidewalk.

Holy man, Chris!!! You look downright conservative, compared to some of the '70's "looks" I remember. Polyester knit, right??? Just like wearing a sauna. Were your pants poly too?? And, tell me. Is that an ANKH????

I believe that there was, but she re-titled it "Bette Davis Eyes" and that re-worked song was a huge hit. For some reason "Sammy Davis' Glass Eye" didn't quite catch on. Something about the cadence...................or something. Can't understand it.

EVERYBODY can look good, if they just look in the mirror, briefly, before they sally forth. I sometimes wonder if some people ever look at themselves in a full-length mirror, before they leave the house. I know that most of the time we are not going out to wow the world with our sartorial style, but when I see what some people wear, right in front of an unsuspecting populance, I just cringe. It takes the same amount of time to look like an attractive, regular person as it does to look like a person who just doesn't give a hoot. Be kind to those who have to look at you, however briefly. How hard is that to do??

Sammy Davis Jr. was a hell-damner of an entertainer, before he became the lap-dog to the Rat Pack. He had so much natural talent that it was almost scary. Then, he let himself become a caracature and that was just sad. I voted for the real one he lost. I actually liked him when he wore an eyepatch. It seemed to me that when he started wearing the tinted shades, he was well into his really irritating "super cool" phase. He still had loads of the right stuff, but seemed to be trying too hard.

No, you did not mention that you are "very single", but any intrigued ladies, I'm sure, will have made a mental note. Clean hair is essential, always. Baseball caps are not inherently evil. I just don't like them, even though both my daughters, from time to time, wear them and they look quite fetching on them. I remain firm in my opposition to track pants though and the fanny-pack is the single, IMO, WORST thing that any man can have on their body, unless they are riding a bicycle and it is on their butt, simply as a convenience. Worn to the front it looks, as my youngest daughter would say, "like some sort of colostomy bag". So, remember that, next time you consider using one. Her words, not mine. The alternative is a shoulder bag or the inside pockets of your jacket. I speak only from an aesthetic standpoint, so you decide.

Love ya anyway, Noj, but even you have to admit that a ballcap is not the most alluring hat that a grown man can choose. As for the "unwashed hair camoflage" defence, well, that's just gross. Now, whenever I see a man in a baseball cap, I'll think that he has dirty, greasy hair. But, if you insist on wearing a ballcap, at least wear the beak to the front. That plastic thing on the forehead is a HUGE turnoff!!! BTW, a bald spot, unless it is accompanied by a "comb-over" is not the worst thing that can happen to a man. I would rather see a man just go with his diminishing hair than spread twenty-seven remaining hairs over the spot. Stuff happens with guy's hair and women are really turned off by comb-overs, at least all the women I know. Just let your head be itself. Trust me. Also, track pants should be burned in an adjacent bonfire, unless you are actually engaged in an athletic activitiy, especially if you are also sporting a "fanny pack". I wonder whether men dressed in a baggy sweatshirt, track pants, baseball cap, "favourite" sneakers and a fanny pack know how really unattractive they look. What's wrong with jeans and a sweatshirt, worn with reasonably clean sneakers as casual, comfortable attire??

Pile all the baseball caps, except those worn by men who actually play baseball, in a giant mound and have a ceremonial blaze.................marshmallows provided, free of charge. Why do men insist on wearing a little boy's cap??? Do NOT bring back the over-sized, feather-festooned fedoras favoured by business managers of ladies of the night. BRING BACK COOL HATS, SUCH AS THE FEDORA AND THE PORK-PIE AND THE BLOCKED DRIVER'S CAP [the one worn by men in Ferraris and M.G.s. and Hef in his prime.] The late sixties and all of the seventies was the WORST fashion period for men's fashion. Striped polyester bellbottoms anyone??

"Soft" - Bill Doggett

A friend of mine has copped tons of vintage jazz by keeping his eye on the obituary columns and, after letting a decent amount of time go by, contacting the widow about the jazz albums that he knows the deceased had. I was shocked at the time, at my friend's admitting that he was committing what I considered almost a grave robbery, but he has a lot more original jazz on vinyl than I ever will. I felt physically ill when I read the first post on this thread. Holy man!! Isn't it at least a captiol crime to STAPLE vintage jazz??? If it isn't, it should be.

When I ship vinyl I ALWAYS overpack, in a large box, though not so large that it is subject to oversize charges at the P.O. I first put bubble-pack on the bottom and sides. I then lay the album on that, with more bubble-pack between the albums, if there are more than one. I then put more bubble-pack on top and seal like a crazy person with packing tape on every exposed edge. I do this because for the most part the chances of me finding a replacement are slim to none and if any get broken, that's the end. My vinyl-loving friends mock my meticulousness, but not the fact that they have NEVER gotten a broken record from me. I'm curious, Ghost. How did your friend ship the record to you, originally?? Did you not save the packing he/she used to send it back, since it obviously got to you, undamaged??

The record company owns the recording, as well as the distribution rights, if they own the recording and distribution rights, because the artist signs the rights over, as a condition the recording company states in the contract the artist is offered. More often than not, the artist is so elated to have been offered a contract at all, that they don't read it. After all, what they want to do is make the recording in order to have it sold, they hope world-wide and heard. For the most part, musicians are not business people, any more than other artists are. As soon as they sign the contract, the terms come into effect, much like any other contract. Tons of artists from earlier times have fallen victim to predatory "agents" and others who would exploit them. The biographies of not just jazz artists, but artists from every spectrum are rife with horror stories of recording companies, art exhibitors and book publishers who became much more wealthy than the artist did, as a result of the artists' work creating the wealth and the "agent" owning the rights to both the work product and the money it generated, due to the artist's ignorance of legal matters. That's why it's called the music "BUSINESS"

All that is very true. Paris was the mecca for artists of every kind and they are very appreciative of their artists and their art. An interesting bit of trivia about another artist who moved to Paris and never went back to the States, the legendary Josephine Baker. She was not a jazz artist, but was a superstar of her time. My mother lived in London, in the thirties and early forties and she actually sat down and talked to Ms Baker, during Ms Baker's break at the Moulon Rouge in Paris. Mother used to go to Paris regularly, loved art and music and was totally fluent in French. She told me that Baker stayed in Paris, because they treated her the same way as they treated any other artist, no better, no worse. That's all she ever wanted and I suspect that that is all that jazz artists, like Miles Davis, Bud Powell and the others wanted as well. So, no surprise that they were attracted to Paris.

I still remember that in the sixties, even guys who never listened to jazz had a copy of "Kind Of Blue". Such was the appeal that Miles had and still does. "Sketches Of Spain" is my favourite Miles, with his "Porgy and Bess" running a close second. A genius, by anyone's standards.

Whew, I guess. It reminds me of the TV coverage of the earthquake, a few years back in San Francisco. The devastation was what we saw. My brother went to SF, a few days later, as planned and yes, there was huge damage to the marina and other places in the city, but the city was still there. You can't show pictures of nothing happening. Of course the pictures are going to be of the flooded areas and not the not-flooded areas. I had visions of all of our guys and their families, pearched on their roofs.

I couldn't get on for days. Then I was watching the news here and there were pictures of the roofs of people's houses. How bad is this?? Holy man!! Is Lansing affected by the flooding??

One little bright light though is that while we are listening to our entire collections of CD's and records, however we decide to do it, we can, simultaneously read all the books on our shelves in a similar manner. Good thing that none of us have lives.