patricia

I received no music this year. However, I was gifted with a voucher for the used vinyl emporium at which I score my growing collection of classic jazz records by my youngest daughter. She was raised right. Can't wait to go and peruse the shelves.

Well, all those items invoke a general sense of "drilling" in their own unique ways, and what better way to celebrate the gift of the Creator than to engage in creative acts, pro- or otherwise? I've never looked at it that way before. That's almost spiritual. Puts the fight I saw at a sale at a department store, just before Christmas, over the last power-washer into perspective. Creativity and spirituality takes many forms and far be it for me to scoff at it's many manifestations.............I guess.

"Black Christmas", with, I think Margot Kidder is along the same lines as "Silent Night Deadly Night" and always seemed to be a strange way to celebrate the birth of the Savior. But, when I think about it, not much stranger than celebrating the birth of the Savior with the gifting of someone with a posthole auger, or a thousand-bit screwdriver, or a table-saw or a set of questionable lingerie. We all express our spirituality in our own unique way.

I would like to add my Holiday Wishes to all my fellow posters here, on Organissimo. Being able to interact with a diverse group of people as passionate about jazz as I am has been and continues to be one of the most enjoyable things I do. Although I may never meet most of you, I consider all of you my friends and look forward to the coming New Year, learning more about JAZZ and exchanging ideas with all of you. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO JOHNNY AND TO EVERYONE!!

I don't mean that the talk-show host would have to be combative, but I don't think any of the ones on your side of the line have ever done anything other than buss celebraties' butts. Witness the appearance of Mr. G. on the "Oprah" show, some years ago. Of course he came in from the back of the venue, through the crowd of mostly Oprah fanatics, holding that one note. I would suggest our own Vicki Gabereau, who, while not combative, has a way of cutting through the crap and showing the guest as a real person. Mr G would doubtless get to do his held-note thing, but at least she wouldn't gush all over him. Just asking him if he thinks that what he does is Jazz might be a start.

Well, maybe it's a tossup.

Yeah, the Wash. Post ran some piece a few days ago that had some Santas pulling in $30K for a one month tour of mall duty (10-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week). That's alota TOCJs. And in some malls, thirty grand is cheap at twice the price. Imagine yourself stuck for ten hours per day, seven days a week, in a hot, synthetic Santa oufit, including fake beard and mustache, sweating like crazy, listening to a bunch of mostly snot-nosed spoiled, rude brats demanding stuff. So, seventy hours a week, times four weeks at thirty grand works out to two hundred and eighty hours. So, they get paid just over a hundred bucks an hour. [my math is laughable, but I think I'm close] But, it's only for a month and even so, I wouldn't do it.

So, HAH. Up here, in the wilds of Calgary, whether we are Santa, or not,we don't put up with no crap from our young 'uns. heh heh........

I have a feeling that I have already met the twenty-two jazz fiends in Calgary. This is a pointy-boot, big hat town, with a tiny, tiny jazz community, except for in July, when we have a really good Jazz Festival. So, that's why I mentioned Calgary as a good place in July for Jazz. Other times of the year, not so much.

Considering that Larry King is as sharp as a bag of wet mice, if you sent your suggested question directly to him, in the event that Kenny G is appearing, it just may get asked. It would certainly be a lot more direct than the butt-kissing questions he usually asks on his show. If you tried to ask it of him yourself, you would have to get past the "screeners", who are slightly smarter. May the Almighty JazzForce be with you on your noble quest to bring the truth to the masses.

One thing that I've found helps, sometimes. You know how some people eat in the evening, well, stop that. Have a satisfying dinner and then don't eat anything before you go to bed. I used to think that it was my then husband's snoring which kept me awake, but I was off-base. That woke me up, if I was already asleep. So there is, I think, a difference between interrupted sleep and insomnia. As for exercise being a sleep-inducer, my routine is to run in the morning. I don't feel comfortable running late at night, due to perceived n'er do wells abounding on the streets of the city. The most annoying thing is if I stay up really late, which I tend to do, and then, having gone to bed at 2AM, wake up at 4:30 or so and, though tired, can't sleep. When I wake up, I'm not tired, so I start doing stuff, knowing full well that I have to go to work and that I will be a zombie by 3PM. But, there seems little point in staying in bed if I'm not sleeping. And, so it goes......

Chicken. Egg. My head hurts. Maybe the Phillips' star-shape would have been too difficult, the the Robertson square would have been, IMO, more stable and not that hard to teach people to use.

After reading the news of Kenny G's attempt at destroying the small amount of Christmas Spirit I had managed to muster, I felt that strong measures were required, to stop the inexplicable ringing in my ears. So, I poured myself a glass of good red wine [cork, not screw-top], quickly perused my meagre Christmas library of music and selected these as an antidote: In The Christmas Mood - The Glenn Miller Orchestra Christmas Cookin' - Jimmy Smith The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole [old, hackneyed, but I was desparate, OK?] Christmas With Mahalia - Mahalia Jackson and In The Nutcracker Mood - Glenn Miller Orchestra Please, I beg of you. Mention not the name of Kenny G, ever again, especially when my grip on Christmassy joyousness is tenuous. Thank you and Merry Christmas All!!

At the risk of sounding like a small, curious child [which isn't a bad idea], it seems to me that the design of the Robertson [square] or Phillips [star-shaped] would have more firmly connected the CD to the turney-thing on which it plays. However, unless you have a square or star-shaped finger, the fumbling would have been made more complicated, on the CD's trip from the jewelcase to the player. So, you would be solving a problem that really isn't a problem with one which would cause annoyance as CD's careened across rooms for lack of a convenient finger-hole. Speaking of nose-navigation, I'm reminded of an incident of just that. My daughter wasn't walking yet and was just about to perform some probing with her finger. I was sitting right beside her and frowned, telling her, "Don't put your finger in your nose!!" In a split second, she grabbed MY pinkie, with the intent of using it for the operation. Who says kids don't listen?

Thanks Scott. Annoying problem though. I do need to sleep and it is most frustrating not to be able to stay asleep. I suspect that it is the baggage on my mind. If I can get my head on straight, I'll probably sleep again. YAWN

Just saw this thread and have been up since 3:45AM, having gone to bed at just shortly after midnight. I think that my sleeplessness is a result of a combination of stress, seasonal depression and uncertainty about the future. Would therapy help?? I don't think so. The down side, aside from not feeling comfortable with starting my day that early with my usual two-mile run, is that I WILL get tired by mid-afternoon and won't be able to go to sleep, the day's activities not having suddenly disappeared. It's a dilemma. One thing though about sleep patterns. When I was going to college, I used to work in the summer at a job that was midnight to 7AM. I found that if I re-configured my day so that when I came home from work, I ate a light meal, then stayed up for about four hours, went to bed for about six hours, ate a light meal, carried on my daily business and socialized after that, then went to work again it seemed to regulate my life. A couple of years later I had varying shifts and my body never did accustom itself to the different times I ate, slept etc. So I think that a routine is more important than what the routine is. At least, seems to be.

Who were those people?? How sad.

Really! I was born on Jan. 10th. Just like Rod Stewart, Frank Sanatra, Jr., Mike Stern, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, George Foreman, Rasputin, Max Roach, William Parker, Houston Person and Andrew Cyrille. And me.

And each one more handsome than the one before.

Holy Man!!! Here I was, thinking that we had come a long way from those ads in the Sears catalogue, decades ago. You may remember the ad. It had a picture of a young woman, holding a "personal massager for those hard-to-reach places", demurely against her cheek. What does Texas think will happen if women have free access to vibrators?? Repent!!! The End Is Near!!!!

Good for them. Many happy years to them.

In Texas, if we are to be guided by this arrest, people never engage in anything but the marital missionary position, for the sole purpose of conceiving offspring. It is against the law to see sex as an enjoyable experience and if it should accidentaly be fun, they say nothing, preserving the seriousness of the undertaking. I can't believe it.

OK, Revised: Ann Arbour Chicago [if Organissimo gets the gig] Lansing [hey, I've never been to Lansing and we could liven up the burg for a couple of days. St Louis

Happy Birthday Phil!! Watch the cake consumption and only judicious quantities of the champagne.

Now Ann Arbour looks good and all that needs to be determined is when. As I mentioned, anytime after the end of June would be good for me. I'd really like a couple of months lead time to make plans, but, as has been mentioned, by everyone, the thing is to get together and a gig in Ann Arbour would be a great place to do that. It seems a little livelier than Lansing, no offence to Lansing, of course.