Dan Gould

For whatever its worth, when I was growing up, every child was encouraged to read and trips to New York that included a lengthy stop at the big Barnes & Noble in mid-town on 5th Ave were looked forward to. My mother even insisted on picking out books to give as birthday presents rather than whatever toy was popular. I surely didn't enjoy giving a buddy a book but it shows that if your parents encourage it, anyone will discover that reading is as far from a "chore" as you can get.

I don't care what Fox News is reporting, so I didn't follow the link. But this "discovery" has no significance whatsoever. It appears to be a screenplay draft, nothing more. And its been proven beyond any doubt that Oswald wasn't in Dallas on the day this supposed conversation took place.

It would be nice if they put the back issues online, because in my interview with Eddie Higgins he told a funny story about a picture that they ran with a profile of Eddie. Cadence dropped it from the published transcript, but here it is from my original:

I called Kenny Burrell "sonic wallpaper" (and yes, I have that Generation Ago LP). I missed two of my favorite Argo LPs on 14 and 15. And we have a new record of recordings owned on a single BFT disc (too lazy to check if I still own the Russell Malone disc), and when you factor in that with how few I actually got right, the shame just goes on and on and on ... Thanks again for a fine disc, Al. I figure I won't be as embarrassed by the answers to disc 2, as I didn't really care for it as much as disc 1.

And another Sox fan celebrating a b-day.

and go Sox!

I'm not. There was money to be made from reissues, why would they suddenly find religion when it comes to paying what they owe the artists? Just as easy to rake in the dough and assume you'll get away with it. Now, if BN were being sued, I'd be surprised because Tom seemed genuinely pleased to be able to deliver royalty checks, e.g., the Jutta Hipp story.

They told her that doggie in the window was $67,000. Obviously, they lied!

Seems to me if anything, this is something that the Dusty Groove reissue label would be interested in - but only if the tapes turn up. And as far as mislabeling and other problems - didn't MC encounter an extraordinary amount of that when he got access to the vaults in the 70s? I seem to recall a lot of things he found/put out weren't very well clearly marked. Of course, at this point that number of tapes that haven't been ID'd has to be pretty small. I wouldn't hold my breath that this thing will show up anytime soon.

I'm not over my infatuation with Eric, but I saw him a few years ago when he came to Fort Lauderdale with Norman Simmons, and that was probably enough. I would be interested in seeing Hazeltine for the first time but having severely pulled or torn my hamstring on the tennis court this morning, I have no intention of hobbling any further than the distance from the couch to the john right now.

Well, I picked up that Danko/Lightsey album of Shorter compositions, right there at Stereo Jack's in 2005, with Jack telling me how much he liked this album. Why do I always manage to forget these sorts of clues when a BFT comes around? Same thing happened with Marty's BFT. Fwiw, and in my defense, I didn't dig the album as much as Jack said I would.

Why, is the Rocket now illegally burning CDs too?

thanks for the links. I'm glad to know that I won't have a problem with existing DVDs on an HDTV.

So let me guess - when our current, non-HD TV gets replaced, all of our regular DVDs will look like shit on a new HD TV? They better not. We've got way too much invested in current, regular DVD technology.

I'd like to say I take great comfort in the fact that I wasn't the only one to say that the first vocal track was Johnny Mathis.

For Christmas I received the SNL Season 2 DVD set and last night we were watching one of the last episodes with Eric Idle as host. The show-long gag was that they were running a telethon to "Save Great Britain" and had a Queen look-a-like on the stage. The number to call was 555-1066.

This is the idiot who in her time on American Idol made countless stupid/ignorant remarks. The producers of this show were hardly ignorant of how stupid she is and knew it would make for entertaining television. I am not familiar with the number of steps it takes to get to $10,000 - I've seen others though going much higher than that - but did you notice that she'd already used two of her cheating options just to reach that point?

I tried a few Gonz CDs way back when and could not connect with him. Felt like just another Coltrane acolyte, and with an unappealing sound on his sax. I think Bill's comment about technique to burn nails it. He's like Jimmy Bruno - all technique, not a lot of soul or feeling. YMMV, of course.

And last but not least, keep an eye on this page: http://www.statementanalysis.com/cases/ I discovered it a year or so ago when I was watching the movie about Jeffrey McDonald, the Marine doctor who butchered his family. The man who runs the site is an expert in spotting deceptive statements (the way he picks apart MacDonald's initial statement is staggering - like the way he used "distancing" language when he called for help "some people are hurt" (he's talking about his family!) but used personal language about his supposed attackers. Devastating stuff) So, above is his splash page to different cases he's analyzed - and sometime in the last month he's put up an analysis of Roger's 60 Minutes interview and the taped phone call, which is well worth a read. I'm sure we'll see a lengthy look at his testimony as well. Keep in mind that this man only looks at words, no body language, in his analysis. And, if the subject interests you, the other articles are very interesting too,

Forget the two articles about body language above. This is the article everyone should read. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3244344

Two different looks at Clemens' body language, one verdict: Guilty, guilty guilty!

There's one problem with the theory - there isn't a lot of time left in Dubya's term for the Justice Department to decide to pursue the case, get their ducks in a row, secure DNA sample from Clemens, get it tested, get him indicted, and get him convicted before January 20th, 2009. In the meantime, Clemens will perpetually protest his innocence, fight the government at every step (lengthening the process before a trial even starts), and thus keep the case in play past the time GW is in office. I realize that a President can order a pardon without criminal charges or a conviction (Ford did it with Nixon, after all) but do you think that in the middle of this, Clemens would accept a pardon? Acceptance of a pardon constitutes acceptance of guilt in this situation. Clemens would never allow it, except maybe, maybe, after a jury found him guilty - and as I've explained, a jury trial is unlikely to get under way before Bush leaves office. Up to this point, I thought that Clemens' legal advice and the performance his lawyers has been deplorable, while McNamee's lawyers have been extremely good. This is a major, major misstep on their part and hopefully for their sake, it will die in a single 24 hour news cycle. At worst they should have pointed out the fact that the chairman was ticked off at Clemens' attorneys and that the Republicans took their cue from that, and that who knows, maybe they think that Bush will pardon him? They should never have stated it so strongly. It was a stupid action to take.

The comparison to selling LPs after purchasing CDs is not apt because, at least at the time, and still for a lot of people, the CD was an upgrade. It is impossible to define an MP3 stored only on an electronic device as an upgrade from the CD. I'm a little disappointed to hear that you can download new copies from emusic a second time. It would thrill me to no end to hear about people who have sold their CDs and had an I-pod or hard drive crash wipe out their "collection". One other consolation: the perpetual use of headphones will mean that the I-Pod generation, like the owners of mobile vibration machines before them, will all go deaf soon enough. Then it won't matter if their music is all-digital or CDs. They won't be hearing none of it anyway. And yes, get off my lawn while you're at it.

The answer finally dawned on me today: The Democratic chairman and Rusty Hardin have been going at it since last week. That gave all the clues necessary to the minority members of whose side they should be on. If the Chairman is attacking Clemens, then the Republicans have to defend him. Too bad that in order to do that, they had to check their brains at the door (if they had any).