Dan Gould

Congratulations. You managed to slip Maureen Dowd (complete with a gratuitous political comment) into the Miscelleneous-Non Political Forum, and I am not bitching about it. PLEASE study this column and that Frank Rich "Brokeback Mountain" column until you recognize and understand the reasons why one belongs in Politics and the other doesn't.

Why do I feel I am back in that Dexter thread, only now its, "you are over-valuing one well-known guy at the expense of my heroes, so cut it out!" Herbie isn't "over-rated" because your average pop music fan knows who he is. Ray Charles COULDN'T BE "over-rated". And B.B. King isn't a "WAS" yet.

Don't worry about the placement, I am sure Use or Jim will move it when they see it. In the meantime, thanks for the heads up. I remember the name on a Mobley release and with Hank Jones along, it certainly sounds right up my alley.

That was really lame.

Mark is right that home runs shouldn't be a part of the discussion, but that said, you do need to take into account the fact that pitching was better in Williams' era and .400 hitters were much more common during Jackson's era. Also factor in that Williams had over 2700 more at bats and Jackson's career ended at the age of 31, before his numbers might have started to decline. Who knows if Jackson would have maintained his BA had he not been banned? For Williams to bat 2700 more times and finish at .344 should be taken into consideration, too.

That's not an option for me. The wife cooks for the dogs, no commercial dog food for them ... and the end result is they never fart. Its really quite amazing. In fact, the very few times that he has farted, Coltrane looked startled, as if he was thinking, "what the hell was that?"

The only thing more intrigueing to me than the autobiography is just what he plans to release from "the vault".

Not sure about Hutch's "Montara" but I'd stay far away from the rest. Unless of course you actually prefer the "Dr." Butler era of BN.

I heard the clips from "The Thang" and thought they sounded pretty good, too. Thanks for the nudge, John.

Anyone says "Gene Harris" has got to answer to me.

Given how important Mosaic is in the sphere of reissues and premium quality box sets that no one else will put out, I think we owe it to them to get everything we are interested in direct from them so that they can continue to do what they do.

The closest I ever got was buying a festival t-shirt off of ebay. If I recall correctly, there were only two or three festivals before Gene died.

Well, "Fame" wasn't nearly as entertaining as "Lady Marmalade" was ...

All I can say is, I got no problem with Gene Harris at #12.

Gee Ray, I'm getting the feeling you're a wee bit older than I am ...

Welcome to the board. I myself already have tickets for the Javon Jackson/Benny Green show.

So I'm flipping around while I eat my lunch, and I suddenly realized: There's actually a movie that goes along with that score that John Lewis wrote! Unfortunately, it started at 11:30 so I've missed most of it. But the Turner Classic Movies website shows that its scheduled to run again on April 1 at 8 am. So, is it worth it? Maybe I'm crazy but I'm pretty sure that the blonde girl is the same actress who played Violet Bick in Its a Wonderful Life. YUP! It is. So, is the film worth seeing, or just worth hearing?

I don't want to jinx anything before its official, but the Herald is reporting that once the Indians secure an outfielder, there's a deal in place for the Sox to trade Mota and the super-prospect Marte for Coco Crisp. And I gotta say, Crisp replacing Damon sounds very good to me. Not only is he cheap having only two year's service time, but if you look at his numbers in his two years as a starter, they're very similar to Damon, including homers, doubles, RBI, SB. And while he hasn't played much centerfield at this level, he was a centerfielder coming up through the minors. The main difference between Damon and Crisp lies in OBP and willingness to work the count ... since Coco would lead-off, hopefully batting coach Papa Jack will get him on the same page with the rest of the roster. Bottom line, this is a much better move than overpaying Seattle for Jeremy Reed, who hasn't even shown he can hit major league pitching, and they wanted Arroyo and either Papelbon or Jon Lester! Giving up Marte may hurt in the long term but of the potentially strong arms they've stockpiled in the bullpen, its Mota who has slipped ever since he got traded to the Marlins, while Tavarez and Seanez have been lights out for a couple of years. The Herald also says the Sox have reached agreement with Alex Gonzales to replace Rent-a-Wreck. His bat bothers me but his glove work is very strong ... and better to sign a free agent than give the Devil Rays what they want for Lugo when this is Lugo's walk year anyway. So if all this goes down, it will be a different Red Sox team, one showing stronger defense and pitching than we've usually had. In fact, if they don't move Wells (and there wouldn't be a reason to) they'll still have a surplus of SP and relievers too, and that's with Hansen not even making the roster, and Arroyo probably in the BP. I gotta like a rotation of Schilling, Becket, Wells, Papelbon and Clement, which leaves Arroyo and Wakefield in the pen with Timlin, Tavarez, Seanez, Foulke. Come to think of it, if they can fill their holes and only give up Mota, they probably still have to move a pitcher. But that's a big difference between the Yanks and the Sox: They both have too many starters, but the Yanks can't move anyone cuz they don't know what they've got between Pavano, Wright, Smalls, etc. Sox will be dealing from strength when it comes to the pitching staff. Oh, and with Crisp on board for the next four years, that would allow them to move Coco to rightfield after this season and go after Hunter or Andruw Jones for the long-term centerfield solution. I'd really like that!

FWIW, Kevin Trudeau, who was the subject of an expose on 20/20 Friday night, is now selling that pile of crap he calls a book at $14.95 so he must be getting a declining return of suckers/infomercial. I had to get up early to take care of the dogs this weekend (the wife's away) and I had a strong urge to just sit on the couch and dial his 800 number over and over again, informing each operator that they work for a fraud and a con man. Probably wouldn't have done anything to reduce their sales but it would have felt good for five minutes or so.

Interesting, and somewhat timely topic, as on Wednesday I learned that my uncle on my mom's side had died. He was my favorite relative growing up but we'd pretty much lost touch, to the extent that we only now learned that he'd had significant health issues and major depression over the past five years, and had in fact spent the last three years never stepping foot out of the house, nor shaving or cutting his hair, and refused all medical treatment. Very sad and very shocking news, particulary for my Mom who has lost her last blood relative. She's in Ohio for the funeral now but I don't think she'll be visiting the cemetary after this weekend.

What exactly are you doing, on a day-to-day basis? Where does the time go (how is it spent)? Do you get anything accomplished on a daily or weekly basis? On the question of this errand ... do you ever say to yourself, "damn, I should have taken care of that errand instead of (watching the football game)." Or are your days so full that you simply never have the chance to do this errand? I am guessing not. I am guessing that in fact you often kill time doing things you want to do or prefer to do, or simply can't get motivated to actually do what you need to get done, like making those phone calls. I have only one time management technique. Its rather anal, but it does help me get a grip on the things that I have to do, the things that are running through my mind at a given time. Yes, its the simple "To Do" list. Every week, and often updated in between, I list out the things that are on my plate. Everything from getting estimates on our hurricane damage so I can fax them to the insurance company and get more $$ out of them to getting a haircut appointment for this weekend. The benfit is two-fold: 1) I don't lose track of my obligations. I also reduce my mental stress-load because I am not obsessing, mentally, on what needs to be done. Everything is right there on paper. 2) I get a feeling of accomplishment when I cross something off the list.

According to his brother Gary, Charles Kynard ...

Thanks - that's roughly what Ira Gitler noted in "The happy blues". But did that mean he thought the records produced by Esmond, Ozzie Cadena, Cal Lampley, Bob Porter & Don Schlitten were in some way inferior because they didn't have that approach? MG I am not aware of how those producers' approaches varied from Bob's "supervision". Porter produced a lot of organ albums - did he tell the musicians what to play? Were those sessions any less of a jam than a lot of the dates that had Weinstock's name on them?

Bob didn't "produce" any record session. He supervised. That's not an issue of semantics. I'd offer you more details if I had the interview transcribed, but the gist of what he told me was that he respected the musicians enough to get out of their way and let them play, and that 99 times out of a hundred, the caliber of musicians playing in those golden years guaranteed that memorable music would be produced. I also recall he said something to the effect that the "jam sessions" Prestige produced was the very essence of jazz, that getting great musicians together to jam on some tunes epitomized the best jazz.