Robert J

This is the voice of your conscience, baby.

Like that steak! Re B3 - always the best cure! Vitamin B3 is required for cell respiration, helps in the release of energy and metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, proper circulation and healthy skin, functioning of the nervous system, and normal secretion of bile and stomach fluids. It is used in the synthesis of sex hormones, treating schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, and a memory-enhancer. Nicotinic acid (but not nicotinamide) given in drug dosage improves the blood cholesterol profile, and has been used to clear the body of organic poisons, such as certain insecticides. People report more mental alertness when this vitamin is in sufficient supply.

Your body loses lots of Vitamin B when drinking, so take lots of that to help with further cravings. Niacinamide is the pure form of Vitamin B3, and though it gives you a "flush" (blood that is) I found it killed the craving/hair of the dog part.

It's a little skimpy on the Canadian additions. I work in Toronto but live in Oakville. They don't have Oakville in the listings. So I'll pin it to the bar I was in last night in Toronto. edit - it landed me at the SkyDome for some reason (home of the Blue Jays). That would put me in the Hard Rock Cafe, not one of my haunts!

Doesn't that image remind you of a couple of things? (purely subliminal of course)

Horace Parlan By Horace Parlan

It's just an all around Zappa day on Organissimo today

Have you tried valerian or Sleepy Time tea? I should. My Dad used to take valerian, it smelled so nasty I decided it wasn't for me years ago. I find I get nice vivid dreams with Valerian. Just last night (in the dream) this guy was showing me some interesting fingerings for a C7th Alt chord and its inversions. Perhaps its those "notes between the cracks" that's affecting your "temperament".

38 Born on the day of Canada's Centenary However - my entry into this mortal coil was obscured by another. The first Canadian baby born on July 1, 1967 - future model and actress Pamela Anderson - became the national "Centennial baby".

Herbie Hancock is on The Simple Minds' New Gold Dream - the tune "Hunter and the Hunted"

I'm leaving work now. Yikes, they've been there for almost 10 hours. You may be right! My son does have a thing for the big Cadbury bars at the duty free. Plus we were looking into getting a Turkey at Tops. I just hope the Canadian boarder fellas don't get their avian flu feathers ruffled.

That was my first choice for tapes. Same time period. Then they became the XL2S. I think they were about 30-35$ for a box of 10. I recall the first tapes I bought were from Radio Shack. I think I bought everything there when I was in high school.

Yeah - agreed. That's why I am not there today. I'm not really a shopper anyhow. Plus the trip was too short for me to pick up duty-free booze. On a possible sweet note - I looked at our bank account online, and the teller at our bank the other day seemed to have credited my wife the Canadian amount on the US exchange. ie - we got the US$ and the Canadian (she should have debited the CDN). Hopefully this will go unnoticed by the bank

My wife and kids and her mother left this morning from Oakville, Ontario to Buffalo, NY at 7am. I went last year - insane. Today I am at work. They're headed to an outlet mall in Niagara Falls and then the massive Walden Galleria in Buffalo. But to an advantage this year - the Canadian $ is super-strong. Only an extra 17 cents on the dollar.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! But.... Aren't you about 7 weeks too late in your celebration?

I am cleaning out my basement, and I every year I look at my vast collection of cassette tapes. 20% are pre-recorded while the rest are dubs of LPs and Cds. Recently I acquired another person’s collection. No one seems to want to throw them in the bin completely. Oddly - I am not "really" attached to them, but I can't just throw them out yet. Many bring back memories of University I suppose. Friends getting me into music, and, pre CDRs, taping was the way to get free music. I've now bought the CD versions for many of the cassettes, but there are still lots of vinyl-only dubs kicking around. I also have a bunch of cassettes I bought when I traveled in the mid-East: Arabic classical music, Indian ragas, Ghazals, etc, that I’d hang on to. Also, I no longer have a car that plays cassettes and when I did the player got destroyed eventually by these same tapes. Though I still have an Onkyo home deck, it also sits in the basement, collecting dust. Anyone have stories of how they finally got rid (or not) of their cassette tape collection?

West end of Toronto Lulu lounge Weekends tend to be dinner/show packages, but weekdays are more flexible. I just noticed I missed seeing John Cale there last week.

For the most part, 17 is the magic number here. You'd almost think the question was about virginity.

Toronto The Mod Club - nice place. Reminds me of St. Andews Hall in Greektown with the balcony rim above the main floor, but hipper. I've seen Wilco and Bob Mould there. Here's the website. Joey D plays there all the time when he's in town. Lonnie Smith Trio too.

My wife lived half her life in Dubai, UAE. That's the place to be. Her family has travelled to Oman and Qatar, but Yemen was out of the question for security reasons. I visited Dubai 3 times and only passed through Oman. Beautiful places. All I know (positively) about Yemen is Ofra Haza's beautiful music.

I joined my first jazz band when I was 17. They were already together that summer getting paid on an arts grant. I was just the hanger-on who was pleased to be lugging a heavy Rhodes and amp so I could play at lunchtime facing the Detroit River. No pay there. I got us our first paid gig, still facing the Detroit river, about a month later. It was a place called Lee's Imperial House Tavern (Jim, your dad probably knew this place). It had been there forever, was owned by a Chinese family for years, and had various live music. It also housed the first B-3 I ever played (badly). On weekends there was a decent Dixieland band and a great crowd. It was also good place for underage drinkers like myself. I got talking to the owner one night, and he said bring the band in Thursday. We got $10@, 2-3 beers, and a plate of Chinese food. It was heaven! We did a mix of standards and modern stuff. But as the late 80s picked up and the economic slump in Windsor and Detroit turned around, bars and clubs changed. There were more conferences in Downtown Detroit, busy hotels, and lonely guys. So Windsor's strip club population grew and Lee's Imperial Tavern became Cheeta's. We lasted about 1/2 year, which is not bad considering we were still in high school. As a soloist, 17 for a ballet class. I think it was $7/hour, about 4 hours a week. No Chinese food.

Blue Bossa Night and Day Oleo A Foggy Day

Guitar master Link Wray dies at 76 Monday, November 21, 2005 Posted: 1640 GMT (0040 HKT) COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Guitar master Link Wray, the father of the power chord in rock 'n' roll who inspired legends such as Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Pete Townsend, has died. Wray, 76, died at his home in Copenhagen November 5, a statement from his wife and son on his Web site said. No cause of death was given, but his family said his heart was "getting tired." He was buried quietly after a service at Copenhagen's Christian Church November 18. "While playing his guitar he often told the audience, 'God is playing my guitar, I am with God when I play,"' his wife, Olive, and son, Oliver Christian, wrote. "We saw you go with God, you were smiling." Wray developed a style considered the blueprint for heavy metal and punk music. Frequently seen playing in his trademark leather jacket, he is best known for his 1958 instrumental "Rumble," 1959 "Rawhide" and 1963's "Jack the Ripper." His music has been featured in movies including "Pulp Fiction," "Independence Day" and "Desperado." Wray, who was three-quarters Shawnee Indian, is said to have inspired many other rock musicians, including Pete Townsend of the Who, but also David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Steve Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen. All have been quoted as saying that Wray and "Rumble" inspired them to become musicians. "He is the king; if it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,' I would have never picked up a guitar,"' Townsend wrote on one of Wray's albums. Neil Young once said: "If I could go back in time and see any band, it would be Link Wray and the Raymen." The power chord -- a thundering sound created by playing fifths (two notes five notes apart, often with the lower note doubled an octave above) -- became a favorite among rock players. Wray claimed because he was too slow to be a whiz on the guitar, he had to invent sounds. When recording "Rumble," he created the fuzz tone by punching holes in his amplifiers to produce a dark, grumbling sound. It took off instantly, but it was banned by some deejays in big cities for seeming to suggest teen violence. "I was looking for something that Chet Atkins wasn't doing, that all the jazz kings wasn't doing, that all the country pickers wasn't doing. I was looking for my own sound," Wray told The Associated Press in 2002. He was born Frederick Lincoln Wray Jr. in 1929 in Dunn, North Carolina. His two brothers, Vernon and Doug, were also musicians. The three became a country hit as "Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands." Later, after "Rumble," they became "Link Wray and the Raymen," or Wraymen, as it was sometimes spelled. Later, the brothers' relationship soured after a dispute about the rights to "Rumble." In 1978, he moved to Denmark and married Olive Julie Povlsen. They raised their son in a three-story house on an island where Hans Christian Andersen once lived. Though he went out of style in the '60s, he was rediscovered by later generations. He toured the United States and Canada since the mid-1990s, playing 40 shows this year. In 2002, Guitar World magazine elected Wray one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

That was neat!

I do 1 hour of focussed practice, not counting playing/jamming. Though I am sure I wasted years by having poor practice sessions. If a teacher can do anything right, it is to impart a good practice routine for life. In the last year I've been following a concise plan for warming up - finger patterns, scales, chords and arpeggios. I am going to Barry Harris' bebop workshop this weekend, and I found his book very helpful in terms of "what" to practice. I'll report on the Workshop later.