fasstrack

Thanks. Got it. Hope to find a kickass organ trio to play with in Holland. My friend Bob Wijnen from the Hague did a Scully tour with me (and we all survived ). Did a great job. Lazaro'll tell you. Hope to meet you guys. If I come back maybe it'll be to Michigan. Had enough of the wormed Apple for a while. Love it, though.....My hometown.

Thanks. Can you believe Tom Harrell requested to be my 'friend'?! I woulda paid him..... Big hero.

Thanks, Paul. Enjoyed hanging w/you and the Diehlman last summer. I gotta call that greasy MF before I leave....

Thanks. I'm either gonna have the time of my life or end up in the Netherlands equivalent of Guantaramo Bay...

Yeah. Lucky for you I got low standards Thanks, guys. I just looked and got a request from Tom frickin' Harrell!! One of my heroes. Damn, this myspace thing is good.......... Thanks again, from knucklehead numero uno

Waaah nobody don't wuv me..... I be disappernted.....

http://www.myspace.com/joelfass personnel/bio is on the site. Hope y'all enjoy it a little. BTW: apropos of nothing I'm leaving NY and moving to Europe (Den Haag, Netherlands) in 2 weeks. Will stay in touch, though. Joel

Very shocking and disturbing. I'm an admirer. RIP to a great man. The ranks are thinning......

And you got your wish . Talk about kicking ass and taking names! And I think I can speak for most of the assembled quorum by adding a hearty Amen. No, make that a hearty Fuck You George, (newly unemployed ) Rummy, and the rest of the soon to be ex-governing gang.

Happy birthday, Paul. Nice hanging with you and Eddie last summer. Hope to see you again soon. Good times await..... Joel

Alright, Chris baby! Glad I met you on these pages. From one curmudgeon to another many happy returns. Joel

I'll be damned if he doesn't look like Michael Jackson Seriously, the eyes and hair, a young Michael before the various alterations.....

Lester Leaps in: the Life And Times of Lester "Pres" Young by Walter? Henry Daniels. Walter is wrong. Someone correct me.

On a very related sidebar (books) I again cracked the recent Lester Young bio (I just had it in my hands but too many brain cells are gone to remember title and author, but it's by a sociologist with three names, one of which is Henry, I believe ). To my surprise I found it much more engaging the 2nd time around. The 1st his prose style was so cumbersome and dry, to me, as to totally leave Lester the person out. "Yes, I was wrong. Again I was wrong...." This is a very accomplished book in describing social conditions in the Midwest in the early part of the 20th century, the jazz scene, intergration/miscogenation (sp?), and Pres's life and times (damn, that's the title, just remembered... ). He is very much there in fact (multiple interviews with him) and spirit (interviews with sidemen, etc.). It's a tour de force of scholarship and well worth putting up with the awkward prose of a scholar and not a conversational tone. RJ Smith's book is eminently readable, both talk about the same thing and points, namely the jazz and social life of 40s LA. A lot of attitudes of blacks and whites are explored/exposed. The only really annoying habit he has is capitalizing Black (white is in l.c.). It really slows down and stiffens the page and does nothing to offset any social ills. Other than that much recommended. Over and out.

The Joker as symbol has cropped up again and again in literature. Comedy has great signifigance and great therapeutic powers. I don't really know Stepin Fetchit. I always found Eddie Anderson/Rochester funny and in the end he always outsmarted "Mr. Benny". But it still feels heavy as lead to watch that stuff. Amos And Andy in that movie wasn't even close to bring funny. It embarrassed me.

BTW, very good input, guys. I'm edified, nearly humbled, and proud of yiz.

Riverdale. The North----funky----shitty part......But you roll with the punches. I had a cheap place w/parking for 7 years and was finally kicked out when the guy sold it. I should've bought it, it was dirt cheap. Now I rent like a shlub...... I am so outta 'heart attack city' (my brother's appellation) in January. It was great, but I've had enough for a long while.

I left in Dec. '94, but only for the boogie down Bronx. I'm going a little further soon, though, to Holland to live for a while. Yeah, I peeped the change in Canarsie. White flight was in full swing before I left. We split due to having to sell my dad's house for unrelated reasons. Canarsie is where I started rebelling against my middle-class Jewish upbringing with music, first white rock'n'roll then black music (blues, R&B, and me and my boys were into Stevie Wonder big time. Music of my Mind, Talking Book, etc.) Soon I was venturing into East New York to play in bands. Then came jazz and poverty.... This doesn't qualify me to talk about shit, BTW. Just reminiscing. As far as the topic at hand goes, of course it goes deeper than one's first impression. Life always does. Of course, being in the arts 'art and commerce' are on the radar screen for me daily. It's what my life has become about, (sad to say) so I don't have to read about it, as living it will suffice. But suffice it to say it was a shock to watch that movie today in 2006. It triggered the above-mentioned thoughts, that's all. I'm not a sociologist nor terribly well read, to be frank. I play the guitar. And think too much. I'll move over now and let some other opinions in.

And no Kate Smith jokes, wiseasses---I'll moiderlize the first one o' yiz who uses moon or mountain in a sentence, see? Happy birthday V-man! Eighty MFing four. Dayum! Music keeps us young.

Ah, so that explains it. I was watching it in bed across the room from my monitor and thought it was another band, a white band, then walked to the screen and saw guys from Duke's band singing really nasally through megaphones. I said 'what the....' Never would've thought it was lip-synched. Too weird.....

Also, FWIW---probably next to nothing---the scene where they're racing through Harlem to meet the train at Penn Sta. uses an early an primitive form of whatever projection technique that is where it appears that a car is moving and it's actually stationary. It may be the first or one of the first times that was used (I'm speculating here). This technique is still in common use in SNL sketches. What's it called? Someone help me out here.

BTW, Clementine: what part of Brooklyn are you in? I lived all over but was born and bred in Canarsie. CHS '72---right next to Curtis Sliwa---yeah, I know---and the next year it was Lloyd ('World Be') Free' and Warren Cucarulla (who i did grow up with). Also Patrick Clark who I knew in HS and turned out to be an innovative chef. He died waiting for a heart transplant. Great guy.

No, it ain't simple, and who said it was? And you don't know who I am, who I've spoken to, grown up around, revered and learned from, or what I've experienced, so let's lose those suppositions, please. So I'm white (and Jewish, for you completists) and raised the issue. Consider me merely the messenger chronicling in disgust what I saw and posing questions. You (or anyone else) need to know more about me before painting me any kind of way beyond that, unless you can tell me the baggage I brought merely from what I wrote. Fair enough? Minstrel shows? Only from reading and film clips, but unless someone on here is 100+ years old we're all in the same boat on that one. But is this where you're going with it?: There's a very slick old traditional approach to comedy by blacks wherein white folks are pilloried and parodied without even knowing it. That's what the cakewalk was supposed to be about, right? The whites enjoyed minstrel shows because it played to their ideas of blacks but there was an undercurrent of rebellion supposedly underneath whitey didn't get and wasn't supposed to. Even that is a hell of a simplification, I'm sure. But Amos and Andy was white-produced, the stars were white (supporting cast, Kingfish, etc. played by blacks). This was the only film appearance of the radio team and the stereotypes and white might being pushed are nauseating, even though it was 1930. I raised the question, have things changed from then to white-controlled hip hop and other entertainment. Let's put Katrina aside for a minute---my bad for putting that in this particular brew---not that it's a thing apart, but I want to simplify it somewhat. It seems the main difference between then and now is there's a lot more money now to be made 'playing to type' but the 'type' played to hasn't changed much. That's what I wanted to focus on. Any discussion of race is risky and sparks are gonna fly, but let's leave the suppositions of uptightness and privilege out of it please. That's too facile, a prejudice in itself frankly, and not the point, not to me anyway. We know every American is somewhat poisoned by racism or else a liar or saint. Let's discuss this subject. And yeah I know what HNIC stands for. And I've been fantasizing for years about getting a desk sign that says HKIC (head Kike in Charge) but I have kids over the house for lessons and some parents are, ahem, uptight. Why, I even have to hide my punching rabbi doll.... (I swear I actually have a punching rabbi doll)

Are they making NY? If so I'd like to say hi.

BTW: did anyone else reade that book I mentioned, The Great Black Way? RJ Smith, I believe, or JR......I highly recommend it.