catesta

Obviously you have not seen my boys in action.

Lester Young by Art Kane

Shit, this thread has gone way over my head. Over the weekend I was watching "Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe" for the third or fourth time . Francesco was in Lucca (birthplace of Puccini) with a local opera singer that stopped the crowd dead in their tracks while she sang a Puccini aria. Fuck me, that was impressive. I like to somehow consider myself a fan. I don't really own much in the way of recordings, have only attended a couple of performances (thanks to my mother) and don't have any true knowledge. My mother's family on the other hand was and is still connected to it big time, so I guess the appreciation is in my blood.

I wish I knew. I'm always sorry to see long time contributors/characters leave. Best of luck to you, bro.

Memo to stupid, sick, fuck. Next time if you must bust a nut, maybe try a prostitute, blow up doll, or just jerkoff.

Don't be surprised if you see the Beirut episode again.

That clip is a beautiful thing.

Yeah, but they don't try to sell them for 20K when they were originally 22.5... The price is relative to the equipment. Sure the base price of the car may have been 22.5K, but with added options the window sticker may have been 24.5K +, there is no real way to know unless you have the equipment list. All things considered with the current incentives and year end close outs, as Chuck is suggesting, Rooster's old man is probably better off shopping for new and skipping used all together.

A friend of mine is a dealer rep for one of the big-3 US automakers. I've joined his crusade. DON'T BUY A FORMER RENTAL CAR, even if the carfax is clean/it hasn't been wrecked. They're usually sold to people who believe they're 'as good as new', yet they were owned by a party with a one-year holding period (not much incentive to maintain the car and a strong profit incentive not to - not that they have dealer-certified or otherwise qualified mechanics) and driven by individuals who have no incentive to treat the car well. (Proper break-in? Ha!) The cars are bought at auction by a dealer. As long as that dealer is reputable and the car has bumper to bumper warranty, why would you be so paranoid? Ask your friend what dealers do to trade ins before they put them on the lot for resale. It's the same drill. There are no guarantees a private party broke the car in or had it serviced properly either. When it comes to buying cars, new or used there is always some risk, no way around that.

ditto

"Program cars" are more times than not simply rental cars coming out of service. Run a carfax and that will tell you how it was orginally registered. Typically there is no reason to be concerned with these cars as they are still under warranty. On a resale car it is impossible to know what the dealer has in it cost wise, but I would imagine if the asking price is $20K, you chould expect a discount in the $2000-$4000 area at a minimum. Rooster, if I was you I'd convince him to go Buick. Those new models give a real nice ride and are solid.

So in between tennis, I was flipping around and No Reservations is on and Bourdain is covering Ireland. This show is cool as shit! Nothing like watching him on a train in the morning on his way to Dublin, and the man cracks open a can of Guinness to wash down his breakfast! Sure wish I would've caught the Cleveland episode. Cleveland was a great episode. Bourdain hung out with Michael Ruhlman, Marky Ramone and Harvey Pekar. You can see the episode comic book by clicking here.

I think most friends of mine take whatever jazz I have playing simply as background music and don't pay much attention to it, so I play whatever I want. At the very least my lady and I can enjoy it. I've given up on trying to convert the masses.

riposare in pace

skidmarks?

Happy Birthday, you snake.

No fuckin' problem.

I do get BBC but for some reason or another have never seen this show. I'll definitely give it a look.

I caught a few episodes of Hells Kitchen and liked it. The previews for the new show look good so I expect to be tuning in.

chicken legs

Yep!

Should Alexander take a cruise down Jamaica Avenue with the new Kanye blasting from his deck?

I must confess that I stole the "ape" bit from one of my students. One of my African-American students. The full quotation was "Fiddy is an ape with rabbit teeth," but I thought it was a bit low, especially to the rabbits. Everyone here knows that I'm no bigot, so fuck Clem and the horse he rode in on. This does come across like an Imus explanation.

Yeah, but can they dance?

I have the very same feeling...if only I could find a Clementine/italian dictionary on the web. Same here. I don't agree with everything he says and have had my fair share of typed arguments with him in the past, but he is a welcome character in my book. Clem has tipped me on more than one occasion, so all is good. To go one step beyond, I wouldn't even mind having DEEP back around.