Neal Pomea

Enjoying F.P. Santangelo as our new TV color commentator! I know a lot of DC fans miss Dibble, but not me. This guy has a lot more charm and finesse. Haven't caught him contradicting his own commentary simply for the sake of having the last word, the way Dibble often did.

Just lost a pitchers' game to Philadelphia, time 2:06. That time is almost unheard of these days. Cliff Lee was awesome tonight.

Whoa! I didn't realize he directed The Hill (1965)! What an amazing movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059274/

Fats Waller too, but not to me.

Separated at birth?

Nice to have Jayson Werth homering AGAINST the Phillies tonight, instead of against us Internats.

Ryan Zimmerman was put on the 15-day disabled list with a strained abdominal muscle, aggravating a spring training injury. He may be out longer than that. We'll have to use Hairston and Cora, and maybe call up Brian Bixler who impressed this spring. Werth moves back to hitting in the number 3 spot. Here's hoping he gets hot and carries us a while.

Nice 11-inning victory for Wash over NY! Continued good relief pitching, better defense than yesterday (Hairston's error), and clutch hitting by Rodriguez and Nix. We were 3-10 last year in extra innings, so here's hoping for improvement.

"Especially as the Bear Family JD Miller set is about to be released. And the complete Bristol Sessions. $$$$$$" The Bear set is beautiful! Like a Mosaic. I got a comp copy this week. Comes with a hardbound book of notes with so many photos and stories I had not heard before. Some information already known through John Broven and Bruce Bastin, but some original telephone interviews conducted by Lyle Ferbrache with principals too. Painstaking discography by Dave Sax. This wasn't the year for Grammy to cut back on its number of awards. If I had a vote, I would nominate this in the historic category, or reissues, or whatever they want to call it. Musically, the climax comes for me on CD 2 of 3, with 4 songs by Amedie Breaux: Jolie Blonde, Acadian Two Step (aka Catch My Hat as we know it through Iry LeJeune), Criminal Waltz, and Poor Hobo. Amedie Breaux had one of the best hollers in the history of Cajun music. But lots of other gems too. I guess a guitarist named Jimmy Choates was the hottest, most swing-like stuff of the whole bunch. My uncle Louis Pomea played drums in one of his bands. On the Lawrence Walker front, his Khoury 78 reissues are on Arhoolie's Cajun Honky Tonk cd, but those are not what I would call his best. Sound quality, and pounding drum fuck ups. His best, IMO, are through La Louisianne and Swallow records. LPs compilations of his 45s. Never released on CD. PM me for further info.

Saddens me somewhat to say that Ivan Rodriguez might be splitting time half and half at catcher this season, making it hard to see how he would reach the 3,000 hit plateau as a National. But tonight's game showed why he is so great as a catcher! His pitch selection with Tyler Clippard, one of our erratic set up relievers, was just tremendous. No way Wilson Ramos, his competition for the starting position, would have called that sequence or been on the same page as Clip. He'll go in the Hall of Fame as a Ranger!

Good relief pitching for Washington in the past two games! That's encouraging to me. Time for some timely hitting. Too many men left on base! The big rbis of this game (6-2) were by our pitcher, Jordan Zimmermann (!), and Ivan Rodriguez with a lazy single. Spoiling the home opener for NY.

Exciting 11-inning win last night, Washington over Florida. Home runs by Jayson Werth and Adam Laroche. Getting ready to start a day game against the Metropolitans in NY.

It came right after "late medieval creative," I guess.

Hail delay in the 4th inning of Braves at Nationals.

There goes my hope for an undefeated season! (sic) Braves beat Nationals, 2-0.

AL East Red Sox AL Central Twins AL West A's AL Wildcard Blue Jays NL East Phillies NL Central Cardinals NL West Padres NL Wildcard Giants World Series Red Sox over Phillies Washington Nationals' record: 80-82

Final Four in April! VCU in the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament LXXIII!

I heard the author's mother on a speaking tour she gave when Dunces won the Pulitzer, and you could picture this frail little old lady calling out to Santa Battaglia and hiding her Muscatel in the oven! John Candy was being talked about for the role of Ignatius in some production that never happened. THAT would have been something!

As the Onion suggested, they need to remake 2009's Avatar for today's more modern, discerning audience. http://www.theonion.com/articles/classic-movie-avatar-updated-for-todays-audiences,18052/

Describes the lifestyle of a lot of oil field workers, too, from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi. YOU know that, but I thought I would point it out. [i have a friend in Lafayette Louisiana whose company does blowout preventers (like the problem with BP and the deep Gulf fiasco last summer), and he tells me that when drilling companies send crews out offshore, they try to not mix the cultures too much. It's crews of people from the same background, same state, as much as possible, sent together. The casualties on the BP rig were a strange mix of several states. Might have made for miscommunication, in his opinion.]

Great movie! Tennessee Williams story. Performances by her, Montgomery Clift, and Katherine Hepburn? Unforgettable! So beautiful that year! Can't thank her enough for her work. Virginia Woolf? Impossible acting.

I got a paperback copy of Tony Russell's Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942 for $40 on a sale from Amazon, and it looks like it's cheaper now. Dick Spottswood did some great discographies of early Cajun artists, available in Ann Allen Savoy's book Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Everything Spottswood does is so valuable.

OLE! APEMAN (anagram of Neal Pomea)

JSP duplicated a lot from these CMF sets, which were setting the standard for Cajun reissues. I thought these were out of print. Did you get them on eBay? Used on Amazon? If you can get them, Arhoolie's lp series of Louisiana Cajun Music from the 70s were terrific! All songs transcribed and translated. I posted this blurb about them in the last few days on my Web site: "Ever since the 1970s I was aware of the recorded old time Cajun and Creole music of the 1920s and 1930s through a remarkable series of lps (long-playing records) on the market by the Arhoolie Records label. I will always be grateful to producer Chris Strachwitz for making that music available! It's as if it's in my DNA now! Some of these outstanding lps are still available from the Arhoolie Web site, with these titles: Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 1, First Recordings (OT108); Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 2, The Early 30s (OT109); Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 3, The String Bands of the 1930s (OT110); Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 4, The 30s to the 50s (OT111); Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 5, 1928-1938 (OT114); Amade Ardoin, His Original Recordings 1928-1934 Volume 6 (OT124); Leo Soileau, Louisiana Cajun Music Volume 7 (OT125)." I would not call what you listed above a "modest collection." It's really some of the best!!!

I return to these often: King Oliver Louis Armstrong Hot 5s and 7s Henry Red Allen and his New York Orchestra Chocolate Dandies Fletcher Henderson Orchestra 20s Duke Ellington late 20s Bennie Moten Clarence Williams' small groups Richard M. Jones Jelly Roll Morton Jabbo Smith Missourians Bix Django Miff Mole and His Molers among the singers, Bessie Smith, Clara Smith, Ma Rainey, and Ethel Waters