Neal Pomea

Like most people, it's certainly not something trite like BADASS but my tribe's creation myth. -- Queequeeg

Those walks were painful to watch, and I'm not even rooting for any team! I am confident Texas can bounce back in the next 3 games.

You mean she wasn't killed by an avenging Clara Smith?

Actor who played Danno on Hawaii 50 dies

Makes all the "Rangers in 5" predictions I've been hearing a bit less likely, I'd say!

Now the only two teams who have never won a pennant are the Nationals (Expos) and Mariners. I am not holding my breath for the Nexpos to win any time soon. But stranger things have happened.

Thumb down for Sanchez, making a scene when Utley threw him the ball after getting plunked. Can't remember a bench clearing brawl in a championship series before, but I guess it must have happened before. Lamest "brawl" ever, since nobody on either team wanted to get thrown out. Ups for the umpires' handling it.

Time for Huff to step up. Good single!

Our man in Havana!

I don't see why in the world Major League Baseball has to be reduced to Yankees v Red Sox drama. It is not that way at all for media coverage and fan attention when it comes to the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, college football and basketball, etc. The reduction in baseball (by the media) is bad for the game overall, in my opinion.

Imagine the NFL having to go with one network only for their playoffs. There'd be an outcry. This lengthening of the date range to accommodate a TV schedule is for the birds.

Django Reinhardt

Comes with a complete set of lovely Roseann glassware! (Remember when you used to actually get a free glass in a box of Lux detergent?) Commercials for chick starter and twice cleaned flour! Recipes tested by Mother's Best home economists! No, well hey. The commercials and banter with Cousin Louie Buck alone are great to hear. I have heard them. Hope they're included in this set. The Health and Happiness cds are terribly cold without that kind of context, IMO.

Congratulations Red, Giants, and Braves! (Already sent out my nod to Phillies).

What in the world are the criteria? Participation in the industry and being vaguely somewhere in the vicinity of popular music?

Lusty Men? Me, I like rodeo! But what I saw was just too many rodeo scenes. Can't imagine it would go over for most people. It just reminded me how much better the rodeo scenes and the aftermath partying were in The Misfits. Now, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison has him as the orphan who joined the Marines and made it his family, then he's heroic protecting Deborah Kerr and making a Marine landing of his island safe. It's not bulldogging, but it works for me!

Congratulations to Phillies for clinching last night. Like opening day, there were more Philadelphia fans than locals in the park last night.

Heaven Knows Mr. Allison

I am sorry but the scene has appeared to be the most powerful thing, NOT the underground thing, for a LONG time, which is in part why I mock it. Consider my position, hoping to keep alive French in Louisiana, when the young people there want to honor rap, the traditional music of Bronx and Brooklyn, instead of Louisiana's French music and language. It is Goliath, not David. Clear.

It's hardly a fair comparison really - 'rap' is just a specific vocal style, fairer perhaps (though equally pointless) to compare rap to 'scat' or something... As for the influence of Hip Hop - merely, as you hint at, a question of rebranding - there have been an infinite number of new 'genres' that came out of Hip Hop... and its elements have been incorporated into just about every other genre - metal, reggae, bangra, punk, blues... besides which, the whole look of things has changed after it, look at the way people write on walls compared to 40 years ago, or the way kids talk (even here in the UK there's an extremely pronounced difference) or graphic design, TV shows, FASHION.. etc etc. I don't think most people consider rap to be just a vocal style like scat before it or talking blues or vocalese. It's a musical genre. Tries to sell that way. To that end, I meant that the word "rap" will not have the cachet of the word "jazz". From 1920 to 1960, all sorts of musical styles such as swing, big band, be bop, cool, hard bop, soul jazz, free jazz, etc. have all tried to align themselves somehow with jazz, i.e. the music originally called jazz by the first people who called their music jazz in the 1920s. No way rap will carry that kind of prestige. Definitely NOT infinite number of musical genres coming out of rap. Not a single one yet in 30-40 years. A musical style as different from King Oliver as Sun Ra or Modern Jazz Quartet. Calling itself rap because the word "rap" is too cool to let go of? No way!

How about 'be-bop' or 'boogie-woogie'... But they succeeded in calling themselves jazz somehow. Not rap. Much less hip hop.

No. It's football season that starts too early.

Absolutely sillier! Obviously.

Paducah, Chocolate Dandies, by Don Redman, Okeh 8627. Great guitar solo, sounds like Lonnie Johnson!

Hard to picture that the word "rap" will have as much cachet as the word "jazz" has had for so long! Picture the musical changes that took place just from 1920 to 1960, with all kinds of different and great new musical styles all wanting to continue calling themselves jazz. Have there been as many new musics from 1970 to 2010 that have continued to want to call themselves rap? Rap has quite a way to go and may never reach the bar. And as for the term "hip hop"? I can't see how in the world that term hasn't been mocked and ridiculed out of existence by now. Our comedians are really asleep on the job! Sounds about like hippity hop or hop scotch, some kind of girly game! What a name for a supposedly menacing cultural phenomenon!