Neal Pomea

Just loved Tom Boswell's post in live chat at today's Washington Post, about Ken Griffey Jr. versus other players of his era: Tom Boswell: Junior is the perfect example of why we shouldn't throw open the doors of Cooperstown to all the cheaters. "Oh, everybody did it, so I don't want to keep anybody out, so I'll vote like there was no Steroid Age." What kind of Amoral Dumber-Than-A-Rock logic is that. The world is complicated. Deal with it. If you have a HOF vote, do your best to figure out who cheated __beyond a reasonable doubt__ and don't vote for 'em. But vote for the others. It's not perfect. But it's better than "I give up."

I remember George Carlin once had a routine where he named a whole bunch of sitcoms in some bizarre tense, one of which was "Had Gun, Would Have Traveled." I guess the western was something like what zombie and vampire movies and tv shows are to today's kids, the mythology we saw everywhere we looked!

I wondered about her weight too. She played a good part in Girl, Interrupted, which wasn't too bad a film.

Didn't I hear that he did it on purpose to get arrested, because he missed his daddy who was in jail. If he got arrested then they would be together?

Conversely, would the depressed people in these states where many people report they are happy feel even more isolated and apart? It might actually be worse to be depressed in a happy state!

Rankings Findings published in Science magazine "Their results come from a comparison of two data sets of happiness levels in each state, one that relied on participants' self-reported well-being and the other an objective measure that took into account a state's weather, home prices and other factors that are known reasons to frown (or smile). The self-reported information came from 1.3 million U.S. citizens who took part in a survey between 2005 and 2008. "We wanted to study whether people's feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality — of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etc — in their own state," Oswald said. The results showed the two measures matched up. "We were stunned when it first came up on our screens, because no one has ever managed to produce a clear validation before of subjective well-being, or happiness, data," [Andrew] Oswald [of the University of Warwick in England] said." Interesting results.

Enjoy it!

Look to the lower right of the screen and you will see a green plus sign and a red subtract sign. You can vote a post UP (you liked it) or DOWN (you didn't like it), as on Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, etc. Sometimes called Karma. That appears to be a feature that hasn't been activated yet, I'm guessing. I clicked it and it said I'd reached my quota (of zero I guess) for the day. If Jim is reading this, I move to suppress this voting function. I don't really see its use here.

Look to the lower right of the screen and you will see a green plus sign and a red subtract sign. You can vote a post UP (you liked it) or DOWN (you didn't like it), as on Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, etc. Sometimes called Karma.

I had the same problem earlier today using IE7. Not having that problem in IE8 or in Firefox 3.5. Earlier I had lines that would go from left to right for only a few characters before a line break. That doesn't seem to be an issue with IE8.

In the past they have always been previously released but obscure material. I guess copyright issues have prevented Oxford from being able to release the more usual suspects.

Look for bands led by Clarence Williams and Richard M. Jones http://www.redhotjazz.com/williams.html (Love the tuba of Cyrus St. Clair) http://www.redhotjazz.com/jones.html

Strange but I don't know of minstrelsy influencing Cajun and Creole music. Much of the foundation was laid on recordings by a black Creole (Amede Ardoin) on accordion with heavy syncopation and a white Creole of Irish and French origin, Dennis McGee on fiddle. (Neither were descended from the Nova Scotians who made their way to Louisiana after the Grand Derangement, the Acadians, who mixed with the French people already there (Creoles) etc. to become a new ethnic group, the Cajuns.) You can't say that the white players who picked up Ardoin and McGee tunes were mocking blacks or even imitating them. Strange dynamic. Iry LeJeune recorded quite a few tunes in the late 40s and early 50s that have become Cajun standards. Ardoin was a forgotten entity among the blacks in Louisiana when the first generation of Zydeco players started recording in the 1950s (Clifton Chenier, BooZoo Chavis, Good Rockin' Dopsie, etc.), but his reputation was rehabilitated by the time Ardoin's nephews (sons of Bois Sec Ardoin, the great black Creole accordionist) and others started playing a new kind of Zydeco in the 1980s. Today he is counted as a source of Zydeco music, which would have surprised him a lot in the 50s and 60s.

JSP found their own sources for the stuff on Cajun: Rare and Authentic (4 cd set) and had Chris King do the remastering. The source was mainly 78s in the collection of Ron Brown of Athens, Tennessee.

Breaking Out of New Orleans (JSP) http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Out-New-Orl...9/dp/B0002LPYVC Anybody have recommendations for the New Orleans Owls?

Joe's Record Paradise on Gude Drive in Rockville, though it is not Metro accessible.

Bookmarked! Well met, and quite a worthy subject! Great good luck to you.

One of my favorite interviews on 60 Minutes was with the lyricist, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg. Just genius! But too scary for kids. I know what Chuck means about blue skinned women. And what about flying monkeys?

It was a ritual to go to a friend's house or have a friend over and listen to records together and visit. What would we do now? Zip something to one another on a phone or a Web site or e-mail or a SpaceFaceGooGooBookTweet? Is that supposed to be a connection between people? If it works for them, great! Not for me. Why do those things have to have cutesy names in the first place? Ok, run around on my lawn now.

Nice fellows! I appreciate it. I was 39 for the 16th time this year. The best one yet!

Note: New Morning (1970) features Dylan on piano. I believe he plays more piano on that album than any other. And there is a jazzy tune (with someone else on piano) that's a sort of recitation called If Dogs Run Free. A lady sings scat in the background.

Since you seem to enjoy his early stuff, you might like Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding, and Another Side of Bob Dylan. The one closest to Nashville Skyline's sound is probably Self Portrait. New Morning has his raspy voice and includes The Man in Me from the Big Lebowski movie.

Glad the MVP was Matsui and not Chase Fuckin' Utley, the blue collar hero who is really a bajillionaire, like all the Red Sox.

Chollie better get Pedro out of there! 5 runs against him. Where is Happ?

Like a HR off Pedro? Then a two runs batted in single?