Neal Pomea

Hank Mobley - A Taurus for Doris Cannoball Adderley - Same Old Thing Wynton Marsalis - Unforgiveable: The Rise of Wynton Marsalis

You have my sympathy. I had considerable flood damage to my own record collection. Flood insurance is usually not included in home insurance. Home insurance usually will only cover flooding from within (broken pipes, etc.), not flooding from without (rain, levee break, etc). Flood insurance needs to be purchased separately through a federal government provider. It's too bad you didn't open up your boxes and at least dry things off much sooner. But they may not be as damaged as you think. I have mold on the jackets of much of my vinyl lp collection but the records are still ok. I too should dispose of the jackets but I don't have the heart. If I dispose of the jackets, can anyone here suggest how they should be stored?

Like the time on Newhart when someone plays 3 or 4 notes on a piano and George exclaims "Boy, he can really make that thing talk!"

I remember the Simpson's episode in which Homer ate an improperly handled blowfish(?) and thought he was going to die. He had a list of things he wanted to do before passing, one of which was to read the whole Bible. So he got Bible on Tape read by Larry King. Hilarious! And do you remember how Larry ended it after Revelations? "How about those San Antonio Spurs? They've evened up the NBA finals at 2 games a piece and are a real juggernaut! Hard to see how anyone will stop them now." (Or something like that --- after the word of God, and now for a little bit of sports news!) That about sums up Larry King. He will talk about matters great and small as though they are equal. Not to be taken seriously, just entertainment.

I have MusicMatch Jukebox and would like to record my voice speaking with a Plantronics SP 500 headset. Anybody know how to do that? The MusicMatch help files don't seem to cover recording your own voice. After selecting recording source, Mic In, I can't figure out what to do.

I'd respond, but it would be like driving over fish in a barrel.

I was listening to an interview about possible brain defects in mass murderers -- damage to a part of the brain believed to inhibit aggression. Not brain damage that would make you a slow learner. I hope there is more research in that area. I have seen brain scans of people who are angry (being emotional) vs. people who are solving problems (being rational) and it is surprising to see which areas of the brain show electrical activity.

I agree. Capturing the streaming audio via Internet is comparable to a listener capturing a radio broadcast on cassette. I am surprised by the arrogance of the CPR board to not even hold hearings, certain that they are in the right about this. They are just plain wrong, IMO.

I don't know about Sharpton's outrage, but it was not fake for many, many people. I doubt that Sharpton has leverage to twist arms at CBS. Again, Sharpton had little to do with leading so many people into insisting on Imus' punishment and/or removal. Cannot blame or credit Sharpton with this, in my opinion. It is Imus and his team that shot themselves in the foot. Since he had said even worse things in the past, he drew little sympathy or spoken support this time around, even from his own guests. I will miss his musical guests. Even his conversations with politicos and journalists. But not the "comedy."

I reached my own conclusions about what Imus said quite independently of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and I think that's true for many people. Probably most. Can't pin this on Sharpton and Jackson. They don't lead me or most of America. Basically, some people don't want others called ho' or the n' word, or gay, or retarded, not even in the "hilarious" way rappers and comedians do it. What's the problem with honoring that?

Makes me realize how many of his phrases have entered my own language: a weak kid could do it (Trout describing his job installing aluminum storm doors and windows) Pan-Galactic Straw Boss (a Trout novel) Pluto Gang (police misinterpretation of Trout's description of his unseen mugger -- "it could have been a gas from Pluto that did it, for all I know") Now it can be told (the Trout novel that unfortunately influences insane Dwayne Hoover in Breakfast of Champions)

The cartoon show was hosted by a friendly Cajun named Polycarp Pili Pecou Number 2. His nemesis was a creature called Matchuflang.

I sure wish this had happened! Absolutely! Monk could have kept up.

Yeah, I have been hearing about this. One theory is that there is a pesticide that disorients the bees so much, they can't find their way back to the hive. That is why they haven't found any dead bees in the hive. They die outside it.

Thanks for posting this! Great defense. A couple of timely steals at the end. That last one, wow!

They dig music from shellac and vinyl

Vinyl is not a synonym for records. Records were made of shellack in those days. Nobody was writing the obituary for vinyl at a time when it was not yet in use.

Ferris Fain (he was fairest but was oh so vain) Juio Gotay (Polio Bowtie?) Zoilo Versalles Amos Otis (like a Jerry Reed song down in the swamp) Horace Clarke

I would try to find the Victor recordings of 1929-1930 of Henry Allen and His New York Orchestra. Biff'ly Blues, Everybody Shout, It Should be You, Roamin', Sugar Hill Function, Swing Out are classic songs. http://www.redhotjazz.com/hallennyo.html

Major Swindler (Though he didn't make it all the way through the Texas Rangers farm system, my brother in law played college ball with this guy. (All conference, too!). He is now an educator. Guess he couldn't make it in business or politics with a name like that.)

Interesting theory, but I wonder how it takes into account the fact that people can appreciate some forms of instrumental music but not others. Jazz but not square dance. Opera but not mariachi (for the person who doesn't understand Italian or Spanish), etc. Shoot, in my own case, Cajun but not particularly Zydeco, though I understand the lyrics in both and they are thought of as related genres. And country music fans who don't like bluegrass....

I loved his bit about how people can get crazy in restaurants, barking out orders as though we are Roman emperors. "WINE! Bring me wine!" Or, upon seeing a lobster in the tank, "I'll have the little one. He amUUUUUUses me." We've been using that joke at my house for years. In a nice way...

Master Pimp Pa Schmoove with his dime:

Shout out for Ice Master King Slick!

Nice letter, Lazaro! On another note, if a musician's work is performing music, I would like to know why a recording is considered a performance. It is not. It is just a record of one performance, maybe several performances spliced together. It's no more of a performance than me audiotaping myself at work, then playing it back and claiming that it is me performing my job. I can't mail in my tape to my boss and say "See, I am performing my job." I need to perform my job over and over again. The musician needs to, also, in my view. Why the special meaning of "performance" for musicians, actors, etc. ? I think that if the public looked at it this way, they would wonder about this stretch of the language and the success of the music lobbies' special pleading. As much as we want to support artists, this stretch of the language that makes copyright the means of economic support is just too much, tending toward absurdity. IMHO. True, you wouldn't pay a thing to hear a tape of me performing my job, in contrast with a musician's performance. I just mean that this should be covered by contract law instead of playing around with the language to make it a thing covered by copyright law. The Supremes went down a slippery slope a long time ago when they called playing back a recording a performance.