This Week In Jazz Appreciation: Miles Davis

Miles Davis is one of the central creative artists in the history of recorded American music. As a trumpet player, composer, bandleader and all around badass, Miles created and perfected several different major subgenres of jazz. Shut up and listen.
"I'll play it first and tell you what it is later."
"All you've got to do in this country today is just be on television and you're more known and respected than anyone who paints a great painting or creates great music or writes a great book or is a great dancer. . . . A bad, untalented person who is on television or in the movies can be more recognized and respected than a genius who doesn't appear on the screen."
"I don’t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing."

The Involuntary Human Cerebral Jukebox

Last week I heard the song "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter for the first time. Naturally, my initial reaction was that it was typical pop faggotry. But it's really not that bad of a song. The problem is that now I can't get the goddamn thing out of my head, especially since it's played ALL the time EVERYWHERE. Other songs in recent years- "Hey Ya" by Outkast and "Breathless" by The Coors come to mind- have been overplayed to the point of inducing nausea. We end up getting inundated with sound bites from the broadcast media whose only concern is to pound the collecitve ass of the public with the lowest common denominator of entertainment. And guess what? The public keeps eating it up. This is why a piece of crap like American Idol, which is basically glorified karaoke singing, is so successful. Americans are, for the most part, shallow and stupid. Word.

Poor Barry

I love that Barry Bonds is having such a shitty season so far (AVG .214 | HR 0 | RBI 1 | OBP .522 | SLG .321). He looks like a broken down old man in the outfield. And I'll bet his testicles have shrunken to the size of peanuts. I don't think there are many folks in America who, as Chet in Weird Science would say, "give a squirt of piss for his ass" right now. LONG LIVE HANK AARON!

Jive Talkin'

Talkin' it up!
On The Barry Gibb Talk Show
Talkin' about issues
Talkin' about real important issues.

Talkin' it up
On The Barry Gibb Talk Show!
Talkin' about chest hair
Talkin' about crazy cool medallions!

Classic Confrontation

So at last week's NASCAR Nextel Cup race in Texas Greg Biffle was wrecked by Kurt Busch. Yawn. However, here's the interesting twist: after the incident, Biffle's girlfriend climbed down off the crew box and marched down pit road to angrily confront Busch's fiance. According to reports, the confrontation was brief and it's not clear what point Nicole Lunders was trying to make. All I know is that I'm torn between feeling like a typical male ("Yeehaw! Catfight!") and a humiliated redneck. This is just what we Southerners need to enhance our already stellar reputation.

This Week In Jazz Appreciation: J.J. Johnson

Known as one of the greatest jazz trombonists of all time, J.J. played with everybody from Charlie Parker in the 40's to Miles in the 50's and was still active in the mid-90's. He played proficiently with speed and ease while still able to knock out a beautiful tone. I just picked up his small group sessions from Mosaic Records, so I'll be busy for awhile. Not that any of you give a rat's ass.

Weather Morons

I'm sick and tired of these goons who forecast the weather on the local news stations. They are constantly freaking out the public whenever there is the slightest hint of severe weather. Last night, these yahoos warned everyone about a system that would be blowing through Alabama around mid-day today and compared it to the F-5 tornado weather we had several years ago. Sure enough, everyone panicked and schools began announcing closings at dawn today. By mid-morning, most schools were to close at noon. This of course affected all the local businesses because most people who have children had to leave work to go pick up and/or take care of their kids. While driving to lunch today, it was utter chaos on the roads with bumper to bumper traffic.

Well guess what? I'm currently sitting here at work at 4:41pm looking out my window and it's still SUNNY and 80 friggin' degrees! Meanwhile, everyone is wasting time sitting at home waiting for a storm that is indeed probably on its way, but about 10 hours past the time that they SWORE to everyone on television was going to be here by noon today. Thanks a lot fellas! Right on target as usual.

More Fun With Numbers

The re-make of the classic film The Omen (which I'm certain will suck) will open in theaters this summer on 6/6/06.

Fun With Numbers

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

You may now return to your normal life.

Turn Signals: A Lost Art

Remember the good old days when drivers were sensible and courteous to their fellow man? Neither do I. But I guarantee you the world would be a better place if we could all just agree to indicate our intentions to other drivers on the road. And the only way to do that, short of those dorky hand signals, is through the use of the turn signal. Apparently contrary to what many people realize, turn signals can be found in all standard motor vehicles. So let's all pitch in and do our part to avoid those pesky rear-enders. As that little elf Ben Lee once said, we're all in this together.