Um, No, That's Jazz

Heard today that Miles Davis will be inducted into the RnRHOF. Now, I'm gonna stand on a soap box for a sec here. This is an area of which I will humbly claim some expertise. Most things in the world I'm pretty confused about. Music? I've got cred in this area.

This is not complicated. Miles Davis was not, ever, never, wasn't, never was, never claimed to be, a rock musician. Wasn't. Was. Not.

Jazz. He played jazz. Trumpet. Jazz trumpet.

Brilliant, yes. Visionary, yes. Genius, yes. Changed music, yes. Irreplaceble in the pantheon of all musical history, yes. Indespensable as a writer, yes. Remarkable eye for talent, yes. 50 years of top-line performing, yes.

Not rock. Not.

And don't give me that shit about Bitches Brew, cause it ain't a rock record. Rock journalists love to say shit like, "Bitches Brew melded jazz and rock in a way that had never been done before or since, and Miles had his finger on the pulse of what was happening in both jazz and rock and captured the essence of rock from a jazz framework." Pablum, by the way, and bullshit. It's a fusion record. Fine. Rock, it is not.

Miles listened to Jimi Hendrix. Fine. So did everyone. Just 'cause he liked Jimi, doesn't mean he's a rock musician. Still jazz. He made a fusion record. Fine. Still jazz. Changed much of modern music. Fine. Still jazz. Embraced pop music throughout his career by covering everything from Broadway showtunes in the 50s to Cindi Lauper tunes in the 80s. Fine. Jazz.

I haven't read the press releases about this, so I'm on record right now with disagreeing with the press release before knowing it's content. They're wrong.

Feel free to post the press release and make your arguments in the comments. I'm on my soapbox. Jazz. Not rock. Jazz.

Line up your soapbox if you dare.

I Love My Parents

But Good Lord, it's only an internet connection. You go to properties, you put in the number, and then you connect.

I have no doubt that in a few decades I will be technologically ignorant of some unbelievably simple gadget that 8-year-olds can program. And I'll be confused by the outlet plug. Or lack of one.

mmmmmmmm........turkey

As I may have mentioned in other posts, I am a devoted TiVo user. One of the interesting features you can enable is "TiVo Suggestions", in which the recorder will grab shows it believes you will like (interesting that I state the the machine "believes") based on other shows you record and watch regularly. For instance, I regularly watch The Office and The Daily Show, so the TiVo will often grab shows from Comedy Central for me. It can be hit or miss, of course, but it's interesting to see what it picks for me.

Because the lovely Mrs. Pinata is a fan of a few shows on HGTV and TLC (Small Space, Big Style, for instance), we sometimes wind up with interesting shows from the home/food/decorating world captured for us. I think that the combination of her shows and my inclination toward holiday specials led the TiVo to record The Secret History of Thanksgiving, which was a show on the Food Network that profiled both the history of the various foods that typically hit the table on Thanksgiving and an overview of how they can be well prepared. One hour of holiday food.

Watched it with the wife and kids and the four of us just sat there drooling. I am so hungry right now, and due to the power of suggestion, the only thing that will satisfy right now is turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Seriously - you would not believe how hungry that show made me.

Anyway, I was reminded of a Thanksgiving my wife and I shared with her family back when we were engaged. Her mother - who cooks mountains and mountains of food - has never been one to stick with tradition for its own sake, so she simply created her own menu for us. The food was brought to the table, and I was amazed to see...no turkey. Nope. No bird in sight. In its place was Alaskan salmon. Naturally, salmon at Thanksgiving has become a running family joke ever since.

And tonight, as we watched the show on the history of Thanksgiving food, the narrator suggested that lobster was likely a part of the first Thanksgiving. We just looked at each other and laughed as we noted that there was no salmon on the table.

I love Thanksgiving.

Teo/Vinnissimo: Remember the Thanksgiving in Miami - probably 1989? - where we cooked the bird ourselves and bought Stove Top stuffing and ridiculous amounts of beer? As I recall, we put the turkey in one of those plastic baking bags, which melted to the outside of the bird. I'm not sure if we had anything else to eat - apart from the Stove Top, that is. Good times.

Metrosexual Man Party a.k.a. How Men Shop

I'm a funny shaped human being, on the short side but pretty wide, not in a fat way (mostly) but in a stocky and no-shirts-fit kind of way. Big neck, big torso, not small middle, and all short. So shirts that fit around my neck go all the way down to my knees and the armpits of the shirts are tent-like. Remember David Byrne in that over-sized suit in 1983? That's me, only shorter and with less money. I recall a post in the summer where I complained about shorts really looking like longs on me.

So my father has the same problem. His solution, as he is a 62 year old man with money, is that he gets his shirts custom made. Nice stuff. I had it done about 5 years ago, and they are high-quality, perfectly fitting shirts. For a certain special day coming up next week, my dad decided that we need some new shirts.

So a guy with a cloth ruler, collar samples, and a hundred or so swatches of fabric came over to my house today. My dad came. One of my dad's business associates came along 'cause he likes my dad's shirts. There we were, sitting on my manly leather couch sorting through swatches on my manly pottery barn coffee table. Pretty quickly.

I picked out some great swatches. Some stripes, some mints, some lavenders, some patterns...really, the stuff will look great and won't make me look like a cartoon character.

But this is how men shop in their perfect world. Money is no object. The store comes to them. No trying on of anything. We can step out and buy a pink stripe, but only in the privacy of my our own homes. Custom shirt guy made a boatload of cash off of three men in less than 90 minutes, and one of those men, me, did not have to leave his living room.

And I will either look very, very good, or very, very much like my father, which isn't necessarily bad, it just is what it is and will therefore be difficult to feel anything other than like my father when I'm out in the world. And since he's my father, I'm really not sure what that is, other than a 62 year old man. But he didn't go for the purple herring bone pattern, nor the pink stripe. So I'll look like him, but with color.

the Podfather of Podstock

podfather


podstock

An Adult Decision

I finally decided that it's okay if I don't want to re-wrap the cord to the vacuum cleaner. The world will keep turning and I will be happier. The floor will be swept. The vacuum cleaner will not complain. It will patiently wait until the next time I pull it out of the closet. No one will be hurt. It's okay. I can move on to the next chore.

Bad Driver Warning

Coupla bad graphics drivers on the new machine. When I use it, it's freakin' great. When I leave the damn thing alone for 10 minutes, it crashes. Seems to be a flaw in the BIOS and graphics interphase. Sounds like I know what I'm doing, right? WRONG. Just trolling discussion boards looking for fixes. Way too many crashes, and some dangerous ones. Had to reload WXP2, losing all of the work I had done over the past 4 days. Luckily I hadn't developed a loving, trusting relationship with my new computer yet and I had backed up my school work. Anyway, I'm giving it one more shot (meaning tomorrow) and then if the crashes persist, I will return this thing for a full refund and buy the Fujitsu. I have been remarkably productive over the past four days with this machine, so I no longer have guilt about the purchcase. It's a matter of it, you know, staying on at this point. So far, today's fixes are working, but it's back to its first-day sluggishness. That should improve as the processer learns what I do (this is true), but signs are that this machine's time may be limited in dear Teo's hands.

I can hear DNA laughing all the way from Philly.

The West

Somebody reminded me of living out west the other day. Ahh the West . . .

Maryissimo and I lived out in the west for a year and loved it. Big sky, vast expansive scenery, root beer. One of our fond discoveries out there was real root beer. Our favorites were Thomas Kemper’s and Henry Weinhard's the Guinness of root beers. Umm . . . thick . . . frothy. A different holiday gift idea too.

I Don't Want To Wear Pants

Well, obviously I need to wear pants. Just not pants. By the time Friday comes, I'm tired of putting on the nice pants, and I just want to wear the jeans, but I've got to put on the pants one more stinkin' time. You ever notice that nobody uses the word slacks anymore? My dad in the 1970s wore slacks. By Friday, it feels like I'm wearing slacks, which is probably the appropriate way to convey the problem. By Friday, I'm tired of slacks. I suppose that pants, in general, are fine. And certainly necessary. OK fine. Pants and slacks. Funny words.

Out of the House

I am officially a coffee shop intellectual. Well, that's a lie. Actually I'm just an annoying stereotype, a dude with a laptop who LOOKS like he's working, when actually he's just trolling the internet in public rather than at his house. So when I finally do some of my work, which I have not yet done, then I will maybe be considered a coffee shop academic or some shit like that. And that's still not right because that would imply I have a clue when I assure you I really might not. Rather, I'll be a guy with a laptop trying to write reports and papers that don't totally suck, but I won't be at home, 'cause it's too freakin' quiet there.

Yes, I have my laptop. Not quite tweaked out or glitch free yet. But when it works, it's smokin'. A few too many crashes for my tastes right now, but that happens with new computers when you try to debug them. So far, a pretty fun little machine, though.

OH YEAH...

I just remembered that last night I had a dream that I played drums for No Doubt for a gig. I was worried about remembering the beginnings of the songs, but confident that once I started the songs everything would be fine. In front of 10,000 people, by the way. Which is exactly the same feeling I've had for almost every gig I've ever played, the worried about the beginnings part, not the 10,000 people part.

Let's Get This Straight

I like country music. As much as anything else. I mean, music is music, and it's either pleasing or not. Plenty of good music is country music, and plenty of country music is good. But, geez, gosh, some of it is sucking sucking sucking.

You may recall a post on the B**** Blog about the musical abomination Cowboy Troy that tricked me with a catchy 15-second intro, and by second 16 I wanted to pull my fingernails off. You may also recall that I posted that Dwight Yoakam (audio warning on that link) is the real deal and as great of a musician/songwriter/singer that you can find these days.

The latest bad country music act is Big and Rich who are playing a bunch of songs on Imus this morning. Well, after the fourth song with the same three chords, at the same tempo, with the similar level of terrible lyrics, I can say that they sure do look like rock stars. Yes. They look just fine. So does the two-foot-tall man that they have wearing a fuzzy top hat. And the 20-year-old guitarist wearing a Cheap Trick (an audio warning that is worth checking out, cause it's Cheap Trick) t-shirt.

And the coup de gras: Freakin' Cowboy Troy comes in to join Big and Rich for the finale of their final terrible song. Oh. Ugh. Ow. No.

Everyone go to the Cheap Trick site.

New Trudeau Links

These stream much better:

Today Show


Early Show

Oh By The Way

Two things that happened:

A few weeks ago I was in the school library and a fellow student called me sir and asked me how to use the copier.

Yesterday on my way out from my haircut I was scheduling my next appointment, which I was able to schedule during a weekday. The little hair chickie said, oh really, I never see you in here during that time. To which I responded, yeah, well sometimes I can do that when school's out. To which she said, oh are you a teacher?

I suppose both are reasonable. But, well, you know.

sigh

Found It

Scroll down and click on "Today Show Media Clip".

The other ones are good too.

Here's the link.

Beautiful November

I finally got that perfect grey-no-precip-cool-but-not-cold day today. That doesn't make for a very interesting blog post, but those here in Chicago can now stick their heads outside and see what I was looking for. Many will totally disagree. But I love it. Now, this day in April sucks. But this day in November is an undervalued commodity. The change of seasons is glorious, and I feel it on these types of days.

I get anxious and uncomfortable by the end of November. Holidays overwhelm me, and there are two family birthdays sandwiched in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Social obligations come in big, overwhelming waves, and despite my recent big fat purchase, I get freaked out about money around the holidays (I really set myself up for that this year, so don't let me complain about it).

Trying to find a way to be relaxed and joyful during the season. I'm gonna make the Thanksgiving pies next week (next week!), so that should help. It's a good way to spend a day with mom.

Planning a trip out east between Christmas and New Years. Looking for the long road trip. Gonna go see some great people. Already thinking about that trip as a way to get through finals and obligations and self-made strife.

DNA, I Have Let You Down, I Am Sorry

Sigh.

I am a weak consumerist who could not resist the $500 incentive to load the thing up with big, fancy gear. I have failed. I am small. I am expecting a UPS shipment in a few weeks that will make my shallow-ass happy as I work on my dissertation over very expensive cups of coffee.

Larry King Friday

- I like it when news stories are unintentionally hysterical.
And this one literally made me do a spit-take. Had to wipe off my computer monitor after seeing the headline. The Onion doesn't have to cover these stories, because they're already written.

- I've been meaning to mention for a while how annoyed I am by the Capital One Visa commercials. You know, the ones with David Spade sadistically torturing the "fat nerd?" (They didn't pick a Cary Grant-type for a reason, because they are making fun of the guy, which makes me mad.) Bad, mean commercials. The saving grace is that the language I remember from the commercial starts with "Capital One" and "What's in your wallet" and ends with "The answer's always 'No'" and "Nooooooooo," which makes me happy because the annoying commercials have made up my mind that I will never own a Capital One Visa card.

- By the way, the aforementioned "fat nerd" character was hysterical in a previous Volkswagan commercial.

- I have a tendency to put on my pajama pants, get my foot caught in the leg, loose my balance, and come very, very close to breaking my finger. This happens. Frequently.

- I'm fighting with myself over this, this, and this. It seems like an easy decision, but it is not.

- I'm eating cold pizza for breakfast, and it's making me happy. Spinach and black olives. Weird breakfast. Good.

- Today is Veteran's Day, which is just way cool. Working at the VA has made me think about that a whole lot more, and I'm just digging it completely. Happy Veteran's Day to everyone. Find a veteran and thank them, because they deserve that and it makes them proud, and they should feel proud as often as possible.

Anxiety

I'm afraid of lightning. No joke. I may have mentioned this here before. I live on the 14th floor near some very tall buildings, and the tall buildings are all right on my block, and there's nothing else nearby. So the lightning, it hits right here. Probably hits my building, though it likely hits across the street cause that building is significantly taller. But man, it's freakin' loud up here, way louder than in any other apartment I've ever lived in. And I have an unobstructed view looking west over the city, so I see all the lightning strikes for miles and miles. I see the storms coming in, which is kinda cool, actually way cool, until it gets here, and then I hide in the hallway, cause I get really freaked out.

I say this because there is a Severe Armageddon Alert for Chicago tonight. 2" hail and 60 mph winds. No joke. No exaggeration.

So it's been nice knowing y'all. I'm gonna go hide for a while.

The Good and The Bad

Haven't put up a political post in a while, and this one is very similar to a post on the B**** Blog from way back when in the summer before I was all internet anonymous. Still don't think I'll ever be interested in posting political things that often, but obviously there is something about this issue that speaks to me.

THIS makes me sick. And John McCain is still the human being on the planet who makes me most proud to be an American and have faith that there are still people fighting the good fight. I always feel like I need to defend that when I say it, because my friends/generation/comrades etc. are by and large 100% democrat or at least middle of the road. So am I. But McCain is simply the best example of integrity and courage I can find, and until I find a better one, what he says is good enough for me. Even if I disagree with him on something, he earns so much respect I'm comfortable with what feels like healthy disagreement and I try to learn something from him.

Cheney talking to McCain about the use of torture is embarrassing at best.

(And I recall a clip from the Daily Show a few months ago where O'Reilly was talking about McCain pertaining to his stance on this issue and he called McCain un-American or some shit, and for that there are no appropriate words that can accurately describe O'Reilly.)

McCain/Obama 2008. I'm gonna write it in. I swear I will.

And for that matter, Mr. Jimmy Carter has better thoughts and perspective than all but two active democrats I can think of, so I want him as McCain's Secretary of State, even if he will be 85 or so in 2008.

Political ramblings done for a few months.

We've Got So Much Time, And So Little To Do!

...wait...do not strike that...do not reverse that...

This is the first weekend in what is only six weeks...but feels like waaaay longer than that...that I haven't had to either work or write a paper or study for a big fat anxiety-producing exam, or all three at once.

I almost don't know what to do with all of this time. I'll be back to working and papers next weekend, which means I'll start worrying about the schoolwork...well, right now...but really this weekend is flat-out bizarre.

Ears and Hands, Redux

Played a gig last night, and had an interesting experience while doing so.

First, there was that whole "hands" vs. "ears" thing that we talked about here. I have played drums three times this year, and that includes last night. My hands? Rusty. My ears had to be dialed in last night, as the gig was a cajun gig and we were playing with new people and a completely new line-up. Two cajun musicians were visiting from Louisiana, and I had never met them. Out of a long two-set gig, I knew maybe three tunes. Other than that, I was wingin' it. And the deal with cajun music is that half the tunes are a fast two-step (very fast sometimes) or a waltz. The differences within those two formats are subtle, but can be very tricky. The beat gets turned around and the phrasing gets pretty strange (I'm pretty sure these tunes were mostly written on front porches after long hours of jamming and drinking, and they would add a couple beats and everyone would yell, and then they'd call it a new tune, generally about lemonade, a dance, trying to get a girl or two, or going with girls to a dance to drink lemonade, and sometimes a wagon wheel is involved.)

Anyway, here's the interesting thing. The first set, my hands were for shit, and the only reason I got away with playing was because I've played a long time and I could trust my ears to make me do what I was supposed to do. By the second set, I was warmed up and I felt comfortable behind the drums, and I could kind of "turn off" my head and just play. Had a blast! My ears, while still important, became less so, and the chops and instrument facility came out a bit, and the whole thing sounded better and was tons o fun.

So, what we see, is that both skills are important in different ways, and it's not always a good idea to go play fast cajun music in public after pretty much not having picked up drumsticks in 18 months and when you don't know the music, but if you wish your way through a first set then maybe the gig will turn out okay, and thank god there was no third set.

It's Like Eating Ice Cream, But More Expensive

I'm in a mode where I want to buy something. I wanna buy a small, light, wireless-ready laptop. Doesn't need to be loaded or smokin' fast, because I'm not a "gamer" or a "ripper" or a music thief (much). Besides, I still have my trusty desktop that is my joy and comfort and bedrock of productivity.

So I don't really need something. I want something. There are very real reasons where I could use said future laptop productively. I can make the case. But the truth is that this is not a missing cog in my life-wheel.

It's a shiny hubcap. It's a spinner. What would a Saturn look like with spinners on it? Is my life really ready for a spinner?

My metaphors are all over the place.

Somebody tell me not to spend money I don't have on something I don't need just so that I will have something shiney.

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GoDaddy Rocks (I only know this because our IT person says that it does after he switched to it. I'm just a web poser.)