Ruminate

is how accurate the analysis of my name is. Spooky. Check yours out!

Among other good jokes in a Usenet thread discussing jazz jokes:

Q. What’s the difference between a jazz musician and a large cheese pizza? A. A large cheese pizza can feed a family of four.

***

A stray cat wanders into a piano bar. He proceeds to hop up on to the piano and drag his bits & pieces across the top. A patron asks the piano layer “Excuse me, do you know there’s a cat dragging his balls across the piano?”

“No,” replies the piano player, “but if you hum a few bars I can probably pick it up.”

***

Q. How can you tell which kid on a playground is the child of a trombonist ?? A. He doesn’t know how to use the slide, and he can’t swing…

***

Q. What has three legs and an ass on top? A. A drum stool.

I’ve been down and partially out with a nasty stomach flu. While this has not been a good time to be sick, I am glad that the severest symptoms didn’t show up until close to the end of a recent all-day training session I was leading. I have the weakest immune system of anyone living outside of a plastic bubble… every time I go to a function where I shake hands with people, I inevitably come down sick with some bacteria they’ve probably been carrying around since childhood.

Interesting link of the morning: Archnophobia, which has some interesting information about fear of spiders and research that breaks arachnophobes into two distinct camps of “monitor” and “blunter”– categories which fit many groups which I interact with daily…

I know it isn’t representative of any genre as a whole, but you have to admit the headline is pretty damn ironic…

If someone really wants to quit smoking, they can. It is a truly American attribute to attempt to render the most mundane things impossible and beyond our control… this has to take the cake.

First Slate writes about why we should be eating dogs… now I come across a gruesome piece on people who ate, among other things, cats. Raw. Is this journalism? I’m all for information about the nature of our convictions and even arguments about the relativism by which we justify eating pigs but not dogs… but this is a bit much.

My favorite way to listen to a good jazz cd: lie down on the couch with the speaker’s angled to create a sweet spot right around your head. Turn off the lights. Close your eyes. Listen as you drift into a dream-state, but still awake. You’ll be swinging, but your body will be still.

I’m not particularly negative about Diana Krall (I think she’s pretty good, to be honest), and I know that record labels are in for business more often than art, but news of Verve’s cut-backs is still disheartening. They are one of the last “big” labels that carries non-smooth, non-Kenny G style jazz. Oh well, there is always BlueNote.

Everyone else is doin’ it, doin’ it…

1. My First Job

My first real job was as a dishwasher at a tourist trap lodge on my little home town. The down-side: wrinkly hands, long hours, average pay, not exactly glamorous. The up-side: a veritable flock of attractive waitresses, free meals, late hours so I could sneak around with the waitresses without getting my parents worked up.

2. My First Kiss

I was in 5th grade. Crystal Larson, the cutest girl in the class and her friend Christine Ribiero (a close second) met my friend Mike Powers and I behind her apartment complex… and Crystal planted a big wet one on my lips and I about died. Incidentally, while perusing a yearbook from that town I came across Crystal’s senior picture– and she was STILL beautiful!

3. My First Car and What Happened to It

My first car was a little black Chevy Luv pickup. Chrome wheels, tiny steering wheel, and it ran like a top all winter in a hellishly cold place… it may well still be the best little vehicle I ever owned. My parents bought it for me when I was sixteen (still one of the best gifts ever). I eventually made an ill-fated trade for a gigantic old spray-painted Oldsmobile and the new owner kept driving it for years, while the Olds lasted about three months.

4. My First Concert

Scorpions, World Wide Live tour.

5. How I Plan to Spend My Weekend?

Unfortunately, cramming for classes that I am teaching on Monday and Tuesday!

Great, now I figure out that I did last week’s Friday five. So here are abbreviated answers for this week:

1. Browser Start Page

My Yahoo. About the only Yahoo service I use anymore and still the best all around portal!

2. Favorite News Sites

Slate, Salon, Google News!

3. Favorite Search Engine

Google. No question.

4. When I First Got Online

I started with email mailing lists in 1991. Writers-L to be exact. Last I checked, the group was still going.

5. How I Plan to Spend My Weekend?

Unfortunately, cramming for classes that I am teaching on Monday and Tuesday!

Need some music? 1201 Music is running a great special for a few more weeks… three good full-length albums and 12 quality sampler CDs for $39.99 including shipping!