FlaSoxxJim

Call me old-fashioned, Tex, but I believe in the rule of thumb that an engagement ring should cost 2 months salary. Of course, that's why I proposed while I was unemployed...

Hey bones, By what objective criteria do you make this statement? You can't mean "much better" in a commercial sense, or in any sense of musical consistency. Don't get me wrong, John and George both had impressive high water marks in their solo careers, and I own every last official release of each of them (on vinyl, except for the last Harrison stuff). Yes, I've even got John/Yoko's hard-to-listen-to Life with the Lions, Wedding Album, Some Time in NYC (and the alternate release of the second disc put out with the Mothers' Fillmore East album). cw and I may be the only people who still have copies of George's Wonderwall, I have Electronic Soundz, and every good (All Things Must Pass, Dark Horse, Material World, etc.) and not-so-good (Gone Tropo) Hari album. My favorite solo Beatle's stuff actually is George's, but my buying the records didn't put them over the top commercially. Wings may not have been a lot of people's cup of tea, or some of the more saccharine Paul solo stuff, or the lucrative if forgetable duets with the One-Gloved One. But McCartney's solo stuff outsold John and Goerge's stuff combined, including the Wilburry's stuff and whatnot. John only lived for 10 years after the Beatles split, and until Double Fantasy and (the posthumous) Milk and Honey, he only made music for the first 5 of those years. He spent the other 5 years fightining on and off with Yoko, falling in and out of bed with May Pang, and raising Sean. Agter ATMP and Bangladesh, George had the occassional top 40 appearance - This Song, Crackerbox Palace, Blow Away, All Those Years Ago, and a few things off of Cloud 9, an album with some good work on it that becomes less listenable each year do to the heavy-handed Jeff Lynne production. Meanwhile, I think McCartney II was the only Paul album to not go Gold or better within a year of its release through at least 1990. It's too easy to dismiss McCartney as the "cute Beatle," and untalented compared to Lennon, but it's a lazy assessment and simply not true. Lennon-McCartney were yin to yang in every sense, and at the heart of each of them was a good dose of the other. "A Day in the Life" - such a trademark John song, but there's Paul's "Woke up, got out of bed..." bridge right in the middle that brings it all together. Lucy in the Sky is as John as a pre-White Album Beatles song gets, but it's the trademark descending lines and root/fifths bass part that keeps it moving. Of course it worked the other way around all the time too. Paperback Writer is Paul's loving jab at John "the author" after In His Own Write was published. But the "Frer-ah-Jaque-ah" backing vocal is all John. Ditto for the "Do-re-mi" backing vocal on the very Paul "Hello Goodbye." In the best Lennon-McCartney Beatles songs, it's really hard to see where their individual contributions fall out, as it should be. I guess the Walrus really was Paul.

I've got a Loaiza-signed authentic jersey in need of framing. The jersey was a Christmas present from my folks, so I figure with the 200 bucks I saved there I can afford to get it framed. I look forward to seeing pix of the ones y'all get done, and I'll do teh same.

Like Baggio, I also enjoy the German white wines, and really only like white dessert-type wines in general, otherwise I stick with reds I am not a dry white person. At the far sweet end of the the reisling-spatlese... continuum is auslese (not sure I spelled it right). These are great deszsert wines if you are looking for something sweet and fruity. Schmit-Sohn is usually easy to find (usually in cobalt blue bottles), and quite reasonable too. In truth, I only dabble in wine and beer is where my heart is. If you want to wow someone with a Valentine's Day dessert beer, pick up a Lindeman's or Timmerman's Framboise. It's a Belgian bottle-conditioned raspberry lambic that is actually very champaigne-like, with tight white bubbles taht leave a nice Belgian lace down teh sides of the glass. If you try it and like it, AND if you get to liking this cooking stuff, I'll turn you on to a recipe for making a sorbet out of the fruit lambics... If that's not romantic I don't know what is. I'll keep checking in on this thread, and if noone gives you a recipe you like, I have an elegant but relatively easy chicken dish I like to make. It uses frufru things like artechoke hearts, pearl onions and heavy cream sauce, sure to dazzle, so only make it if you're prepared to get some lovin...

The Simpsons is the stuff of legends, despite obvious shark-jumpery a couple of years back. For ANY television show to last for going on 15 years is special... for a sitcom to do it is almost unheard of (only mash got close, as far as I can recall)... for an animated series that began as Tracy Ulman filler created by a weird, fat cartoonist best known for drawing one-eared rabbits and fez-wearing cartoon roommates of dubius sexual orientation is beyond the beyond. Family Guy has some seriously funny moments, but it will not pass into the realm if the universal icon the way the Simpsons has, ever. As far as the wit in the writing, the only thing that has come close to the Simpsons best was The Critic, which not surprisingly had some of the same writers. I personally would mount a one-man hunger strike if I could convince someone to bring Duckman back for another run, because it was clearly ahead of its time the first go-around.

Very sad news. It would have been something if they had been able to save this little girl. Sadly, I don't think they had any other choice except to try to do what may have been impossible. Her family will be in my thoughts.

Robert Shaw just nailed that portrayal as Quint.

DBAHO, kudos from another Melbournite (Melbourne, FL) on claiming the most livable city title 2 years running. looking at my kid's globe, it looks like your latitude is approximately the southern equivalent of San Francisco, so I can see how the moderate climate would tip things in your favor. I haven't been to Melbourne, but have spent time in Sydney, Brisbane, and Cairns along the eastern side of the country. I can see crime being an important consideration in these rankings, but It seems like the rankings must have downplayed cultural aspects. It is my ignorance that can't come up with Melbourne's cultural or architectural equivalents to the ANZAC Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, world-class Taronga Zoo, Sydney Harbor/Darling Harbor/Botany Bay, Manly Beach, etc. As far as Brisbane ranking lower, I can see it on cultural history grounds but there are few places in the world with TWO World Heritage Sites (GBR, Kuranda Mountains) essentially in your backyard. It's saying something when my biggest problem while I was in Cairns was getting up in the mornings and having to decide whether I wanted to go hiking in the rain forest or diving on GBR! Tough life. Like I said, I'm sure I just need to learn more about Melbourne and I'll see the light. I'll tell you where to send plane tix and you can set me right.

You'll get no argument from me that Naked Raygun were the best home-grown group from their era. Always loved their live shows. "Don't wannna have sex - hardly play with myself Libido's Low! Libido's Low!"

Is that Gallas' Beatles band? I have heard they are a good, if not great Beatle band, but I have not seen them myself.

Here's the last 10 songs randomly played from my library: Can We Still Be Friends? – Todd Rundgren 'Si Do Mhaimeo I – Altan Goody 2 Shoes - Adam Ant I'll Never Fall In Love - Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach Strawberry Fields (cover) – I am Sam Soundtrack In a Heartbeat – Laura Love Artie Shaw – Concerto for C Shattered – Rolling Stones Happy Go Lucky Blues – Sydney Bechet Indoor Fireworks – Nick Lowe

Very cool, Abo. Well done. Too bad the conference isn't in Honalulu or somewhere like that.

There was an NPR piece today interviewing the author of "The Beatles in America," and he made that EXACT point. Kenedy had only been assasinated three months earlier. The country had lost a young, charismatic, exciting president. With the Beatles arrival, a lot of the gloom was swept away at least to the point the air was not thick with it. Listening to the piece I again got to thinking about how amazingly rapid the musical maturation and evolution for the Beatles was. To think about the appearance on Ed Sullivan in February 1964, and it still amazez me to even fathom that the same four people could have gotten to the point that only 3.5 years later, in June 1967, they could put out something like Sgt. Pepper. This is all the more amazing given the frantic touring schedule that persisted until George said enough in 1966, shooting two films, doing all the publicity stuff etc. I keep reading posts by certain musical eunichs about the Beatles being overrated. That is just not possible, they changed the rules like none before or after.

We've done this before, not too long ago. It is every bit as hard as coming up with a top films list. My favorites would have to include: Beatles – Revolver/Rubber Soul/Sgt Pepper/Abbey Road, depending on the day Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill David Bowie - Hunky Dory Todd Rundgren - Runt Police – Outlandos D'Amour (I saw someone else list that too - big ups!) Carole King - Tapestry (also already mentioned by some cool person) Genesis - Selling England By the Pound Jimi Hendrix - Axis: Bold as Love Led Zeppelin - LZ II Elvis Costello - My Aim is True/Armed Forces/Spike, depending on the day Aimee Mann - Bachelor Number 1 Counting Crows - August and Everything After The Band - Songs from Big Pink Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection Zappa/Mothers - pretty much everything Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood/Too Old to Rock and Roll.../Thick as a Brick As far as "best" versus "favorite", I do think there is a difference. The best rock/pop LP records, I think, were those that exploited the limitations of the medium to their best advantage -- most notably those LPs that were produced with awareness of the fact that you could not fit more than 20-25 minutes of music onto a side and so the order, pacing, tempo, and relative urgency of each song on a side was carefully measured. Albums like Sgt. Pepper and, particularly, Abbey Road are well-known examples. Listening to a CD that plays the entire track list all the way through without requiring the listener to flip the record obviates the need to do a lot of precise ordering that the original format required. Side 1 of Abbey road is supposed to crecscendo wildly and then fall into oblivion with the extended heavy guitar outro on "I Want You (She's so Heavy)". The world is reset with George's "Here Comes the Sun" at the start of side 2, and then from "Because" through "The End" the completely brilliant side 2 swansong takes the listener through the most cohesive-cyclical essential album side ever recorded. Abbbey Road would have been such a diffferent album if the 33-1/3 vinyl LP was not the delivery medium of the day, and much of that is lost in the continuous CD. Other albums that are great for these reasons: Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" Jethro Tull "Thick as a Brick" - On CD, the trailing off/heartbeat at the end of the side 1 edits leading into next edit on side 2 makes the middle of the CD sound weak, when in fact it is very nicely spaced and paced on the LP. Zappa/MOI "Freak Out" - this wierd, disturbing, bad-smelling avante garde band from LA has the audacity to insist that their first release be a gatefold double album including an insert map of all the good LA "Freak Out hot spots."

That's right - Elsa Lanchester was Whale's fav actress. She played both Mary Shelly and the Bride (credited as "?") in the film. James Whale was the Tim Burton of his day, and the relationship between Frankenstein and teh Bride is very much like that of Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. Burton was kind of bored of Batman and put a lot of his personal touches on teh second on eto keep it creatively interesting or him.

Sounds like Clarence Thomas to me. "Don't you know at your fingertips arrayed Is a universe of atoms that thinks you're real something Don't you know just a couple of lips away Lies an evolutionary bean-feast whose insides are jumping. Don't you know we're all light Yeah, I read that someplace Don't you know we're all light Yeah, it's a bumper sticker someplace So you won't mind if I kiss you now We may hear the angels recite Don't you know in this new Dark Age We're all light." xtc - THE thinking fan's pop band!

We have both Uno's and Giordano's in a few pockets in Florida (an hour + from me). But they don't cut it because they don't use Chicago sausage, just the local crap, and the whole experience just misses the mark as a result.

I just like it twice as much as you I guess!

Young Frankenstein AND it's inspiration, James Whale's masterpiece the Bride of Frankenstein (the high point of the classic Universal Horror era) SHOULD be in the list. It was hard enough to hold it to 30! The Producers is way up there, too, and a great film I have not seen in several years.

Archie McFee's rocks!! I'll never want for tiki tumblers, rubber devil ducks, lucha libra Mexican wrestlers, Jesus action figures, albino bowler oil paontings, or fez-wearing monkeys again. Life is good. NPR interviewed that librarian last year when the figure was released. She has a good, warped sense of humor like most of the good librarians.

I agree. Let's quit while we're a head.

Being There!! Good old Chauncy Gardener - Sellers saved the best for last.

Lou Malnatti's ships, Tex. You can get them here, and you can get Eli's cheesecake, Homerun Inn pizza, Rainbow Cone (half-mile from where I grew up, yumm!) and a bunch of other stuff too. It has gotten me through dark pizza times down here. You used to be able to get Portillo's through the same vendor, but now theye have their own store, so if you're missing Itallian beef too, your salvation is a couple of clicks away!

I agree with Brando - it's torture to come up with 5 and even 10 is hard. Here goes: - Citizan Kane - Cassablanca - Diner - Dr. Strangelove, OHILTSWALTB - Metropolis (Big ups to cw for listing "M" - Fritz Lang and a murderous Peter Lorrie, what a combination!) - Nosferatu - Star Wars (A New Hope) - Godfather's 1 and 2 - The Graduate - any of the films below, depending on the mood... On any given day, these could also crack the list: - The Graduate - Papillon - This is Spinal Tap - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Woodstock - Seven Samuri (cw and Brando score again, Ran also rocks) - The Matrix - The Excorcist - Jaws (despite the fact that Benchley-cum-Spielberg perhaps doomed large pelagic sharks to almost certain extinction by striking some dormant primal nerve in us, the film is riviting) - Raiders of the Lost Ark - African Queen - Bad News Bears - Alien - Good Fellas - Manhattan and Annie Hall - A Hard Day's Night - Nightmare Before Christmas - Pinnochio (Yes, that Disney "cartoon") - Harold and Maude - Battleship Potemkin - Blues Brothers You did say favorite 30 films, right?

Didn't you read your own post quote, 14?? It's a lot more complicated than just "pulling it off." There's 18 doctors, a 13-hour surgery, etc., etc... Now if it was like just an extra leg or something, then I guess pulling it off might be an option.