FlaSoxxJim

I think reports of Esteban's attitude in Toronto have been blown way out of proportion. "Unnamed teammates" griped to the press that his head and heart weren't completely in the game at a time when his girlfriend was in the hospital paralyzed after having given birth to their first child. The same players b****ed when he would skip town on off days to (*gasp*) be with his kid and hospitalized girlfriend. I don't think my mind would be completely on baseball in that situation either. Now, evereyone is home and healthy, and he's pitching well for a team he wants to play for. That said, I'm not expecting another 20 wins in 2004, but I'm certainly expecting hime to have another very good year. His struggling at the end of the season seemed to be the innings pitched finally catching up with him, not the rest of the league necessarily figuring him out.

Dibs on your creme brulee! Mmmmmmm!

I think $3.5 million for 1 year would have been a no-brainer, but Gordon wanted $5 million for a 1-year deal. I think it's appropriate to be skepticl as to whether his arm is going to hold out for two years, but I would not have thought it imprudent if we had offered 2-years/7 million. Flash was an asset last year and now it's another hole that needs filling. I don't want to see Marte moved into the closer roll if Kotch remains a bust, and Gordon would have been the better fall back if/when we need it.

I heard an NPR piece a couple of weeks ago after the WTO ruling was announced speculating that it was going to go this way. It's probably better for the overall national economy, although it will hit the steel producers hard. Those are states that could go either way in 2004 so it will be interesting. On a side note, I'm coming to the conclusion that the very real threat of WTO sanctions will be the only way the United States is going to be held accountable for its contributions to global climate change and the administrations refusal to do anything about it. The world's scientists should soon be able to present unambiguous proof that US-created pollution is harming multiple international economies, even if American scientists have been effectively muted on the subject. Hopefully something like this happens sooner rather than later, even though it's going to send the economy into the crapper. That, sadly, will be the cost of bailing on Kyoto, relaxing anti-pollution laws, and deciding to go it as a rogue polluter nation.

'What a bite in the ass." "That tastes better than a cheerleader on prom night."

How about 'bonzer,' 'tucker,' or 'gobs of Vickies'? I always liked that last one as Oz-speak for 'costs a lot of money.'

... "Layla," from the Derek and the Dominoes album. It was actually co-written by DD drumer Jim Gordon, who wrote the beautiful outro piano section at the end. Gordon was a top notch session drummer who worked with Lennon, George Harrison, the Byrds, Zappa, Traffic, and lots of other groups. He also suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, which combined with heroin and cocaine use led him to Punch Rita Coolidge once in the 70s. He was pretty much finished up as a drummer by 1980, but his mental state had deterioriated to the point where he was hearing voices in his head. His mother's voice being the most persistent, he brutally killed her in an effort to make it stop, which reportedly he did. He was sentenced to 16 years to life, and I'm not sure if he hasbeen released or not. I figure this will be the premiere episode if VH-1 ever considers my idea for a series called "The Murder Behind the Music."

George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is the only official Beatle release with EC on it. George and Eric also co-wrote the Cream song "Badge" together. The name of the song came about because Eric couldn't read George's handwriting on the music and thought the BRIDGE section of the song said "badge." Around the same time, of course, Eric was shtuping George's soon-to-be ex-wife Patti and Writing "Layla" etc., for her, which brings us to...

First I have to finish up my driver education classes with Nick Nolte...

Just having fun with you instead of doing work I should be doing Also, for those keeping score... Jethro Tull: named after the 17th-18th century English Agrarian who invented the horse-drawn plowshares and the mechanical seeder. Steely Dan: Named after a dildo mentioned in Beat Generation author William Burrough's "Naked Lunch." More useless trivia. Gotta scrub the mental hard drive before it all goes bad...

I will know that I have given up the ghost musically when I take advice on bands from a member of Anthrax.

"His songs??"... ouch Jas, now you are showing your age. Yep, I hear old Pink used to hang out with that guy Jethro Tull. Sometimes that guy Steely Dan would show up too

One of the points in forming "The Cream" was that there was not supposed to be a 'front man,' or you could have considered it a band with three fromt men. Jack Bruce and Eric split the vocal chores pretty evenly. Bruce, Clapton, and talented but very ugly drummer Ginger Baker (ugly on an Edgar Winter level of ugly!) all said that each other Cream member was their favorite musician, and the band is widely held to be the first rock "supergroup."

The name you are searching for is Jeff Beck. You young folks... And the person who said the band would go over like a lead zeppelin was none other than recently expired Who bassist John Entwistle. The band literally was the most recent in a continually changing Yardbirds lineup.

You say that sarcastically, but actually they are huge fans of Cub FANS. There's no other group on the planet with cell phones growing out of their head to the degree Cub fans have them.

I was being nice to the group by not bringing that up when people were tossing around the Flash Gordon soundtrack as being their lowpoint. Actually I thought that the Highlander stuff was fine as film music fodder, just not in the same ballpark as their best stuff. I also liked a Freddy Mercury solo song that was used in the Fritz lang's Metropolis re-release from the mid-80s that had the retouched film and New Wave soundtrack attached to it. That song and one by kate Bush were about the only memorable songs from that release, although the releae brought this classic silent film to a new generation and the film restoration work was very good.

No, not a big fan. Even replacing a dead vocalist couldn't pump any new ideas into that bunch. and, oh yeah, nice pants, Angus.

Automatic For the People was a strong album, one in which Peter Buck flexes his lowder power pop guitar muscles to nice effect. But songs like (Critic's pick) South Central Rain, and songs like Fall on Me that have that signature dual-melody vocal interplay between Stipe and Mike Mills are still my favorite REM offerings. I don't fault them or any band for evolving and changing through the years – in fact, I really dislike bands that don't grow with time – but one of the inevitable side effects of change is that us oldsters are going to say the early albums were best while the young pups will say the later stuff was better. The nice thing about a band like REM is that all of their stuff has enough going for it to make the agrument on both sides valid. I miss Bill Barry's world-class eyebrows though

It's Log, It's Log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood. It's Log, it's Log, it's better than bad, it's good, it's better than bad, it's good. Does that help any??

It is to everyone's detriment to think of REM just as part of the "late 80's, early 90's alternative thing." Chronic Town came out in 1982. Just the music from Murmer, Reckonings, and Fables of the Reconstuction would have been enough to assure that the band would have a lasting impact on the sound of their contemporaries. Although I also enjoy lots of their stuff from Green and beyond, I like those first 4 releases the most and always consider REM an "early 80s college station thing," rather than a "late 80's, early 90's alternative thing."

That's the thing about the best Queen, though. They take something that could be so completelt stupid, like Bicycle race, and they make it work. I don't lump that tune in with their lemons. Most stuff from The Game and after, on the other hand, is hard to find much merit in. On the subject of Bohemian Rhapsody. Several years ago my wife (girlfriend then) and I were playing Songburst with a friend, that's a game where you have to sing portions of songs to score. My friend got the hint "Spare him his life..." as a hint and we figured he would easily come up with the correct line from Bohemian Rhapsody... "Spare him his life from his monstrosities." Instead, he out comes with what he thought the line was... "Spare him his life from his pork sausage-ees." I still cannot hear that part of the song without thibking of that and laughing.

You mean Emo the Magnificent has a band? Cool, I can't wait to hear "My Dog Likes to Shop in Downtown Downers Grove" with a healthy injection of post hardcore-punk sensibility

Not if ALL blacks dress up like gangstas, and not if ALL Hindus (I think there are about a billion or so of them) are all dressing up like gangstas and are all in on trying to get CJ to beat you up. Otherwise, yes, the comments are stereotypes.

No, we cannot.

not if she was an English teacher...