Lazy Post

I'm sick today so I'm just gonna post a video of Donovan on the Smothers Brothers performing Atlantis, just because it's cool.

Dodgers

I haven’t really written about sports on here but I do happen to be a sports fan. I follow football (both college and the NFL) and men’s college basketball but the sport that I love the most is baseball. I love the history of it, I love the excitement of it and I love the perfection of it.

My team is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I actually got to watch an entire series this past weekend because they were playing the Mets so it was televised where I live (Central New York,) three of the games were on the Sports New York channel which simulcasts all the New York Mets games broadcast on channel 11 out of New York City. Saturday’s game was actually the game of the week on Fox. Usually the Dodgers are hardly ever on TV around here. I think they’ve been on ESPN once this year (for the 50^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson playing in the majors) and as far as I know, they are scheduled to be on for a late season game against the hated San Francisco Giants. There were also a couple of games on TBS when they played the Atlanta Braves. Mostly I listen the radio broadcasts of games on the internet, for a small fee you can listen to every game on MLB.com, it’s a really good deal, I almost prefer to listen to games on the radio anyway, there’s just something enjoyable about baseball on the radio.

During my internet surfing this weekend, I happened to come across the fact that two former and one current Dodger players all share a birthday today: shortstop Pee Wee Reese, pitcher Don Drysdale and current third baseman, Nomar Garciaparra. Reese and Drysdale are both in the Cooperstown and hopefully one day Garciaparra will be too.

Go Dodgers!

Something Nice

I was going to post about a couple of things that Congress has done or is doing that piss me off. One is the fact that when I am sick and need Sudafed, I have to fill out a form and sign my life away because some people use it to make speed and some other people decided that there was a crystal meth epidemic. The other was the fact that four Senators (two Republicans and two Democrats) on the Commerce committee have written a bill that says if one of the TV networks accidentally broadcasts someone cursing say at a live sporting event or on a news report from Iraq or an awards show, the network should be fined. I guess since they have successfully solved such problems as homelessness, health care and the war, now they can go forward with the real problems in this country like cursing on television. Good job, legislative branch! Actually though, Congress has done something good in the last couple of days: they overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have cut the public broadcasting budget by 15%. That makes up for all the other stuff for now.

Vice President Palpatine to be in charge tomorrow

I wonder if he'll declare martial law or something. I have to admit, I'm a little scared.

Mother Mary and Joseph!

Here is a Rhapsody playlist made up of most of the artists who played at the Syracuse Jazzfest this past weekend. Unfortunately, there is nothing Rhapvailable from The Ed Palermo Big Band who did a tribute to Frank Zappa (whose music also is no longer available on Rhapsody, sadly.) The Zappa tribute was the highlight of the weekend for me; Palermo is a self-described "Zappa freak" and it was so much fun to watch him perform. You can really tell he loves what he is doing. A bonus was the presence of Zappa band member Napoleon Murphy Brock who performed with Palermo's band. I really love "Inca Roads" and to see it performed live with Brock who filled in for Ike Willis on vocals and Zappa's vocals on some of the other songs was about the closet thing to a musical dream come true I have experienced in quite a while if not ever.
Drummer Brian Melvin performed with a group called Beatlejazz who played exactly what you might think from the name of the group; highlights were George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" that started with an amazing tabla solo, "Piggies," another Harrison number that translates surprisingly well to a jazz piece and their opening number, a slinky "Come Together." Melvin dedicated "All Things Must Pass" to his late friend Jaco Pastorius who, along with Dave Brubeck were the two artists who received festival dedications this year.
I was able to find two of the local festival performers on Rhapsody. Nancy Kelly is originally from Rochester and is an amazing vocalist and skat singer with excellent stage presence who has played everywhere, is well known in Jazz circles (according to her website she won the Downbeat Magazine readers poll "best female jazz vocalist" two years in a row) and is a local treasure. She is playing about 20 minutes away from my house on my birthday and I can't wait.
The other local artist I found on Rhapsody was Phil Klein. Klein is a retired music teacher at the festival's current site, Onondaga Community College, and is a great keyboardist and a really funny guy. Both Klein and Kelly played mostly standards and both were lots of fun.
There were bigger names at the festival too including the aforementioned Dave Brubeck with the current version of his quartet, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Aretha Franklin, Mose Allison, Chico Hamilton, "Toots" Theilemans, Howard Johnson, Harri Stojka and Hiram Bullock as well as many high school jazz bands and local favorites Los Blancos and the State Street Band.