Response to Restau-Rant

I recently got an email in response to my Restau-Rant post from earlier in the month, where I was complaining about getting stuck behind people with mulitple orders at fast-food places who paid for each order separately. I'm not sure what was more shocking--the fact that I asked for email responses from readers and actually got one, or the realization that someone else is actually reading this blog besides my little group of friends and fellow bloggers (haha).

Anyway, Jeff, who's worked in the industry, weighs in with some good points:

I couldn't agree with you more, about these multiple orders and separate checks. It shows a few things:
--The guy suckered into getting lunch for everyone has never worked in a job serving the public. (So, he may just be naive, and feeling a little pressured by the folks back at the office)
--The folks back at the office have never worked with the public, don't care about inconveniencing others (the worker at the restaurant, the guy sent on the lunch run, other customers at the restaurant), and they are just plain CHEAP...counting every stinking penny. Can you imagine how they would tip if they went out to a regular restaurant?! Back when I was a bartender, we used to joke about tight-wads getting splinters in their fingernails because they had to scrape up every last coin from the bar.

So it's not just me...thanks, Jeff, for the feedback.

QUOTE OF THE DAY (on a license plate frame of a Saturn in front of me at a stoplight): "You touch my Saturn, I'll kick Uranus."
(And yeah, that license frame is probably illegal under that stupid new Texas law too. Ugh.)

Finally, Some Chill Time

At long last, the nearly three weeks of almost constant activity have come to an end. Yay! Everyone taped for State Jazz yesterday, so the jam sessions will hold off for a while, probably until marching season is over anyway. Now comes the waiting part, as the state panel chairs will get the tapes in about two weeks and then have until early November to get them judged (which reminds me, I have to assemble my own panel pretty soon--I'm doing tenors this year).

One funny story out of that: I'm talking to friends online on Friday night around 1 a.m. when I get an IM from Betsy the bari player; seems she's left her horn at school! (Normally I wouldn't use names, to protect the innocent, but her name becomes a part of the story below.) Since her school had hosted Region Jazz for the past few years, she didn't even think about bringing it home after their football game that night. Good thing I was online, as Kev's Midnight Bari Loaner Service could spring into action. I felt bad for her dad coming out to get it at that hour, but there weren't too many alternatives...

So there were two results from that: 1) She wants a new bari now, and 2) when she brought it back yesterday, she came bearing gifts: some "Burrito Bucks" from my favorite haunt named after a smoked pepper. Or, as the sentence would read, I opened the door to find...Betsy bearing Burrito Bucks for borrowing my bari. That's almost as many B's as on my birthday blog. :-)

The activities ended with the Province Council meeting yesterday, which I held at the college in a fit of sheer laziness (I drive out to everyone else's chapters all year; they can drive to me this one time). Got a lot done and a good time was had by all.

I had to bust out all my old Robert Palmer CD's this weekend, since he died a couple days ago. Hadn't listened to them in a while, and kinda lost track of what he'd been doing lately. Besides the rocker tunes that everyone remembers ("Addicted to Love," "Simply Irresistible" and so on), he also did some cool jazzy ballads like "It Could Happen to You" and "People Will Think We're In Love." Even if he wasn't on the radar screen of hit radio lately, he did make a contribution (if for nothing else than those groundbreaking videos with the identical-looking "Palmer Girls" in the background) and will be missed. (I'd forgotten how much I liked some of those ballads.) Nice website too; hope it stays up for a while.

This week was weird, as I actually played alto instead of tenor in church this morning. I had loaned my tenor to Ryan for auditions last week and we hadn't hooked up on getting it back yet. I hadn't played alto as a solo instrument at NBC, ever...just as a section player in the old days in the orchestra when I was doubling French horn parts. When I first went in to audition for the old music minister as a soloist, I brought the alto and the soprano. He liked both, but said that the alto was "too sensuous" for playing in church. (Hmm, I thought, that could come in handy sometime...but no, not so far. *sigh*) So I stuck with soprano for the more traditional service and added the tenor when I hooked up with the Impact (contemporary) band. At any rate, alto was kinda weird, but it worked fine and felt more natural in the second service.

After that, I just enjoyed the "me time" today and finished catching up on the TV shows I'd taped over the past three weeks (the VCR kept spitting the tapes out when they got full), and now I'm catching up on this....which takes me to now. Looking forward to a few nights off this week....which I'm sure means more blogging.

The First Day of What???

OK, so it's supposed to be the first day of autumn here in Texas. I guess that means that four or five more people wore jeans instead of shorts and sneakers instead of flip-flops. Anyway, it's after 10:00 and still in the 70's outside. I feel bad for my freezing northern counterparts, but ya gotta love it here...

Long day...more later.

Music and (Counter-)Culture 101

During my trip, I got the chance to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park. Though we were basically there to hear Soulive, there was a whole day of music going on (and two days prior to that), so we had to catch some of the rest of it. Here are the highlights:

SOULIVE: These guys delivered the goods. They only had a 45-minute set, but they filled it up, and nobody seemed to mind that we all were getting rained on as we watched. Brothers Neal and Alan Evans (on organ and drums, respectively) were incredibly tight; you could just tell they'd been jamming together since they were kids. Guitarist Eric Krasno rounded out the group in fine fashion, either by doing fiery solos and lead lines or just contributing to the groove. They didn't play a single song I knew (since I don't have their very latest CD yet), but it was still awesome. (OK, they did bust into a bit of "Chameleon" for a second on their final extended jam.) I just hope I can catch them for a full set sometime soon (they said they were coming back to Austin in October or November).
http://www.soulive.com

DOYLE BRAMHALL: This guy wasn't on our original agenda, but we stopped by for a second and stayed for most of his set. He's a local Austin bluesman in the tradition of Stevie Ray Vaughan (I noticed some astounding similarities vocal-wise) who did some enjoyable stuff. The most obscure thing he did was a cover of the Beatles' "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" (yes, it is a blues already), which he expanded quite a bit from the short version on the White Album. About the only thing I don't like about blues concerts is (OK, this may be the stupidest thing I ever write in the history of this blog, but I hope you get my point) that nearly all the songs are blues! I get burned out on that same chord sequence sometimes when it's done for six songs in a row; Chris and I were both saying that we would kill for a ii-V-I progression about that time. At any rate, the guy was definitely great at what he does, and hearing him added a cool flavor to the musical casserole we experienced that afternoon.
http://www.doylebramhall.com/

BEN KWELLER: I had heard of Ben for a long time, since his days as a teen phenomenon with the group Radish out of nearby Greenville. I'd also enjoyed his stuff on the listening station at Borders. So it was a bit disappointing to hear him start a little late, and with amp problems to boot. Then the first thing he said on the mic was that he'd had "a few Heinekens" before the show, and it showed--he just seemed a bit out-of-it. He had plenty of die-hard fans there who were totally digging it, but none of us in my group were really into it at the time. It picked up a little as the set went on, but we decided to migrate over to the other side of the park for the other group we wanted to see. I'm sure I'll give Ben another chance, but that just wasn't his day.
http://www.benkweller.com

THE POLYPHONIC SPREE: This was the group playing opposite Kweller on the other end of the festival. You may have heard of these guys: A band of over 20 members (the cast is ever-changing), all wearing white choir robes, with such atypical pop-band instruments as harp, piccolo and French horn, all led by former Tripping Daisy frontman Tim DeLaughter. There's a definite Beatles influence running around here (they're huge in England, incidentally), and the orchestral sounds and DeLaughter's vocals reminded me of (a much more lighthearted) Mercury Rev. Everyone in the band and the audience was having a great time. The whole vibe of the band is "happy, happy, happy"...indeed, at the end of the set, a college-aged girl passed by us skipping all the way. (I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw an adult doing that.) You might have to be in a certain mood to enjoy this much happiness, but I thought it was awesome.
http://www.thepolyphonicspree.com

KARL DENSON'S TINY UNIVERSE: I had never really heard of these guys before the festival. The name Karl Denson rang a really small bell with me, and I had it in my head that it was sort of a jazz thing (plus the guys from Soulive said they would be jamming with him later that night), so we got there early to get close to the stage. It was more of a soul-funk band, but definitely very cool. Denson is a saxophonist and flautist (or as the idiot local DJ who introduced the band said, "not only a fine saxophonist, but a fine multi-musicianist") who leads a band with trumpet, organ/keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. They had more than enough of a groove to satisfy the party crowd, but their solo chops also appealed to hardcore jazzers like Chris and myself. Not that many people probably noticed it, but Denson himself was quite impressive with the way he would take a mostly-pentatonic solo and go tastefully "outside" for a second. Definitely a fun band whose CD I'll certainly check out and whom I will surely see again.
http://www.karldenson.com

THE AUDIENCE: Besides the musical aspects of the festival, another highlight was the people-watching. Let's face it: Austin is...weird. (Indeed, bumper stickers and T-shirts encouraged people to "Keep Austin Weird" by supporting local merchants.) We saw a bit of everything: Aging hippies, piercings in unusual places, white guys with blonde dreadlocks, really old fat people trying to dance, a couple of kids totally covered in mud (trying to have their own Woodstock experience?). The only sight I could have done without was this man woman person that Chris's friend Chetan pointed out to me who was obviously in the middle of a transgender operation. I won't go into too many details (think cleavage and mustache--ick!), but I would have been happy to go for the rest of my days without seeing something like that. I think I'm scarred for life...

Oh yeah, and among the counterculture (including all kinds of T-shirts you'd get busted for if you wore them to school), I saw this guy wearing a Texas All-Star Jazz Camp T-shirt. Not the kind of thing you see in Austin every day, and it was even stranger when the guy wearing it said hello to me by name. I'm guessing it was the parent of a camper; that kind of thing happens a lot in Plano, where I'm always being recognized and asked about the next year's camp (so much so that I carry posters in the car now). It was pretty funny to think that, with all the artist T-shirts being worn that day, someone had one with my name on the back (along with the other 18 faculty members). Does that mean I qualify as "Demon Kev" now?

So all in all, I more than got my 30 bucks' worth out of the day, and I'll definitely check out the schedule for next year.

CAR MUSIC OF THE TRIP: The Michael Brecker Quindectet, Wide Angles, and Hybrid, Wider Angle. On the surface, these CD's have nothing to do with each other; Hybrid is an English "breakbeat" band that Zack turned me onto over the summer, and Brecker is, of course, one of the greatest living jazz tenor players. When the new Brecker came out last week, I ordered it from Amazon, and I needed another CD to get the free shipping. I remembered the Hybrid one, and delighted in the similarity of the two CDs' titles; I knew I simply had to order these two together, so I did.

Great Weekend

OK, I'm back, and what a great weekend it was. I'll review the ACL Festival in the next entry, but here's the rest of what went on:

Saturday morning meant Region Jazz tryouts, and this year was really great, as I came close to having a clean sweep--as in all the saxophones who made the band coming from my studio. As it was, I had four of them (and I've taught the other guy in the past). So congrats to Matt B.and Matt D. on lead and second alto, respectively; Jason R. (a freshman!) on tenor and Betsy on bari. Another freshman, Andy, came in right behind the two Matts on alto, which certainly bodes well for the future. The judging was quick and easy--we got done by noon--and the panel was almost all of one mind, at least on the altos and the baris. By the time we got to the tenors, we started to veer off a bit like in previous years (as in the band directors on the panel liked the more classical sounds--ugh--and I didn't), but all in all it was a great day. Oh yeah, and Lee made it on bass bone for the fourth year in a row....surprise, surprise (haha). Next week they'll get to tape for State, which means I'll be hosting more jam sessions next week during this flurry of activity which never stops.

After the judging was over, I headed for Austin, stopping off in Waco to get my buddy Chris, who also went to see Soulive and visit a friend. It took a second to find "the dorm across from the parking garage," as there's more than one parking garage on the Baylor campus, and I was pretty sure the one I was supposed to go to wasn't the one with the Starbucks and Chili's in it (and btw, that Chili's is the only one in the entire nation which doesn't sell alcohol!). Chris is car-less for his first semester (as I was for mine), so he was happy to be "sprung" from Waco for the weekend.

Once we found the friend he was staying with (no easy feat at UT-Austin), I drove out to my sister and brother-in-law's to see my new nephew Caleb and my older nephew Noah. Noah, who's 2 1/2 now, is very interactive and full of new vocabulary, so I would point out a lot of stuff for him to name, which he did successfully, and then we of course shot hoops, which he's been into for a long time. (OK, the basket is two feet tall, but still...)

Caleb slept during most of the time I was there, but I did get to hold him for a little bit. Not to pontificate too much, but I don't see how anyone could gaze upon the face of a newborn and still think there's no God. Every little feature is so perfect, there's just no way it could have been formed by chance. It'll be great to watch him progress through the same stages that Noah done for the past several years, and if he turns out even half as sweet as Noah is now, what a blessing that will be.

Oh, and while I was there, I got to see the prototype for a new Despair Inc. catalog that'll be blanketing the nation soon. I'll make note in a post when it actually comes out.

So after the first decent night of sleep in a long time, I bade my sister and Noah farewell and headed out to the festival. Not much else to say about the trip, except that I got to try Rudy's BBQ on the way home--great stuff. I don't know why the one in Lewisville didn't last, but I hope it comes back to the Metroplex soon.

One more week of frenzied activity, then chill time sets in about 2:00 on Saturday.

Crazy Eights

OK, evidently Talk Like a Pirate Day was also Eat Like a Pirate Day in my neck o' the woods, as the League of Lunatics welcomed its seventh and eighth members, Jonny and Ryan, into the fold. This time, the Chipotle cashier guy actually recognized them going through the line the second time and wondered what was up, and they told him about the whole concept of the 2BC. The cashier seemed to think that was an idea that the company might have to "pirate" (haha) from me. At first that bugged me a bit, but then I realized that could mean either 1) the 2BC for money (hey, I'd do it again if cash were at stake), or 2) royalties, for coming up with the idea. Either way, not a bad thing.

Oh yeah, and there was a great moment tonight when Ryan actually thought Steven's given name was "Steven Dingus." I'll have to explain the whole Dingus thing on here pretty soon, as well as the run-yourself-through-Google idea I was talking about earlier in the week.

But for now, I'm off for a bit. I'll be judging Region Jazz tryouts in the morning, and then headed to Austin to visit my sister and her family, including my first look at new nephew Caleb. While I'm there, I'll be seeing Soulive on Sunday as part of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. I'll have a full report when I get back.

It's herrrrrrrre

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, mateys. Still wish I had a better pirate name, but what can you do? Go here if you haven't found yours yet.

--Frankenberry
(Maybe I can be the "Dread Pirate Frank")

More Random Stuff

Chalk one more up to the good guys; your friendly neighborhood ISP is fighting to keep the RIAA from forcing them to identify their customers who may have shared or downloaded songs.

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/stories/091703dnbusSBC.1961a.html

Oh great....my license-plate frame might be illegal now....and yours may be too. And we paid our legislators to come up with laws like this?

Quote of the Day: "Wow...the clarinet can sound really pretty when it's played properly."
--One of my saxophone students, expressing surprise upon hearing the clarinet teacher practicing in the studio next door. I assured her that any instrument will sound pretty when played well...even the oboe (haha).

A few quick'uns

New Study of the Day: How you sleep may reveal your personality...and perhaps how long you sleep (or don't) may reveal even more (which explains the lack of blogging the past few days).

Weird Website of the Day: cactusbymail.com. I'm not sure I'd like to work in their shipping department...

Long week already, and it's only Tuesday. I'll post more later.

Bass From Space

A Deep Voice From Deep Space (washingtonpost.com): You probably heard about this already--the discovery of soundwaves emanating from a huge black hole which "sound" a B-flat that's 57 octaves below a piano's middle C. To actually hear the sound file, go here and scroll down a bit to where it says "video."

And speaking of low sounds, I just found out about a site called contrabass.com, which specializes in all the low instruments, both common and obscure. Fun stuff, including a link to a factory that still makes bass saxophones on a regular basis.

(If you didn't know, I was the bass saxophonist on a Dallas Wind Symphony recording called "Pomp and Pipes" on Reference Recordings under the baton of the amazing Frederick Fennell. Great fun! And playing bass sax did wonders for my bari playing...)

A Very, Very Small Portion of my 15 Minutes of Fame

Sweet! I actually got acknowledged by name on the Web for something I sent in to Dave Barry's Blog the other day. Maybe that'll catch me up with my alter egos on Google searches--a subject I promised to write about a few days ago, and will do soon...just not tonight, I need the sleep.

Weird story of the day

Yahoo! News - Bug beat: Grow bacteria on your CD for the latest sound

So this begs the question: If you download an mp3 made from one of these "yogurt discs," who will sue you--the RIAA or Yoplait? ;-)

Uncle Kev x 2

I'm an uncle again. :-) My second nephew, Caleb, was born this afternoon at 12:30 (7 lbs., 14 oz. and a little over 19" long, if you're into "baby stats"). Mom and baby are doing fine, Dad is excitedly snapping pictures left and right, and big bro Noah doesn't quite know what to make of all this (since he has to "share" his family now).

My first visit will be next weekend (yay!). In the meantime, I'll see if I can upload one of the pictures I've already gotten and put it on the "uncle page" of my website before too long. (UPDATE: The uncle page didn't make it to my newly-redesigned website, out of respect for their privacy, though I may post an occasional family picture or something.)

Bebop 'n' Burritos, Part XVII

We had a "bond with the band burrito bash" today for Combo Too. Turned a few new people onto the "foil torpedo" (hey, don't groan at me; that comes from one of their radio commercials) and they really loved it. If Chipotle were a pyramid scheme, I would be so ridiculously wealthy...

Oh, and I managed to experience another episode just like the one chronicled in yesterday's Restau-Rant, where one person comes in alone but orders for five people (right in front of me, again). This time, I was stuck there for what seemed like an interminable time waiting for them to finish with this guy while my burrito, in its pupal stage, got cold on the counter awaiting the rest of its innards. Oh well, at least this guy paid for everything all at once.

Not much sleep this week; I'll recap the highlights when the blessed weekend arrives, even though it'll be full of activities too.

Restau-Rant

Let's see if anybody agrees with me here that the following scenario is an example of rude behavior:

Someone comes into a fast food restaurant, usually alone (never more than two people), and proceeds to make up to five separate orders, which the cashier has to ring up individually and make change from five distinct piles of money. They're obviously buying food for their entire office, but you can imagine how much time it takes up, both for the cashier and for the unfortunate customers stuck behind this person or persons.

I say this is selfish. You should either a) call in the order, so the kitchen has a chance to prepare for it (then it can be waiting for you when you get there) or b) order everything as a single order. I know that the argument would be "but not everyone will get their change that way," but I say you should divide that up back at the office, on your own time, instead of wasting the time of those who are not in on your little office party and just want lunch in a reasonable amount of time.

Anyone agree with me on this? If you're a dedicated reader (and I know that both of you are out there, haha), shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts.

The New Zackmobile

Last night, Zack brought his new RSX over. He was beyond psyched about it. Seeing as how it was after midnight, I normally wouldn't have been too thrilled about having a visitor, but I happily made an exception in this case and tooled around Garland with him for a bit when it was "way past my bedtime."

You see, the RSX was what I was hoping to replace the Kevmobile with until it failed the emissions inspection last October. So while I'm tooling around in a pre-owned Civic for a while (which is just fine), Zack actually gets to live my dream (and his, of course) now. It was very cool. I'm officially jealous.

(And yeah, I know that sounds like it's bordering on un-Christian behavior, but I don't consider this to be envy or covetousness, because I don't want what belongs to anyone else--I just want one of my own also. I think of it as more of a goal to shoot for.)

So we'll see how this goes for Zack; maybe he can take this car up to a third of a million miles like I did with the original Kevmobile. Maybe he can even beat my friend Kris, who's taken an '89 4Runner up to 342,000 miles now. The challenge is on.

Send in the Clones

OK, so evidently I'm moving to California now, according to this link:
LifePoint Announces Kevin McNerney as Vice President Operations

Actually it's one of the "other me's" running around; if you're a Jim Smith, this happens all the time, but not when you have an uncommon name like mine. I'll blog at length about the "other me's" pretty soon (kinda late tonight), but this one was particularly interesting because he used to live in Dallas a while back, and I would occasionally get his phone calls. The weirdest one by far was from FedEx, who said that "I" had a package that had arrived from Singapore (what, was I gonna cane somebody?). Then later on, "other me" was interviewed on the front page of the Dallas Morning News during an airline strike: something to the effect of "an exasperated Kevin McNerney was delayed on his return from business in California." Back then, my sister was in Dallas and not yet married, so we still shared a last name, and all her friends were calling her at work asking "was that your brother in the paper this morning?" She said, "I don't think so," guessing correctly that 1) my job doesn't normally take me out-of-state on business, and 2) if it did, I would have called her beforehand.

Anyway, a fraternity brother IM'ed me this thing a few minutes ago, prefacing it by saying "so I see you're relocating to California;" just thought I'd share the gag.

Here it goes...

MSNBC: Hundreds of music swappers sued. Notice again that they busted somebody's grandfather, from right down the street in Richardson. I still say this is horrible P.R. for the industry. You might get some money out of this, guys, but you're not exactly Winning Friends and Influencing People.

OK, maybe this has been done already, but someone should commission a study to see how many extra recordings are bought by people who use file-swapping services. With a little tweaking (i.e. allowing the downloading of a few songs from an artist, rather than an entire CD), this whole thing could have been the best free advertising the industry ever had. But now they had to go and get the lawyers involved...

Random Stuff

Bored at work or school? Try this. (My record is 57 flies; try and beat it.)

Associated Press: Librarians Are Throwing the Book at a New Shushing Librarian Action Figure

If I'm on your Christmas list, you might consider getting me this.

My friend and fellow 2BC champion Mark just did the pirate name thing and didn't like his either; he's "Otto the Peevish." I still think that's better than Frankenberry.

THE GOOD GUYS WIN ONE: In my Too Young to Jam? post from a few months ago, I lamented the fact that an "open" jazz jam session was being held at a place where you had to be 21 or older to get in. Now the jam has moved, to Sambuca in Deep Ellum. This still could be a problem for those whose parents are afraid of that part of town (and there is a food-purchase requirement to be there), but at least there's a chance for the younger folks now. My old college buddy Shelley Carrol is the host.

Tastes Like Chicken

The new Chick-fil-A opened in Garland yesterday, and you know it's a slow news day (or maybe even a slow news town) when that's the biggest thing going on. It was packed at lunch today, and it was all anyone was talking about in the nearby schools. The really funny part was that they had two people dressed up in cow costumes standing along the side of the George Bush Turnpike access roads, carrying sandwich boards that said "EAT MOR CHIKIN." It was great when the cows would walk into the restaurant every once in a while; they got the funniest looks from some of the customers. It was a good thing that it was only in the mid-80's this week and not 108 degrees like a few weeks ago, or that cow suit would've been hideously unbearable. I wonder how much it pays? (Not that I need the gig; I was just curious about the going rate for bovine impersonators these days.)

But at any rate, it's great to be getting more new places to eat along my teaching route, so I welcome them to the fold. Now they just need to hurry up with the Olive Garden and Red Lobster that are supposed to be going up on the George Bush. We'll get civilized yet, I tell ya...

Man vs. (the) Machine...The Saga Continues

It seems that the Machine, a.k.a. Big Music, has actually decided to do something consumer-friendly for once:

LOS ANGELES -- Universal Music Group, whose roster of artists includes 50
Cent, U2, Elton John and Diana Krall, will cut the price of its wholesale
CDs and push for a $12.98 retail cap on its discs in an attempt to woo
music fans back into record stores.

The world's largest recording company hopes retailers, who have suffered as industrywide music sales dropped 31 percent the last three years, will follow its lead and pass on the savings to consumers.

Universal hopes the actual retail price of most of its CD's will end up about
$10 or less, comparable to the $9.99 retail price that music fans enjoyed
in the early 1990s, at the height of a price war between the recording
companies.

Read the rest of the story:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2082237

Now, I wouldn't say this was the result of some newfound altruism on the Machine's part; it's probably just a (futile) effort to save itself from its increasing irrelevancy. But hey, I'll take it... :-)

Of course, I have my own suggestions on how to sell more CD's:

1) Get more musicians, and fewer bean-counters, involved at the highest levels of the industry. Once the music is once again viewed as artistic expression more than "product," a higher level of integrity can be demanded of what gets released. The industry will be better off as a whole when there is more room for music which actually has artistic merit rather than its ability to make a fast buck.
2) Release a few more CD's that don't suck. (This could very well be accomplished by following Suggestion #1.) This--not file-sharing--is the main reason that CD sales are down.

And word comes this morning that the RIAA (the nucleus of the Machine) is considering offering an amnesty program to the file-swappers against whom it is filing lawsuits. Read the story here:

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1143419

Arrr, Matey!

As Dave Barry pointed out in his column this weekend, September 19th is "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Of course it has a website you can check out, including a glossary of common pirate phrases and an English-to-Pirate translator. Turns out it was started by two guys playing racquetball...fun.

If that's not enough, here's another site that will generate a pirate name for you:
http://www.stupidstuff.org/main/piratename.htm

I tried this myself and it gave me the rather disappointing name of "Frankenberry." (I almost felt cheated. What the $#*@!&^ kind of pirate name is that? I thought the only breakfast cereal pirate was "Jean LaFoote, the Barefoot Pirate" from those old Cap'n Crunch commercials.)

I then ran the names of my friends and fellow bloggers Matt, Lee and Zack through it as well, and they came out as, respectively, Bloodstain Bartholomew, Gentleman Jim, and Dry Bone Bronson (would've almost made more since for Lee to be "Dry Bone" since he's a bass trombonist and all).

I also tried this with a few famous jazz musicians:

Miles Davis--Black-Hearted Bob
Charlie Parker--Dread Pirate Read
John Coltrane--Cutlass Jim Breakman
Gerry Mulligan--Plunderin' Billy
Dizzy Gillespie--Calico Jack McGurk

Anyway, enough fun for tonight. Oh yes, and I now have money again, and cheap health insurance. Life is good. :-)

QUOTE: "An industry should know it is in trouble when it gets called Big anything."--Columnist Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal. In her recent column, she was referring to Big Pharma(ceuticals), Big Tobacco and Big Oil, but it certainly dovetails with my opinion of Big Music, a.k.a. "The Machine," which I ranted about earlier in this space.

Not too Laborious...

Happy Labor Day to all! Not much going on here. I did teach a few lessons here and there (and it's a measure of one's dedication if they have their lesson on a school holiday) but otherwise just chilled. It was raining most of the day here (and about 30 degrees cooler than a few weeks ago), which precluded any type of "picnic" thing, so it was nice simply to be lazy and also know that there's only a four-day week left when I get up tomorrow.

Other than that, Labor Day doesn't have the significance that it might have in other parts of the country; schools have already started, and it's certainly not "the end of summer" weather-wise in Texas, though the rain-cooled weekend was quite nice. I went to a Rangers game on Saturday and didn't melt to the seats...though we did have to endure an hour-and-a-half rain delay. It's as if the weather is making up for its lack of summer rain all in one weekend here.

One other good thing, besides the four-day work week: With the onslaught of September checks about to come in (actually I have some of them in my pocket already, just couldn't put them in the bank yet since it was closed), I will officially start being Not Poor again. Yay!

Home Sweet Home

Speaking of houses, today is my second anniversary as a homeowner. "Casa de Kev" may not be as big as the "lottery house" I always envision, or those castles in Fairview I wrote about earlier, but it is a really great little house, and dang it, it's mine. It's already been the site of many cool jam sessions and some fun times with friends; here's to many more years of enjoyment.

Everybody Sing Along with Primus: "I'm Goin' Down to South Park Garland???"

OK, now I've seen everything. There's a neighborhood in Garland where all the streets are named after South Park characters.

I'd watched this new neighborhood being built over the past year or so, and I noticed that its entrance street was called Garrison. For some reason, when I saw that name, it reminded me of Mr. Garrison, the fruity teacher on South Park. Little did I know, that was exactly what the developers had in mind! So today, I drove through the neighborhood (I always like looking at new houses), and I started to see a pattern: In addition to Garrison, they had Crabtree (the shrieking bus driver lady), McCormick (Kenny's last name, except they spell it McKormick in the series), Mackey (the school counselor known for saying "mmm-kay?"), and--believe it or not--Cartman. It was when I got to the corner of Cartman and Mackey that I realized this was no coincidence.

So I guess there's nothing wrong with naming a whole neighborhood's worth of streets after cartoon characters; using numbers, letters, trees and Presidents will only get you so far. It must, however, be somewhat awkward to move your small kids onto a street named after someone on a show that they're way too young to watch! But I have to say, if you're gonna do cartoon characters, an all-Simpsons neighborhood should be next. Wouldn't you like to live on Bart Boulevard, Lisa Lane, Krusty Kove or Santa's Little Helper Street?

(UPDATE: It occurred to me on Sunday night, while watching my favorite Fox lineup, that there's another cartoon show that needs a Garland neighborhood named after it: King of the Hill, since Garland is at least the nominal inspiration for the fictional town of "Arlen" where the Hill family resides. Of course, series creator Mike Judge, who used to live in neighboring Richardson, says that the cultural inspiration for Arlen came more from also-neighboring Mesquite. A King neighborhood could be fun, giving us the likes of Peggy Place, Boomhauer Boulevard and (Bill) Dauterive Drive. OK, I'll stop now...)

In The Thick Of It

I may not blog much this week--the stuff is coming down. College started today and the rehearsals went great; the groups are gonna be really good. But now they're maybe wanting me to teach another class there....that would be awesome, but would also involve me basically blowing up part of the schedule I've worked so hard on for the past several weeks. And on the other side, I have band directors starting to bug me to take on even more students. Part of me wants to just tell everyone to take a collective chill pill until I can get this all straightened out. It's gonna be cool when it all comes together, but this hanging in limbo until Friday (when I find out if I'm teaching the other class or not) is the hardest part.

In the meantime, enjoy some tunes. My "band of the day" is Copeland. Hear some of their music here. (I recommend "Walking Downtown" or "Testing the Strong Ones.")

One Down, 34 to Go...

I'm amazed at how quickly the first week of school went. Sure, I taught all day and had things to do almost every night, but it really flew. Of course, I asked one of the band directors I teach with if it was the same way for him, and he said no, not only was it not fast, but it felt like a root canal! Now you know why I'm not a band director...

It was a good week, though. I listened to four hours (!) of auditions at the college on Tuesday, then we had to deliberate over them for an additional hour. (This was mostly because we had some very good players, including walk-ins, as opposed to some semesters where we get a lot of people who just own an instrument.) It should be a great semester for all the groups.

In an effort to keep the Tuesday night tradition intact, Lee and Steven, being the faithful Dingii that they are, waited at Chipotle until 9:00...and I got there at 9:05 (d'oh). Now, I'm not sure which of these is scarier, but they're each a sign that I probably go there too much:

1) When I arrive at Chipotle, the employee that Zack refers to as "Nose Ring Lady" sees me and tells me that my friends have just left.

2) She then makes my exact burrito order from memory.

On Wednesday I got to hang with my great friend Jonathan from Virginia, and stayed up way too late for a school night, but it was well worth it since he's usually only here once a year, and I missed any chance to get together during my "24 hours in D.C." in July.

Last night I saw "Freddy vs. Jason." I can't remember ever laughing so hard at a horror movie (ok, except for the "Scary Movie" series, which is supposed to be funny). Lee has posted a review on his site, so I won't duplicate it here.

Anyway, it's hard to believe that a whole week is already done. College starts Monday (Tuesday for my classes), and I already have my first round of music pulled and ready for both combos. Thanks to not having a Saturday job this year, I start the new semester more prepared and more relaxed than ever before. It should be a great one...

One More

Here's one more:

Does IM Make U Dum?

This Should Provide Minutes of Entertainment

OK, this is at least mildly amusing:

CreateBands.com - Create A Band Online

Hold the Mayo?

A snippet of an actual conversation I heard over lunch today:

Customer in sandwich shop: "What kind of mayonnaise is that?"
Sandwich shop worker: "White."

Really? They use white mayonnaise here? How exotic; I should eat here more often (haha).

Of course, if she had said it was any other color (i.e. yellow, green, etc.), I would've high-tailed it outta there and never come back...

Off and Running...

I'm only one day into it, and the semester is already back in full force. Seven hours of teaching, followed by four hours of listening to auditions at the college...all I can say is, I'm glad I was so lazy over the summer, because I really don't feel too wiped out yet. Ask me the same question in December, I suppose, but so far, the sailing is smooth.

But the best part of it all was just how fun teaching was today. I certainly hope the sheer volume of it won't dilute that feeling as the year goes on; days like today remind me of why I do what I do in the first place.

Ode to a Summer

Well, summer's over. Your calendar (and mine) may say otherwise, but in the world of academia, the first day of the fall semester dictates the seasons more than any equinox could ever think of doing.

And I have to say it's been a great one! A lot of the things that have gone on have been chronicled in these pages over the past few months, and there have been plenty of other things that were too mundane to mention but were still really fun.

Because of the seasonal nature of my business, I never make a whole bunch of money over the summer, so that puts a cramp in most big travel plans; but, considering the hours I put in during the year, it's great just to have some time to recharge the batteries. I certainly did lots of that this summer--plenty of naps, plenty of sleeping late. I know you can't "stock up" on sleep or anything, but at least I feel quite rested and energized as the 12-hour workdays are about to come a-knocking.

So besides the obvious highlights (Vermont, jazz camp and my whirlwind trip to D.C.), and the things that come with the territory (the joy of the learning process as my students make tons of improvement during the long break from school) the best times have just been hanging with my friends. That's one thing I've noticed recently--there's just something about this particular group of friends; all I can say is that I'm happier than I've been in a long time. And I'm so aware that this is a bonus: God never guarantees that we'll be happy down here, so I consider this to be the icing on what's already a very good cake.

Sure, I'm still looking for "Ms. Right" to co-rule with me over this not-so-castle (or maybe go in with me on a bigger one), but as a cynical-but-tenacious friend who's wise beyond his years told me recently, it's hard to be happy in a relationship until you're happy with yourself, and I do believe I'm there. Not to say that supermodels are gonna come knocking at the door now, but when the right situation arrives, I'll be more ready than I've ever been (and I can afford a date again--yay!).

So I bid a fond farewell to the summer of '03. It'll live on in my memory, and the pages of this blog. A new chapter starts in the morning...

Fly the Funny Skies

Here are some humorous quotes from flight crew announcements, taken from a site that's also my favorite source for debunking urban legends.

The Best Kind of Preventive Medicine...

With all the news about the new virus this week--especially after reading Zack's essay on the lengthy steps to remove it, I just can't help thinking what a great week it is to be a Mac owner. I wonder how many people will consider switching after this latest episode.

Now granted, the Internet was a little weird last night; AIM was crashing on me left and right, and for a while, not a single webpage was loading...but "the fault did not lie with my equipment," and at least I could turn my machine on! And while I don't condone virus-creation as a way to send a message, I have to echo its content: "Billy G." evidently does need to fix his software.

Kev's Poetry Corner

If I can have your attention *clears throat*...here's a new one for you:

I am a poet;
I am very fond of bananas.
I am bananas;
I am very fond of a poet.*

No, I haven't been eating funny mushrooms. Those are the actual opening lyrics to Track #5 on the new Kurt Elling CD, Man in the Air. It's mostly well-known instrumentals that Kurt wrote lyrics to, such as Pat Metheny's "Minuano," Josef Zawinul's "A Remark You Made," and the "Resolution" portion of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."

There's nothing as wacky on there as "Endless" from The Messenger (a story I still have to tell sometime), but the above-quoted song is a nice touch. If you're already a Kurt fan, I highly recommend this one as an addition to your library. If you're unfamiliar with him, check him out, and read my short review of his performance here back in May.

(*"The Uncertainty of the Poet"--lyrics by Wendy Cope, to music by Cary John Franklin)

Random Funnies O' The Day

Dave Barry has a blog now, and, like everything else Dave does, it's hilarious. A lot of it is links to funny websites or ridiculous stories sent in by Alert Readers, just like in his column. Check it out...

Here's another funny one:
The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator
http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html

No Sophomore Slump for Shaun

Speaking of worshipful music, I got the new CD Twilight by Shaun Groves yesterday. It's the second offering from the Texas-born, Tennessee-based musician who made a huge impression on the Christian pop music world with his 2001 debut, blending thoughtful, heartfelt lyrics with catchy melodies. I won't give a track-by-track review or anything, but suffice it to say, I dig it, and Shaun should avoid the dreaded "sophomore slump" with this new collection.

The funny thing is, he didn't set out to be a performer himself at all. He graduated from Baylor, where he studied church music and composition; his major instrument at the time was the saxophone. As he said in an interview following his debut a few years ago, one of the professors there took him aside and basically told him that the saxophone was not an instrument that was normally used to worship God (obviously not true, considering what I do on Sunday mornings; see above). So while he was there, he started working on his guitar, piano and singing, and he set off to Nashville with the idea of writing songs for other people. However, most of the people who heard his work thought that his songs were so personal, he should be performing them himself. Suddenly the "reluctant performer" had a contract with Rocketown Records, the label run by eminent Christian artist Michael W. Smith, and the rest, as they say, is history.

And there is a personal connection here: The semester before he went to Baylor, Shaun was my saxophone student at Tyler Junior College! We didn't regain contact until recently (though he probably was one of those people I would have kept up with if we all had email ten years ago), but our paths did cross again when he played a concert in Coppell in the spring. It's kind of ironic that my first former student to gain national prominence in music did so without actually playing the saxophone (there's not a lick of it on either CD, though if he ever wants some, I would drive to Nashville to play on the recording)...but still, it's great that he's becoming well-known in the field and that he's able to combine an effective ministry with great music.

For a good recent interview with Shaun, go here.

A Real Blessing

We started a new service at church today, and I think everything went really well for the first day. Recently, we did like many churches do and had a 9:30 and an 11:00, with the first service being a little more traditional (choir and organ, but with an "unplugged" band and the occasional praise chorus thrown in there) and the second one being totally contemporary, with the rock band and all that. Though I would play a little bit (on soprano, or as several of the elderly attendees called it, the "metal clarinet") at the earlier service at times, I've been mostly used in the second one, where I bust out on tenor and tend to "fill in the space" between the lyrics, generally living out my Saturday Night Live fantasies (but without so much of the Lenny Pickett histrionics...both for taste considerations and because I can't always play the notes so high that only dogs can hear them *grin*).

So what has happened is that the early service, which skews older, wasn't completely full, but the late one was totally overflowing every week, to the point that it was hard to bring visitors in. It's a great problem to have, but something had to be done, so they decided to move the early service to 8:30 and make the two other ones "twin" contemporary services starting fifteen minutes later than usual. They asked about 400 people from the 11:00 to commit to the 9:45, and, despite the overall youth of the contemporary crowd, enough people's alarm clocks went off this morning that the downstairs was about 3/4 full. We then wondered how many people would be at the 11:15, and that ended up being nearly full downstairs and a half-full balcony. So all in all, we'd have to call it a real blessing that everything has worked out this well so far, and I can only imagine how awesome it would be if, down the road, all three services were full to the gills...again, a great "problem" to have.

Krispy Kids

So I was a little bored last night and had to get out of the house for a little bit. I ended up going to Frisco to satisfy my occasional Krispy Kreme hankering (plus I had $2 worth of "KK Bucks" that someone had given me). The amazing thing was how many little kids--I mean like pre-kindergartners--were in there at 10:45 at night. Maybe they were all at the Roughriders game (minor league baseball team just down the street), but I was really surprised that they were still awake, much less out doing stuff. And all that sugar...I bet some of 'em still haven't gotten to sleep yet, heh heh (and I write this over 14 hours later).

Also noticed while I was there that Essenza, the Italian restaurant where 15th Street had their first steady indoor gig, had closed. I'm not sure it was even open a year, which is actually fairly common in the cutthroat D/FW restaurant business. Still, it was a nice place that served an awesome Tiramisu...too bad it didn't make it.

What's This Wet Stuff Again?

I woke up this morning to the sound of...rain? It's been so long since those little water droplets fell from the sky, I'd almost forgotten what it was like. :-)

Of course it figures that it would do it on a weekend, when my poor sunburned students in marching band wouldn't be able to benefit from it (they were all hating it when the mercury in Dallas hit 109 on Wednesday...ugh), and on a day when one of my schools had an all-day, two-location car wash scheduled. Oh well. At least I won't have to dodge a sprinkler in the front yard again for a few days...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So the gig with 15th Street Jazz went really well last night. They did the first two sets by themselves, and then Collin (up-and-coming saxist I mentioned last week) and I joined them for the last set. It's almost a shame that they're scattering to four different places for college, because they've gotten really tight recently. But the CD they just recorded, which is likely to find a place on the Internet somewhere, will be not only a lasting memento but also a way to keep their music out there while they're away, as well as an easy avenue for securing gigs when they're back in town. It'll be cool to see what kind of new stuff they pick up at their respective schools.

And as I said before, they've opened the door for more of this stuff to happen. There may not be too many places that are paying enough to keep professional groups out there, but the young jazzers have found a fertile market in the exploding coffeehouse phenomenon, especially the independent ones. I mean, I love my Starbucks, but I also want to have an alternative from time to time, and I'm definitely interested in keeping the little guy in business if they're providing an outlet for live music, especially live jazz. I'll be trying to hook up groups from the college and other collections of Renegades during the next semester.

I'm supposed to get an advance copy of the CD from the guys, and when I do, I'll post comments and links for when the music goes online. In the meantime, guys, again, I salute you for doing what so many young musicians only dream of doing before they graduate. In this case, it's worked out great.

Farewell to 15th Street (For Now)

Tonight is the "15th Street Jazz" farewell-for-now gig. Don't know if the CD got finished yet, but it'll be fun; I'll be one of several guests sitting in for the last set. I'll have a full report tomorrow.

But first, I'm off to the Big "C" to remind myself what eating a single burrito is like. :-)

A Show About Nothing...But It's a Good Nothing

Everyone knows there's a lot of junk on TV, especially in the summer. Between things like Survivor VI: The South Pole and Who Wants to Marry My Escaped Convict Grandmother?, the pickings are rather slim, and I often only turn on the TV for the same reasons I would the radio: news and sports.

But this summer, I discovered a little diamond in the rough: The Brendan Leonard Show (ABC Family, 4:30 pm Central--hey, I'm in Texas, so I'll use my time zone; let the East Coasters do the math for once). Now ABC Family could easily be considered a "kids' channel," and I know I'm not part of this show's target demographic, but I nonetheless find it a lot funnier than most stuff on TV today.

The basic premise is this: Brendan is a college student from the Chicago suburb of Winnetka (a place I actually lived for a short time before kindergarten) who got his own cable access show when he was 15 (he says on the website that he got it just by asking for it, but having a network news correspondent for a father gave him the know-how to actually pull it off). He and his gang of friends are pretty much just being themselves on the show, doing stunts and gags and things a lot of people wish they could do but don't have the guts to try. (When I first read about the show, it sounded like it might be kind of a "Jackass Jr.", but these guys are way more wholesome than that cast, and I don't think you'll be seeing them on a police blotter anytime soon.)

On one episode, they recreated the Tour de France using tricycles and Big Wheels; on another, they donned white dress shirts and ties and then went around town in two teams seeing who could get the muddiest; the whole scene climaxed with them slopping through the pricey gift shop where Brendan's mother is employed. She's appropriately horrified, of course, and shoos them out the door rather quickly. (Incidentally, the show is very much a family affair, with Mom being Mom, an older brother and brother-in-law on the production team and Brendan's two older sisters totally bewildered by the fact that their lazy little brother actually has a national TV show. Dad is prohibited by his contract--he's with a different network--from actually being on the show, but I'm certain he's a major technical advisor.)

They've also taken little catch-phrases we all use and tried to see if they're really true (Can you have your cake and eat it too? Is the grass really greener on the other side?). Each show spotlights a "Band of the Day," which is generally a local or indie act, handpicked by Brendan; the bands must be salivating at the thought of getting exposure on this scale.

I can't put my finger on exactly why I like the show so much; in many ways, it's a show-about-nothing a la Seinfeld, but maybe that's what makes it refreshing. It never claims to be high art. The guys in the cast are generally quite funny, and there are more hits than misses. Maybe there's a little bit of the vicarious-experience thing going on when they actually do the crazy things that a lot of people only think about all the time.

There is a tie-in here to our subject of the week: One of the things you can do on the website is send Brendan an idea for a stunt. I wish it had hit me sooner, but there's an obvious one: the 2BC! Like most college students, the cast members eat everything in sight (except Brendan, who's the picky one). There are several Chipotle locations near Winnetka, so I sent the idea in to the site. The only thing is, the guys go to college all over the country, so there probably aren't many filming days left this summer. However, if they get renewed for a second season, maybe this could be part of it...and if they wanted, they could even use the second part of my idea: Come down to Texas and pit their guys against mine in a sort of 2BC-off. I'll post again if he actually replies...

Now We Are Six

Well, I survived my first, and quite possibly only, 2BC last night. Lee and Micah went for it as well, and Micah actually broke the previous record of 20 minutes, clocking in at a brisk 13 or so. Lee came very close, finishing about 99% of the thing (maybe two bites left, really) before throwing in the towel despite everyone's encouragements. I probably took around 45 minutes (that would include the time standing in line for the second one; the place was packed the whole time we were there) but managed to make it through.

So from our experience, it would seem there are several "secrets" to completing the 2BC, and they can vary from person to person: Stephen S., Micah, and Lee and Steven's friend Mark did the speed-eating thing (Mark nearly bit one of his clean in half *shudder*), while Steven D., Zack and I took our time. I took Zack's advice about drinking a lot of water during the day beforehand, and I didn't have too much Dr Pepper during the first one; indeed, the need for it during the second one (I hit a particularly spicy patch near the end) almost sank me, but I recovered. I think every 2BCer agrees that the second one is more of a chore, unlike the usual joy of eating one.

After that, several of us took off for the movies (Micah was really up for one); we saw "American Wedding," which was probably better than the second one, but still had the usual ratio of funny/gross that we've come to know from the "American Pie" franchise. At one point, Micah and I noted that we probably had too much food in us to be laughing that hard...oh, and there was a rare moment in the parking lot on the way in, where Lee and I were singing variations on Bernstein ("I feel fatty, oh so fatty...") You get the idea. (And due to my current state of not-having-a-girlfriend, you won't be catching me singing showtunes again anytime soon; don't want anyone to get the wrong idea...)

So it was a great way to cap off the summer big band nights, and we broke a new record by cramming nine people around one of the big round tables at Chipotle (thank goodness 15th Street has those, as I haven't seen them anywhere else that I can recall). The League of Lunatics now has six members: Stephen S., Steven D., Mark, Zack, Micah and myself. Lee will be joining us eventually, as he's determined like that (Tenacious Lee?). And I'll be happy as can be if I never eat that much in one sitting for the rest of my life... :-)

Now I Really Need to Have My Head (or Stomach?) Examined

I did it (urp). More in the morning...

2B-Me??

So it's the last night of summer big band, and there'll be a huge burrito hang afterwards (we have people who can't even make the rehearsal but will be there for Chipotle).

And possibly as many as three people will attempt the 2BC tonight...

...and I may be one of them. What am I thinking??

The Corner Cynic

I am happy to announce that my good buddy Lee has joined the blogging world. He'll have a lot to say, so check out his site from time to time.

Funny Slogan

I saw this on a T-shirt yesterday....best slogan I've seen in a while:

I HAVE THE BODY OF A GOD
(Unfortunately, it's Buddha)

Ironically, I saw the shirt while walking a lap around Grapevine Mills Mall...not because I needed to get somewhere, but rather in an effort to be Not Buddha. :-)

Opening the Door

Went out tonight to hear 15th Street Jazz and sit in for the last set again. Since the guys have graduated, they're heading off to four different colleges later this month, so this was one of their last gigs together for a while. They actually did a CD recording recently--they're just waiting on the finishing touches--so maybe there'll be a "release party" before they scatter for a while.

It's still so awesome to me that they actually got this group together and snagged some paying gigs before they even graduated from high school. They've blazed a trail that others can follow; in fact, another up-and-coming young sax player sat in this evening as well--perhaps a "passing of the torch" of sorts. He was talking about how cool the whole experience was, and I was encouraging him to do the same thing with a new group of people. The door has been opened...

Tour de Rants (or Rants for Lance?)

The other day, I was offering congratulations on this site to Lance Armstrong on winning the Tour again, and I said that he had "done Plano and Austin...and America...very proud." Turns out that, in the words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad, because I read in the paper today that Lance actually hates Plano.

His basic thing was that if you didn't wear the right designer clothes or play football, you didn't fit in over there at the time (I'm sure this still happens, but I've also taught many Planonians who thrived outside those parameters). But the last straw, evidently, was when the administration wouldn't let him miss school late in his senior year to go to Moscow for a prestigious pre-Olympic race of some sort. They said if he did, he'd have to make up all his missed work in less than a week or not be eligible to graduate. As the story goes, his mom got so mad that she pulled him out of PISD and he graduated from a small private school that transferred all his credits. And when his would-have-been graduating class had its reunion, their most famous almost-alumnus wasn't invited. How ridiculous...

So...sorry, Lance, if you didn't want to be associated with Plano. My friend who grew up across the alley from you thought you were a really cool guy, for whatever that's worth. (And of course there's plenty of good things about Plano, including a great little college just down the street from your old neighborhood *grin*.) You can also take solace in the fact that none of those administrators who stood in your way have touched nearly as many lives as you have these last five years. So I will amend my previous statement to say that you've done Austin, and Texas, and America proud...and too bad the Plano thing didn't work out; I bet a lot of people there are still proud of you.

And maybe this serves as a cautionary tale to anyone who might be in a similar position as those administrators: When you have someone who's really, really good at what they do, try to work with them a bit. By that, I'm not saying to give anyone preferential treatment (especially athletes, because we've seen the fruit of that); I just mean treat each person as an individual instead of trying to squeeze everyone into a one-size-fits-all box or making the process more important than the person. The same thing happened to a student of mine once; he was turning into a pretty decent jazz saxophonist at the same time he was rewriting all his school's swimming records, but the director eventually ran him out of band just because he kept having conflicts with marching rehearsal to do his swimming training. It's too bad everyone couldn't have worked together for him, because it would seem to be a feather in all their caps if someone excels at multiple things.

A story like Lance's, which has had so many happy endings already, could have had another one...but I don't see Lance supporting any PISD cycling efforts, or kicking in for a district velodrome, anytime soon. Too bad...their loss.

Saluting the Sis

Happy Birthday Kristen! I don't get to see my sister too much since she moved to Austin, but it's always great when we do get together. I'll have to head down there before too long just to relax around the beginning of school, and then of course there's the impending arrival of Nephew #2 in September. Hope the day goes great, Sis.

Some Trunk Funk

OK, I didn't think I had anything to post today. Zack's been posting some hilarious links on his site lately, and now I have a link too...not laugh-out-loud funny, just really, really different....

Elephants improvise music in the jungles of Thailand!

http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html

Dig the sound files....

Player-Coach

So today I got to direct the college big band while Kris was out; I even brought in enough "ringers" to where I didn't have to play. I don't mind being "player-coach" but in a big band situation it's a lot easier to just do one or the other. I brought Chris and Matt in as subs, and then Zack showed up at Chipotle afterwards, so we had a little Renegade Reunion going. We actually crammed seven people around "our" big round table at one point. Stephen S., the 2BC pioneer, tried again but missed by about 1/3 on the last one.

Oh yeah, happy birthday Pat! I was able to return the favor of the birthday burrito tonight, and we all regaled him in big band with the usual serenade: "OK, everybody play Happy Birthday, pick any key." It was wonderfully cacophonous...

A New Look...

OK, so I've cleaned up the site quite a bit: did a little editing, added some headlines, wrapped it all in a shiny new template and got my links goin' on. I think the default font got bigger and easier to read too.

Good News/Bad News (Musician's Edition)

Good news for musicians?:

Scientists have created a technique called "neurofeedback" that trains musicians to clear their minds and produce more creative brain waves. The technique helps musicians improve their performance by an average of 17%; some improved by as much as 50%. Read more.


Bad news for musicians...

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/features/interview.asp?NID=598266

Yeah, it's about the G-weasel. But don't let the subject scare you away; read it and gag. And yet it figures that something like that is what the Machine would call "jazz." From the quotes in there (especially the misinformation about how Charlie Parker got his "Bird" nickname), you can tell that the guy wouldn't know jazz if it bit him. Still, it made for a good laugh in saxophone class at jazz camp when one of the other faculty members brought it up.

Not Your Usual Graduation Speech

I read a great article that was sent to me a few days ago. It's called the "Neal Boortz Commencement Speech," and you might find it interesting. Even if you don't agree with what he says, you probably have to admit that a lot of thought went into it. Personally, I think it's one of the best things I've read in a long time, even if some of the truths and ideas expressed might make a lot of people uncomfortable. (Now, understand that I don't agree with the "those who can, do; those who can't, teach" idea in there, at least as a blanket statement; but in my years in academia, I've certainly known plenty of people who fit the bill.)

And I guess you might have read that the RIAA (the nucleus of the Machine; see my previous post on the subject) started sending out those subpoenas to suspected file-sharers this past week. I think one of the first people to get one was someone's grandfather...sheesh. I still say they might win the battle, but they're gonna lose the war if they treat people like this. Anyway, perhaps it's time to take Zack's advice and listen to some foreign music. He made one of his famous "Zax Mixes" for Matt and included a lot of this thing called Orange Lounge, which I think came from DDR and Beatmania machines but has a decided jazz element in there (for those in the know, the famous ii-V-I progression is all over the place). My understanding is that there's never been a commercially-released Orange Lounge CD, but I did find a cool streaming Internet radio station here that you might wanna check out. It's definitely different.

Oh, and congrats to Lance Armstrong on his fifth straight Tour win. You've done Plano and Austin....and America...very proud.

OK, back to being lazy again for a while... :-)

An Ode to Summer Laziness

Ahh, the lazy days of summer. I say this almost wistfully because I know full well that there won't be many of them left. It doesn't seem right that the end of July should basically mean the end of summer, but that's almost the way it is. Some of my schools are actually starting marching band this week! (*shudder*) So even though I feel like a slug when I sleep till nearly noon on Fridays and Saturdays, I really feel no guilt for doing so, because I know that the dual-alarm-clock clarion call of 6 a.m. will be coming all too soon, and I'll be up to my ears in teaching again....and I'll love it, but I'll miss these days where I get to do a whole lot of nothing but recharge a little bit.

Burrito Bloggin'

OK, this is funny...all three people who were there for Zack's winning 2BC last night have blogged about it now. Zack of course gives a firsthand account of the gastronomic punishment. However, it does contain one factual error: he credits/blames Matt alone for egging him on, though Matt and I concur that it was a collective effort...he and I both were hitting the table and chanting "2-B-C! 2-B-C!" And now Matt has chimed in with his own take on the evening. One event, three views. Just remember, you saw it here first. :-)

So are we all just in serious need of a life? I'd like to think, rather, that this is simply the really cool aspect of summer in the academic world, where the biggest care of the day might very well be whether someone can down one giant burrito too many...

Second Time's The Charm...

Tonight, Zack became the fourth person in our little circle to successfully complete the 2BC (that's the Two-Burrito Challenge at Chipotle for any of you newbie readers; go here for a primer). He's now proven that you don't have to be really large or named Steven/Stephen to complete this feat. Oh yeah, and he was really hating himself afterwards. No DDR for him tonight. :-)

Happy campers

OK, I'm back...the whirlwind week is over. Whew!

First order of business: Happy Birthday to my bro-in-law Justin. He's the CEO of a really cool company, Despair, Inc., and an all-around good guy.

So Jazz Camp was maybe the best ever. We topped out in triple digits, student-wise, and over the five nights we recorded stuff, the faculty band laid down enough tracks for what should be a very good live CD. I think all the students really learned a lot and had a great time; my theory class went much farther than it did last year (even if they blew a collective gasket when I discussed the Super Locrian mode on Friday), and the student bands sounded really good. (If you want, you can read my annual letter to jazz campers from my website, as well as the info page for ordering the CD.)

Best quote from the camp:
"Usually, the best way to transpose...is not to transpose."--Ed Petersen

If you're not a musician, that quote won't mean anything to you, and even if you are, it may have you scratching your head for a minute. After several days, though, I realize that I totally agree with him.

Ed is in many ways the "star" of jazz camp, though he'd be uncomfortable hearing that. Let's just say that he's a very special musician and one of the most innovative tenor saxophonists around today...and for sure, the best one that most people have never heard of. I now have all of his CD's, as well as several of the ones he's done with Kurt Elling. You can hear samples of Ed's CD's and buy them online. It's a major privilege to sit next to him in the faculty big band; I think I learn as much from that as the campers do from us during the course of the week.

I also have a link to the page for the unique saxophone quartet "Thrascher," which includes Ed and three of my old schoolmates at UNT--Randy Hamm, Tim Ishii and Glenn Kostur. They have a CD out as well.

So after this full week, which ended at 10 p.m. Friday night with the final camp concert, I got to relax...NOT! For this year, the two biggest obligations of the summer happened at almost exactly the same time. And since they haven't gotten the legalities of that cloning thing figured out, I couldn't do both at once. So Saturday morning found me on a plane at 5:30 a.m., headed for Washington and the last 24 hours of the Sinfonia convention.

Fortunately, the plane trip was less "eventful" than the one to Vermont...meaning I didn't get stuck in a strange city for an extra day. The only downside of this trip was: no sleep, no food. It basically went like this: No milk in the house; Mickey D's not open at the airport before a 5:30 a.m. flight; layover in Atlanta was waaaaay too short--had only 40 minutes to get from terminal E to terminal A (thank goodness the trains were fast and were inside the security zone...Newark, are you listening?); no food on either flight, just a Coke (and 2 biscotti and a bag of pretzels, but they don't really count). When I got to D.C., there was actually someone from the convention to pick me up (that blew me away), but still, with traffic, we only got to the hotel with 10 minutes to spare before the national elections...just enough time to get my room key and put on my suit. At this point, I'm going on 28 1/2 hours awake, and 13 hours since my last meal.

But wait, this story has a happy ending. On the way in from the airport, I noticed something as we turned the last corner: there is a Chipotle across the street from the hotel!! So five minutes into the session, after we cast our ballots, they recess us for 15 minutes to count them, and you know where I'm heading. Yeah, it was weird to go into Chipotle in coat and tie...yeah, it was about 50 cents more expensive than Dallas, and they made a big deal about using this Pennsylvania free-range chicken, though it tasted about the same to me--still awesome, mind you--and of course there was no Dr Pepper. But still, it was great to walk up to my seat in the meeting room with that big honkin' burrito, trying not to spill rice and beans on my legislative packet.

And just as the camp was perhaps the best ever, so was the convention among the best of the six I've been to. It was unfortunate that I only was able to make a cameo appearance, but I caught a lot of the high points. I was happy that I've been to D.C. before, though, because my "sightseeing" was limited to the airport trips: on the way in, I went near the Washington Monument and the Capitol, and on the way back, my route "grazed" the Lincoln Memorial...that was it.

But all in all, a great time, and now back to "normal" for a few weeks before school starts.

Setting Up Camp

I may not post too much for the next week, as Jazz Camp starts today at the college. I've been tapped to teach the 8:30 a.m. theory class again, and the concerts don't end till 9 or 9:30, so it'll be a long week, but it's always great to play in such an awesome big band and see old friends on the faculty. And we're recording a live CD during the week, so that'll be a lot of fun also.

So camp will end around 10:00 on Friday night, then I'll fly out at 5:30 a.m. (*shudder*) Saturday morning to catch the tail end of the Sinfonia convention. I'm still frustrated that the two biggest events of the summer are scheduled for the same week, but what can ya do?

I'll chime in on this site if anything especially cool happens. Till then, peace out.

Ranting Against The Machine

About two weeks ago, some scary stories came out in the paper, and they didn't have anything to do with terrorism or SARS or "Legally Blonde 2." The first one you may have seen: The music industry is attempting to file lawsuits against those whom they consider the biggest downloaders of copyrighted music.

The second one is related: Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told a hearing on copyright abuse that he's in favor of technology that would remotely damage the computers involved in unauthorized file-sharing. When someone else at the hearing, a representative of a company that creates technology to slow downloads, said that nobody was actually interested in destroying anyone's computer, Hatch replied, "I'm interested."

Ever since the heyday of Napster, the music industry ("the Machine" in all subsequent references) has been whining that CD sales are down because of peer-to-peer file sharing. Well....one part of that statement is true: CD sales are down a bit in recent years. But blaming Napster and its progeny is a lame excuse. If anything, the sour economy would be a more accurate scapegoat....but the big reason that CD sales are down is that the stuff the Machine has regurgitated lately is absolute crap. So much of it has been over-produced and "polished" to such a high sheen by the corporate know-nothings that the very soul of the music is gone. There's no "there" there. The Machine refers to music--ostensibly the creative output of the heart and soul of its performer--as "product," and after years of dumbing-down, that's exactly what most commercial music has become: a "product" with all the emotional value of a box of cereal.

I would hate to be a programmer at a "classic rock" radio station in ten years. What the heck are they gonna play? Does anything that's come out commercially in the past several years stand a chance of becoming "classic?" The carton of milk in my refrigerator has a longer shelf-life than most of this drivel.

The Machine says that, if we're not careful, file-sharing will result in its destruction. I say bring it on! Despite all the blather about kicking some butt and taking everyone in sight to court (I'm not saying that they can't do that--not even saying that they won't--but it just ends up being reeeeally bad PR if you keep suing the pants off the people you're trying to sell things to!), I bet the music executives are secretly quaking in their boots because they know deep down that we really could get along fine without them....

How would that work? Well, all you'd really need is a high-quality CD burner and a website, and maybe a friend who does drawing or graphic arts. You could sell your CD's online, at gigs and on places like amazon.com. You wouldn't sell things as fast as if they were part of the Machine, but you'd be cutting out a Goodyear blimp-sized layer of fat, a completely unnecessary middleman...and you'd probably feel as good afterwards as you would if you'd lost the blimp's worth of weight off your own body.

Sure, you might not get played on the radio...but since radio is almost all owned by a few megacorporations too, nothing gets played anyway unless it's the particular sound that the Machine has selected as "flavor of the week." My generic description of that recent flavor is "Britney Aguilera and the BackSync Degrees"....or maybe lately it would be "Limp Puddle of Stain." You get the idea. It was bad enough already, but the FCC's recent ruling that allows even more consolidation will only make things worse. For me, radio means two things: news and sports...and thank goodness for a CD player in the car. (OK, the station where I worked gets some ear-time from me, but first of all, it's noncommercial, so it almost doesn't count in this discussion, and second, reception is sometimes spotty out in my area.)

The Machine probably didn't set out to be evil, back in the day. The problem in a nutshell is that, somewhere along the way, what was the music business became the music business. With the exception of a few artist-friendly jazz labels like Verve and Blue Note, and a decent amount of Christian labels, which have managed to be absorbed into the Machine relatively unscathed, the people in charge of things aren't musicians, don't hang out with musicians, don't know or care how musicians think or feel, or how the creative process works. Businesspeople and artists are totally different types of people; we're wired differently. (I've known this fact for a long time; my dad is a retired accountant/auditor with a business degree, while I, as you might imagine, have two music degrees. I love Dad to death, but the fact is, we don't understand each other a lot of the time.) Musicians are often lousy businesspeople themselves, so they are easily manipulated by the Machine into doing unwise, short-sighted things like signing away all of the rights to their songs, just in an effort to get that first recording out.

And the bean-counters at the top are either too untalented themselves (maybe even tone-deaf?) to recognize true talent when they hear it, or under too much pressure from above to sell more "product," which doesn't allow them to take chances with new and interesting artists. Everything sounds like everything else because that's all the Machine will release, while those with talent and innovation often work two and three jobs just to keep the wolf from the door.

It's time for a change...but I'm not advocating revolution (yet?). Honestly, I don't think we'll have to do anything. If things stay the way they are, the Machine will collapse upon itself, under the weight of its own mediocrity. They can blame file-sharing all they want to, but the true culprit will only be found in the mirror in front of them. Then, when the remnants of the beast have been ground into fertilizer (not hard, considering its usual output *grin*), upon its ashes can rise a more noble blend of art and commerce, where the artists are making more of the artistic decisions again and the bean-counters return to their still-necessary but much-lesser roles.

Incidentally, Sen. Hatch did relent later at that same hearing and say that maybe he wouldn't advocate destroying anyone's computer until they'd been given, say, two warnings. Gee, Senator, that's decent of you...as the Church Lady used to say, maybe someone thinks just a liiiiiitle too highly of himself.

Oh yeah--someone told me that the good Senator is actually a recording artist himself, which could explain some of his ire towards file-sharers. Seeing as how this is the longest blog post I've ever written, I'll wait until later to look up his, uhh, "product" and come back with a vote on whether anyone would actually want to download his stuff or not.

(Kev was in fact listening to music on his computer while writing this post...but most of it came from his collection of over 600 CD's and 1000 vinyl LP's. Is this the kind of customer the Machine really wants to alienate by filing lawsuits?)

Kev's Summer Reading Continues

I finished Miles Davis' autobiography tonight. If you're keeping score at home, that's six books that I've read in a year...

Now on to a Kurt Vonnegut book that a good friend gave me around three birthdays ago. Summer reading can be cool, once you're old enough that it's not an "assignment" anymore.

Too Young to Jam?

OK, I have two more rants left in me, both about music (imagine that), but I'll save the big one for later and throw this one out before I go to bed:

Everyone, repeat this after me: The sale of alcohol should NOT prevent people from experiencing live music!

I've felt this way ever since college, but it came back to the forefront the other day after I found out that one of my under-21 buds was asked to leave a downtown jam session the other night. He was not trying to buy alcohol; he had no intention of doing so. He was just there to enjoy the music and maybe sit in, but he wasn't even allowed to be there.

I'm not gonna name names, since I've been to this place myself (and I'm not saying that I'll never go back again), I'm friends with the guy who leads the jam, and it's basically a great scene...except for the "21+ only" part. Never mind the fact that this place calls itself a "coffeehouse" when it obviously serves way more than coffee...the thing is, any young jazzer, which would include a majority of the area's college students, can't experience these sessions because of the sale of alcohol, and to me, that's wrong.

Granted, in Texas, there's this thing called the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission), and they've been rather sneaky in the past, sending in "undercover underagers" and busting the bars who served them. This makes everyone a little paranoid--justifiably so. But the law doesn't say that people under 21 can't be in a place where alcohol is served--that would rule out bowling, going to Chili's, etc., for high schoolers and most collegians; it just says that the under-21's can't be served alcohol--justifiably so. There's nothing that legally prevents people of all ages from seeing live music (which I feel, as a music instructor, is an important part of the learning process). So why does it happen so often?

A simple answer: Lazy club ownership. It would take work to pull this off, and many owners don't care to do so. But it's worked beautifully in the past; let me cite some examples (yeah, I'm not slamming the bad guys by name, but I'll happily give shout-outs to the good guys):

• The Gypsy Tea Room and Trees in Dallas (run by the same company). Most of their shows are 17 and up (not like most parents of under-17's would let them go to Deep Ellum anyway), and the way they still make their money is by charging the 17-20 crowd a little bit more cover charge to make up for the alcohol they won't be buying. They do big X's on the hands of the 17-20's and a totally different stamp on the hands of the 21-and-up's. Also, they have a "no in and out" policy for the under-21's to keep them from going and sneaking a beer in their car or whatever.


• The late, lamented Liberty Lunch (say that ten times fast?) in Austin. All ages were admitted; the 21+ crowd had wristbands, and the under-21's had this huge stamp of a fish that took up the whole top of the hand and took like four days to wash off. The music was enjoyed by all. (I'm not sure if this ever reopened or not; the original location lost its lease and was bulldozed for an office building or a parking lot *sigh*.)


• The likewise late, lamented Rock Bottom Lounge at the University of North Texas. My alma mater did the all-ages thing with wristbands for the of-age as well, and it was a great music place for the whole university community. Lab Band night has never been the same since it closed. (UPDATE: Thankfully, Lab Band night would get better, as I discovered the following spring.)


• Sambuca in Deep Ellum and Addison. These jazz venues have bar sections which are taboo for the underage, but they also have sizable restaurant parts, so as long as you go there during kitchen hours and buy a certain amount of food, everyone is welcome.


• Many of the Deep Ellum clubs in Dallas have all-ages shows on occasion.

Now the cynical among you might say, "Kev, we can't help but notice that two of those clubs aren't there anymore. Maybe they can't make any money without selling tons and tons of alcohol." Maybe, but the demise of Liberty Lunch, for completely nonalcoholic reasons, is stated above; the RBL at UNT closed because of the campus smoking ban, which couldn't "grandfather in" the little club in the basement of the Union. (The only night that made money after smoking was banned was Lab Band night.)

So I'm not begrudging the club owners' need to make a living...I'm just saying, take the extra step and make your place available to all, especially if you have jazz music, which must be experienced "live" at times, and definitely if you're going to have an "open" jam session. Do wristbands, hand stamps...you could even go nuts and have two separate entrances, like this pizza parlor we used to visit when I was a kid. Please don't let your alcohol sales keep people from enjoying live music!

Besides, there's a selfish reason for the club owners to be nice to the younger crowd: They're not going to be under 21 forever. If you disenfranchise them now, they might just take their money elsewhere when they come of age in a few years.

(Oh yeah--I don't know if this will work, but I'm about to start looking for a place that would like to host an all-ages jam session. If I'm really ambitious, I'll put the house band together myself...)

I Want My Tour!

OK, so the Tour de France is upon us once again, and I'm going through withdrawals...

I've been a fan of the big bike race for over 10 years now, dating back to the last of Miguel Indurain's five straight wins (the record Lance Armstrong is going for this year). For the first several years, it was on ESPN and/or ESPN2, sometimes playing more than once a day. It was never actually "live" because of the time difference between here and Europe, but it was enough to get us our "fix"...

Then a few years ago, the main contract went to this cable offering I'd never heard of, called Outdoor Life Network. Even though it's not listed in the newspaper or TV Guide, they still had some sort of deal with ESPN to where they could broadcast it tape-delayed, even if it was at hideous times of the night...but no big deal, that's what VCR's are for. I was still able to watch...then last year, I think the basic cable thing went over to Fox Sports Net, but that's still a channel I get on basic. This year, I was hoping for more of the same...

But alas, as I thumbed through my TV book, I found that there wasn't any other basic cable showing this year....it's OLN or bust. There's a thing on their website where you can "call your cable provider to get OLN added to their lineup" but what's the chance of that happening during the three weeks of the Tour? So now all I have is the three Sundays it'll air on CBS...even the OLN website's video clips didn't work; all I got was audio. :-P

It won't be the same this summer without the picturesque French countryside coming into my TV set every day (reminded me of my Switzerland trip four years ago)...the lilting British tones of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen calling the action, and of course cheering for Lance (he grew up in Plano within rock-throwing distance of the college where I teach, just across the alley from an old friend of mine). He's already off to kind of a rough start these first two days, and I haven't been able to see it. Just like in the Dire Straits song where Sting wanted his MTV, I WANT MY TOUR!!!!

So I hope that, whenever this contract runs out, that either OLN will find its way into the cable mainstream or cede the action to someone who's already there.

...or maybe I'll just win the lottery and buy a satellite dish. ;-)

Wild About Harry

Hey, I'm back...

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth this past week; I've just been...reading. Now understand, even though I read a ton of newspapers and magazines during the week, I haven't read a book in eons. And then, along came Harry.

I'll admit it--I've gotten hooked on Harry Potter. I started the series before school let out and then got really, really into it when summer hit. In fact, I finished the fourth book and the new one in five days! I just couldn't put them down. Just goes to show that the series isn't just for kids...

And now that I'm done with that, I went for an old project: Miles Davis's autobiography. I started it in 1996 (!) and just, well, got busy. So now I've gone back to the beginning and will finish that in a few days. Who knows what the next thing I'll tackle will be...

I'll do some more stuff later....I've felt a few rants coming on.