The Gig Is Up...

...on the sidebar. My next performance will be a week from tomorrow night, once again at the Bistro. Hope you can make it.

This wasn't in the employee manual, but it worked this time: A masked man tried to rob Yogi's convenience store in Manchester, New Hampshire, but the clerk, instead of cooperating, took a baseball bat and whacked the would-be robber upside the head; the jlited thief then went outside, dropped his knife, and was eventually taken into custody.

This Traffic Jams!

With the attention that my Maynard review got yesterday, I figured that perhaps my traffic might go up dramatically, and sure enough, here's what SiteMeter had to say about it:



I'm not sure how long this graphic will hold up, though I did save it as a web archive so that I can fix it later. If the table doesn't come up, here's the lowdown: It appears that I got 250 hits yesterday! That may not exactly be an "Instalanche" (if you don't know what I'm talking about, sites that get linked by Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, sometimes get so many hits that it causes their server to crash), but it's still pretty cool.

Thanks again to all the visitors who showed up from Maynard's site, and please come back again soon.

I'll bet it drove her bat-tea: A woman in Iowa was horrified to discover that a drowned bat was in her tea mug...especially when you consider that she'd been drinking from said mug all day.

Headline of the day: Opossum Clash Ends with Arrest, Dog Shot. It sounds like something that would happen out in the country, but--and this makes the story even odder--it actually took place in a suburban area of San Diego.

More from the Maynard Show

I found out today that my review of last week's Maynard tribute concert has been linked on the official Maynard online forum. Welcome to any new readers who may have come this way because of that link!

Also, there are some pictures from the concert posted in this thread on that same board, so feel free to check them out. Someone has also supposedly put a copy of the program on another thread over there, but I can't find it yet.

...and I still can't wait for the DVD.

UPDATE: Wow, I've spent a lot of time reading the forum tonight. I had to leave you with a quote that I found from Maynard's daughter Lisa, because she brings up something that I think all of us who play music need to remember:

Joy was my father's secret. As Denis Di Blasio said in an email to me, Maynrad worked hard for his happiness. That is a lesson I am choosing to keep and practice. One of the things he taught me was happiness is a choice. Life is a journey of perception.
He was very protective of his happiness surounding his trumpet playing, he was very careful to do what he had to do to keep his playing a joyous thing and not allow anything or anyone to make it a chore or resposibility...that was a key to his success and happiness which he shared with me. I think this is vital info for the survival of an artist of any kind. Beware the creeping negativity!

Well said, Lisa. Thanks for sharing your dad with us for so many years.

Another legend leaves the building: I also read tonight about the passing of Byron Nelson, an international icon whom Dallas was proud to call her own. I'm way too young to have seen him play, and I've never gotten to attend his namesake golf tournament, but nearly every article ever written about him talked about what a classy guy he was; he'll definitely be missed. Seeing how we've been talking about Maynard, wouldn't it be fun to imagine a little snapshot of heaven right now, with Maynard teaching Byron the trumpet and Byron reciprocating with a golf lesson?

"We're looking for a house with three bedrooms, two baths...and six cable outlets": A recent survey shows that the average American home has more TV sets than people. At the moment, Casa de Kev would barely fall into that category--two of them, one of me.

The iTunes Shuffle, Part 2

Very early last year, I did a post about the Internet phenomenon known as the iTunes shuffle, where you set your iTunes to shuffle mode and list the first ten songs it plays back to you. I hadn't done this in a while, because the hard-drive crash I experienced on Labor Day of '05 took my library down to nearly nothing, but now, the MacBook is here and my ITunes is chock full o' tunes again, so it seemed like the right time. Let's see what it decides to play:

Gary Smulyan: Jabhero
James Morrison: Autumn Leaves (how unusual that the first two artists "chosen" were ones that I saw in Port Townsend this summer!)
Charlie Haden and Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Slience
David Sanchez: Los Cronopios
Jim Hall and Pat Metheny: All the Things You Are
Miles Davis: Flamenco Sketches (Alternate Take)
Us3: Cantaloop
Texas All-State Jazz Improv CD: Nutville (D'oh. I figured some sort of teaching aid would come up, such as this or an Aebersold.)
Oasis-All Around the World (Ha--I'd forgotten that I'd loaded that when those new AT&T commercials came out. Still, I'm a sucker for anything that sounds like the Beatles.)
Kurt Elling-Prayer for Mr. Davis

Last time, I had seen four of the ten "shuffled" artists in concert; this time it's six (Smulyan, Morrison, Sanchez, Metheny, Davis and Elling). I also thought it was interesting that a song by one artist (Elling) is dedicated to another one (Davis).

Feel free to try this yourself and post the results in the comments below. I'm sure I'll do this again the next time I run out of material get the inspiration to do so.

MySpace gone bad, part 1: A clever college professor in Virginia gave his students an assignment to find a way to make his (the professor's) pug famous. While many students did things like post flyers with the dog's picture around campus, one class member got in some trouble when he (jokingly) threatened to kill the dog on a MySpace posting.

MySpace gone bad, part 2: Meanwhile, in San Antonio, a high school assistant principal is suing several students for setting up a fake MySpace page in her name.

An idea for the off-season at Lone Star Park? In a Cambodian village, an annual festival ends with a "Formula 1-style" race...of water buffalo.

Planes, Trains and Only One Automobile

I wanted to give the rundown of the St. Louis trip in a separate post from the concert review, since I link the reviews on the sidebar and they've sometimes even been linked by others. So here we go:

• I was really happy to be able to fly Southwest Airlines nonstop to Missouri; this wouldn't have been able to happen two years ago. We got a pretty cheap deal on the flight, and it was much quicker to get in and out of Love Field than it would have been at DFW; as a result, I missed no teaching on Thursday, even though I landed at 8:45 and started teaching at ten.


• It was very cool to go up in the Arch again. I had been once as a kid (when we lived there) and once about twelve years ago as an adult, and the view is always amazing. I have a couple of pictures that I took with my phone, and they'll be added to this post once I solve the issue of getting them from there to here.
  
  UPDATE: PIctures added. Here is a pretty standard view of downtown St. Louis, looking westward...
  
  
  ...and here's a unique view of the shadow of the Arch on the Mississippi River facing the Illinois side.
  
  
  Something that was different about the Arch since my last visit was the security at the entrance, which rivals that at the airport (except that you can keep your shoes on). This makes total sense to me, and it didn't cause much of a delay at all.


• If you're dining in downtown St. Louis, I highly recommend the Old Spaghetti Factory in Laclede's Landing. It's fairly similar to the Spaghetti Warehouse here (right down to the train car in the dining room), but I've had great food there for both my visits.


• This was my first experience with Gel-Free Flying, and overall, everything was ok. For a trip as short as this, it seemed senseless to pack a checked bag, so we just did without a few amenities until we got back; I packed an electric razor so that I wouldn't look completely scruffy in the morning. Sure, a finer hotel would have had things like deodorant and what-not, and there's always the option of seeking out a convenience store to get small containers of stuff like that. In the grand scheme of things, it just wasn't that bad, and I'd have a checked bag on longer trips as it was.


• It was also a car-free trip, save for the use of mine to get to the airport and back. The St. Louis MetroLink is very convenient, and, most sensibly, starts at the airport and goes all the way over to Illinois. It helped that the hotel had a shuttle (which took some time to wait for, but again, it wasn't a very expensive hotel) and that the UMSL performance hall was mere steps away from a train station, but it was nice to save a little bit of money on a rental car; a day pass for the train cost a mere $4.50.

This will likely be the farthest I'll go to see a jazz concert this year, but as I said in the previous post, it was totally worth it.

Those who can, did: A notorious burglar in Australia was dubbed the "Catch Me If You Can" thief. After a search spanning three states and several months...they caught her.

Another cool name for a rock band: Give it up for the Robotic Frisbees of Death.

And in the headlines: Panda bites man? Not so unusual, especially in China, where the story took place. But it's newsworthy when the man bites the panda back. (Yes, beer was involved, and it was not consumed by the panda, either.)

One Final Trip to Birdland

There was always a certain energy in the lobby of anyplace that hosted a Maynard Ferguson concert (which, in my experience, was often a local high school; I've noted before that Maynard knew his target audience, and he tended to capture them at an early age and keep them throughout adulthood). That same energy was in evidence last night at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus, where the Maynard tribute concert was held. In fact, you could probably call this crowd a representative cross-section of every Maynard audience in the country, and there's little doubt that, like ourselves, people had converged upon UMSL from all points of the compass.

The usual table of gear was out front (How could I not think there would be gear? I was kicking myself later for not having enough cash for both the newest CD--M.F. Horn VI--and the obligatory custom T-shirt; I opted for the shirt and got to listen to my friend's CD on the flight home), along with a gallery of Maynard portraits, copies of which themselves were for sale. But the biggest attraction would be the music itself, along with the personaliities involved, and the opportunity to bid a fond farewell to someone who had given so much to all of us through his music and his legacy as a bandleader and launcher of young talent.

I don't even know where to start in terms of a rundown of this concert; I was half-tempted to just post the list of tunes from the program and who soloed on what tune, but nothing (not even the forthcoming DVD of the performance) can really do this evening justice, so I'll just list some of the highlights:

• Wayne Bergeron, totally on fire all evening long. I see now why his nickname is "Waynard." His rendition of "MacArthur Park" was unbelievable.


• Yet another kller lead player, Roger Ingram, tearing it up on a really cool arrangement of "Watermelon Man."


• The realization that Maynard was indeed an international phenomenon, as personified by two special guests: Japanese trumpeter Eric Miyashiro and the Italian Andrea Tofanelli, both of whom were outstanding.


• Two high-profile former sidemen, Steve Wiest and Denis DiBlasio (both of whom have also been guest artists at our jazz camp), exchanging friendly fire on "Superbone Meets the Bad Man."


• A very clever solo piano tribute to Maynard, performed by Christian Jacob (who, it turns out, is also married to one of Maynard's daughters). I never would have imagined a successful melding of "Maria" and "Give It One," for example, but he pulled it off quite nicely.


• Patrick Hession, Maynard's first lieutenant of recent years, hitting insanely high notes on several tunes. It really did go out of hearing range at times; somewhere on campus, a dog heard those notes and got a little bit hipper because of it. (And yes, I'd dig Hession's playing even if he hadn't linked to me a few years ago.)


• The great Diane Schuur hitting Maynardesque high notes of her own on renditions of "Just Friends" and "Besame Mucho."


• Getting to see so many UNT alums up there: Wiest, Keith Oshiro, Glenn Kostur, Chip McNeill, Ray Brinker, Mike Dubaniewicz, and of course the more recent members, Brian Mulholland and musical director Stockton Helbing, who did a fine job helping to put this night together.


• The whole Ferguson family in attendance and getting recognized during the evening.


• Ever imagine a version of "Chameleon" with 17 trumpets? I don't have to imagine that anymore....and, unlike what would be the case at most such gatherings, everybody nailed the high stuff.


• A grand finale of "Gonna Fly Now" featuring the entire alumni contingency--around 40 people--on stage, followed (of course) by the play-on and play-off theme, "Blue Birdland."

Another great moment took place at the beginning of the second set (this concert was a marathon, going from 7:30 until nearly 11 p.m.), when a collection of video archives were shown. The clips went all the way back to a Stan Kenton appearance on the Ed Sullivan show back when Maynard was first with the band. (Seeing this footage made me realize why Maynard always went with an energetic young band during his days as a leader: When he started with Kenton, he was only a kid himself.) The video tour went all through the decades (driving the point home that, at least in terms of hair and clothing, the 70's really weren't very kind to anyone), with one of the funniest moments being when Maynard played with the entire Purdue marching band backing him up (he noted that "my accountant is going to freak out when he sees the size of the new band"). There were also some video clips interspersed throughout the night from people who couldn't make it in person, incluiding Arturo Sandoval and Paul Shaffer.

Even though the concert was billed as a celebration, it was evident that the guys on stage were getting pretty emotional when the final bar of "Blue Birdland" had been played; as Wiest would tell me after the concert, "it was graduation night for a lot of the guys up there." For those of us who had been sufficiently touched by the man's music, we could only imagine what the night was like for those who had been in the band over the years. But no matter what one's previous contact with Maynard, I doubt that anyone who was there last night, no matter how much they spent or how far they traveled to get there, would disagree that this was totally worth it.

And watching all those musicians on stage, I realized just how much Maynard will live on through the lives and music of his former sidemen; he sent so many of them out into the world that there's no way this legacy will ever die. I don't know who the next person will be who can pick up the mantle--the person who will combine chops and charisma in the way that Maynard did, all filtered through the heart of a true teacher--but maybe that person was in attendance last night.

I can't wait for the DVD...

Reviews of Maynard Concerts on The Musings of Kev:
Still Going Strong (2/26/06)
One More M.F.-ing Jazz Concert (2/17/04)

UPDATE: I missed this in my original tribute post, but check out this beautiful post from Steve Wiest on the Maynard message board. And here's a great article on Maynard from the Washington Post from a few weeks ago.

FURTHER UPDATE: This review has been linked in the official Maynard forum. Thanks to webmaster and board administrator Matt Keller for doing that! (And be sure and read the whole thread; among other things, someone takes the local St. Louis paper to task for not even reviewing the concert at all. I guess that's what we bloggers are for...)

ONE MORE UPDATE: And now it's been linked on the front page of Maynard's website. Thanks again for the links, Matt, and welcome to all those who are visiting from there.

Gonna Fly Now

I'm off to St. Louis to see the Maynard Ferguson tribute concert. With the lineup they've put together for this performance (go here if you want to salivate a bit), it just seemed that this was something not to be missed. I don't think I'll be able to make it to my old neighborhood while we're out there, but a trip to the Arch may be in store.

I'll of course have a complete review when I get back, and I'll also finish the ones from the Branford Marsalis and Dave Holland Big Band concerts from this past weekend. It's a great week for live music, that's for sure.

I Haven't Had Much Time to Blog This Week...

...but I did have to say one thing:

Arrrrrrrrrrrrr.

(If you had to click the link to know what I was talking about, yer a scurvy dog.)

An eye-popping record: Seriously--that's what this guy is trying to break. If nothing else, it'd make a great Halloween mask.

Sign this one up for the Packers (or meat packers, at least): A 150-pound pig that wandered onto a Green Bay highway eluded authorities for several hours, even after being Tasered by the police.

Word of the day: The etymology of "meh." (Note the Kurdish and Slovenian definitions, as well as the French translation. And a special bonus: now it's a T-shirt.)

He was living his art...or really bored: A German art student decided to become one with history for a moment when he dressed up like the famed Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors and hid among them for a short time before being discovered--and sent home--by police.

Czech this out: I'll probably move this item to the end of the Dave Holland review when it's done, but I had to post it now. As always, we took a quick kolache break at the famed Czech Stop in West, Texas on our way back, and we were quite amused by the sign posted on the door: "AS OF DECEMBER 1, 2006, WE WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT CHECKS." We had a big laugh out of the irony of the Czech Stop not accepting checks... (I'll post the picture as soon as I can get it off the phone.)

UPDATE: Here it is...

A Great Weekend for Jazz

I'm really psyched about the concerts going on this weekend:

TONIGHT--Branford Marsalis at Jazz by the Boulevard in Ft. Worth.

TOMORROW: The Dave Holland Big Band (opening act--Eddie Palmieri) at Jazz'SAlive in downtown San Antonio. (Those who choose to stay in Ft. Worth can see the celebrity spokesman for the MegaLoMart, Chuck Mangione.)

SUNDAY: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Jazz by the Boulevard (or if you can skip work on Monday, stay in San Antonio and see the Yellowjackets, with opening act Dianne Reeves, at Jazz"SAlive).

I'll be seeing Branford, Dave and possibly Preservation Hall. Oh, and the best news: It's all free. Go see some live jazz this weekend!

UPDATE: Just like at the Elling show last week, we got a picture on Friday night; this phone-cam is coming in quite handy.


Me and Branford

Hats Off to GMJ

Two years ago, I was at Ameriquest Field in Arlington when Mark Teixeira hit for the cycle, only the second time in Rangers' history for that to happen. (For those non-baseball readers, hitting for the cycle means that a player gets all four possible hits--a single, double, triple and home run--in a single game.) So even though last night's game was in Detroit, I had the good fortune to tune into the game on the radio right before Gary Matthews, Jr. achieved his own cycle; his was also a "clean" one, meaning that the single, double, triple and homer occured in that exact order.

Matthews has really come into his own this year, making some jaw-dropping catches in center field (including a flying leap up the wall to rob an opponent of a homer in a game I saw in person over the summer). He's become a key player on the team, and I hope that Tom Hicks will take care of him when free-agency comes at the end of the season.

Better scoot on over and get this fixed: Segway has recalled its entire line of scooters because of a software glitch that could cause them to suddenly change direction while being ridden.

Maybe he should have just given his rival a Segway to ride around: The backup punter at the University of Northern Colorado tried to earn the starting job the old-fashioned way--by putting on a mask and stabbing his rival in the leg. (Some are saying it's reminiscent of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident, minus the hired hitman. But maybe he snapped from smelling the money a little too much.)

Video of the week: It's the Crazy Xbox 360 lady.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to J-Guar, who, if everything works out, should be appearing on my next gig.

The Morning Blog

I'm trying something new this semester: Doing my blogging after breakfast instead of way late at night. The idea is to start going to bed earlier and then waking up on time (i.e. not hitting five or six snooze alarms) and getting a lot of my computer stuff done earlier in the day. So the posts you see will probably have an earlier time stamp on them, and hopefully this will result in a more-rested Kev as well.

British Air Regulations Strike a Sour Note with Musicians

Considering yesterday's anniversary, it seemed fitting that a fraternity brother sent me a link to a story on how the threat of airline terrorism has affected us--specifically musicians in England:

A group of top classical musicians has warned of the threat to artistic life from a hand baggage ban introduced after British police foiled an alleged bomb plot against transatlantic airliners.

The issue even struck a false note at the world-renowned Last Night of the Proms on Saturday night, with one conductor joking that next year audiences may have to put up with "Concerto for Laptop and Orchestra".

"I think it's greatly to be regretted," said Mark Elder, a guest conductor for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in a speech at the Royal Albert Hall. "The time has come really to put an end to this unfairness."

Many performers refuse to let their instruments, often centuries old and extremely valuable, out of their sight when they travel on planes in case they are damaged in the hold.

But now they are falling foul of strict rules introduced in August amid fears that apparently innocuous materials could be used to build and detonate bombs on flights to and from the United States.

Read the whole thing. Having seen what airline baggage handlers do with bags on occasion (the most memorable incident being when we were sitting on a plane at JFK on the way back from Montreux and watched them pretty much playing catch with things--including the frilly little bags belonging to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who were also on our flight), I would never let my horn go in the cargo hold. It's bad enough for string bass players--who have to buy their instruments an extra seat to keep it from being checked--but now it looks like it's affecting a lot more players as well; I wonder if my compact alto case is even small enough to pass muster under their system. (Granted, even if you do get to carry your instrument on the plane, there's still no guarantee that it won't get messed up by security personnel as it is.)

I hope that everyone involved can come up with a good solution to this problem, and I sure hope it doesn't start happening in the States anytime soon.

And you think you had a bad day... A bicyclist, waiting by the side of the road for an ambulance after being hit by a car, was promptly hit by another car.

Student excuse of the day: "A raccoon kept me from doing my homework."

Where Were You?

Where were you five years ago when you found out the news?

(Yes, I realize that many, many blogs are probably asking the same question, and that I did this same thing two years ago. But there have been many new readers since then, and besides--if we don't talk about it, we risk forgetting, and this is a day that need not be forgotten anytime soon.)

I'll reprint my own story from the earlier post:

I was on a break from teaching, like every Tuesday, and actually spent the time of the attacks in blissful ignorance at the Rockwall Starbucks. I had CD's on in my car instead of the radio, so I totally missed the news on both the way over and the way back. I did hear someone listening to a radio on the patio and they were talking about "the second plane," but it didn't register with me at all. (It amazed me later that nobody walked inside and told us about it.)

When I got back to the school, the flute teacher stopped me in the hallway and asked me if all my students were being pulled out of school (evidently hers were). I said, "No, why?" and she told me what had happened. I spent the rest of the day like everyone else, in shocked, depressed amazement, catching the news when I could. There I was, not even two weeks into being a homeowner, and the world suddenly felt so different. It added to the pall cast over everything when I found out that the sister of a girl I graduated from high school with was on Flight 93, the one that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

The whole thing felt so surreal; how could anyone hate us that much? The concept of the suicide hijacking was unprecedented as well (before that, hijackers just usually wanted to go to Cuba, and that's why airline personnel were taught to cooperate with them rather than try to subdue them).

I know there are still terrorist plots being hatched, and people capable of carrying them out...but I hope nothing like this ever happens on U.S. soil again. Or anywhere, for that matter.

Feel free to add your own experiences in the comments.

And in the News...

OK, my remaining two posts from this past week are done. In the meantime, here's some of the stuff I 've collected during the week but didn't have time to post until now...

These snacks gave them the munchies again: Three people on the campus of Cal-Berkeley were arrested after they were caught giving away cookies laced with pot; fifteen students got sick enough to require medical attention.

Why did the rabbit get painted on the road? Motorists in Vermont were confused by recent numerous sitings of the outlines of rabbits spray-painted onto local roads in northwestern Vermont. (The local newspaper now includes an interactive page where people can post their rabbit-sitings.)

He really got their goat: A Swiss motorist caught speeding in Canada blamed his lead foot on the absence of goats on local roads; evidently, this kept the man from speeding back home. (Maybe someone should have spray-painted some goats on there to slow him down.)

One more animal story: A Finnish opera singer, who was riding a bicycle onstage during a rehearsal (yes, it was part of the plot), sustained a concussion after his bike fell over when a squirrel became entangled in the spokes of the bike.

At least he's consistent: A man on trial for threatening a judge now faces new charges after he, well, threatened that judge.

Elling-Tones

I got my picture taken with Kurt Elling tonight; as soon as I figure out how to get pictures off my phone, it will go right below this paragraph (anybody know how to do that with a RAZR?).

UPDATE: Here we are...


I'm still completely unable to finish a post this week, but once I get there, I'll talk about the concert at which the picture was taken.

Feast or Famine

I've started a post every day this week, but for the past several days, I haven't been able to finish them. Please continue to visit this site on a regular basis, and know that some days, there may not be a new post up, but on others, there might be two or three. Things should calm down in a little bit as the semester settles in.

Attention, Mr. Hicks...

...you should think a little more before you speak to the media again.

I wasn't too happy to read this article in today's paper, where Rangers owner Tom Hicks blasted his team for lacking leadership and mental toughness. Yes, the season's gone south on the team during the past month or so, but questioning their toughness and leadership? Of people like Michael Young? Gary Matthews Jr.? Get real...

Sure, you own the team and can do what you want, but you've done a pretty good job thus far of staying out of baseball-related stuff and letting your baseball guys do their jobs. This little outburst shows that a resumption of such un-meddling would be in good order.

UPDATE: Other readers agree with me, and columnist Gerry Fraley concurs:

Whether Hicks intended it or not, he insulted his best players: Michael Young and Mark Teixeira. They play hard every day. "Vocal leaders'' are usually frauds. Players who tell you they are leaders are not leaders. The best leaders the Rangers had in their title seasons were quiet types such as Mark McLemore, Mickey Tettleton and Rusty Greer. Will Clark would tell everyone he was a leader, but that his conceit. Hicks wants to win, and he deserves credit for that. His statements on Tuesday only undermined his baseball people. He should leave the team to them.

Another columnist, Kevin Sherrington, has more; he's in the same camp as the rest of us.

Kids Say Do the Darnedest Things

A pretty funny thing overheard (and overseen) at one of my schools today:

DIRECTOR (half-jokingly, to kid on crutches): Well, now you can spend some of the time that you were spending playing soccer on playing your instrument instead, and it'll be a lot less dangerous. You always hear about people getting hurt playing sports, but never about people getting hurt playing the saxophone.

(a few seconds pass; director goes back to the band office)

KID I'D JUST FINISHED TEACHING: Owwwwww!

ME (looking out into hallway): What happened?

KID: He just ran into me with his crutches, and it knocked my mouthpiece into my lip.

ME (to director a few minutes later, recounting story): So I guess you actually can get hurt playing the saxophone....

Lack-of-Labor Day

This holiday weekend was exactly how I wanted it to be....slow. There's a lot of stuff going on during the rest of this month, so the opportunity to be a slug was welcomed.

Another thing that was welcomed? Rain. It pretty much did that all day today, but, considering the drought conditions of late, I was happy to trade the minor inconveniences of getting around for a healthier lawn. (But it is weird how it can go all this time without raining much, yet always strike on holidays; you may recall that our Fourth of July was wet as well.)

A lot of people get Labor Day and Memorial Day mixed up with each other, so I guess it's fitting that my Labor Day post includes a couple of memorials:

Dewey Redman. The tenor player best-known in recent years as "Joshua's dad" passed away on Saturday. Though overshadowed in recent years by his well-known son, the elder Redman carved his own place in jazz history through his work with Ornette Coleman, whom he met in high school marching band in Ft. Worth (imagine those rehearsals!). I became acquainted with his work through Pat Metheny's 80-81 album, and more recently, I got hold of a recording of Dewey and Joshua playing together, though that obviously won't be a combination I'll get to see in person now.

Steve Irwin. I'll admit that I've never seen a full episode of "Crocodile Hunter," but the death of Steve Irwin in a freak accident over the weekend was really shocking; I did quite a bit of follow-up reading on the story, a lot of that coming from the Sydney newspaper. When someone lives life on the edge as he did, there's always the chance that something like this could happen, but I'm sure that most people expected such a demise to come at the jaws of one of his famous crocs rather than the tail of a stingray. I've heard that many Australians were embarrassed by him, but to me, he seemed to embody the fun-loving free-spiritiedness that most people associate with the Land Down Under.

A new face on the horizon: I'll end this post by looking to the future. I saw an article in yesterday's paper about a classical composer who's already composed five symphonies had some of his works recorded by the tender age of 14. His name is Jay Greenberg, and one paragraph of a recent interview really struck me:

AP: Your Fifth Symphony seems operatic. The beginning has this mysterious motif, almost like John Williams' "Jaws." What were you trying to express?

Jay: I don't know if I was thinking of anything in particular. ... I was kind of bored, actually, to be honest. I was in the middle of a history class and we were basically supposed to be taking notes on something I already knew, so I was just sitting there staring at a map when suddenly I remembered that I had some music paper in my backpack. So I pulled it out and started writing the first page of Symphony Number 5 - in piano reduction.

You see, that's exactly how I wrote my very first composition in eighth grade--the one that won the Reflections Contest all the way through the state level. I was bored in history class, and, instead of finishing my report on the battles of Lexington and Concord, I set them to music instead. Sure, I've composed at a glacial pace since then, but at least I knew which broad field I'd be going into by the time I hit high school. It sounds like I've got a kindred spirit--on steroids, as it were--out there in Jay. I wish him all the best.

All Caught Up

I've finally finished the two posts that had been started last week but were floating around in "draft" limbo: One is about the two events that have happened on August 29 in recent years (Katrina, of course, plus my fifth anniversary as a homeowner), and the other has to do with an oddball mix of music and technology: A robot that plays Giant Steps. I just wanted to point these out so that they didn't get lost in the archives. Hope everybody's having a great Labor Day weekend so far.

A super-sized life? A guy in California lived to the age of 112, despite the fact that his diet mostly consisted of sausage and waffles.

And now back to the daily news nudes: Last year, during the Vermont trip, I recounted how a van full of our jazz band members happened upon the Burlington leg of the World Naked Bike Race while waiting at a stoplight. Evidently, this practice takes place quite a lot in Vermont, bike or no bike.

How Mean Are the Green?

College football is back, and my alma mater, UNT, goes up against the defending national champion Texas Longhorns in just a few minutes. I'm happy that it's being televised nationally, so I can watch it from the comfort of Casa de Kev instead of having to gorge myself with food in order to get a seat by a big-screen somewhere (like I had to do two years ago [scroll down] when the game was only on pay-per-view).

The Mean Green are something like 41-point underdogs, so I'm not expecting miracles; I'd just like to see them do well on the national stage. I would have actually gone to the game, but I'm giving my sister a few more weeks of rest before going down to see the new nephew, and I also found out that tickets were fifty bucks a pop, which ended up being money better spent on the Maynard tribute. If I had my wirelsss router already, I'd take the MacBook out into the living room and liveblog the game, but instead, I guess I'll just pop back on with an update at game's end.

LATER: Well, the Green weren't all that mean today, but at least they scored some points (the lone touchdown was the first against Texas since 1992). We didn't necessarily get too good of a look at how this year's team will do; that will have to wait until next week's SMU game, which I won't be able to attend because of a jazz concert. Still, I hope that the tough non-conference schedule will prepare the Mean Green to make another run through the Sun Belt Conference, like they have done for four of the past five years.

Remembering "Baby": I forgot to mention this yesterday, but students at UNT are mourning the loss of the famous albino squirrel, which was said to bring good luck to students who saw him on the way to exams (he even had his own website). This story also got wider attention when it was mentioned in a post at Althouse.

Lovely Rita, meter maid....and dang, she's fast: I've mentioned before how cool it is that one of the security officers at Firewheel gets to ride around on a Segway; now the campus parking cops at the University of Montana have adopted the practice.

Gratuity begets gratitude: An Applebee's bartender in Kansas received a $10,000 tip for a $26 tab from one of her regulars.

I Guess I Really Am That Crazy

Tickets to the Maynard tribute concert in St. Louis are now officially on the way. Yeah, it's not in my backyard, but a lineup like this sounds like pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime event:

THE CORE BAND:

CONFIRMED TRUMPET PLAYERS:
PATRICK HESSION
SERAFIN AGULAR
WAYNE BERGERON
ROGER INGRAM

CONFIRMED SAX PLAYERS
MATT WALLACE
MIKE DUBANIEWICZ
CHIP MCNEILL
DENIS DIBLASIO

CONFIRMED TROMBONE PLAYERS
STEVE WIEST
TOM GARLING
REGGIE WATKINS
KEITH OSHIRO
JOE BARATI

CONFIRMED RHYTHM SECTION
STOCKTON HELBING- DRUMMER/MUSICAL DIRECTOR
BRIAN MULHOLLAND- BASS
JEFF LASHWAY- PIANO
CHRISTIAN JACOB - PIANO

ADDITIONAL CONFIRMED GUEST PLAYERS:
PETER OLSTADT
CARL FISCHER
SCOTT ENGELBRIGHT
ERIC MIYASHIRO
ERNIE HAMMES
STAN MARK
DANNY BARBER
(from the frontpage of Maynard's website)

And needless to say, I'm really glad that the Wright Amendment was, well, amended to include Missouri, as I'm anticipating finding a reasonably cheap flight up there.

Coming just four days after the Dave Holland Big Band in San Antonio, this new month of September is really shaping up as a good time for concerts.

Security breeds insecurity, in this case: A Canadian airline pilot accidentally locked himself out of the cockpit after a trip to the restroom, which eventually forced the crew to remove the door from its hinges; there was a co-pilot at the helm, so the flight was never in any danger, but you can imagine the bad PR. (Oh, and I really like the name of the airline: Jazz.)

A polite pilfering: Someone is stealing flowers from the yards of homes in a historic Des Moines neighborhood....but hey, at least they're leaving thank-you notes to their victims.

Tribute Time

As I mentioned last week during the Maynard Ferguson post, a tribute concert had been slated for sometime this fall in St. Louis. And I'm happy to announce that the organizers wasted little time in getting this together, as there has already been an announcement of the date and location. It's set for Wednesday, September 20, on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Even though it's during the week, I might just be crazy enough to go...

I have several unfinished posts from the past several days, so I'll wait to put up anything else new until those are finished.

Two Anniversaries

I mark the anniversary of two events, one personal and one global:

One year since Katrina. On the eve of the hurricane, I pleaded with Katrina to miss the Big Easy, but it's not like hurricanes listen to people (or read blogs, for that matter). Still, it seemed at first that New Orleans had dodged a bullet by not taking a direct hit...and then the levees broke.

Since then, parts of New Orleans have rebuilt, while other parts remain as devastated as they were a year ago. I felt fortunate to be able to visit there last spring break (a visit which was chronicled in these two posts). And while my friend who went to school at Loyola isn't returning there, I'm sure there will still be plenty of chances to visit in the near future.

Be sure and check out a great retrospective that came out over the weekend: A Day in the Life of Katrina Survivors.

My fifth anniversary as a homeowner. In a way, I can't believe it's been five years since I closed on Casa de Kev...but on the other hand, the days of renting seem like an eternity ago.

It was an unusual time in history, coming just a few weeks before 9/11; the world was suddenly turned upside-down, and I had just taken on a financial responsibility like none other. Thankfully, I had plenty of work to keep my mind off things, since I had but a month to move everything out of my rental house and clean up out there. Pretty much every waking hour that month when I wasnt' teaching was spent on the moving process. (And let there be no doubt that these "problems" paled in comparison to those of the people who actually had a personal connection to 9/11.)

Since then, it's been great to be a homeowner, and, while I can't believe I spent as many years as I did pouring out money on rent, I'm glad I ended up where I did--right in the middle of my teaching route and close to all the cool new stuff they've built out here in the past year. There may come a time when I "upsize" a bit, but for now, this place is pretty much perfect.

I, Coltrane?

There won't be much time for a post today, but I had to show everyone this:



Someone has evidently programmed a robotic device to "play" Giant Steps, including the complete Trane solo. (If the video won't play on your computer, try going here.) I love some of the comments made by visitors to the YouTube posting, especially the one who says that their cat could play Cherokee in 9/4 time in the key of C#. The machine certainly doesn't rise to the level of Coltrane's musicality, but it says something when the solo almost stands alone even without inflection. (Hat tip: The Green Room)

A Little Color Blindness Would Be A Lot Less TAKS-ing On Our Schools

Even though I get a lot of my news online these days, another article in the paper has prompted me to post. Today, it's a column by Steve Blow that was prompted by the controversy over a local high school principal's singling out of black students to do better on the TAKS test, in an announcement given over the PA system at school. All the usual things followed: The principal, Kathy Culbertson, apologized; the superintendent denounced her remarks as inappropriate; and some parents want her head on a platter.

Blow asks two interesting questions in his column:

Is it still possible to even talk about race anymore? As I noted in the Farmers Branch post the other day, it's hard for people in the majority to even criticize anyone in a minority group these days without being branded as a racist. Blow ponders this point:

the question that kept coming to my mind was: Is there a way she could have made her point without giving offense? Surely we can agree that her basic message was a good one – a challenge to study harder and bring up test scores.
Is it inherently impolite to publicly single out one group of students, no matter how valid the message might be?
Or is a third factor at work here? Have we reached a point of such sensitivity that any mention of race is doomed?
I don't want to believe it's the latter. Racial understanding really rests on our ability to talk openly and honestly about difficult subjects.
And, yes, to blunder, to apologize, to forgive and move forward.

I really hope that we haven't reached that latter point either, because ultimately, dialogue is stifled and the problem never gets solved. It allows one group of people to use racism as a weapon, one that is wielded even in inapproprate situations like the one in Farmers Branch. And in the meantime, the group of people that is being so accused gets to the point where they hear it so often, in every little situation, that they become immune to it even in times when the charges are legitimate (the "kid who cried wolf" syndrome, if you wish).

Does race have a place in standardized testing at all? I don't think so, and neither does Blow:

As I pondered all this, it suddenly struck me that the real culprit here isn't Ms. Culbertson. The travesty is that she was forced to think in racial terms at all.
But that's exactly what state and federal policies require educators to do. By law, TAKS test results must be broken down by race – white, black and Hispanic. "Economically disadvantaged" students are also divided out.
If students in any of those categories don't do well on the standardized test, the school as a whole is downgraded.
Why inject race into this? Why are we judging children by the very thing we teach them not to judge by?
And with today's booming middle class of educated, prosperous minorities, what do those labels really tell us anyway?
A black child? Is that an attorney's daughter? Or a crack addict's abandoned son?
Hispanic? Is that an immigrant child with no English? Or a business owner's child with no Spanish?

I believe that he's absolutely right here: The only category that needs to be singled out is "economically disadvantaged" students, which Blow classifies as "students from poor, uneducated, limited English or dysfunctional families." They are the ones that need special attention, regardless of skin color. Because Blow is right--the principal used some badly-chosen words, but in a truly effective setup, she--and we--wouldn't be forced to think about race at all in this case.

And I'll save my thoughts about how we need to de-emphasize the TAKS test altogether for another post.

This'll drive you bananas: Remember the animated badgers from a few years ago? Here's the sequel: The Banana Badgerphone. (Don't blame me; I'm only the messenger.)

This Is Pretty Saggy Logic To Me

I had ignored this story for a few days, because the headlines didn't make it seem all that out-of-the-ordinary: "Dallas goes after saggy pants." No big deal, I thought to myself; the school board can certainly do that if it wants to. Sure, I'm not really a fan of extremely restrictive dress codes (in other words, I don't think an occasional untucked shirt will bring about the unraveling of society), but I'll also admit that I've never seen the appeal of the saggy-pants thing, and I know most schools have outlawed that particular look.

But then I realized that I hadn't been reading the articles too carefully; it wasn't that the school board wanted to ban them in schools--as a matter of fact, they already have--but rather that a Dallas school board trustee, Ron Price, wants the Dallas City Council to pass an ordinance that cites people for wearing their pants "too low."

Can I get a collective "Huh?" from the audience?

But sadly, this isn't a joke:

A proposal to ban saggy pants in Dallas gained steam Wednesday as City Council members discussed how to deal with the popular clothing trend.

Several council members voiced support and asked the city attorney's office to research whether such a rule is enforceable.
Dallas school trustee Ron Price recommended the ban at Wednesday's council meeting, following through on a plan he announced Tuesday. Mr. Price wants the city to create an ordinance to allow police to cite people who wear their pants too low.

"Too low," he said, allows too much underwear to show.

There's no way in the world that this will actually become law, but if it did, what would be next--beachfront cities passing legislation outlawing Speedos on really fat guys? (I'm not saying that's a bad idea in principle, but a law? Let's get real here.)

I really can't believe that Price wasn't laughed out of the meeting for bringing this up, but instead, some people actually took him seriously:

Most of the nine council members who addressed Mr. Price at the meeting said the idea merits discussion. Some said an ordinance was needed, while others felt a public campaign involving the city, schools, parents and the community would be the way to go. Some of the 14 council members said nothing.

Two who spoke – Angela Hunt and Gary Griffith – opposed using police to enforce a ban.

Perhaps the best way to respond to something so ludicrous is by not dignifying it with a response at all.

Is this style of dress annoying? Sure. But do we really need to get the police involved in enforcing it? Surely not. The time when the council should be devoting the city's resources to something like this would be when crime levels are nonexistent, when all the potholes are fixed, there's not a homeless problem downtown, the police and firefighters are paid the same as their suburban counterparts....in other words, not anytime soon. Board member Price may think he's building political capital by doing something like this, but it's only making Dallas a laughingstock, just as was the case a few weeks ago in Arlington, when the school district banned cleavage earlier this month (and if you think I'm kidding about the laughingstock part, you should know that, while searching for a link to the story, I found one in an Australian newspaper under the heading of "World Wide Weird").

And besides, any ordinance like this would be on shaky legal ground:

Kimi King, associate professor of political science at the University of North Texas, said Dallas would have greater justification for creating such an ordinance if it could tie it to a problem of public lewdness or criminal activity.
Dr. King, an expert on civil rights legislation, said the city would have to show that it's not targeting only young males, the group most likely to wear sagging pants. And if challenged on whether such a measure would prevent public lewdness, she said, the city would have to explain why other clothing items weren't also prohibited.
"A judge would say, 'Why not enforce halter tops or shorts that are too short?' " she said. "You're picking on one group and singling them out."

I certainly hope that sanity prevails in this case; I may not like the look myself, but I'm even more offended by a government entity appointing itself the Fashion Police. Why don't we stick to the real problems, OK?

Cool gadget of the week: How about a street-legal, jet-powered VW Beetle?

Runner-up for the cool gadget of the week: This looks like a Swiss Army knife on steroids.

Stupid criminal of the week: When you're going to court to answer to a DUI charge, it's probably not a good idea to show up drunk.

Stormy weather: Yeah, we need some rain here in Texas (as well as the "cold front" that we're supposed to get tomorrow that will drop tempearatures all the way down to the mid 90's), but I think most of America would agree that we don't need any sort of tropical "event" to accomplish that. (I wonder how many people from New Orleans looked at this and thought, "oh no, not again.")

Remembering Maynard

OK, forget everything else I was going to blog about today; I just found out that Maynard has left the building:

Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, known for his soaring high notes and for his hit recording of "Gonna Fly Now," which lent the musical muscle to the "Rocky" movie franchise, has died. He was 78.

Ferguson, who lived in nearby Ojai, died Wednesday night at Community Memorial Hospital of kidney and liver failure due to an abdominal infection, friend and manager Steve Schankman said Thursday.

Ferguson's four daughters, Kim, Lisa, Corby and Wilder, and other family members were at his side when he died, he said.

"Someone just said, `Gabriel, move over to second trumpet,"' Schankman said from his St. Louis office. "He was the last of the greats. That era is closed. There is no Kenton, no Basie, no Ellington, and now, no Ferguson."

I'll have more thoughts later.

LATER: It's hard to believe that Maynard is gone. He was one of the first people I listened to when I became acquainted with jazz in high school, and he was one of those giants that just seemed like they were going to be around forever. Sure, there was this little running joke among some of my friends that going to a Maynard concert these days always meant there was the chance that he might die on stage right then and there, but the last time I saw him, this past February, he was in better shape than I'd seen him in years, which is why his passing comes as such a shock.

I was lucky enough to have seen Maynard perform around seven or eight times (at least that many; I'll have to go back and count). Two of them were during the Blog Era, so I have reviews of those shows, from February 2004 and this past February. The format was often the same; indeed, the schtick was often the same ("Ain't No Sunshine Till She's Gone," anyone?), but it never grew old. The wisdom of playing in high-school auditoriums may have been questioned by some, but the results can't be questioned, becuase the man knew his audience: Young jazz musicians and their parents and teachers. Some may say that jazz will never regain the audience that it had in the Swing Era, but in this particular corner of the world, Maynard was like a rock star...and as a jazz educator, I'll always appreciate it, because we need a strong personality like that in our genre of music. Was it loud? Sure. Was it over-the-top? Sometimes. But the auditorium was always packed, and the audience always left screaming for more and totally fired up about playing jazz on their own instruments. What more could someone in my position ask for?

I don't know what Maynard's wishes were in terms of a ghost band, but I think I'd go see the group that played last spring without hesitation, because they were that good. (This next analogy may be a little off-the-wall, but I think you'll get my point.) I always used to compare seeing Maynard to visiting the dentist, in the best possible way: You know how you go to the dentist, and the dental hygienist does the bulk of the work, and then the dentist usually comes out for a lot less time (and gets way more money), but you still know that he's the boss? In the latter years, Maynard let his trumpet section, especially right-hand man Patrick Hession, do a lot of the heavy lifting on some of the tunes in exchange for some of the glory, but he'd also provide just enough pyrotechnics of his own to let you know that he still "had it." I don't thing anyone ever begrudged him that, because he had given so much to the music for so long that he had earned a little lighter workload. And besides, a really good dental hygienist can make the dentist look great, and Maynard always had nothing short of a top-notch, high-energy band, and it's a tribute to his leadership that several of his former bandmembers (like Wayne Bergeron, Steve Wiest, Gregg and Matt Bissonette, and our jazz camp's own Glenn Kostur, just to name several recent ones) have gone on to illustrious careers of their own.

I was hoping to meet Maynard this past summer; he was a member of my fraternity, and he got a prestigious national award called the American Man of Music award, which brought him to Cleveland for our national convention. Unfortunately, that convention and Jazz Camp overlapped, and my professional obligation had to take priority over my volunteer one. By the time I got to convention, I had missed Maynard by a couple of days (though on the night he got his award, I was here sharing the stage with Jimmy Heath; that wasn't a bad tradeoff, mind you, but I sure wish I could have been in two places at the same time that night). The brothers who got to meet him said that it was a great experience.

Maynard may not have died onstage, but he probably went out in the best possible way--surrounded by his family, just a short time after an evidently amazing stint at the Blue Note and a trip into the studio for what will be his final album of new material. I can't wait to hear it, and I would seriously consider attending the upcoming tribute concert in St. Louis if the logistics work out.

So tonight, let's raise a proverbial glass to a man who did so much for music and music education, while those of us who were lucky enough to have seen him perform will no doubt relive the thrills of every jaw-dropping high note and the energy of it all. And I think the guy in the article is right: Gabriel, it's time to start learning that second trumpet book.

MORE STUFF: The official statement from Maynard's management on his website.

And memories of Maynard from his most recent musical director, UNT alumnus Stockton Helbing.

UPDATE: There's now a Maynard Ferguson Memorial on MySpace.

Immig-Rant Revisited

I'm not going to say a whole lot on this subject, since I wrote a very long post about it a few months ago. But I did take note of a big story here in the Dallas area for the past couple of days. It involves the City Council of the north Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch, which has a new issue on the table: A set of regulations that would make life a lot less comfortable for illegal immigrants:

City Council members had little to say Monday night about suggestions from two of their colleagues that they adopt measures that would make it harder for illegal immigrants to live and work in the city.
But their constituents had plenty to say in a work session marked by heckling and interruptions by both sides. Many opponents cried "racism," and many supporters said the measures had nothing to do with race and only aimed to make the city less attractive to people who are here illegally.

Several dozen residents crowded into the council chambers to discuss whether the city should restrict illegal immigrants through such measures as making it illegal for landlords to lease property to them; fining businesses that employ them; making English the city's official language; and halting funding for children of illegal immigrants to participate in Summer Funshine and other youth programs.

[...]Mayor Pro Tem Ben Robinson had more ideas. He suggested that the council also consider prohibiting the assembly of day laborers; requiring contractors to abide by all federal laws, including immigration laws; and having police who question the residency papers of people they encounter on traffic stops or accidents make copies of those documents and submit them to immigration officials.

Read the whole thing. As I said, I don't have much to say that wasn't already stated in my earlier post, except for this: The people who cried "racism" just showed that they really didn't have any argument of substance; their only hope was to use an often-powerful word that has, many times in the past, cowed people into not standing up for their beliefs, out of fear of being branded with this word.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. What does refusing to support criminal activity have to do with race? The misguided activists who cry "racism" at every turn still fail to see that it has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people in question and everything to do with the lawlessness of their acts. As I asked last time, what part of "illegal" don't you understand? The paper may not have said anything about it, but callers to Ernie and Jay today noted that many of the people at the meeting who were in favor of the proposed policies were Hispanic--many of them people who came here legally from Mexico and are just as resentful of the freeloaders as anyone else. But you'll rarely see this in the mainstream media, because, in many cases, the people with the loudest voices, rather than the most reasoned ones, have taken over the debate.

Isn't it time to take that debate back? Sure, Farmers Branch will get sued by the ACLU if these regulations get passed; they've already threatened to do so in the news article. But if any idea deserves its day in court, it's this one...and maybe after a while, more and more people will refuse to be beaten back by those who would call them names just for standing up for the rule of law and the sovereignty of our nation.

This subject won't be going away anytime soon...

First Day Back

I never teach on the first day of school. It's pointless; chaos reigns supreme, and my being there would only add to said chaos. I did go around and post my schedule at a lot of places, in an effort to nudge myself ever-so-gently back into the process, and by the end of the week, I'll have a normal-length day (and hopefully, a close-to-normal-length bank receipt to go with it).

There's always something about the first day of school. So much promise in the new year. It's a tabula rasa, and there's always the chance that, no matter what happened in the past, a student, or a student group, or even an entire club can remake itself in a new image. Everyone's football team is undefeated; everyone's band has a shot at a sweepstakes; not a single student has gone to detention yet (though the cynic in me wonders how long that record stands unbroken at various schools); even the Least Important Stuff That Gets Talked About the Most (i.e. standardized test scores) starts out the year unblemished. Even as I get caught up in the "return to the grind" elements of things (all the driving between schools, wearing long pants in 104-degree weather, thirteen-hour teaching days), I can stop for a moment to reflect in the freshness of it all.

Creative jurisprudence of the week: Speaking of the kids who get detentions on the first day of school, I bet more than a few of them also tend to get a lot of traffic tickets. If so, they'd better hope their cases aren't heard by Julia Jent, a judge in Indiana, who sentences teenage repeat violators to ride the bus--sometimes for up to an entire semester.

This lady should be riding the bus too: A driver in Phoenix has received 70 speeding tickets in the last five months.

"Spare the Rod?" Revisited

School starts tomorrow for my middle- and high-schoolers, so an article in this morning's paper seemed rather timely: Has corporal punishment, a.k.a. the "Board of Education," mostly gone the way of the dinosaur for a good reason, or are the few holdouts doing the right thing?

– A sign stuck to the principal's desk outlaws whining. A blue jar on a nearby shelf claims to hold the ashes of problem students.
But it's the custom-made, arm-length pine paddle that delivers the old-school discipline that Anthony Price says has helped turn his junior high school around.
He stands behind a practice headed toward extinction.
Most local students returning to school this month will not face corporal punishment. But in a time when child psychologists, Dr. Phil and even Supernanny tout timeouts and tenderness, a dwindling number of holdout school districts continue to believe in the power of the paddle.

I've discussed this subject in an earlier post,so I won't repeat myself, except to revisit what I though was the central point of that post:

The big difference between many kids now and kids when i was in school is the lack of respect for any sort of authority at all. I think what seems to be missing is that little sense of fear, which may have come about because actions don't seem to have any real consequences anymore. I know that I saw the business end of Mom's Kappa Delta paddle way too many times as a kid (and it was the happiest day of my young life when she somehow lost said paddle...and I had nothing to do with that, honestly!). My parents never hit me in anger, it was never more than a few times, and it only happened when i did something really, really bad. (And of course there was always the spectre of getting "swats" at school too, which sounded even less fun; I was a really good kid at school, if for no other reason than that.) I also think the prospect of having that happen again colored the decisions I made later on...to the extent that, even now, I judge whether or not I decide to do something by whether or not I might "get in trouble" for doing so. Granted, the adult ramifications of being in "trouble" are different, but that little element of fear helped in the formation of my moral compass. I wonder what can replace that healthy fear now that corporal punishment seems to have been put on the taboo list.

Now compare that with a quote from the principal in today's article:

"We, as Americans, have let our school system get a little bit out of control," Mr. Price said. "I love children, but when I see how many are going astray, it's heartbreaking. ... Corporal punishment adds just one small fear factor back into the system."

It sounds like he and I are pretty much on the same page here.

Granted, some educators abuse the practice, just like some parents hit their kids out of anger. The article notes that some districts have paddled kids in the past for infractions as small as untucked shirttails (my thoughts on that subject here), while I believe that the practice should be reserved for much more serious offenses than that.

And I realize that, in a perfect world, a school would never have to seriously discipline a student, because everyone would be receiving the proper amounts of discipline at home. But let's face it--many parents have abdicated their responsibility in that area, some so much so that they actually expect the schools to act as parents. I'm not sure that widespread corporal punishment would be desired, but I also think it might be a decent option for students for whom nothing else works.


There have been a lot of new Musings readers added since two springs ago, so I'm going to close by reprising the questions from that earlier post:

--Were you spanked as a kid? If so, did it ever get out of hand?

--Would/do you spank your own kids?

--Is there a difference between corporal punishment and child abuse? Is it possible to do the former without it leading to the latter?

--If corporal punishment is an idea that's past its time, what else can be done to instill that healthy sense of fear that seems to be missing from many young people today?

--And finally, am I all wet on this topic? Is this [lack of fear] even a major factor in the bad behavior and lack of respect exhibited by many kids today, or is something else a much bigger contributor to the problem?

Chime in using the comments; even if you replied last time, I realize that new situations may have come up, or your thinking may have changed for other reasons. And be sure and read the whole DMN article, which has a lot of interesting background information on corporal punishment through the years.

Better pay up for your cookies, or it'll cost you a (thin) mint: Forget to pay for your Girl Scout cookies? A troop in Akron, Ohio is filing lawsuits against their biggest deadbeat customers (granted, one of them racked up a debt of $3500).

Lost in translation: A road sign in Wales seems simple enough; it instructs cyclists to dismount by reading, "CYCLISTS DISMOUNT." But its Welsh translation seems to have gone awry, as it advises speakers of that language that "bladder disease has returned."

The Calendar Says Saturday, But Today Was Fry-day For Me

Ahh, the last few days of summer. Today was actually pretty productive, considering I slept in till almost eleven. The mission for today was to find a particular Aebersold recording (or its generic equivalent; more about genericization of brands in a post I'll probably do tomorrow). The hope was to find said recording at Pender's in Denton, thus having an excuse to make a Tomato run. So even after we found that Pender's didn't have the Aebersold, and we in fact got the generic equivalent locally...well, it was still a good day for a Tomato run.

As always, the pizza was great, and I managed not to do my traditional gaffe of spilling the garlic butter from the breadsticks on my shirt this time. The area wasn't very crowded, but give it just a little time; the dorms at UNT open tomorrow, so this time next week, the area will be absolutely packed with students. But with all the recent developments around this area, it really makes me wonder what the place will look like a year from now. And you'd better believe that I signed the Save Fry Street petition while I was there.

While on the subject--I doubt that anyone gets their Fry Street news exclusively through this site, but this seems like a good time for updates: Despite the fact that the new owner/developer, Buster Freedman of United Equities, had told the affected tenants that they wouldn't have to move until at least after August and September (a boon time for them, thanks to the returning college students) and maybe as long as the end of the year, we have now found out that several businesses (including Mr. Chopsticks and Cool Beans) have already been given eviction notices. According to this article in the Denton Record-Chronicle, the Save Fry Street activist group has issued a formal statement of regret regarding the developer's action.

“We are concerned that this will have a chilling effect on this successful local business and we believe this action does not serve Denton’s business or cultural interests and shows questionable commitment to the community in which they have chosen to set up shop,” said Jon Black in a press release from Save Fry Street. Black, of Austin, is a committee member of Save Fry Street and a University of North Texas alumnus.

So we'll see what happens with the rest of the block. In the meantime, I'll take as many Tomato runs as possible and hope that, whether the Tomato ends up as part of the new development or somewhere nearby, that the downtime won't be too long, if at all. (Read my first Fry Street post here; you may also like this recent article by a current UNT undergrad from the FW Weekly. Oh, and I found out today that the Tomato has a MySpace page. You'd better believe that I asked it to be my friend.)

We've had our pizza; now for dessert: Workers in a California chocolate factory discovered a collection of chocolate drippings that bears a resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

I wonder if he emerged in the shape of a relgious icon as well: A man in a Wisconsin factory had to be rescued after he became trapped in a vat of chocolate for over two hours.

The Following Takes Place Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Six days' worth of students in that one hour, and five days in which to teach them. That's the roadblock against which I'm running up as I try to complete the Dread Sked. There's bound to be a way around it somehow, but, like the completion of an intricate jigsaw puzzle, I haven't found it yet. And even if I do, there's no guarantee that it'll be The Finished Product, as everything sort of hangs in floaty limbo until college classes start. (And "Floaty Limbo" would be a good name for an emo/mall-punk band, wouldn't it?)

I still have three more days to tweak this stuff, and I'm going to enjoy my gig tomorrow night, putting everything else as far from my mind as possible in the process. Today was "meh"--very few lessons spread way apart; a lot of high schoolers have just taken the three weeks of marching band off this year (hope they don't regret it when they find themselves with only a month until Region Jazz) and all the teachers' kids (or at least the ones who don't drive yet) were pretty much out this week as their moms returned to school. No real complaints; I realize that next week, I'll be busy beyond belief, but too much sitting around the computer agonizing over a schedule made the whole of my being start to atrophy. Fortunately, it was cool enough outside to do The Walk™, which managed to get all the molecules moving again. (It'll be nicer when it's about, oh, twenty degrees cooler at that time of day.)

That sinking feeling, part 1: A Missouri man was rather startled when, during a leisurely Sunday morning of reading the paper, a sinkhole swallowed half his house, including his garage and a car parked inside.

That sinking feeling, part 2: When thieves visited a South Carolina church recently, did they steal everything but the kitchen sink? Nope, they stole only the kitchen sink, which had been left outside during a fellowship hall renovation.

Say "Uncle." Now Say It Twice More.

Give it up for Nephew #3, MIcah, born this morning at 7:41 a.m. in Austin. My sister called me with the great news late this afternoon. With a house full of boys, she'll have her hands full (as if she didn't already!), but thankfully, another Big Event takes place next week: My oldest nephew, Noah, begins kindergarten on Tuesday.

Mom and baby are doing fine. I'll get to Austin as soon as I can to visit them and see Micah in person. Here's the first picture of the little guy:



Everybody say "awww...."

I know there'll be a day when I'm celebrating the birth of one of my own, but until then, being an uncle is the next best thing.

(I've also done posts about the births of my two other nephews in years past.)

Getting Greedy Over Good Grades?

This is a subject that predates blogging (and probably computers, for that matter): Should parents reward their kids with money for making good grades? Apparently, it happens a lot...

Sure, learning is its own reward. But some kids respond best to cash. Andrew Waller's grades soared when his parents started offering $5 for A's and $4 for B's. Now he pockets about $25 each report card, saving it for video games and summer camp.
"I think I would still be getting good grades, but this does help. I mean, it helps a lot," said Andrew, a 12-year old from Mobile, Ala. "I think it's a great way to motivate me."
So you want your kids to get an A, eh? Are you willing to pay?
As children return to school, many parents are deciding what prize - if any - is appropriate to offer when kids get good grades. The stakes can get pretty high.

Whatever happened to learning being its own reward? And sometimes, things can get pretty ridiculous:

Reagan Hawkins, a high school teacher in Nederland, Texas, has had students tell him they will get a new car for A's. Their parents downgrade the deal to a used car if they get B's.
"It disappoints me, honestly," Hawkins said. "I try to instill a sense of intrinsic reward in the students. I'd rather see a student want to learn for the sake of learning than learn for the sake of a car."

And sure, learning for its own sake won't transport you to school on its own, but I think that it's still a value that parents should at least try to teach in our consumer-driven society.

I never received money for getting good grades, nor was I severely punished for getting bad ones--not that there were too many of the latter, mind you; somehow, I figured out at an early age what my abilities were, so I geared my expectations accordingly. More often than not, my standard for myself was an A, though it would be relaxed a bit for certain classes (music history comes to mind). I wonder if things would have been any different if I had been given the carrot of cash rewards for getting even more A's; I was already 43rd in my high school class of 525, so I was reasonably happy with the outcome. And the one time that I was given a D in public school, Mom went to the teacher to figure out what was going on rather than automatically punishing me. Iit turned out that I had earned a C that six-weeks, but the teacher gave me the even lower grade to "send a message" to me. I don't know if there was a direct relationship or not, but I never did receive a grade that low for the rest of my schooling. I do know that the timing of that D couldn't have been worse; I had just gotten a first division on my very first trip to Solo and Ensemble that day, and I had learned that one of my original compositions had won the district level of the Reflections Contest. We came home from the celebratory steak dinner to find the offending report card in the mailbox.)

Read the whole article; it offers a wide variety of examples of how parents use grades as tools for both motivation and punishment. I'm certainly not going to judge the ones who use money, but I hope the greater lessons are being learned as well.

Adults who promise money, gifts or privileges say their children study harder when incentives are on the table. The lesson they hope to teach is that rewards require work.
The trick is making sure that students develop a natural love of learning along the way. When the gift cards and iPods go away, students had better be able to motivate themselves.

We can only hope that the love of learning is achieved before college; as a professor, I've certainly run into my fair share of students who aren't quite there yet.

So, how about a quick survey?

1) Did you ever receive money for making good grades? If so, do you think it was a positive motivational experience, or did you just go for the quick cash?

2) Were you ever punished for making bad grades? If so, what form did the punishment take?

3) Would you give your (current or future) kids money for making good grades? Punish them for bad grades?

Please respond in the comments.

A half-baked idea? In an effort to work around some new Food Police standards that prohibited the serving of french fries in the school cafeteria--even as a side dish--some schools in Arizona are now serving french bakes...or oven wedges, oven fries, potato sticks, whatever you want to call them. Some kids even like them...

VIdeo of the Week So Far

This is really amazing:

And from looking through YouTube, I discovered that there are all kinds of variations on the "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment, with some turning out much better than others. One of the "best of the rest" is this one, where the kids figured out how to turn the Coke bottles into rockets that launched way up in the air; another video even gives instructions. Maybe everyone else had heard of this already, but it was pretty entertaining to me, especially the one above where they make the elaborate fountain.

Shlog this! I just recently found out that my former student Shaun Groves has been blogging for a while. His site is called Shlog, and it's full of thought-provoking stuff about Christianity and music. I've also linked him on the sidebar.

That sinking feeling: I've updated the Remembering Tasha post to include the picture I took of her sleeping in the kitchen sink back in the spring. I'll also alert everyone if and when that picture gets posted on catsinsinks.com, where I submitted it yesterday.

New gig alert: The Shelley Carrol Big Band doesn't get together all that often, so come to the DMA on Friday night. Once again, I'll have the privilege of manning the bari chair; details are on the sidebar.

The Dread Sked Rears Its Ugly Head

This will be a very short post today, because I've put it off starting the Dread Sked for too long. It's one of my least favorite things to do all year, which makes sense when you realize that I'm having to schedule eight public schools, the college, whatever I end up doing with my Brook Mays students, and the people I teach here at the house (a small number, pretty much made up of people who attend schools where I don't teach). It just seems to get worse and worse every year; this year, at least so far, seems to be particularly bad in the scheduling department. I'm just not sure how it's all going to work yet, unless I'm able to defy both physics and the space-time continuum.

Since I'm working off a new computer this year, I had to rebuild my schedule file (I'm not sure why last fall's didn't transfer along with the rest of my Word files, but...meh). The one that was left was from the fall of '98, which means that the sixth-graders on that list are now starting their sophomore years in college. Despite the passage of time, it was cool to note that, of the seventy people on that list, I'm still in touch (at least sporadically) with ten of them. Gotta love the Internet...

Anyway, if I don't post much in the next few days, it just means that I've gotten caught up in Dread Skedding.

Just say no to crack: Dickies, the Ft. Worth-based manufacturer of durable work-type clothing, has come up with a great invention: a line of jeans designed to prevent rear-end exposure by adding inches to the seat and lowering the waistband. Yo, Mr. Plumber, are you listening? I'm talking to you...

I love you; you complete me: Want an exotic pet, but don't have much room in the yard? Try a mini-cow on for size.

Blowing out some belated candles: Happy birthday yesterday to one of my musical heroes, Pat Metheny, who's 52 years young. A longer ode to Pat may be found at the end of this post, the top of which is very amusing, in case you haven't read it before (it involves jazz and cows at the same gig).