Quick Chirpin'
[Chirping is the NHL slang for running the mouth, banging the gums, etc]
Hmmm... Peter Forsberg INJURED for the Avalanche. Who would have believed that? Only everybody who was gone to Yahoo NHL, ESPN.com NHL or the Hockey News.com in the last year. Apparently those sites are blocked in the Avalanche offices.
By the way, this year's Red Wings - Avs match up is NOT the 90s Wings - Avs. Although bringing back Forsberg and Adam Foote adds some familiar names to the battles [and Kris Draper, Kirk Maltby and Darren McCarty are still with the Wings], these Wings will not be dragged into such muck. The Wings are on a mission again and they may ride often ridiculed goalie Chris Osgood [that's right, not Dominik Hasek] to their 4th Cup in 11 years. One only has to look at the 5 - 1 drubbing they gave the Avs Saturday to see this.
I am losing my lunch watching San Jose cough up this series to the Dallas Stars. But not any money this round. I have to grudgingly admit though, Dallas seems to know the way to beat San Jose IN San Jose. And they turn San Jose's mistakes into goals or at least good scoring chances.
I am, however, THRILLED by the Penguins - Rangers series. I thought this would be a good series for scoring, but the Pens shutting the Rangers down 2-0 on Sunday was a pretty darn good game to watch, too. And don't get dragged into this "Crosby dives" crap. The Kid keeps his skates moving at all times.
Think Montreal would like a mulligan on trading Christobal Huet to the Washington Capitals now? Rookie netminder Carey Price got rattled and though just as young goalie Jaroslav Halak looked okay, it would be nice to have a veteran presence to calm the kid down. Gosh, Philly looks just smart enough to win it all. In the East anyway. How ABOUT an all Pennsylvania Eastern Conference final?!?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Let's Get It On?
I found myself totally bummed and depressed when I finished Bukowski’s Women. 280 pages of drink and sticking it in has a way of doing that. Even though Chuck writes it in true ‘that’s just how it is’ style, the whole thing left me low. Not because I ain’t getting any, but because it just seemed like it was sticking it for sticking’s sake. Even at the end where ‘Chinaski” seems remorseful [“Sara was as good woman. I needed to get myself straightened out. A man could lose his identity fucking around too much.”] it seems … sad. That's all I can say. It's just sad.
Which is not to say that there are not a few gems of wisdom hidden deep in there.
“Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary just for bloody kicks. The kinder ones fuck better and after you were around them for a while they seemed beautiful because they were.”
“Human relationships didn’t work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful. Modern society created its own and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death – in a cesspool.”
But the story itself, woman to woman, in and out and off to the next one... I don't know. I know it happens, I know it's probably exaggerated, but it just seems senseless. Have a lotta drinks, little smoochin, stick it in, finish [or don't - the man pulls no punches on himself]...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Double Album - Double Play
As noted way back on March 08, I loaded a pile of double albums on my MP3 player for consumption at work - well, we've been pretty damn busy at work the last couple of weeks, so I haven't had a whole lot of time to listen not write about it.
But now things seem to have calmed A BIT [not to jinx us], so I was able to review a couple more. Review that 03/08/08 post for info on the three sided wonder, Joe Jackson's Big World.
The next double album alphabetically [by title] in the ol' player is English Settlement by XTC. *sigh* I wish I could say I really loved this album because it appears to be one of those records that critics and the 'people who are supposed to know about these things' seem to really really want me to like. But I can't. Not that it's a bad record, but of the 15 songs here only about 4 really stand out - Senses Working Overtime, Our Time, All of a Sudden and No Thugs In Our House. Snowmen and Runaway are good, but the rest of the album just kind of all runs together. There's not big changes to make you sit up and take notice, like the change from Spanish Bombs to The Right Profile to Lost in the Supermarket to Clampdown on the Clash's London Calling. I'd say at best it's good; at worst, merely okay.
But to be fair, I'm not a huge fan of any one XTC album. Drums and Wires is very good, Skylarking is also pretty good [I think because of Todd Rundgren's production, not in spite of it as Andy Partridge might think], The Big Express is okay, but weird... I've just like the collections of great pop singles best.
I skipped London Calling, of which my thoughts are pretty well known anyway [3rd favorite album of all time] and went to an album I have not heard all the way through since probably 1978 and one I was curious to see my own reaction to - Stevie Wonder's Songs In the Key of Life.
We [family] had this album - well, Mom probably still has it hidden somewhere - on 8 track tape. It was a two tape set and I used to listen to tape 1 over and over because it had the hits Sir Duke and I Wish. [Isn't She Lovely didn't really move me as a ten year old... really doesn't now either. Must be a parent kind of thing.] Imagine me at age 10, the whitest kid in the universe going arounf sining "Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy." Like I even knew what the hell Stevie was talking about. But it GROOVED.
Songs is the total tonal opposite of English Settlement. Each song brings something new to the table, each song has its own texture, sound and feel and each song has something to catch your ear and make you go "Whawazzat?" Just to give and idea, check out the chorus of voices on Love's In Need of Love, the other-worldly sounds Wonder coaxes from his synthesizers on Have A Talk With God, the strings and/ or synth -strings on Village Ghetto Land, the fusion on the Steely Dan / Herbie Hancock inspired Contusion [who rips off that great guitar solo? Sounds suspiciously like Larry Carlton, though George Benson is credited as playing on the list of perfomers; no one is credited with individual song credits on the Wikipedia page], the shear joy of Sir Duke, the gutbucket funk of I Wish [continuing Stevie's work from Innervisions?], the sweet wash of electric piano on the ballad Knocks Me Off My Feet, the latin beats that dominate side 4's Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing and Another Star, the Sly Stone inspired funk of the bonus cut All Day Sucker, which has Wonder advising some unknown player at :18 seconds in "Play as funky as you can" and the genius of the overdubbed harmonicas on Easy Going Evening [My Mama's Call]....
And keeping it all grounded with his humanity and the earthiness in his voice is the man himself - Stevie Wonder. Wonder adds every sound he can ever imagine from those synthesizers, but the whole thing is grounded by his simple voice singing about the shared HUMAN experience.
As I said, it's been years since I've heard the whole thing in a couple of sittings, but it's easy now to see why this was a multiple Grammy winner and why is routinely makes lists of the best albums ever made.
Chaz sez 4.5 stars. Remind yourself how good it is soon.
As noted way back on March 08, I loaded a pile of double albums on my MP3 player for consumption at work - well, we've been pretty damn busy at work the last couple of weeks, so I haven't had a whole lot of time to listen not write about it.
But now things seem to have calmed A BIT [not to jinx us], so I was able to review a couple more. Review that 03/08/08 post for info on the three sided wonder, Joe Jackson's Big World.
The next double album alphabetically [by title] in the ol' player is English Settlement by XTC. *sigh* I wish I could say I really loved this album because it appears to be one of those records that critics and the 'people who are supposed to know about these things' seem to really really want me to like. But I can't. Not that it's a bad record, but of the 15 songs here only about 4 really stand out - Senses Working Overtime, Our Time, All of a Sudden and No Thugs In Our House. Snowmen and Runaway are good, but the rest of the album just kind of all runs together. There's not big changes to make you sit up and take notice, like the change from Spanish Bombs to The Right Profile to Lost in the Supermarket to Clampdown on the Clash's London Calling. I'd say at best it's good; at worst, merely okay.
But to be fair, I'm not a huge fan of any one XTC album. Drums and Wires is very good, Skylarking is also pretty good [I think because of Todd Rundgren's production, not in spite of it as Andy Partridge might think], The Big Express is okay, but weird... I've just like the collections of great pop singles best.
I skipped London Calling, of which my thoughts are pretty well known anyway [3rd favorite album of all time] and went to an album I have not heard all the way through since probably 1978 and one I was curious to see my own reaction to - Stevie Wonder's Songs In the Key of Life.
We [family] had this album - well, Mom probably still has it hidden somewhere - on 8 track tape. It was a two tape set and I used to listen to tape 1 over and over because it had the hits Sir Duke and I Wish. [Isn't She Lovely didn't really move me as a ten year old... really doesn't now either. Must be a parent kind of thing.] Imagine me at age 10, the whitest kid in the universe going arounf sining "Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy." Like I even knew what the hell Stevie was talking about. But it GROOVED.
Songs is the total tonal opposite of English Settlement. Each song brings something new to the table, each song has its own texture, sound and feel and each song has something to catch your ear and make you go "Whawazzat?" Just to give and idea, check out the chorus of voices on Love's In Need of Love, the other-worldly sounds Wonder coaxes from his synthesizers on Have A Talk With God, the strings and/ or synth -strings on Village Ghetto Land, the fusion on the Steely Dan / Herbie Hancock inspired Contusion [who rips off that great guitar solo? Sounds suspiciously like Larry Carlton, though George Benson is credited as playing on the list of perfomers; no one is credited with individual song credits on the Wikipedia page], the shear joy of Sir Duke, the gutbucket funk of I Wish [continuing Stevie's work from Innervisions?], the sweet wash of electric piano on the ballad Knocks Me Off My Feet, the latin beats that dominate side 4's Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing and Another Star, the Sly Stone inspired funk of the bonus cut All Day Sucker, which has Wonder advising some unknown player at :18 seconds in "Play as funky as you can" and the genius of the overdubbed harmonicas on Easy Going Evening [My Mama's Call]....
And keeping it all grounded with his humanity and the earthiness in his voice is the man himself - Stevie Wonder. Wonder adds every sound he can ever imagine from those synthesizers, but the whole thing is grounded by his simple voice singing about the shared HUMAN experience.
As I said, it's been years since I've heard the whole thing in a couple of sittings, but it's easy now to see why this was a multiple Grammy winner and why is routinely makes lists of the best albums ever made.
Chaz sez 4.5 stars. Remind yourself how good it is soon.
Monday, April 07, 2008
The Rolling Stones - J.A.F.L.A.*
There's a lot of hype going around about the 'new' Rolling Stones venture - the Imax film and 'soundtrack', both of which feature Martin Scorcese's name in as big a type as the band's. Now Marty S. has a history of sorts with musical documentaries - notably The Last Waltz, Woodstock, executive producing The Blues documentaries for PBS, the Joe Strummer bio-pic The Future Is Unwritten and the early Dylan bio No Direction Home [another adventure that features Scorsese's name as prominently as it's 'star' on the DVD and CD covers]. According to Allmovie.com Scorsese is also involved in bios of George Harrison and Bob Marley and Don Rickles - Marty is doing a lot of documentaries these days.
But back to the Stones money grab. The Stones did the Imax thing back in 1990 for their Steel Wheels tour - I was in a test audience under an assumed name [for which I was rewarded with a tour T-shirt] and I found a 30 foot high Mick and Keith disturbing and the peripherals blurry and distracting. Hopefully they've cleared these issues. They've also released 2 4-DVD sets of their last two tours - granted, neither of them with Scorsese's involvement. But not to pick on Marty - if the Stones ask you if you wish to involve yourself with them, you have to say yes, right? But to get your name as big as the band's on the box - that takes... well, stones to ask for, if ya know what I mean.
No, my problem is with the Stones' cycle the last 20 years - each new album is followed by a two year tour which is followed by a live album. And the albums are dotted with the 'same old same old' warhorses - Start Me Up [3 times on the last 5 live albums, 4 times in their career], Sympathy for the Devil, their most over-rated song ever [2/4], You Can't Always Get What You Want [2/4]. Give the people what they want? Maybe. They seem to be turning Live With Me into one of those warhorses. Then of course, there's Jumpin' Jack Flash, Brown Sugar and Satisfaction. Sure they seem to dust of a couple of gems [Memory Motel, Sister Morphine and Respectable on No Security; Factory Girl on Flashpoint; maybe As Tears Go By and All Down the Line on the new one - Shine A Light]
The most interesting of the recent trend was 1995's Stripped, the Stones 'unplugged' album that followed Voodoo Lounge. At LEAST, it skipped all the tired warhorses and challenged the band. To which they responded with some great catalog numbers - Shine A Light, The Spider and the Fly, I'm Free, Wild Horses, Dead Flowers, Love In Vain and Sweet Virginia.
But for all the Glimmer, the gloss and sparkle, all the critical acclaim and even the involvement of Scorsese, this is going to be just what it is - Just Another Fucking Live Album. So they bring up Buddy Guy to jam, let Jack White play along on Loving Cup - whose idea was it to bring Christine Aguillera up on Live With Me [Mick, I'll bet]?
Have I heard it? No. Do I really NEED to hear it? Not really. I've heard all this before. I'll let 'The Elitist Completist' tell me about it.
There's a lot of hype going around about the 'new' Rolling Stones venture - the Imax film and 'soundtrack', both of which feature Martin Scorcese's name in as big a type as the band's. Now Marty S. has a history of sorts with musical documentaries - notably The Last Waltz, Woodstock, executive producing The Blues documentaries for PBS, the Joe Strummer bio-pic The Future Is Unwritten and the early Dylan bio No Direction Home [another adventure that features Scorsese's name as prominently as it's 'star' on the DVD and CD covers]. According to Allmovie.com Scorsese is also involved in bios of George Harrison and Bob Marley and Don Rickles - Marty is doing a lot of documentaries these days.
But back to the Stones money grab. The Stones did the Imax thing back in 1990 for their Steel Wheels tour - I was in a test audience under an assumed name [for which I was rewarded with a tour T-shirt] and I found a 30 foot high Mick and Keith disturbing and the peripherals blurry and distracting. Hopefully they've cleared these issues. They've also released 2 4-DVD sets of their last two tours - granted, neither of them with Scorsese's involvement. But not to pick on Marty - if the Stones ask you if you wish to involve yourself with them, you have to say yes, right? But to get your name as big as the band's on the box - that takes... well, stones to ask for, if ya know what I mean.
No, my problem is with the Stones' cycle the last 20 years - each new album is followed by a two year tour which is followed by a live album. And the albums are dotted with the 'same old same old' warhorses - Start Me Up [3 times on the last 5 live albums, 4 times in their career], Sympathy for the Devil, their most over-rated song ever [2/4], You Can't Always Get What You Want [2/4]. Give the people what they want? Maybe. They seem to be turning Live With Me into one of those warhorses. Then of course, there's Jumpin' Jack Flash, Brown Sugar and Satisfaction. Sure they seem to dust of a couple of gems [Memory Motel, Sister Morphine and Respectable on No Security; Factory Girl on Flashpoint; maybe As Tears Go By and All Down the Line on the new one - Shine A Light]
The most interesting of the recent trend was 1995's Stripped, the Stones 'unplugged' album that followed Voodoo Lounge. At LEAST, it skipped all the tired warhorses and challenged the band. To which they responded with some great catalog numbers - Shine A Light, The Spider and the Fly, I'm Free, Wild Horses, Dead Flowers, Love In Vain and Sweet Virginia.
But for all the Glimmer, the gloss and sparkle, all the critical acclaim and even the involvement of Scorsese, this is going to be just what it is - Just Another Fucking Live Album. So they bring up Buddy Guy to jam, let Jack White play along on Loving Cup - whose idea was it to bring Christine Aguillera up on Live With Me [Mick, I'll bet]?
Have I heard it? No. Do I really NEED to hear it? Not really. I've heard all this before. I'll let 'The Elitist Completist' tell me about it.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The Pool Table
I was killing time playing some Hoyle Board Games Pool and Nine Ball last night after the Penguins coughed one up and it brought to mind the pool table we used to have out a Galupi central.
Now I believe we got this pool table from my Uncle Bill, was also lived out there in Burleson, when they finished their garage off and put in a cherry [as in beautiful] red felt slate job [and a pinball machine], so this was probably third hand to start with. This was cheaper than any coin op pool table you ever played on in any dive bar you were ever in. The bumpers were about 1/4 inch thick and were so dead you had to hit everything full speed off of them to get any action whatsover. My Uncle Bill had a nice slate table, real pro, I think ours was 1/2" particle board under the most worn felt you've ever seen. And the particle board was warped to boot. I swear the table was U shaped under the felt. I know even when it was [rarely] level there was one corner that the balls sloped down to. I would shoot rack after rack out there in the summer time and use that as 'home field / court / table' advantage.
But it was a pool table, no matter how bad it was, and my friends would come over and shoot pool in our garage and hang out. I swear once we took it to Brian Hawkins' for a party once where I was trying to be cool, sweatin' in my OP [Ocean Pacific] or Panama Jack shirt and attract the attentions of a certain girl who shall remain nameless, but not anyone I've spoken to in 20 years... But anyway, hanging out, shooting pool and drinking beer was what we were doing the night my parents were out of town over the Thanksgiving break for my parents 20th high school reunions - the infamous "party where my sister was punished worse than me for not being home when the parents called and my dumbass friend Hawkins answered the phone" party. [Long story short: IF you are at a "party" where the hosts parents are out of town, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!!!]
But when you're 17, there's nothing like hanging out, drinking some Buds in those short squat bottles they used to come in, smoking can occasional cigarette [HAH! statute of limitations is passed on that Mom and Dad!], talking to some girls and shooting pool in an ice cold garage with a boom box blasting Sammy Hagar, Scorpions and Van Halen. No matter how bad the table is.
I was killing time playing some Hoyle Board Games Pool and Nine Ball last night after the Penguins coughed one up and it brought to mind the pool table we used to have out a Galupi central.
Now I believe we got this pool table from my Uncle Bill, was also lived out there in Burleson, when they finished their garage off and put in a cherry [as in beautiful] red felt slate job [and a pinball machine], so this was probably third hand to start with. This was cheaper than any coin op pool table you ever played on in any dive bar you were ever in. The bumpers were about 1/4 inch thick and were so dead you had to hit everything full speed off of them to get any action whatsover. My Uncle Bill had a nice slate table, real pro, I think ours was 1/2" particle board under the most worn felt you've ever seen. And the particle board was warped to boot. I swear the table was U shaped under the felt. I know even when it was [rarely] level there was one corner that the balls sloped down to. I would shoot rack after rack out there in the summer time and use that as 'home field / court / table' advantage.
But it was a pool table, no matter how bad it was, and my friends would come over and shoot pool in our garage and hang out. I swear once we took it to Brian Hawkins' for a party once where I was trying to be cool, sweatin' in my OP [Ocean Pacific] or Panama Jack shirt and attract the attentions of a certain girl who shall remain nameless, but not anyone I've spoken to in 20 years... But anyway, hanging out, shooting pool and drinking beer was what we were doing the night my parents were out of town over the Thanksgiving break for my parents 20th high school reunions - the infamous "party where my sister was punished worse than me for not being home when the parents called and my dumbass friend Hawkins answered the phone" party. [Long story short: IF you are at a "party" where the hosts parents are out of town, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!!!]
But when you're 17, there's nothing like hanging out, drinking some Buds in those short squat bottles they used to come in, smoking can occasional cigarette [HAH! statute of limitations is passed on that Mom and Dad!], talking to some girls and shooting pool in an ice cold garage with a boom box blasting Sammy Hagar, Scorpions and Van Halen. No matter how bad the table is.