now this

getting tired of that sign that says "apartment for let." it's for rent, not let. what does that mean, that someone will let you live there? yeah, if you are able to come up with the money. it's like when george benson said "give me the night." hey man, it's not mine to give. i can give you a book, or a set of keys, or a get well card, but the night is outside of my giving scope. perhaps he really meant "give me a good fuck tonight." if that's the case, he should have came out and said that. better yet, he should have stuck to playing jazz guitar, but, as you know, no one gets rich playing jazz guitar. i'll grant you he wanted the green, but i dig the early benson. in fact, if you saw him before him 8pm, you were always in for a treat.

there is a documentary called "the night james brown saved boston." it refers to a concert brown gave in boston shortly after king was killed. my question is, if brown saved boston, why is boston still fucked? while he was saving boston, couldn't he have saved rent control and affordable housing? if brown saved boston in 1968, why did we have that racist explosion known as the busing crisis of 1974, and the charles stewart fiasco of the late 80's or early 90's? hell, james brown couldn't even save himself, as proven by his recent demise. heck, (two hell's would have been pushing it) he couldn't even save his singing voice, which seemed to vanish at some point in the mid 60's, at which time he replaced singing with on key shouting. in the film, sharpton points out that brown was different from nat cole and sam cooke. yes, he was. those guys were great singers. supposedly, brown spoke to black militancy in a way those guys didn't. well, al blunton, cole and cooke died in the mid 60's, so how could they be expected to speak to a black militancy that did not yet exist? i for one, would gladly compare the relative power of "a change is gonna come" with "say it loud" at a time and place of the sharp one's choosing. and, speaking of brown, where did this supposed militancy go? where was it when he sang "living in america" in one of the rocky films? cooke always wore his hair naturally; he didn't need a poem from leroi jones to tell him that it looked good. now, i don't mean to shit on brown (pardon the pun) but i hate these black and white tales which elevate certain people at the expense of others whose stories are at least, if not more important. by the way, i have a good name for a shoe store; the godfather of sole.

thinking of the best live jazz i have seen...
jackie mclean twice, once with slide hampton and claudio roditi, the other time with the cedar walton trio.
phil woods
charles mcpherson
david newman and jack mcduff with pinko. if you recall, an anarchist punk referred to it as "good background music."
benny green, also with the pink one
herbie hancock, for a few minutes, as it was pouring rain and i had to split
joe henderson, again only for a few minutes, because i wasn't all there yet as a listener
chick corea with the pink one yet again
tim mayer and bill pierce, two bad local cats
the charles tolliver big band, featuring tenor man billy harper, who played with blakey and lee morgan.
bobby hutcherson, though his vibes didn't carry well out doors.
arturo sandoval, before i realized he was a right wing prick.
pancho sanchez
jaleel shaw, now the alto man in roy haynes's quartet, but then an obscure student at berkley.
dick johnson and sparky miele, a couple of swinging old timers.
scott hamilton, a swinging middle aged tenor man
dave mckenna and gray sargent.
the buena vista social club
eric bogosian and george carlin fit in here somewhere as well, for their genius and creativity.

to lenny and john and zoot and ike and mingus and monk and eric and stan and gene and stitt and criss and lockjaw and wynton and blue and grant and so many others, i am so sorry i am not older and/or you didn't live longer. the latter is closer to the truth.

obama is talking about bombing pakistan again. man...this gets me to thinking. recently, i have been seeing these shirts which show a picture of king and obama side by side, as if obama somehow represents the culmination of the "dream." yeah, if i close my eyes and concentrate hard enough, i can see king at a podium, as he gets tough with pakistan and threatens iran and says that we should send 10000 more troops to afgahnistan and supports the embargo with cuba and supports a militaristic israel and tells black people to stop throwing trash out of their cars. but the man i see isn't martin king, it's king george.

king george, make way for king obama, yet another represenative of the red, white, and blue, and most importantly, of green.

change? man, i don't see a change in sight.