Vacation Blogging V7

A little newer, if you will.  Most folks brush this group off as a modern "jazz" quartet, and to be frank some of their music is just plain out there.  But they've got talent by the sheer bucketload, and if you're looking for some good music you don't have to look very hard.



And now a classic -

Vacation Blogging V6

Today.....  Count Basie



And to tie it in with an earlier post, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra.

Vacation Blogging V5

OK, check out yesterday's post.  See that song "Little Birdie"?  It's off of Joe Cool's Blues by Wynton and Ellis Marsalis.  It was inspired by the music of Vince Guaraldi.

Who's Vince Guaraldi?  If you've ever seen a certain cartoon, I guarantee you've heard his music.



Some older tunes....

Vacation Blogging V4

Wynton Marsalis.  Trumpet.  Unreal good.  You want to know how good is unreal good?

Flight of the Bumblebee.  On a trumpet.

On.  A.  Friggin.  Trumpet.



Damn near all of humanity can't play that on a piano with ten working fingers.  He plays it ON A FRIGGING TRUMPET!!!!!!

And here's a piece from the album "Joe Cool's Blues", which if you like jazz you need to go pick up now.  Right now.  Yes, right now.

Vacation Blogging V3

Yesterday we had the King of Cool, Frank Sinatra.  Today, we have someone who has more musical talent in his left nostril than Frankie had in his entire body.



Some of his newer material:

Vacation Blogs V2

Yesterday we had Ernestine Anderson. Today we have some Frank Sinatra.  The man defined "cool" for decades.  I know some people have their quibbles with him, but he was a major force in music for decades.



Hell, my favorite Italian joint in town is always playing Frankie.

Ernestine Anderson

I had the pleasure of watching this woman perform live at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Wow.  Just wow.  Here's a talent that never really made it out like Ella Fitzgerald, but she's got the talent.

Testing

We're going to see if this works on BlogSnot or not - I'm going to be away from my computer for a week.  Period.  It's vacation time, dammit, and I'm going to focus on my wife and my family and not even touch the computer.  However, I'm going to attempt to follow the first rule of blogging, which is post something every day.  So I'm going to see if I can schedule a post and have it show up.  If it works, you get more free ice cream!

Side note - it's raining like the dickens here, and my dog smells of wet fur.  But he's a good mutt.

4th of July

I'm going to be busy today.  You should be too.

Tight

I did say that I quit smoking in last night's post, yes?  Well, I haven't touched a cigarette since.  Cigars, however.....

I once had an Army Chaplain explain it like this - God creates, Satan corrupts.  So God created tobacco, for men to age and roll and turn into cigars.  And God saw the cigar, and had himself a stogie, and it was good.  But Satan, seeing the cigar goodness, corrupted man, and had man make a cigarette.  Thus did God's gift to man turn into the Devil's Weed.

A good cigar, one that's been aged, is a thing of beauty.  You want to know how you can tell you're smoking a good cigar?  After you've been smoking it a while, you can do this:

That, my friends, is the tobacco leaves rolled so tight that even after you smoke them the ash will support the rest of the stogie.  And despite being rolled tight, it still had a perfect draw, not difficult at all.

Hey, I'm on vacation, these are the posts you get!

Results

So, I quit smoking some time ago.  Up until then, I had been a hard-core smoker for years, with all the resulting health problems that come with it.  I was pretty much at hypertension levels when I left my last post, which was a result of both smoking and the insane levels of stress I was dealing with.  After I quit smoking, I starting running a bit more, trying to "be healthy", although it was more stress relief than anything else.

Anyways, when I was in the doctor's office a little while ago, the nurse checks my blood pressure, looks up at me and says "You're a runner, aren't you?"  I say yes, and she says "With blood pressure this good, you've got to be some kind of athlete."

Sometimes, it's just the little affirmations that keep you going.  They're cutting hay around here, and my allergies are in full-on "Knock Dave Flat" mode.  My run today wasn't all that great, but that nurse's comment kept playing in my mind.  I just hope I can do this thirty years from now.

Vacation

I'm on leave for the first time in a year.  I woke up yesterday and didn't know what to do.  I'd been going so hard for so long that once I don't know what to do with myself now that I don't have to go anywhere.

I think I know what a lot of retired people feel like.

And while I'm at it

Is there a better example of just what a lying piece of shit Obama is than his nominee for the SCOTUS, Elena Kagan?

Good Lord.  It's liberalism personified.  "The document is certainly in my handwriting"?  WHAT THE FUCK????

Hey, here's an idea!  When someone asks you if you wrote a fucking memo, you either say YES or you say NO.  You do not sit there and babble that the memo is "certainly in your handwriting"!  This is a perfect example of a liberal desperately trying to avoid responsibility for her actions, even when the evidence of her actions is right there in black and white!  She doesn't have the spine to answer a simple yes or no question, and we're supposed to think she's fit to judge the Constitution?  Oh hell no.

As far as I'm concerned, Kagan needs to be blocked at all costs.  Bork her ass right out of D.C.  She's unfit to sit on ANY court, much less the highest court in the land.

Cry for the Gulf Coast

Because that worthless anti-American asshat in the Oval Office isn't going to do a damn thing except let the Gulf Coast die.

Remember, folks - PRESIDENT ZERO'S RESPONSE IS NOT AN ACCIDENT.  It is in Obama's best interests to destroy America, because at heart he is not an American.  He never will be.  If you think that Obama is going to do what's best for this country, you are sorely mistaken.  Obama will do what is best for his radical Marxist ideology, and helping America ain't on that list.

I am sleeping in tomorrow

I've had more than a few gin and tonics tonight, I'm on leave tomorrow, and there's no way in hell I'm turning my alarm clock on.

Toodles.

Back

But still busy.  But sweet, sweet vacation is just a day away!  WOO HOO!

The Good

Supreme Court affirms the right to keep and bear arms!

The bad?  This battle will never be done - all you need to confirm THAT is to look at all the braindead fucktards we have living in America.  Like Roger Ebert.

"At Least 29 Shot In Chicago Over The Weekend." It's the fault of our damn unconstitutional gun laws.

People that fucking dumb need to be sterilized so that they don't reproduce and spread their idiocy genes throughout the country.  "Unconstitutional gun laws"?  I guess the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional.  Who knew?  And of course, a culture that celebrates single parent homes, violence, drug use, criminal activity, hostility towards the law and the police, racial tension and gangs has NOTHING to do with those people getting shot.  Nope, none at all.  It's all the fault of the gun laws!

What a pathetic joke.  But that's OK, because the Sad Little Clown known as Roger Ebert is probably hiding behind his curtains and pissing his pants over the SCOTUS upholding the US Constitution, while I'm laughing and dancing for just a little bit.  And Nanny Bloomberg can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut too.

Robert C. Byrd dead

If you want to see what's wrong with this country, look no farther than Robert C. Byrd, Democrat, Grand Kleagle of the KKK, first elected to Congress in the 1950's.  The man had been in power for far too long and was completely drunk on it.  There was no money he wouldn't spend for his self promotion (the "Robert C. Byrd Memorial Highway, the Robert C. Byrd bridge, etc).  And the people of West Virginia kept electing him.  

I remember Byrd giving some speech or another castigating George W. Bush during the build up to the War in Iraq, and thinking "Oh dear god, why is he in office?"  The nicest thing that I can say about his death is that he's going to make life in Congress much easier with his passing.

Atlanta

Not as hot or as humid as Fayetteville.  Thank goodness.  Running didn't kill me here.

Fayetteville

Is hot.  And humid.  Good lord, is it humid.  I came back from a run yesterday afternoon with my shirt fully soaked with sweat.  I had to use the hair-dryer in the hotel room to finish drying it out this morning before I stuffed it into my laundry bag.

Next up, Atlanta.  Again, hot and humid.  I think I detect a trend in the South.