Mama Jama's first guitar player was Jeff Sarli. Noted as a gifted stand-up bassist, Jeff's first axe was the guitar. I remember how animated he would get when we'd perform the 'Boot Dance', a tune he wrote based on a South African rythem. Finally, he had a chance to step out front and sway and swagger with the music. He was a charming, sensitive guy and his passing puts a heavy weight on the thousands of musicians and fans whose lives he touched.
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Somebody else has figured out how to make a fortune. The folks at Snapshirts will spider your blog or website and make a wordcloud on the fly. For a modest fee ($18 for a custom built T) they'll put the cloud on your back. Sweeeet.
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It's a given that dancers will complain about their feet. Go to any
Bolshoi cocktail party and hear the laments from every corner; broken toes, bruised arches, sore ankles. Every story more lurid than the last. Each injury stoicly ignored for the sake of the art.
Musicians play their own version of body-part obsession. For them, its all about ears. When did they first notice that high frequency loss? What gig caused the most damage? How long does the ringing last and what mind game can convince them the cricket chirps are real, not just inside their head.
Some wizened younger players, perhaps growing weary of writing memos to a deaf musician dad over the dinner table, will compare and contrast the latest features of high-tech ear plugs.
The city was muffed in a chilly December cloud cover that reduced traffic noise to a droning 60 cycle hum as we drove to our first Manhattan gig off Liberty Street. We wheeled our equipment away from the loading dock and into a corridor that had an unusual bank of elevators. Each door led to a different set of floors; if we chose the wrong portal we'd be lost like flotsam in the bowels of a concrete and steel mammoth.
The private party was on the 110th floor, down the hall from Windows on the World, so we pushed the button for floors 80-110. The stainless steel mouth opened wide and we made our ascent. Our first set played out to a disinterested collection of chiseled GQ's in tuxedos and slim Cosmo gals in spiked heels. During our break I wandered the halls trying to find a window that wasn't gray with fog, but every side was socked in solid. It was like being on a cruise ship the ocean had swallowed.
Our last set rocked as the booze performed its magic, limbering the joints and brain cells of the audience. Stiletto heels were tossed into the corners of the room and ties dangled limply around sweaty necks as body's surrendered control to the beat.
It was after two in the morning when the last guest left, and each of us in our own post-gig solitude, started to tear down for the ride back to Williamsburg. Silently, behind our backs, the fog began to lift. Bassie, reached for the light switch. In the pitch black of the top floor of the World Trade Center we watched as the last wisp of cloud swept away.
Spread below us was a galaxy of polished light, but so much more than just a starlight metaphor. The buildings thrust concrete and steel arms through the Earth. Skyscrapers scratched at the soft underbelly of the clouds, their lighted windows setting the night sky on fire stretching on and on until, at 57th Street, a cradle of light nestled the long shadow of Central Park.
The news is dreadful every day. I hug my kids and try to love a little better then the day before.
I transcribed the ending of an interview he gave after his keynote at the Telecosm Conference in Lake Tahoe. You can hear the rest at
Podtech.net
'In 5 years computers will start to disappear as rectangular objects and be integrated into our clothing and our environment. Images will be written directly to our retina from eyeglasses creating virtual reality environments. We will use really effective natural language recognition and translation between us and our computers as our virtual world deeply integrates with our real world.'
His latest book is
Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
Edit a webpage without a desktop application? Impossible you say...
I have no idea what this program could be used for but it's just way cool
Flash Text Editor
Now a jig to the left with these sites for tagmiesters. First a researchers' utility for saving, tagging, and sharing bookmarks.
Connotea
And finally this tongue-in-cheek site for our list-making, classifying, socks-in-the-drawer crowd.
Very Small Objects
It's the complete package now, this Bay Cafe.
An illusion of tropical relief.
Not just about tons of sand and scores of palms, but the folks who work the bars and push the 10 oz. burgers. They belie the fast-pace with smiles and Key Westian attitudes.
We played there yesterday and will again on July 17th. It looked like this:
Drummie asked me to take his picture - Here's his best side:
Later that evening folks were thrilled by the septuagenarian Bluesman, Taj Mahal
Ok, I'm easy...
It doesn't take a lot to wow me out of my socks.
The fact that McDonalds has gone wireless should be a shrug not an epiphany, but WOW!!
What are they thinking?
Can you see thousands of soccer moms plopping the kids into MickeyD playland while they surf to the new USDA Food Guide Pyramid site to plug a "Big and Tasty" into the calorie counter.
McDonald's now offers Wi-Fi services ("hotspots") in more than 6,000 McDonald's restaurants around the world -
It was great to see Miguel return. His newborn is home and healthy, bringing the total of Mama Jama offspring to a bakers' dozen.
