EulaM

Bob Cooper played Basson and did so quite often, it was enjoyable to me, he had a way with it as well as with the clarinet, flute and saxaphone. Multi talented for sure, and he wrote some interesting tunes. Witchdoctor and others, several tunes with a latin flair.

Well, it's *supposed* to be guitarist/violinist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, but - I love your Chuck Berry story! (Though a bit scary there, what with the manhandling and all...) Edit: Here's another shot of Gate - What a goof on my part. Wouldn't have thought that with this photo, but the other one, it's a much better fun shot don't you think, even though it isn't Chuck, it's fun to look at.

Doing instant message with my sister for over an hour and when I went back and looked at it after telling her I was out of there, I thought, what am I seeing here, that can't be Chuck, but still that's a great picture. At least it reminded me of him and when I was about 16 or 17 years old. A friend of all of us kids at the beach, Mike Casino (Rita Hayworth's original name, Casino, A Spanish/Jewish name, wonder if they were related, probably were), was putting on Rock & Roll shows at the old Hermosa Biltmore and people like the Clovers, Roy Oberson, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry were there for about a week, staggered in and out, so it was really something to see, as they were all just coming into their prime, at the the height of their careers, and all of us beach kids weren't allowed to pay, Mike just wanted us to show up. It was great fun. Mike was our age and quite the promoter. He's the one who loved Judy Garland so, and decided she had to make a comeback so he booked her into the Shrine Auditorium and other places in the late 50's, and she took off like crazy. He was friends of her family as well, and he was into doing some great concerts, such as the bongo and conga sessions at the Hollywood Riviera Club down on the ocean front, now called Torrance beach. Those were someting to see, you would have lost it Ellen, as there were troops from Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, and it was packed, mostly college kids, but they had come from miles around to see and hear it. There were even dancers in some of the ballrooms and stage rooms. Great fun.

That is him isn't it? He looks really healthy and good in this and younger than ever.

Apropos of nothing in particular.... I haven't laughed so much in ages. Cute of you. Love this shot of Chuck Berry, a favorite with me, as I had such an unusual and great time meeting him. He was a life saver when one of the Clovers was trying to take my mothers coat, I really think he was about to get more than a little bit physical as he had already laid his hands on me, and quite roughly, and even though he dwarfted Chuck, he had a look of panic when he turned and saw it was Chuck asking him what was going on and for him to get his hands off of me. No joke, he truly saved the day for me. He was fun to be around and super nice to me.

I had kept AOL for their free art editing, and due to their emails being so easy and quick. I really like their security edition with the free spyware blocks and all. Since they came out with it, I've not had a bit of a problem. I had purchased Norton and it crashed my machine, and I had things happen which led me to believe someone with them accessed my emails as all of my correspondence with them was gone and I had just looked it up the day I had complained to them to high heaven, went back to it to send a copy of it to the attorney generals office and it was all gone where I had read it minutes before. The attorney general office told me she had a stack of complaints against them for the same issues I had been complaining of, double billings, crashed computers and so forth. No I lost all of my Opera info when I had the big crash and some how Internet Explorer isn't my browser like it was, perhaps that was changed in the shop or fiddling around I probably did the damage myself. I know Norton bought McAfee, but so far no problems with McAfee being the program that keeps AOL secure and running smoothly. Thanks, I'll change over, but they say Internet Explorer is being done away with for some other program, this in the near future.

I haven't laughed so much in ages. Cute of you.

I remember all of them and they were quite a crew. Live they were the best. I even remember Lee Morgan bringing down the house, even stunning Golsons band with his heartstopping stunning performance one weekend afternoon, it was something to have heard and seen. Golson and his band were taken aback that day as much and perhaps more than any of us fans - as they knew more about what Lee had just pulled off than any of us - the performance of a lifetime.

Set you up for that one didn't I? Any of you can email me a pm with your email addrss and I'll send you the photos of the place. I'll tell you, I'll be crying about if we can't swing it, that is if it hasn't been bought up by now. The interior could be spiffed up and made prettier pretty easily, a lot of different things could be done to make it more to my liking. Property is red hot down there, or a lot of it is, and the prices even though they've gone up in price something like 400% since I first started looking, a whole 100% in the past year alone, there are still some terrific buys down there, absolutely beautiful places, closer in and more modern than what we're looking at and for, as we wanted some land and privacy. U.S. citizens and other exPats have the same rights as the Costa Ricans do, and the same medical benefits. We've known people from here who went down there quite often for their dental work as it was so good and so much less expensive.

By the way Goodie, they're begging for English teachers down there, as well as realtors and other people with special skills.

Goodie, I'll send you a file on a place we're going to try to buy, it's in Costa Rica and I just love it. The house could be better, but it's ok just the same, and it has so much to offer, just what we've been looking for. There's a wrap around quarry tile veranda, with a wrap around quarry tiled planter box about 2 1/2 feet high that you could grow anything in, flowers, herbs, tomato's etc. Around that is a quary tile walkway, and then there's French doors out onto the somewhat narrow veranda, maybe about 5 feet wide or so, with a couple of steps down to the covered swimming pool, kind of a home built type, but 40 feet long, and then there's the park like lawn, which leads down a slight slope to a tile roofed rancho, a good sized one, it's similar to a gazebo. "Rancho", that's what they call outdoor kitchens and eating areas. It has an observation deck surrounding at least two sides, as far as I can tell by the photo's. There's a little limestone colored gravel circle driveway, a carport like area across from it aways, and all around there are fruit trees, flowering shrubs, rosebushes, and even your pine trees, as well as palms. The property, which is like a well kept park, overlooks the ocean, and in the distance, you can see the waves breaking on a surfable beach, and then there's the other hills, which they call mountains, to look over to and, over valley's and hills. The ocean's not too far down the hills from the property which has 44 acres and a creek. The fellow selling it tells me it takes about an hour to ride a horse to it. It has winding, twisting roads up to it gravel ones, and cinder ones, nothing is paved, and there are no close neighbors to look across to or any looking down on this property either, the privacy is phenominal. It looks like heaven to me and even though it's not my dream house, it will more than do and there's even a long guest house with five good sized picture windows, so it looks to be quite nice and there are flowering shrubs and such around it as well. PM me and I'll send them. The sun setting over the ocean is something I miss seeing something terrible, just the sea air alone brings tear to my eyes when we travel back down to Hermosa Beach and it begins to permeate the air. This freezing cold makes me miss it even more than usual. Sandi

I've seen it, but not sure I can get it with my system, does it use Adobe, and if so which program of theirs does it require? I've had to down load their 8.1 or what ever to get in some files someone sent to me. If it takes speakers, a puppy chewed the wires to mine and I haven't replaced them. It isn't anything to do with sound is it? Doubt it would be, but there's so many new advances with these contraptions that it's hard to keep up. Let's experiment right now. Just click on "Live Chat" in the upper right and see what happens. No can do, I get a page of the most convoluted things to do. I have to get something to eat, so thanks I'll try it later and see if I can make sense of all of it, as it's telling me to stay current and keep up with advancements, which I hardly ever do unless necessity makes me do it. I have to tell my server this, tell my server to do that, that one function, Internet Explorer I believe, will be dead and gone in a bit, and on and on it goes. I'm off.... I think you were actually in there--at least it said you were in there when I went back to check. You must be talking about all the gibberish on the bottom half of the page under "Live Chat Help." If you see the chat window at the top of the page, you're in, and you can ignore that other stuff. To "say" something in the chat room, you just have to type in the yellow area where it says "Type here" and then hit enter. It has to do with AOL, that's the problem it's saying. I need to try it with Yahoo or Gmail I guess, as I did the Adobe Download page the other day and it is wanting me to do it again on this site. Not sure how to do what they were saying I had to do if I use AOL, so I'm not going to mess with it tonight. I'm too cold and and my concentration is lost after being on the computer for so long last night and today. That with all of the fire wood thing. Jeeze!

I've seen it, but not sure I can get it with my system, does it use Adobe, and if so which program of theirs does it require? I've had to down load their 8.1 or what ever to get in some files someone sent to me. If it takes speakers, a puppy chewed the wires to mine and I haven't replaced them. It isn't anything to do with sound is it? Doubt it would be, but there's so many new advances with these contraptions that it's hard to keep up. Let's experiment right now. Just click on "Live Chat" in the upper right and see what happens. No can do, I get a page of the most convoluted things to do. I have to get something to eat, so thanks I'll try it later and see if I can make sense of all of it, as it's telling me to stay current and keep up with advancements, which I hardly ever do unless necessity makes me do it. I have to tell my server this, tell my server to do that, that one function, Internet Explorer I believe, will be dead and gone in a bit, and on and on it goes. I'm off....

I've seen it, but not sure I can get it with my system, does it use Adobe, and if so which program of theirs does it require? I've had to down load their 8.1 or what ever to get in some files someone sent to me. If it takes speakers, a puppy chewed the wires to mine and I haven't replaced them. It isn't anything to do with sound is it? Doubt it would be, but there's so many new advances with these contraptions that it's hard to keep up.

You shut the hell up before we kick your ass outa here. Quick, look everyone! It's rubbing off. . That's just Ron....ignore him, we all do. Might do that, ha! I do have a question, is everyone else across this country nd up into Canada freezing to death? I is so blasted cold here that I can hardly bear it, I mean really. This old two story house is so drafty and cold. We have a bit of snow on the ground and even though we have only had a few nights of below zero weather, however, we've had to burn a fire every single night since early September, which is unusual, and I'm so tired of this. I mean I really am, as we don't have forced air and our propane heater is on the blink and so we are too cold here for words, especially when we don't keep the wood burning heater stoked up and filled with wood, which by the way, we're running out of. I talked on the phone to a lady in Wisconsin yesterday and she said they had been having 17 degree below. If that happens here, which it can, we're in for a terrible time of it. What a year. We hear the whole country is getting it, but I see where it's been in the mid 70's in Texas.

You shut the hell up before we kick your ass outa here. Quick, look everyone! It's rubbing off. .

I'm just happy to have found so many of my old friends here on your site, they're a plus to my mind and it's fun kibitzing with them once again, seeing what they're up to, and thinking about. I'm sure things will level out with the recent brouhahah, but we're all going to be sticking around I have to imagine. Thanks for the comments and invite, it's all understood as well as being appreciated.

I don't remember sending you my self-portrait! Oh yes. In exclusive 3-duck, even. Not every one has a portrait in 3-duck... One for each personality and then there's Seelines, that's another deal all-together. Suits me just fine.

I don't remember sending you my self-portrait!

Thanks a lot for the more than gracious thoughts, but I sure have. I've even been come down on for my Lighthouse posts by a member there and on another board (the same woman), she was telling me to stop and that no one wanted me there. So go figure. One group asks for more and another goes ballistic, but mainly, it's my politics which caused the furor, with one fellow in particular trying to get me kicked off the board, as I fought against the Cheney/Bush administration from before they were in office. That's when the running to the moderators hit full tilt, even threatening to hold back funding for the site if I were a member. Money talks, but the board stuck with me, I do have to say. Mike has been more than gracious over all of this, and I felt at home there. Not angry with anyone, but terribly disappointed.

It's been a strange situation, one I don't quite get myself. Usually when a post I've made, or a thread I've started wasn't appreciated by Mike, he sent me a note, and I would understand where he was coming from and if I didn't, I might not like it, but I respected his wishes and went along with what he was requesting of me, as well as with other moderators, some of whom I feel very comfortable with and like a lot. But this was a set of events which rubs the wrong way with me and with most other involved members, the ones who feel we all know one another. No one told me posts had been deleted or why, but that didn't get to me, it was threads being locked down and Clave's banning which bothered me a lot. I didn't always agree with Clave when she would lock a thread or remove a post either and she knows this about my thoughts on this issue full well, but for the most part, it never seemed to me that she did anything as a moderator for personal reasons, she did it fairly and treated all of us equally, or so it seemed to me. As sensible as MG is, he left and came here due to Lonson's banning, two of my favorites were gone when those two left and Chris Albertson, there was another poster I truly enjoyed, he had been there forever and he was banned because he wouldn't buckle under as well.

An insinuation from me? No, if that's what I'd been thinking I would have said so. I had no thoughts along that line. None at all.

Perhaps because of deletions, we feel we can hash things out in Organissimo's public forum without posts being deleted, being locked down, or members banned, or without members having the capacity of running behind a posters back to get a moderator to do the dirty deeds. Good grief, Chris being banned, Lon being banned, long time contributors, one's who are part and parcel of what made the board over there interesting and gave it some backbone.

From what I gather, Ed Byrne and "Clave" had disagreements on the Musician thread and another one about musical theory. I hadn't really followed what happened between them, but Mike didn't like Clave and Ed's back and forths and came down on Ed's side of the situation going on between them. Then when a thread became somewhat abusive towards Ed, nothing at all being said against Ed by Clave, when humor was injected by JFitzGenius, after a comment about berets being worn, and JFitz talking about Cowboy hats being Verboten, Clave posted a photo of a musican in a black hat, and then of another one in a Cowboy hat, we kibitzed back and forth about Cowboys, rednecks, (me telling about an encounter with a couple of no talent singer guitar players singing about Rich and myself one afternoon), nothing at all was being said or implied about Ed being anything at all. It was just humor on a thread that was going nowhere, it had run it's course, and Ed had left the equasion, so those posts were deleted, and Clave was told she'd be banned as they wanted to keep the posts on jazz and wanted them to be intelligent and if she didn't stay off the musician board, and follow directives about the post Jay Noram had started on Ed, she would be banned. So in the end that's what happened, she was banned. Much ado about nothing. With all due respect, that's not at all an accurate or complete depiction of what went down. As has been posted by both Mike and the "goon from Ottawa," JKelman, it was a little more complicated than that. Mike asked clave to stop posting in a particular thread as the result of a conflict with Ed Byrne who, like Clave, has his share of supporters and detractors. She chose to ignore him and continued to post. Mike then banned her temporarily, in order to (a) try and let the situation defuse, (b) accommodate the fact that he was in the beginning of a house move, and © make his feelings about her ignoring his request as a moderator known. That a number of posts were removed was in the interest of trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, since the thread had begun dissolving (no pun intended!), even if some of the posts were themselves innocuous. It wasn't those posts that were the issue. Clave signed back on - not once, not twice, but multiple times, and took the conflict public in a big way. Mike banned her permanently as a result and, being in the middle of a house move and largely offline, was unable to address it or other folks' posts in any great detail - only being able to get online occasionally during a five-day period (JKelman tried to throw in a different perspective, but was largely ignored or argued with). Mike is now back online and planning to organize a teleconference with interested parties to discuss the situation and come to a resolution that will, hopefully, make as many people as possible happy. AAJ board members can check out the thread in the "About the Board" forum if they're interested in participating, which seems like a good idea to me. Mike also wants to step down as a moderator, as does JKelman - not because of any pressure to do so from board members or because of this particular incident (though it does appear to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back), but because they're both apparently way too busy with developing/growing the main website, and the amount of time situations like this (and it's been leading to this for some time, apparently) take away from those long hours spent at the main site simply can't be sacrificed. Both are looking for people willing to take on this responsibility, but the bottom line appears to be: Mike (and JKelman) sound frankly pretty reasonable about the whole thing. Whether Mike's request of Ellen was legit/reasonable or not, it was escalated to a degree of unnecessary and destructive publicity by Clave. The initial upset may be a subject on which people fall onto different sides as far as accountability, but it's likely this could have been handled a whole lot better, that's for sure; but if Mike is culpable for actions some believe to be draconian, then so, too, is Clave, who took what should have been a private conflict resolution process and made it a messy and hugely distruptive public one. So from where I stand there's fault to be had on both sides. I think it's important to try and view this from a balanced perspective and, instead, the majority of folks weighing in on it are either for or against. It's not an either/or; it's a conflict, and one that should have been resolved quietly without any muss or fuss. Sadly that's not what happened. DJ, I don't get your perspecitive. I see things differently from where and when I came into what was disruptive and rude on the thread which asked "Where's Ed?". I had heard they, Ed and Clave. weren't a mutual admiration society early on, and that there had been some problems with the two of them disagreeing, and how Mike didn't like what it was Ellen was posting on two other totally separate threads. I didn't follow those threads, nor their back and forths. Those threads had absolutely nothing at all to do with the "Where's Ed?" thread. Upon seeing the "Where's Ed?" posts, Mike joined in, and later on deleted posts which had turned to innocuous banter, photo's and such, with nothing insulting to. or about. Ed at all. Instead, the humor was pointed at the "Cowboy hats" being verboten joke by JFG, and since we live on a ranch with cowboy boots being worn by both Rich and myself, and with Rich wearing "Cowboy hats", I chimed in about it. and that was where the conversation was, on boots and hats, there were photo's about hats, with all of us joking around about JFitzgenius's earlier post. Nothing whatsoever pointed at Ed, who I happen to like. These were the posts which were deleted: JFitzgeniuses', Claves, and mine, with one by Mike himself. I still believe it was an over the top use of the delete function, really I do, and if Mike were to look back at it I think he would too. So what if a thread takes a humorous twist? Our posts weren't back biting, cruel or nasty humor, which often times goes down on some boards. It turned out that it's just how it is when friends get together to talk. It was silly, as was the banning over such an untroubling, unharmful bit of nonsense. It's Mikes board so he gets to do this, and he has his staunch backers on this, and that's OK too. Mike thought it wasn't intelligent to use humor, him wanting to keep the board serious and intelligent, not degenerating away from jazz. Shoot, some of the best jazz men who ever lived used humor like you wouldn't believe. Being humorous was just who they were besides being so great at their craft. Mike is wanting to keep most of the conversations serious about jazz, with people like JFitz providing the humor. He is accepting of his takes, and we all love Jeff's humorous writings about things as well. But not to allow humor to pop up whenever a member might feel like it, I just can't understand it. This is what I percieved after Mikes explanation of why he threw out all of ours, and his lone post. All I know is they say it is the most intelligent who're capable of humor. It seemed to me Mike had something else eating at him in his personal life, and I said what it might be in a questioning manner, as his stated explanations, were no more than an excuse to come down on Clave for past grieviences he might have harbored, or so I believed, as there had been earlier problems between Clave, Ed, and Mike, this from what I've heard. This is my own perception, and I don't think my previous explanation was wrong at all, and neither does Ellen aka Clave. Frankly the posts being deleted was dumbfounding, however, it didn't mean that much to me, but banning's are something that I don't like to see. Not at all, as when I don't like what a member's posts, I really don't have to read on. I've never even used the "Ignore" function, except by mistake. I'm capable of shutting anyone out without clicking on a tab. I don't like bannings or threads being locked down, not even when I've been in the middle, and a target, so when a member is banned whom I really didn't care about that much, I've advocated for them, as I still enjoyed the discourse that would come up due to their posts. I didn't have to agree, but I liked the fact that they were allowed to speak their mind, even if some of it was aggravating as all get out. It was nice to know we had a place to see how everyone else thinks. There's oftentimes humor in that as well, as some peoples off the wall idea's are so bizarre that they're laughable. My depiction wasn't inaccurate at all, it's your perception that has it twisted. It seems to me that in many respects you were only repeating what I've posted, except for your own thoughts on Mike and the moderators.

A bit, and I told him about not being able to understand much of what Richie Kamuca was saying when he got with old friends, him with his rapid-fire bebop talk. He explained a lot to me, but that was another lifetime ago. He did say some things and told me what they were about when I would look puzzled and go What? Me doing this with a gesture and a look, not so much with words. He explained a lot to me. Showed me his leg where it had been injured, told me about he and Billie, and all sorts of things, I mean a lot, but that was so long ago that a lot of what he told me is foggy, so I don't want to commit it to anyones elses minds. He told me I'm the only one he told about his leg, and that no one had a need to know about things that went on in his life. Why he picked me to share so many things with is a mystery. I just know I loved being with him. I hear he had mental problems, that to me is so hard to hear, because to me he was terrific to be around. I don't believe other peoples accounts of him when they talk like that, not for one instance. He was mischieveous, and like a little boy about so many things, with a joy for life, but there was a wonderfully serious side to him as well. Bright and caring. He was wonderful. He was so cute about calling my mother and asking her to come down, that he would buy her a martini, this after asking me what her favorite drink was, he offered her a cab ride down, but she turned him down and later was sorry for it, after realizing just who he was, as she remembered him from the days when she and my dad were so into the big bands and other music, from the times they would go up to Hollywood to hear the big bands play, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, etc. For years she kicked herself for not coming down to hear him play and to meet him.