BLT Party

Home grown tomatoes... God's gift to humankind. A true wonder of the world. And damn good eatin'! I rarely buy a store tomato, just wait for late summer/early fall when the crop comes in. And, to celebrate the harvest, it's traditional to hold a BLT party! No better way to enjoy a fresh, garden tomato than in a BLT, especially with good bacon, extra sourdough bread, a slathering of mayo, romaine lettuce, and, hopefully, some of Jane's great pesto.

First, the garden. Farina hosted this year's party, and she was one of the few to have a good crop of tomatoes. She has a fabulous garden, all watched over by the cactus shark.





The tedious part of a BLT party is the bacon... takes a while to cook and is always messy. We had some enthusiastic cooks this year.



And, of course, there's some drinking involved... let's see, tequila or coke... tequila or coke... tequila or coke.. Azul is yummy!


And a few other beverages... nice sheer, by the way!


So we ate and drank and laughed...











The weather continues to stay mild to hot... hopefully we will get another run of tomatoes... and more BLTs, and more beer, and more party, party, party!

SLAJO Lives!

...and is reborn with many new members. For more than 7 years, the Salt Lake Alternative Jazz Orchestra has played advanced big band jazz in this area. Amazing, holding together a 14 piece group that long. I guess having a large pool of excellent jazz musicians available has made it possible. Most original members have moved on (a few have returned). Recently, the founder, Dave Chisholm, left for grad school, and several other significant members left the band. But last weekend, for the finale of the Hidden Hollow series, SLAJO was once again at full force, with a host of young jazz blood.


Joe Chisholm on trombone anchors that section and has been the principle organizer/leader of the band for the past few years. Moanin' Marco Blackmore is back and keeping the sax section cookin'. Will Lovell remains as always (mostly) on bass. From there, nearly everyone else is new. So new, I didn't get all the names. They play well, have good chops, but the newer guys are still somewhat timid in their soloing. I'm sure we will hear great things from them. New gigs were announced, so hopefully the band will continue well into the future. Check out the band on their web page... and download the tunes from the HH performance.

Gratuitous Sex, Gratuitous Violence

Went to see Machete this weekend... I love the films of Robert Rodriguez, as absurd and over the top as they may be (Once Upon a Time in Mexico is one of my all time favorites). He works in the grindhouse genre, as does it well... well, the gore part is certainly prolific, anyway (about a dozen beheadings in the first 3 minutes). I enjoy the tongue in cheek, the in jokes, the music (Rodriguez and his band do much of it), the special effects (again, mostly by Rodriguez). He's a complete and very good film maker if you can handle the genre. Like his bud Tarentino, grindhouse and references from past movies is their forte.

And what's DeNiro doing in this movie? Along with Steven Segal, Cheech Marin, and other notables... oh, Don Johnson as the evil vigilante!, Rodriguez gets all kinds of top line actors involved in his movies...and looks like a great cinematic time was had by all.

Speaking of DeNiro, what a great role. The Tea Party folks should hire him. Playing a politician, his anti immigration speeches are dead spot on, if that's your point of view. Segal, looking pudgy at this point in his career, actually delivers his best performance in some time. I've never liked his films, but he pulls off the bad guy role perfectly. And Cheech, gotta love him... this time as the padre consoling his bro... "I absolve you of all your sins, now get the fuck out of here!" Then there's Lindsy Lohan... well, she's got a great bod, if nothing else. Hell, the image of her in a nun's habit plugging DeNiro will stay in my mind for a long time.


And, lots of sex... naked bodies everywhere... and the resurrection of Michelle Rodriguez as She (Che) at the end sent my testosterone levels through the stratosphere!

Finally, Danny Trejo, Rodriguez' big, ugly Mexican heavy in other films, gets the lead role. Not much delicate dialog to deliver, but his style is perfect... "Machete don't text..." "Why do I want to be a normal person when I'm already a myth?"... Simple, great lines.


In an era of endless blow 'em up action movies, mostly crap, Rodriguez stands apart as a master of the art... exploiting pretense, rather than falling victim to it. But, warning, grindhouse is not for the faint of heart.

Merle Meets Ornette

My favorite new CD is a recent release from Brian and the Haggards. Basically a jazz quintet, they do covers of Merle Haggard favorites, but with a big twist... with two sax players and a free jazz bent, the Merle tunes take on an Ornette Coleman flavor.



This is wild stuff. Blazing Telecaster, western swing drumming, free sax interplay, and, yet, lots of emotion. The flavor of the Haggard tunes still comes across strongly, even in this jazz context. Each tune features a different member of the group, everyone gets his chance to solo.

"Swinging Doors" begins with some great bluesy country playing, then the saxes go places, but the blues flavor always stays with the tune. Same with the guitar solo. This may be the most straight ahead country blues cut on the CD... because... "Working Man Blues" soars way, way out there. Alto sax beyond belief... All in all, this CD contains a fine set of musical flavors.

Country purists may want to drag these guys behind a pickup truck down a gravel road, but, that's so provincial. This stuff works. The musicians are excellent. Brilliant idea, and very well done. And the liner notes, info on Merle's early years and meeting Ornette, are worth the whole CD purchase.

Get the CD on iTunes or from CDBaby. Best of the year so far.

There is no god...

...there's only noise!

The rallying cry of the punk rock group, the Atheists, from 1981.

I've worked on an Atheists CD project off and on for many years. Gathering documentation was difficult, but now I'm close. Of course, an actual CD may never happen, it's mostly to archive the results of a recording I did many years ago.


Back in April of 1981, during Easter Weekend, the American Atheists, with Madeline Murray OHair, held their national convention in Salt Lake City. The contrasts... atheists, Mormons, Easter, was not coincidental, I'm sure, but deliberately provocative. What was coincidental was the local popularity of a punk group, the Atheists, a homegrown musical scowl at the dominant culture. During the convention, a concert was arranged at a local club, the Roxy. I used a cool Dolby cassette recorder in those days to capture concerts, and I did so this night. I can't remember the sound man's name that night, but he was exceedingly helpful in mixing a great soundboard feed. A hellova great show!

Since then, I've dumped the tape to digital and played with mastering the files. My goal is a future web site where folks can download various formats of my recordings, with the Atheists part of a collection of SLC punk that will include the Classic Assholes and NuSpeak. Maybe enough folks will show interest that I can pay off web server costs, my tequila habit, and dinner with my ladyfriend.

Here's an mp3 of the Atheists signature tune, "There is No God, There's Only Noise."

Solar Groves

Read a great article recently about a project/company that wants to make solar cell electrical generating facilities out of parking lots. Parking lots are actually wasted space in terms of exposure to the sun. Why not make lots do something useful beyond holding cars for hours? And provide shelter for the cars as well! And especially with more hybrid/battery cars needing recharges while parked. The concept is called a solar grove.

Anyway, during a recent trip to downtown L.A., I saw one of these facilities as part of a bank building. Way cool! Giving a little back to balance the carbon footprint.



And it helped that this solar grove was a half block from the Disney performance hall, one of my favorite buildings. I actually got a decent pic of this building.

Blues Discovery

Somewhat embarrassing... was invited to a party Sat. nite (happy 60th, Jim) but a friend and I cobbled together our nickles and dimes for a jug of cheap tokay and headed for the freight yards. Finishing the bottle, we passed out under a shady tree, not wakening until after dark. Maybe it was the hangover, but something definitely felt strange. I wandered down the line until I found an open Soo Line boxcar.


I peered inside, and discovered four bodies... four older men, probably expired from the heat. There were some empty guitar cases, someone had been there before me... A glint of moonlight on a dark object caught my eye... an old 78 recording mostly hidden under one body, the hard shellac protecting it from the heat.


I grabbed the recording and took it home, spending the rest of the night recovering the audio and converting it to an MP3. Never heard this music or group ever before, nothing on the Internet. So here, for the first time, a rare 78 recording from an unknown, and now forever unknown, blues band...