Practice

I had one of those days today. I was changing strings and broke one while putting it on and had to make the dreaded trip to Branson to pick up more as I was on my last set. Then, as I was getting ready to head home I had some car trouble that I will be dealing with most of the day tomorrow. Tonight I’ve had some irritating computer issues that I won’t bore you with.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a few quick comments about some things I’ve talked about recently.

Here’s a NY Times interview with Rupe Murdoch in which he attempts to show some sincerity regarding the Bancroft family about keeping the tradition of the Wall Street Journal intact if his take over is succsessful. He also says this though…

“I’m sometimes frustrated by the long stories,” he said, adding that he rarely gets around to finishing some articles.

McJournal? I still think that this whole thing is just old Rupe generating some hype but, everything in this world has a price and Murdoch is one guy who could possibly go through with the “offer you can’t refuse” for the Bancrofts.

Don Imus’ lawyer, Martin Garbus says he will file a breach of contract suit against CBS next week.

This is from a My Way News piece…

CBS Radio, in a statement issued Thursday, said it would vigorously contest Imus’ claim.
“We terminated Mr. Imus for cause,” the statement said. “Based on the comments in question and relevant contract terms, we believe that the termination was appropriate and CBS would expect to prevail in any attempt by Mr. Imus to recover money for his actions.”

So, this is in the chest thumping, posturing stage right now. CBS should “vigorously” settle and let the thing fade away. They hired the guy and knew what he was all about, they encouraged the nature of the content of the show, they dragged their feet in firing Imus, they didn’t make him apologize on air until two days after the incident, and Imus manned up and met with the Rutgers team and they publicly accepted his apology and said he should not have been fired. Garbus is a first amendment specialist and will play that card to the press. In short CBS, even if they won the lawsuit, would lose in the court of public opinion and that would more detrimental than the 40 million payout.

Anyway enough of that, when was looking through some old stuff after my recent move, I found a very battered copy of the book “Chord Chemistry” by Ted Greene. Ted Greene was an absolutely wonderful guitarist who passed away in 2005. He was a guy who didn’t pursue fame. I believe he preferred to teach rather than performing live or recording. To my knowledge, he only released one record called “Solo Guitar”.

So tonight, I’m looking through this book and I start to work on a little twelve bar passage. I worked on it a couple of hours. I think to myself, here I am 43 years old, playing guitar for almost thirty years and here is some stuff I have never even conceived of. This whole book is full of things that are new to me. To be honest, it got me a little down.

So, I put down the guitar and started to do my daily web surf to see what’s going on in the world. I came across this article about another one of my music heroes entitled “Sonny Rollins Still Perfecting His Sound”. Sonny’s music has, over many years, really hit me hard in the soul. You can call him a jazz player but, to me, his stuff transcends all of that category stuff. It’s about emotion and blood and heart and anger and pain and joy and serenity. It’s life.

Sonny is 76 years old and here’s a quote from him…

Rollins pauses, twirls some strands of his silvery beard in his long fingers, and then with his characteristic self-effacing humor remarks, “You just put a thought in my head. I should be playing better than I’m playing now after having played with all of these guys. … I better get back to practice.”
“I don’t consider myself a musician that has learned as much as I want to learn,” said Rollins, speaking slowly in a slightly hoarse voice.

Thanks, Sonny

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Tags: Don Imus, Martin Garbus, Rupert Murdoch, Sonny Rollins, Ted Greene