Since Chris’ CD collection got stolen from his jeep I’ve been inspired to follow his example and I’m putting all my CDs onto my hard drive. I’ve been slowly doing this over the last few days, though I got stuck in a rut for a little bit listening to John Coltrain’s The Ultimate Blue Train over and over again – writing that sentence inspired me to start it up again. Anyway people are often posting in their blogs what they are listening to right now so I thought I might share what I picked as my first uploads.

Beck – Odelay
Uncle Tupelo – No Depression
The Sundays – Reading Writing and Arithmetic
Etta James – Mystery Lady
Diana Krall – When I Look in Your Eyes
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie – Diz N Bird at Carnegie Hall
Fiona Apple – When the Pawn
Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus (The Album that changed Mark’s life)
Rickie Lee Jones – Flying Cowboys
Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas
Orlando Cachaito Lopez – Cachaito
Lost in Translation Soundtrack
Rickie Lee Jones – Naked Songs
Miles Davis & Sonny Rollins - Dig

For no real reason this stuff has moved to the head of the class. I keep listening to the Repo Man Soundtrack as I drive, but that’s on cassette so I’m out of upload luck there.

I’ve been watching American Splendor in segments so I’m thinking about the nothings of the everyday.

Little nothings of a day: I went out in the van. I took Dune – The Director’s Cut Science Fiction Channel edition back to the blockbuster in the loop – if for no other reason than the costume design, truly a horrendous epic. I took Saved and Super Size Me to the blockbuster over by the Galleria.

Unemployed to do list: return the movies & buy the groceries. I ran out to Vick’s work to give her the basket of scarves that Angela has been selling for her, along with the proceeds from recent sales. And then I went to meet Chuck at the junkshop. Chuck had called in sick, but the woman at the counter said she’d make sure he held a booth for me. I’m still not sure about that. $150 a month plus ten percent of sales seems high doesn’t it?

Karl, why did Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus change Mark’s life?

Mark is a friend of mine who is a jazz guitarist, musicologist, and amateur documentarian. As I understand it for Mark this a commitment album. Sonny was on his game, making money and doing fine, but was haunted by a desire to define a new sound. He dropped out and spent a year on street corners, playing on bridges in the night. Saxophone Colossus was the result.

How many of Mark’s students will keep that story in their wallets for the times when their instrument has been lounging, derivative in the corner. Drop out and rediscover your pulse – that’s what I’m about right now – drifting toward an imagined ideal –The Apollonian leader of the muses’ plays pied piper to my Dionysian drift, a personal Colossus on the road to Rhodes.