Jamie Cullum rules Monterey!

Back from the Festival on Monday. I've been busy, so I have not had a chance to blog before this. I'll try to give a full review of the Festival later, but for now, let me just say that Jamie Cullum, playing during the day on Sunday afternoon, just blew everyone away. I had never heard of him before. The cat just turned 29 years old and literally looks like Elijah Wood playing Frodo in the LOTR movies. But he a prodigious talent and one of the best live performers I've ever seen. At one point he was standing on his grand piano, singing with a wireless mike and accomplished a huge leap off the piano, all the while singing a driving, cooking arrangement of a song he wrote called "Twentysomething." It might sound corny, but you had to be there. And the cat can cover standards like as if he were Sinatra's ghost or Bennett's clone. The hard-core Monterey fans, just went ga ga over him, as did I. This is a very special guy. If you EVER get a chance to see him live, don't pass it up.

Here is the biography page from Jamie's web site.

And, you can, check out the Wiki pages.

Gotta run. The big debate is only three hours away and I have to turn on the TV now to enjoy the "pre-game show."

Go Barack!

Time to mellow out...

In a couple of hours we will leave for the Monterey Jazz Festival. We've had season tickets for many years.

I'm planning on not thinking about, Palin, McCain, Obama, Biden, football, baseball, war, peace, and so on. I just need some time to live in the moment and absorb the excellent vibes that will be put out by the performers and the astoundingly cosmopolitan crowds.

See ya Monday p.m.

~ Tom

Sean Penn - A Great American

This post on Huffington by Sean Penn is a bit long but well worth the reading. Here are a couple of excerpts to whet your appetite:

If John McCain, in reflection, offers no support for those that served beside him, nor those who serve today, what has experience provided him? And when a man regarded so highly in heroic terms of military service, confides personal glory as a common motivation to the young Americans who risk their lives, at what point would he acknowledge patriotism as something more considered than the glib hawkishness exulted by the Republican Convention? His choice of Palin is, once again, McCain's vainglorious head rising. It's about "winning," not serving. As Senator Joe Biden said this week, "Don't tell me your values, show me your budget and I'll tell you your values."

And, at the end, in recognizing that Obama's tax plan would whack him, Sean says:

This November, vote American. Vote imagination. Vote hope. Vote your conscience. Vote for the troops. Vote to make me pay higher taxes. (I owe it to your children and my own.) Vote to put your country first.

~ Tom

Charlie, ask about this!

I can think of a million things that Charlie Gibson should ask Palin in the upcoming interview, but here is one he should ask for sure:

"Do you believe in equal pay for equal work for women?" For that matter, someone should ask McSame about it too. As I understand it, both are against it.

Here are the facts from the AFL-CIO web site:

In 2007, women were paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Economist Evelyn Murphy, president and founder of The WAGE Project, estimates the wage gap costs the average full-time U.S. woman worker between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her work life.

Those working class white women who are gravitating toward Palin in the latest poll are not going to like her answer at all. How would she squirm around this?

~ Tom

A required read...

Here is a terrific article by Gloria Steinem from yesterday's LA Times. It's so refreshing to read a reasoned presentation these days. I especially agree with her statement that:

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom.

~ Tom

Days of big glasses

I had to buy a new scanner. The technology has improved vastly since I purchased the old one.

Here is a test scan of an old photo of Michael Lally and me in April 1992 at his place in Santa Monica. Those cool glasses I'm wearing sure look dopey now!