RETURN TO FOREVER

Another last-minute concert this week. Last night, Chris had an extra seat to the reunion tour of Chick Corea's band Return To Forever. The lineup is legendary: Lenny White, Al Di Meola and Stanley Clarke. Funny how the week began with a great new, young bass player (Esperanza Spalding) and then was bookended by the greatest bass player of all time, Stanley Clarke (although his having 17 fingers does seem to give him an unfair advantage).

So what's the biggest difference between seeing any random show at the Universal Amphitheater versus going to a concert by the seminal jazz fusion band of the 1970s? Well, at intermission, the line for the men's room was 20 deep.

By contrast, here's a shot of the line for the ladies' room:

CATALINA

I was watching Letterman the other night, and I saw a unique and sublime performer named Esperanza Spalding. She's sort of a cross between Norah Jones and Corinne Bailey Rae. This morning I was poking around the websites of some jazz clubs I go to every now and wouldn't you know it - Esperanza Spalding had a gig at Catalina Bar & Grill. Tonight.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have gone. It was too late to try to get a date... I wasn't really dressed for it... I didn't have a reservation...

But I thought: this is serendipity. Plus, this girl's gonna get real big real soon and then I'll have pack into some cavernous venue to see her. So after work, I drove over the hill to Catalina. It was a sell-out, standing room only crowd. But I managed to get a seat in the bar area. I had to share a table with someone which ordinarily I'd hate, but it turns out the kid was a friend of Esperanza's drummer. A drummer himself (and also from New Jersey), we had a very enjoyable conversation in the language of Jazz Geek. In a way, he reminded me of myself 10 years ago when I used to hit up jazz clubs far more often.

I don't think Esperanza will garner the popularity of a Norah Jones, but the show was very good. She plays stand-up bass while singing, and she plays her instrument unlike any bassist I've ever seen. She really moves around as she plays, and there are moment where she seems to be wrestling the bass, but mostly it appears as if she's dancing with it. As if the bass is Ginger Rogers to her Fred Astaire.

Here's a photo I took of the show with my cell phone. Keep in mind that the phone service on my cell is pretty much on par with the quality of the camera.

TIVO LOGLINES

I have a TiVo wireless network adapter which allows me to download program information without using a phone line. Its ancillary feature is that it enables me to program my TiVo remotely via the internet. I can log on, look through the program guide and pick a show — and then through the miracle of the internets, my TiVo box knows to record that show. It's convenient/creepy.

So while at work the other day, I went looking though the TiVo program guide to see if there was anything on TV worth recording. There's not, but I did find some amusing loglines.

Here's how they sum up Man Of The Year:









Talk about a spoiler!

Loglines for Lifetime movies are particularly entertaining:









Ah, it's the age-old story.

But my favorite loglines are the ones for adult movies.






Be careful not to confuse the ASSraelis with the POLEstinians.

Here's a food-related adult film:






Their appetites... for sausage pizza?


Perhaps the most entertaining one so far — a Henny Yougman reference in a porn title:






I could never watch Do My Wife 55 though. Having not seen Do My Wife 1 through 54, I'd have no idea what was going on.
 

I GOTTA BE MII

Recently, I went to a birthday party for my friend Jerry. The main entertainment was (were?) video games, and one of those games was also the primary recreation at a party I went to in Seattle: Rock Band.

The game Rock Band comes with a fake electric guitar, bass, drum kit and microphone. (No keyboard though. Perhaps a keyboard is included with Prog Rock Band: The Game). You pick a song from a list (everything from The Clash to Hole to Bon Jovi) and then four people try to play along. It's both incredibly entertaining and addictive.

After the excitement of Rock Band (it's a lot of fun, but it's also oddly stressful), we played a more sedate game on the Wii (pronounced Whee!). It's funny - I'm in West Hollywood with a bunch of people who probably haven't set foot in a bowling alley in 10 years... playing virtual bowling.




But before we could play, I had to create my Wii avatar - called a Mii (me). ( Jerry cleverly put a sign on the bathroom that said "Pii.")

I looked online, and it seems that people are obsessed with creating celebrity Miis. Here's a sample of some of the better ones.







 
Angelina Jolie   Stephen Colbert   Jay Leno



Oh, and by the way - I suck at virtual bowling too. (But I'm still better at it than our next President.)