I read an obituary last night that was obviously written by chat gpt. Aside from being awful, I can't imagine wanting to remember or paying tribute to a loved one that way. I get it, writing is hard, especially when grieving, but damn. Friends don't let friends let the funeral home use chat gpt.

If it's your birthday, here's a little something I put together for you.

Sax nerds: any idea what horn Jackie Mac is playing here during the It's Time session in 1964. Neck looks like might be from the 20s with the brace. Key guards look weird. Not Selmer or Conn, Martin, or Buescher. An old King? Note the rubber band partially holding it together. Whatever works.

I'm gonna start a company that only makes dumb shit: dumb phones, dumb refrigerators, dumb washers/dryers, dumb doorbells, dumb Notepad that doesn't have AI (aka typewriters). My computers will only run on DOS. My company will be called 1993. I'm gonna make a fortune.

I met up with a college professor I hadn't seen in over 20 years last week. She asked how I ended up getting a PhD. I said, and this is the truth, that I didn't really know what else to do. And then I fell into publishing.

Anybody up for some Butlerian Jihad?

I'm still upset my alma mater decided to kill its radio station and to focus on having students do podcasts instead. They ditched their call sign and sold their spot on the dial. Being a part of college radio enriched my life and the lives of others in so many ways.

After a day or two of being harassed in the Triangle, ABC 11 is reporting that Border Patrol has left the area. Mobilizing and individuals standing up to bullies is the only way.

My wife made WRAL news last night, which featured her video of her standing up to the Border Patrol, who took at least three people in Durham yesterday. She's fearless.

I find it interesting that none of the official photos of Border Patrol agents or their uniforms feature masks. I guess masks are for those special times when they run around terrorizing neighborhoods.

My wife was just pulled over and surrounded in Durham, NC. ICE fucked around and found out that you do not mess with my wife. ICE and Border Patrol are stopping people at random to see who they can grab. She is fearless and is ok and I am proud of her.

Durham, North Carolina: ICE and border patrol are pulling over random people (my wife who is as white as it gets and grew up 15 miles from Kristi Noem's house) and surrounding their cars looking for anybody they can disappear off the street. Film them and tell them to fuck off. They are cowards.

My wife just chased off 5 ICE vehicles with like 10 or 12 masked dudes who had blocked her car right next to her house. She told them to go fuck off and she chased them off by herself. Video to come. Don't fuck with Durham.

It might be time for me to buy a blow up frog suit.

I cant believe that theres never been a Portland band called The Terwilliger Curves. Naturally their debut album would be called Curves Ahead.

Yo Portland, its been like 7 or 8 years. What's good these days?

Damn, the second mvt of Bruckner 6 is currently giving me all the feelings.

Real talk to academic authors about how messed up ("messed up" is my public insight) the blurb economy is.

Ducks make the happiest sounds. I sure would like some ducks one day.

Performative reading. You mean those times I showed up to class in grad school having pretended to have done all the reading?

CDs are what used records were 25 years ago, cheap, everywhere, and mostly unwanted.

It's Bruckner 5.

You can never go wrong with a Caravaggio.

If you see this, put up an album with a car on the cover. I've always wondered, did Daddy have the Caddy, was this title an imperative to get Daddy his Caddy, did Daddy ever have a Caddy, was it just Daddy's unfulfilled dream to have a Caddy?

Don't sleep on this last minute, down to the wire chance to get some great books for a killer deal.

I was explaining the Butlerian Jihad to my wife this morning because she's seen so many references this week and thought it had something to do with Judith Butler. Not quite, but what if it's coming and Judith becomes its first martyr and that's where the name came from?

I wonder what the Grammy criteria is for "alternative jazz album" is. Like is there a venn diagram showing where alt jazz, alt country, and 90s alt rock shall meet? Or is it like mainstream jazz is the jazz 95% of ppl dont care about and alt jazz is the jazz 99.9% of ppl dont care about?

I can't believe the lede on the reviews of the new Makaya McCraven are still along the lines of "it's kind of jazz, it's kind of hip hop, everybody will love beats." It's like his what, 8th album or whatever? What he does shouldn't be surprising. I guess if you've never heard of him.

So I can get these bloody oscillators to go buzz buzz when they are hooked up to a breadboard, even this rat's nest, but every time I try wiring them up in my awesome, tidy, sexy enclosure I built they don't work right. Major freaking bummer.

Good on Tom Hanks for normalizing masking, its a really bare minimum community minded practice that you can do while our government goes full fascist/eugenics.

In the middle of a work zoom call a Microsoft Copilot box popped up asking what was in my fridge and if I wanted recipe suggestions. I'm sure I can play with the settings to not have that happen again but fuckin hell all this AI shit everywhere can get right fucked.

Do the thing that makes you want to die the most. Go write your book.

At least they tried to hide Reagan's senility.

This world is exhausting and scary, but at least it comes with an occasional moment of sublime absurdity.

Gun or no gun, Dershowitz's brains have not been intact for some time. Also, I was promised an American version of an Italian splatter film.

Native Idahoan here. I'm shocked to read this.

So is the Dershowitz splatter show going to be pay per view, or am I going to have to sign back up for Netflix, or . . . ?

What would a Billy Strayhorn Orchestra had sounded like if he could not have any players who were at any time affiliated with Duke? What would his band be like if he had all West Coast players? Art Pepper on lead alto, Hampton Hawes on piano, Bill Perkins on low reeds, Jack Shelton on trumpet, etc?

Al Hirt (who I did not realize could play the shit out of the trumpet - I thought he was only a schlock factory, which he was), Maynard (singing, ugh), and a rhythm section of get this: Herbie, Ron Carter, and Billy Higgins (I think). How'd that happen?

If I didn't live in a stupid ass country that a large portion of the civilized world has decided to not send mail to, maybe I could get this awesome looking book. Luckily, I am visiting London for work in March.

Jackie McLean with an epic diss in his 1980 Blindfold Test of altoist James White: "I don't think there's a big enough zero I can give it unless it's the ring around the planet Saturn---that zero. Take the ring from around Saturn and stand it up straight and that's the zero I give him."

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Amazing. I mean it's obvious now but it never would have occurred to me that other markets would have to say "celsius." And this is after I've had Japanese publishers ask me if it would be ok to change the title of a Duke UP book to suit Japanese readers. 🤦‍♂️ Books are rad.

This is the year I will finally write Vulcan Love Slave III: Love is Illogical

I was today years old - 45 - when I learned that John Lee Hooker was from Detroit. I've already listened to this new acquisition twice this morning. His cover of "I Cover the Waterfront" is divine and unexpected.

For $47 million. A lot of folks in Durham can't afford rent or food. Teacher pay is abysmal. There is a lack of school bus drivers. There are major arteries with no sidewalks. But lots of new development. Durham's priorities are upside down.

When asked to give a star rating to Michael White's "Lord, Lord, Lord," featuring Wynton and Wendell Brunious on trumpets, Lester Bowie gave one of the greatest one-line disses in Blindfold Test history: "I don't give clones shit!"

How does King Sunny Ade groove so hard but the music is so light and floating? Also, why won't any labels reissue his music? I would save up if somebody put out a big box collection of his 70s and early 80s stuff.

of all of obits for Jack DeJohnette that I've read, this one might be the most poignant. we already knew he was a once-in-a-lifetime-level musician. sounds like he was also a true mensch