He just wants to call her "an old slut on junk."

Does LB also say, " 'Sup, cat?"

He will NOW.

Oh hey, the mystery song has been ID'd! It is "Gong-Ho" by Paolo Conte.

I just sent "Nine Lives to Rigel Five" and "Regenisraen" by Game Theory to Buffistarawk.

Sweet! Thanks.

I guess the record is a benefit to help Kirsty McColl's family. They are trying to get in inquiry open into her death.

BBC4 aired a documentary about her death a couple of months ago. It intimated that a wealthy businessman had caused the accident and had paid off someone to take responsibility.

Hi, everyone. I've been having back problems (herniated disk) since a week before Thanksgiving. I can walk again, but still can't sit for more than twenty or thirty minutes; throw in a keyboard and mouse and that decreases to maybe five minutes. About a week ago I realized that my wife's iBook has a wireless connection and I could play online while lying on my back. Woo and hoo! (One would think that this would have dawned on me earlier as she checks her email each night while sitting on the couch, but in my defense I was in severe pain and heavily drugged.) Anyway, I caught up on what I missed, have been lurking since, and now that I can type again I'll post some of the backlog of comments. Btw, I'm telling you this to explain my recent radio silence and the upcoming serial posts, not because I'm looking for a bunch of {{}}s. Now on to the business at hand...

First, flea's Xmas-recommendations-for-Mom request. You must must must check out the Triplets of Belleville soundtrack. I got it a few months ago & no other purchase this year, save Monk at Carnegie Hall has made me so happy. (NB: I've convinced my wife to let me name our son -- that's theoretical, not an announcement -- Thelonious, so Monk vs pretty much anything else isn't really a fair fight.) I posted the title track on Buffistarawk. I also love "'Cieco Cieco' Barber" and the faux surf guitar on "Pa Pa Pa Palavas".

Per the Bob Dorough conversation resulting from the recommendations request, here's Gary Giddins on Dorough. Giddins calls Dorough's 1966 album Just About Everything "irresistible." It's available from emusic. Seems like I had another bit of info relating to this but I can't remember it. Oh well, maybe later.

Along with the Triplets track I also sent the Youngsters' "Christmas in Jail," which I found on the Hound's website. Look up the song for links to his various Xmas shows which have a bunch of other eccentric holiday tunes. And apropos of nothing except Youngsters being near Yardbirds in the artist search, check out "Train Kept a Rollin'" for some killer Jeff Beck. Not as killer as his "I'm a Man" solo where he runs out of fretboard & does a percussion solo on his guitar, but killer nonetheless.

Seconding the Triplets soundtrack. My favorite is the song of the Triplets playing the fridge, newspaper and vacuum (with grandma on spokes), but that's mostly because the vacuum sounds like a theremin (and the song sounds like something the Lothars might have come up with if we were way more talented).

Hey, Joe! Glad to hear you're connected again, although sorry to hear that your back is still wonky. I have the Youngsters track on my Xmas mix.

Tina, glad you liked the moose. Send me your address & I'll send you a copy. The Woodman doesn't need the royalties. Most comedy recordings are only good for a couple listens (even the good ones), but along with Richard Pryor & the Firesign Theater (which admittedly is in a universe of its own) I can listen to Woody time and time again. His imagination was just amazing, and that's probably why it retains its freshness, but the craft is there, too. The routines are beautifully constructed, his timing is impeccable -- perhaps not surprising in a musician, and he has that great mix of tradition (Bosrcht belt/vaudeville/early tv) and innovation (leaving his mark on the tradition.) "We laughed. And Gertrude Stein punched me in the mouth."

Stay tuned for the big Richard & Linda Thompson post. But first I need food. And coffee.

Awww, Joe, sorry about your back. I'm muy simpatico.

Thanks for the Dorough article by Giddins. I've got both the Schoolhouse Rock box, and Dorough's early and 70s albums. Must pick up that pop art item, though.

The Larry King random thoughts post:

Thanks, David. Send me your address again. I finally got a copy of Thomas Berger's Who Is Teddy Villanova? for you. It's his detective fiction spoof. It ranks with Nick Danger in noir take offs. (Even though I just said it "spoof" isn't right nor is parody.) Brilliant use of language. The Ganymede misunderstanding, the Francophone jailbait, jokes arcane enough to make Pynchon blush... just a lot of fun.

She's free! At last! Uh... sorry. For a boy hitting puberty in the late 1970s Valerie Bertinelli was pretty much the pinnacle -- well, maybe along with Kim Richards, but that love entailed watching Hello Larry which was too much to ask -- and her marriage to EVH probably inspired more boys of my generation to pick up a guitar than EVH's shredding ever did. Anyway, she's free! Even if I'm not. And I only had to wait 25 years -- it's clearly meant to be! I love this part: "The couple... have one son, 14-year-old Wolfgang Van Halen." If I didn't already have such a rockin' pseudonym I would definitely be Wolfgang Van Halen. Maybe I'll do it anyway. How do I change my screen name?

Any news on the 33 and 1/3 pitches?

I vaguely remember the call for pitches but didn't give it much thought until being laid up. If I had it to do over again, and I weren't a lazy sack, I'd pick one of Sinatra's Nelson Riddle collaborations: In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, or Only the Lonely. The middle may be his best, the first has an amazing line up of songs and history on its side -- our very notion of an album can be traced back to it -- but I think I'd opt for Only the Lonely on the strength of Riddle's contributions. Extraordinary stuff. Here's the list of Tom Waits' favorite albums, topped by In the Wee Small Hours. And here's more on the Sinatra/Waits nexus. No, I don't think such a pitch would have had a snowball's chance in the Hellmouth of being selected, but just because others aren't historically minded doesn't mean I shouldn't be. I'll be standing in the corner w/ Tom singing "Dancing on the Ceiling". (Btw, I think I ended up as TW in the who are you quiz. Which was fine, but I took it with a grain of salt since as on almost every multiple choice thing I fill out 90% of the questions left me going, "I don't like any of these answers. I guess I'll go with this one, but I don't like it.")

How do I change my screen name?

Ask a stompy. If you're serious, I can do it in a moment. Etiquette requires that you indicate your previous name in your tagline, at least for a while.