The Unbeatable Barry B.

This "post" goes out as a long distance dedication to "Blog" Buddy Barry B. A few years ago I was riding around in Barry's car listening to a great CD called 100% Dynamite! (exclamation point included in the original title). This bit of good fortune led to my own purchase of "600% Dynamite!" - a compilation, like the earlier version, of Jamaican dance music. Other than Gilbert & Sullivan, 600% Dynamite! turned out to be the most requested music on our recent car trip. It never gets old! You can listen to it a dozen times in a row and still bob up and down. So I have Barry B. to thank for that. The best thing about it is what the title implies: that there are, at the very least, 200, 300, 400, and 500% Dynamite!s to enjoy in the future. Check out this series from Soul Jazz records. And tell them some jerk with a "blog" sent you! Something else made me think of good old Barry B. today... I was over at Criminal Records and saw that Fantagraphics has put out some of the old Popeye comics by E.C. Segar... this first volume contains his THIMBLE THEATRE strip from 1928-1931. It's a wonderful piece of narrative and visual art... great storytelling by any standard. Now I don't think there's a bigger Popeye fan than Barry B., who especially appreciates the longer-form Max Fleischer full color cartoons from the '30s (I think - Barry could tell you the exact dates). So heads up, Barry! Hey, speaking of Popeye, Jim Ruland ("the 'Blog' Buddy Who Served in the U.S. Navy"), who has used Popeye as a character in his short fiction, has been "blogging" about Thomas Pynchon lately. Check it out! So... read some Popeye, reconsider Pynchon and listen to some nice music from Jamaica... all at the same time. That's the way the kids do it these days! They're crazy, the kids they have nowadays, with the video games and everything.