Old Guys

The most important thing is that Sonny Rollins died. My hero! It's no exaggeration to call him my hero. At the bottom of this "post" I'll put a playlist I made based on the massive biography of Sonny Rollins by Aidan Levy, which Megan and I read for the Million Dollar Book Club. One of our most monumental undertakings. If he's not your hero already, maybe you'll read it and Sonny Rollins can be your hero too. Or just listen to him! Also valid. The playlist is not all Sonny Rollins. It's also music that is important to him or has a special place in the book. But it's somewhere to start. Now to turn to lighter matters. Remember that Virginia Woolf book I was going to read on the airplane but then I started OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH instead? Well, now Virgina Woolf's BETWEEN THE ACTS is my "nighttime book," in which last night I read "She became, of a sudden, solemn as an owl" and that is why it is going on the list I began in 2011 of books I read with owls in them, no one knows why. Well, soon I'll temporarily put aside either Virginia Woolf or - more likely, because the adventure will be easier to take up again when the time comes - my "daytime book" (the aforementioned OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH) because the Million Dollar Book Club has finally recovered from the DIARY of Witold Gombrowicz. We're going to read Charlton Heston's journals from 1956-1976, because we think that's the book Wallace Shawn talks about reading in MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, and I believe ever since the Million Dollar Book Club read Andre Gregory's autobiography some years ago we've been circling around Charlton Heston... and for whatever reason, Wallace Shawn has been calling to us more and more as the years go by. Literally! Not literally. It was Charlton Heston or a book about William Shawn (Wallace Shawn's father) by Lillian Ross, a Million Dollar Book Club favorite author. But our ways, moods, and instincts are oblique and terrifying.

Not Publishing

You know how I am always being inspired by phrases. It is a real weakness! And I find most of them in the New York Times, which is just piling shame on top of weakness. But it is too late to change my life now. Anyway, I was reading about Emily Dickinson's house in today's New York Times, and came across a phrase to add to my collection: "Dickinson ‘had such freedom in not publishing,’ Cybulski said. ‘She could leave all those variants in.’” It reminded me of something notably eloquent that Sonny Rollins said about his grave distrust of recordings, I swear to God he really said it, but I have "clicked" on my Sonny Rollins "label" for this "blog" (visible on your laptop, but not your phone, I think; much like Cinemascope, the "blog" is not ideally suited to your phone) and I can't find that interview or quotation anywhere. I'd like to recall exactly what he said because I'll never say it right like Sonny Rollins. Something... about... how music is meant to exist temporally, fleetingly, and to capture it does it a disservice, because it falsely values that one captured moment over all the uncaptured moments that are at least equally important. That's not even close! But it does remind me of something I just read in the new Bob Dylan book. Old Bob maintains that a spectacular song and a spectacular record are not the same thing. "Some of our favorite records are mediocre songs at best, that somehow came alive when the tape was running." Well, I have "blogged" twice in two days, is this the beginning of a disturbing trend? After the TV blew up in 2016, we had a nice steep descent going, and 2019 proved to be a banner year for not "blogging." Then, the unpleasantness. Everything is still somewhat skewed. As of yesterday, we surpassed that nice low 2019 figure, meaning we'll just have to do better (less) in 2023.

Discontinued Crystal Shrimp

Nobody asked me, but every time I go on a trip I jot down what happens in a little jotting book of jottings and when I get home I type up the jottings for an uncaring world. This set is especially boring. One highlight is buying a comb. But that's not going to stop me. There's a good part where Julia and I see Rory Gilmore. I don't want to get your hopes up. In fact I care very little about you. 1. Rode to the airport with Bill Boyle, who was on his way to France to be lauded. 2. I couldn't bring Tom Bissell's book on the plane. You know how I feel about lugging big, hefty books onto a plane. You probably discuss my feelings on the subject around your family dinner table! So I brought DON JUAN, the book-lenghth poem by Lord Byron: a manageable, if arguably bulky, paperback. But here's what! Right before I left the house I read about John Chrysostom in Tom's book (the name "comes from chrysostomos, 'the golden-mouthed,'" Tom reminds us) and then he

(Chrysostom, not Tom) popped up out of no dang where in stanza 47 of the Byron poem! I was all, "I can't wait to tell everybody!" I was like, "People will finally love me!" And here we are sharing the moment. 3. "All we have are chicken enchiladas," the flight attendant said with a distinct air of foreboding. I said to bring 'em on. Something spurted out of an enchilada and made a small blot on the same blindingly white shirt from which I had just - with some difficulty - removed Pat McHale's infamous wine stains. 4. The plane landed and thus began my layover. I noticed my seatmate removing a flute and two saxophones from the overhead compartment. As we deplaned we had a good conversation about Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. 5. I got on another airplane. My former seatmate was on that plane too! This time he told me his name was Kirk Whalum - a name that sounded familiar to me. He described himself as primarily an "R&B saxophonist." We got to talking about Mississippi and he told me one of his saxophones was to be placed in a museum in Clarksdale. I said I'd go look at it one day. 6. Watched some of the Fey/Poehler comedy SISTERS inflight. They put too much detergent in the washing machine and suds go everywhere, just like the Bob Hope movie BACHELOR IN PARADISE (above), so we're still in that era of comedy, it never ended like you thought it did, the too-much-detergent era of comedy. 7. The plane lands. Leaving LAX I see a limo driver holding a sign that says KIRK WHALUM. 8. Into the Burbank office for an ADVENTURE TIME meeting. Julia told me she had sent a text about how she and I might be able to get onto the GILMORE GIRLS reunion set that very afternoon. In return she received a succinct yet highly suggestive reply ("How that *****"), which, as it so happens to turn out, was not from me. Kent had given her an obsolete number, which now belongs, it seems, to some saucy personage. 9. Julia and I visit the fringes of the active GILMORE GIRLS set, using methods I should not divulge. Fake, possibly carcinogenic snow lies in lumps upon the parking lot, having strayed from its place. For you see, it is winter in Stars Hollow. Fake snow is everywhere. (When did I switch to present tense? Who cares? I may switch back soon.) To paraphrase James Joyce, "Yes, the newspapers were right: fake snow was general all over Stars Hollow." Suddenly Rory appears! Rory Gilmore leaves the set and we watch her as she makes the long walk to a public restroom (and, at some time later, back). How near are we? I'm not a good judge of such things. Let's say she was like a mighty lioness, brimming with grace and power, spied from, say, the relative safety of a safari Jeep... she was close enough, I mean, to to fill us with awe and holy fear. Rory Gilmore was wearing what I would call a "fawn-colored coat," despite the fact that I'm not sure what color a fawn is, other than "fawn-colored." Nobody dared take a picture, not of Rory, but here's

Julia captured in the very moment, this is what Julia's face looks like when she's reflecting the radiance that no mortal sees without sinking into madness. Seeing Rory Gilmore! 10. Back at my hotel, I notice that the pet store across the street has gone out of business. But it - or a fictional version of it - is immortalized forever in my new book of short stories MOVIE STARS, available now at a reputable book dealer near you. While supplies last! 11. Bought an expensive comb at the place where I accidentally bought an expensive brush before. The plastic comb had the words HAND MADE on it. Can that be true? The brand is "Kent." I was going to tell Kent all about it, but I forgot. 12. It occurs to me that I was staying at the very same place where I arrived sans comb in 2007, at which time I decided to do without a comb for the length of my stay. I was so young and bold! What happened to you, Pendarvis? 13. Back at Cartoon Network I had a nice talk with Elizabeth Ito. "You came on the day when they're shaking the building," she said. "I think they're paving the alley. So the building is shaking and it smells like asphalt." Everything she said was true! That wasn't the main thing we talked about. Later in the writers' room we were all laughing a lot and when someone finally opened the door it was clear that the room had filled up with poisonous fumes wafting from the construction site. It had happened so slowly none of us had noticed. We just thought we were having a good time! 14. I saw Ako! She said she still had a picture I drew of a "mush pot." I didn't remember, until she reminded me, that we had discussed the function of the "mush pot" in certain iterations of the children's game duck-duck-goose. 15. Have I never told you of my friend Cristina? She's my Italian pal from the land of Italy. Whenever I go to Los Angeles she takes me to an Italian restaurant meeting her approval. Last time, I told her a favorite line from THE DECAMERON and she translated it back into Italian for me! 16. I could tell you about karaoke but let's just say Tom Franklin did Styx and leave it at that.

17. Who stayed in our private karaoke room until the very end, yes, who shut it down? Kent, Pen, me and the somewhat eerie stranger nobody knew. 18. I came to this couplet in DON JUAN: "His blood was up; though young, he was a Tartar/ And not at all disposed to prove a martyr." And I thought of Jon Host. I thought, "That's a Jon Host rhyme!" You probably don't know what I'm talking about because you don't know Jon Host or how he rhymes but if it's not clear enough yet, I don't care about you and you're not reading this anyway and I don't care about that either. It was pleasant to be reminded of my old friend Jon Host and to consider the pleasure he would have received from "Tartar/martyr." 19. Speaking of friends of long acquaintance, I had lunch with Khaki. She took me to a place where lots of things on the menu were discontinued. The two I remembered to jot down were "SHRIMP STICK....... DISCONTINUED" and "CRYSTAL SHRIMP......... DISCONTINUED." Curiously, the notices of discontinuation were not affixed to the menu at some late date; they were professionally printed right there on the surface, beneath the lamination. These menus had been ordered and printed afresh to accommodate (tauntingly?) an extensive list of items that the restaurant had presumably served in more generous times. I can think of how it could make sense to someone, especially if the plan was to eventually reintroduce some of the dishes... but it feels overly hopeful somehow, like a litany of crushed ambitions. 20. On the way to see Megan Abbott give the keynote address to an organization composed of aspiring crime writers, I passed the Sheraton Universal and thought, "Ah, that's where I scared Marvin Hamlisch in an elevator." 21. I partook ravenously of the free crime writers' breakfast, to which I was not entitled. 22. DON JUAN: "Since in a way that's rather of the oddest, he/ Became divested of his native modesty." THAT'S more of a Jon Host rhyme. 23. Dinner at Dan Tana's, one of those old-time Hollywood chophouses that hold such fascination for me - and Megan Abbott too. Neither of us had ever been. Ward McCarthy and I always talked about going to Dan Tana's back when we worked together in the 1990s, but we never made it. It was, as Megan's friend Alison noted, brighter inside than you would assume Dan Tana's to be, but otherwise it

met and surpassed our most idealized expectations, what with the red leather booth (in the back corner! just the one we would have picked), old-school wisecracking waiters (when asked about the contents of a particular salad, one of them said, "What can I tell you, it's a 22-dollar salad, it's terrible!" The chopped salad, on the other hand, of which the waiter approved, Alison deemed excellent), clams casino, steak and peppers "Sinatra" (superior to the similar and similarly named dish at The Smokehouse) and, we all agreed, the fluffiest gnocchi yet to be encountered. They don't have to make gnocchi that good at Dan Tana's - why, no sane person would expect it! But there it was. And we sat under a big poster of Karl Malden, who I believe had a veal chop named after him on the menu. 24. Tom Franklin, as I have hinted, happened to be out in Hollywood for reasons of his own, and by coincidence we were on the same plane home. Tom walked through the airport looking for soup. He busily checked every restaurant and kiosk. "Why soup?" I said. Tom said, "I love soup." I've known him, what? Thirty years? And I've never seen this side of him, this side that loves soup so much. I asked why I never heard about it before. "I keep it quiet," he said. We got to our departure gate and I watched Tom's bags while he ran off to continue his desperate search for his favorite thing, airport soup.

Do You Like Stuff?

Say, do you like Anne Bancroft, The Beatles, Beethoven, Anthony Braxton, Neko Case, John Clare, Peter De Vries, Barry Hannah, Charles Ives, Anita Loos, Shirley MacLaine, Charles Portis, Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Alex Ross, George Saunders, Scriabin, The Shaggs, Christopher Smart, Mark Twain, Lao Tzu, Robert Walser, Wilco, and Frank Zappa? What? You do? Wow! No kidding? So do I! That's why they all appear in my brand new Oxford American column. Yes, reading that column is like staring glumly at the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's" - glumly because somebody stole your LP from the sleeve. I'm the worst! I do manage to squeeze a few words of my own in there between the references. You know what this means, don't you? The legendary annual music issue of THE OXFORD AMERICAN is about to "drop." That's what the kids say, right? "Drop"?

Now I Weep

Keep reading great things about my hero Sonny Rollins and his amazing 80th birthday concert. Only reason I haven't "posted" about it is that I'm so sad I didn't see and hear it! Almost too sad to "blog" is how sad. Mr. Rollins played with Ornette Coleman (also 80!) for the first time anyone can remember! Now I go away to weep. I found this nice article ("click" here) thanks to the twitter account of Sonny Rollins (!). One thing I love about it is that if you scroll down, the guy talks about a Peter Ustinov album (!) called "The Brilliant Humorist Takes a Devastating Look at Sports Car Racing." WHAT? But mostly, Sonny Rollins! (Below, Peter Ustinov for some reason.)

Sonny 80 Happy

King of all my heroes Sonny Rollins (pictured) recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Also, he is about to receive a big award. How do I know these things? His twitter account. I'm only going to tell you this one last time: Sonny Rollins has a twitter account. Here is a nice article about the award, and if you don't know much about Sonny Rollins, it's a good introduction.

That's Right

Speaking of the great Sonny Rollins, he was just awarded a MacDowell medal. How did I find out? His twitter account. That's right, I said Sonny Rollins has a twitter account.

Like, Heavy

A guy wrote a manifesto! There is an article about it in the New York Times today. So a little while ago I was over at Square Books and they had a big stack of the manifesto. And I was like, "Hmm, there's that manifesto everyone is talking about." And I opened it up and "Blog" Buddy Lynn Shelton was mentioned on the SECOND PAGE OF THE MANIFESTO! Which excited me! So then I opened it up at random to page 45 or 46 and there was a great little anecdote about my hero Sonny Rollins. So, great! And I opened it up AGAIN at random to page 203 and discovered an appreciative passage about buddy AND hero Barry Hannah. So I bought the manifesto. But right after I bought it, I felt oppressed! Like, "Heavy!" Like, "Can I handle a manifesto right now?" It wasn't the manifesto's fault! But I returned the manifesto immediately and got my money back. I mean, like, the buying and the returning were in one smooth, unbroken action. I don't know what it is about manifestoes.

Music

That was John King, the ukulele virtuoso who passed away recently. I found out about him from the respectful obituary in today's New York Times. In other music news, Barry B. has a new favorite band: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I looked them up on youtube and they scared me real bad. Finally, THE SAMMY DAVIS JR. READER is not all roses and sunshine. Some blistering critiques are included. Last night I read one by Gary Giddins, I writer I enjoy and admire, but who seems to have, in the representative article, an almost helpless loathing for Davis. (He manages to get in some extraneous shots at Bob Hope, too, just because he's feeling mean and saucy, I guess - "his prehistoric witticisms memorized and spun out like ticker tape" - and just for a second we'll forget journalistic accuracy; I mean, even as a toddler I realized that Bob Hope never MEMORIZED anything. In fact, I may have scientifically deduced the existence of cue cards from his delivery.) Giddins's piece - a review of a Davis TV show featuring jazz musicians - comes from 1975, a time at which criticizing Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr. was about as daring and interesting as rolling a tortoise over on its back. But the really fascinating thing is the nature of Giddins's main complaint, which is about the state of televised jazz: he is bitterly offended that the only jazz musicians he ever gets to see on network TV - live or in archival footage - are (among those he names) Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, John Faddis, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Jim Giuffre, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, Cecil Taylor, Sonny Rollins, etc., etc., etc., etc. Hey, where's Freddie Hubbard? he wants to know. What's the matter TV execs, are you afraid of Freddie Hubbard? (I'm paraphrasing, slightly.) If they weren't afraid of Cecil Taylor, I have a hard time imagining they were afraid of Freddie Hubbard, but this is Giddins's sincere and not in the least ironic complaint as a network TV viewer of 1975. I wonder if he imagined a future in which there would be hundreds and hundreds more channels and no jazz musicians on TV at all.

Phil's Velvet Confession

Our old friend Phil has been following our running tally of velvet suit sightings with particular interest, it seems. He writes: "What if I were to tell you that I own a velvet sportcoat -- and that I actually wear it on occasion (most recently: Las Vegas, a Tyler Perry screening party, etc)? Would that sort of count as a 'sighting,' or something more pathetic?" If by "pathetic," you mean "awesome," then sure, Phil, sure! And here's a Phil extra: He provides a "link" to Harold Bloom talking about "blog" hero Sonny Rollins. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can always count on Phil! (Pictured, Tyler Perry.)

You Can Always Count on Phil

Phil Oppenheim has done it again! "The Sage of Atlanta" (a nickname I just made up for him this very second) sends an amazing "link" to the web site of paperback cover artist R.A. Maguire (that's a sample of Mr. Maguire's work accompanying this "post"). Good old Phil! We feel sure that McNeil's worship of Phil has now evolved into something for which there is no word in our human languages. Phil also includes a kind note "correcting the record" on what I portrayed as my inability to dole out decent advice. Though he obviously has problems with Robert Walser, Phil would like everyone to know that he was very satisfied with my previous personal recommendations of THE THIRD POLICEMAN, the Sonny Rollins album WAY OUT WEST, and the film HIGHBALL. He may even start watching THE WIRE, he says! "I certainly don’t mind your 'readership' thinking that I’m some sort of ingrate or misanthrope or crank," Phil concludes, "but I thought it was incumbent upon me to set the record straight."

I'm Fancy

Hi, everybody. Say, have you heard of the New York Times? Why, sure you have. I'm on their book "blog" today, rambling on and on about what music I listen to. Fans of this "blog" (ha ha!) will not be surprised that I write about my old favorites Sonny Rollins, The Mekons, and Buck Owens. I did manage to call the Ives symphony "New England Holidays" by a different name that I apparently made up for the occasion. But other than that I stand by my babbling.

Fancy That

Hello, everyone. I have "fancied up" my "myspace" page considerably. It all started when I decided that the "blog" advent calendar entry for December 8th - a talented young woman performing a Britney Spears number on her strangely shaped and charmingly decorated ukulele - deserved especial enshrinement. After that, I thought, Hey. My "myspace" page would also be a good spot for that clip of Sonny Rollins that I "posted" on the "blog" at McNeil's request, and which made me so very happy. The floodgates were opened, friends. I found myself decorating my "myspace" page with many, many more clips of "fave" things, such as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby doing a purposefully corny and highly enjoyable little number in THE ROAD TO UTOPIA, and a generous sampling of Messiaen. Yes, you can now spend literally minutes looking at my "myspace" page.

The Other Good Thing

Oh, and the other good thing we did in 1,000 "posts," aside from "Pistachios," is find a nice "link" to a Sonny Rollins performance.

Caution: McNeil At Work

McNeil has been hard at work again, by which I mean he's been fiddling around on YouTube. Today he hoped to settle an argument we got into about whether or not Paul Lynde was on the sitcom TEMPERATURE'S RISING. That's right: we got into an argument about whether or not Paul Lynde - who maybe you've almost forgotten - was on the sitcom TEMPERATURE'S RISING, which you've never heard of. McNeil submitted this clip as evidence of (and reason for) my "confusion." But I hate to tell McNeil that Paul Lynde joined the cast when the show was revamped and the title was changed to THE NEW TEMPERATURE'S RISING. Hope this puts everyone's mind at ease! McNeil also suggested that I find a good YouTube clip of Sonny Rollins for the "blog." So I did. "Click" on it!

The "Blog" In Its Wisdom

Hey everybody, remember when I said that "blog" hero Sonny Rollins was engaging us in a 50-year conversation or brilliant words to that effect? An account in today's New York Times proves me right - me and the million other people who have probably said the same thing only better. Someone at the Library of Congress has kindly dug out some rare (never released) tapes of Mr. Rollins playing at Carnegie Hall 50 years ago. Soon he will return to Carnegie Hall and play the same set, then both incarnations will be released on a single CD. Get in line, people! Mr. Rollins provides great clues for living.

All Worked Up

I was just reading a new entry about the literary critic James Wood over on the "The Elegant Variation." For some reason, that always gets me worked up! My mind drifts back to the cherubic "public intellectual" (not James Wood) I saw on C-Span 2, and how sad and depressed he was because he couldn't "tap his toes" to John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. Hey, you know, John Coltrane doesn't care, buddy! John Coltrane is all like, "zzeeiwheeidiipppidoooo" on his saxophone and there's no answer for that! Oh, I'm getting all worked up thinking about it. So anyway, reading about James Wood today gave me an idea for a New Yorker style cartoon. See, there's a fireman running out of a burning building holding a baby he has saved, and there's a guy in a business suit standing on the sidewalk with his hands cupped around his mouth yelling, "YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!" Somebody let me know if this idea has already been taken. It seems kind of obvious, like everything else.

Ornette Coleman

Speaking of Pulitzer Prizes, I suppose that our one-time nemesis (before we calmed down) the famous intellectual is feeling pretty "put out" today, thinking of Ornette Coleman and his Pulitzer Prize. I mean, if the famous intellectual TRULY considers the elegant and magisterial Sonny Rollins to be "unlistenable," as he claimed on C-Span 2, we can only imagine the shudders that pass through his poor old body when Ornette Coleman starts laying down some crazy free jazz. Well, we have a real soft spot for Mr. Coleman ourselves. Just the day before yesterday, in fact, by sheer coincidence, we were listening to his COMPLETE SCIENCE FICTION SESSIONS. So we're happy. But we do not wish to gloat at the expense of the famous intellectual, who is no doubt lying on a cot now with something cool pressed to his forehead.

We Take It All Back

We woke up this morning full of big, important realizations about how the famous intellectual who made us sad last night would not - we assume - require Beethoven, for example, to provide him with a toe-tapping good time, and the unspoken, rather unsettling implications of that fact... and then we recalled that Sonny Rollins does not need us to take up for him! All he has to do is blow one or two notes on his horn, and all arguments cease. Also, opinion has no place on a "blog"! We were intemperate. We should not have allowed our love of Sonny Rollins to get us "riled up" at the famous intellectual. It is none of our beeswax what music the famous intellectual enjoys or disdains! To each his own! This is what the music of Sonny Rollins has taught us! From now on we vow only to "blog" when our favorite fork gets stuck in a drain, and so on, and to leave opinion and speculation on C-Span 2, where they belong.

C-Span 2 A Mixed Blessing?

After all my distress over C-Span 2, and its happy resolution, I must say I saw something on C-Span 2 just a little while ago that filled me with a strange sadness. It was a famous intellectual author who called Sonny Rollins "unlistenable" -- seemingly because Mr. Rollins has dared to be, in the famous intellectual's estimation, well, intellectual, like the famous intellectual author. The poor old fellow can't tap his toes to Sonny Rollins, he claims! Maybe he should try harder! But no, his argument seemed false to me. He seemed to say that only highly cultured professional musicians could enjoy Sonny Rollins... and that the sort of complex, supposedly "unlistenable" music made by Mr. Rollins is a sign of decadence in the arts. It is hard to explain why, then, as a teenager in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, I was so taken with Mr. Rollins' cut "Blue 7" that I went out and bought every Sonny Rollins album I could find. I was no jazz expert. This was the first jazz I had heard! And it is impossible for me to believe that the poor, dumb teen that I distinctly recall being was so much more advanced and culturally decadent than the famous intellectual is TODAY, after all his globe trotting and drinking expensive wine with the queen and being on C-Span 2. The famous intellectual tried to get Duke Ellington in on his argument, as an exemplar of the toe tapping good times that he seems to regard as the only reason for music's being, ignoring the fact that Mr. Ellington played with John Coltrane (the primary recipient of the intellectual's scorn), Max Roach, Mingus... and that Monk, for example, was a careful student of Ellington... and I think that Ellington - always a searching and curious musician - probably even picked up a thing or two from Monk as he went along. Perhaps the famous intellectual brings all this up in his book and wryly dismisses it as balderdash. Why is my dander up about this? My dander is usually not up! Especially on the "blog" for all to see. Finally, what if -- and it IS NOT true -- but what IF only serious musicians could understand and enjoy Coltrane and Rollins? So what? Don't they get something they can enjoy, too? I believe I'm actually losing sleep over C-Span 2. It's supposed to PUT me to sleep! Well, that last remark was unkind to C-Span 2, and not even the truth. But Sonny Rollins is "LISTENABLE"! Listen!