Yesterday I received a five disc set of the best of Django Reinhardt from Amazon.com, who is inexplicably selling this crucial musical history lesson for just $26. I now believe that Reinhardt is the true inventor of rock and roll: a cute Romany guitarist with scars and secrets, the very prototype for success. Many people know that two of the fingers of his left hand were ruined in a fire when he was 18, causing him to develop a unique guitar style that no one else could replicate; what is perhaps less well known is that he was a big star in Europe from the time he was 12, and that he worked his butt off to become as famous and successful as he ever got. (Great liner notes, but not overdone.) Stephane Grappelli's violin is pretty amazing too; the Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris was Reinhardt and Grappelli, two other guitarists, and bass. That Is All You Need For Rock. This is truly love for someone like me, and probably you too. Find some Django and some wine and have a good Thursday, wherever you are.

Also just received the new Banda el Recodo de Cruz Ligazarra album, Hay Amor. Banda is probably the most intricate music being made today outside of IDM, eighteen different musicians all playing the most complicated charts going, clarinets and trumpets and trombones and tubas and drums and singing, all of which seems like it's happening at once but it isn't, really. Stunning.

Hey, I didn't know Alf Soto had a blog! But he does, and he is very kind to me after I totally used his name in this little thing I did for Stylus. Alf and I do not agree a lot of the time, but he is cool and courtly and I dig him.

I am coaching my son's baseball team this summer. This is an endless source of amusement, at least to me; they are a weird cool group of kids, most of them very young, most of them with very little idea how to play baseball. It's coach-pitch ball, so I try to serve them up some nice fat pitches to jack, but we only have a couple of big sluggers and a bunch of singles hitters. Sammy is the youngest and the smallest of them, but he's doing pretty well with grounders and has a surprisingly good infield arm, even if he is more David Eckstein than Miguel Tejada. Anyway, we keep playing teams with like six assistant coaches and real infield drills and huge third-graders who can casually throw out a runner (a.k.a. my son Sammy) from shortstop. If we weren't the Yankees, I'd say we were the Bad News Bears. But it's still fun: everyone wants to be catcher!

Not sure I can forgive Milwaukee for firing Terry Porter just six days before the draft. If Portland hires Porter, I'm back on the Blazer bandwagon. If not, then I'm a man without a team. So sad.

I can't make my iPod icon reappear on my wife's iTunes menu, so I cannot import any more songs; blocked, at 2798, after just a week! If anyone is reading this, and has suggestions, hit me up at comments below.

Apparently, Jess is back off the blogwagon. A relieved nation breathes a little easier tonight.

I might be back. Not sure yet.

Anthony Hamilton's new/old album, Soulife, already almost made me cry; "Georgie Parker" is one of the great miniatures of r&b music, and pretty damned touching for anyone who grew up in a small town and needed to get away. I love ya, Canby, and I'm glad I grew up bicycling around your streets, but we both knew I'd always leave. Doesn't mean I'll never be back though. But yeah, this is a great damned album, even though most of it is about five years old, albeit dressed up in new clothes. Julianne will love this, and Hua Hsu wrote some great liner notes for Rhino.

Other great stuff: both new albums from Puerto Rican avant-pop band Superaquello (one of which is from 2004 but now available here in the contiguous U.S. through Brilliante Records in Chicago, the other of which is just out now in PR and might be their last); new one from ska/reggae guitar legend Ernest Ranglin; new stuff from Javier Garcia and Kobol and oh hell this could go on all day.

Check out Yard Work; them dudes is crazy. Also, my good internet friend Ant has a pretty nicely done wrapup of his fave 50 songs so far this year, and I love half of them and hate the other half, but he's got funny stuff and pictures. Also, wanted to have this be a post where someone linked to both Ant and Julianne without referencing...well, let's just say "some stuff what happened a few weeks ago" and leave it alone like when Mickey Mouse tried to rock on the microphone.

Um...okay, more later. Love you all.

I might be back. Not sure yet.

Anthony Hamilton's new/old album, Soulife, already almost made me cry; "Georgie Parker" is one of the great miniatures of r&b music, and pretty damned touching for anyone who grew up in a small town and needed to get away. I love ya, Canby, and I'm glad I grew up bicycling around your streets, but we both knew I'd always leave. Doesn't mean I'll never be back though. But yeah, this is a great damned album, even though most of it is about five years old, albeit dressed up in new clothes. Julianne will love this, and Hua Hsu wrote some great liner notes for Rhino.

Other great stuff: both new albums from Puerto Rican avant-pop band Superaquello (one of which is from 2004 but now available here in the contiguous U.S. through Brilliante Records in Chicago, the other of which is just out now in PR and might be their last); new one from ska/reggae guitar legend Ernest Ranglin; new stuff from Javier Garcia and Kobol and oh hell this could go on all day.

Check out Yard Work; them dudes is crazy.

Um...okay, more later. Love you all.