More recycled and blogified emails to friends

Mike: I cannot take credit for the repertoire on Pinky Winters' CD. The idea to do the recording was mine, and I rented the "hall," and paid the bills to have it recorded, and acted as a go-fer, but that's about it.

Both Pinky and Richard are such respected musicians that the CD immediately secured my---ha!---reputation as a producer and a whole new world opened up for me. . .with that one single gesture.

I am sending you a copy of Rain Sometimes, my extra Jonathan & Darlene Edwards and a special surprise bonus CD for being a member in good standing of "Bill's Record Club."

You and I appear to still be in Vulcan Mind Meld. That is to say, cell phones also drive me so batty that I can barely leave the house because of them. Last week my next door neighbor's granddaughter was rear-ended by some nitwit on a cell phone. . .in an automobile by the way. Fortunately she was not hurt too badly but her car was totalled. Young woman minding her own business driving to Cal State Long Beach for class. I think that people who use them in cars should have to pay higher insurance rates. Or better yet. . .oh, never mind.

If someone calls me up on a cell phone and I discover they are phoning from a car, I refuse to continue the call.

They are a hedge against organization. Most people used to start out their day with a clear plan of attack, now with cell phones they just follow their noses and if they're overdue, they merely ring you up on their damn cellulars: "I'm running late." Grrrr. Even David Letterman rants against them: "I don't get it," he says. When my grandmother dialed up and got an answering machine for the first time (forty years later I can still recall that she was phoning United Fuel Gas Company) she ripped the phone out of the wall and threw it across the room. Don't get me started.

Am actually checking out your Jonathan and Darlene Edwards (mp3 links for a limited time only) LP before sending. Once one enters that parallel tonal universe it's sometimes hard to get back out. "Hey! I'm a gettin' to where I kinda like it, and everything else sounds off pitch."

Best,

Bill