Unconventional . . .

Carlos Alomar and Nile Rodgers, former collaborators with David Bowie, recently commented on the latter's work habits during his creative heyday. “In order for him to stay up all night and finish the tasks at hand, it (cocaine) was a huge factor. Its function was to keep you alert, and that’s what he was doing. It did not stop his creativity at all.” Alomar admitted that it occasionally affected their concerts. If Bowie forgot a lyric, it fell to Alomar to pick up the lead vocal until Bowie could find his place in the song. Bowie gave up drugs in the late ’70s, but by then they had already done some permanent damage. Rodgers, the Chic mastermind who produced Bowie’s smash hit 1983 album, ‘Let’s Dance,’ said, “He told me there are years of his life that he doesn’t remember. He said, ‘I know that’s me singing, I know that’s my record and my picture, but I don’t remember writing the songs, I don’t remember going into the studio.’”

Bowie came to the public's attention in 1969 when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie challenged rock music conventions of his time and created the largest cult in popular culture. But in true creative fashion, Ziggy was only one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which Bowie himself characterized as "plastic soul". The radical shift in style initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. Low, "Heroes", and Lodger, the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums, all reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. In the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, which yielded several hit singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. Bowie's latest studio album The Next Day was released in March 2013.

(thanks to http://ultimateclassicrock.com/david-bowie-cocaine/?trackback=tsmclip and wikipedia.com)

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Reading . . .

. . . the faces . . .


Maybe it's me.  The stories of Chuck Hagel's resignation and speculation about the reasons has been varied, believable and interesting.  They've even been uncharacteristically (for the press) objective.
All sound plausible from McCain's explanation that the administration micromanages and that Hagel, like his predecessors felt they were inhibited to the administration rep's comments on Hagel not being up to the job.

The photo above right is the more interesting of the two but the one left is there purely for contrast. Whatever the mutual feeling on the left, (when Panetta left and Hagel joined) all appear relaxed and, for lack of a more descriptive term:  happy.  The one right clearly portrays something practically opposite happy.  And while the resignation of a cabinet officer is certainly not a happy occasion.  But I detect in the one on the right, something more;  deeper.  Maybe the version that Hagel was forced out?

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

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Pies Etc. . .

Pizza, or something very much like it, has been made since the neolithic age. Records of people adding other ingredients to bread to make it more flavorful can be found throughout ancient history. The precursor of pizza was probably the focaccia, a flat bread known to the Romans as "panis focacius", to which toppings were then added. In Sardinia, French and Italian archaeologists have found bread baked over 7,000 years ago. The Ancient Greeks had a flat bread called plakous which was flavored with toppings like herbs, onion, and garlic. Foods similar to flatbreads in other parts of the world include the Indian Paratha, Central and South Asian Naan and Roti, Sardinian Carasau, Spianata, Guttiau, Pistoccu and Finnish Rieska. Also worth note is that throughout Europe there are many similar pies based on the idea of covering flat pastry with cheese, meat, vegetables and seasoning such as the Alsatian Flammkuchen, German Zwiebelkuchen, and French Quiche.

Johnny’s Pizza, by the way, is extraordinary – beginning with breakfast. Doors open at 8am to showcase a delicious breakfast pizza. Brushed with butter and smothered with eggs, several delectable cheeses and a bevy of optional toppings, it takes pizza to an unexpected level of delicious. The best fast-order cooks in town deliver other selections that include customary choices like bacon, sausage, pancakes, French toast and more. Don’t miss the chance for a free mimosa or Bellini.
(Sources www.wikipedia.com and http://johnnyspizzapub.com/ocean-city-md-location)

Join OHO Saturday, November 2, 2014 at 8:30PM at Johnny's Pizza and Pub,

5601 Coastal Hwy Bayside, Ocean City, MD 21842, Phone:410-524-7499

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
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A Will? . . .

(from Treatise On The Gods by H.L. Mencken)
". . . The earliest religion, I daresay, arose out of some extraordinary series of calamities, unprecedented and intolerable. As the cells of his cortex multiplied, primitive man found even the ordinary discomforts of life increasingly disagreeable, but it is probable that he was still too close to his infra-human forebears to do anything about them. When it rained, and there was no cave or thicket handy, he simply got wet, as the other mammals got wet. When food was scarce he chewed on twigs. When it was cold he shivered. When a rival stole his wife he sent without the domestic consolations until the rival tired of her, or he could make and wive a widow. All such misfortunes were unpleasant, and the new trick of thinking made them more so, but they tended to be transient, and they were not often fatal, nor even disabling. Beyond them lurked others of a greater fearsomeness: drowning, dropping sunstruck, getting killed by lightning, by wild beasts of by falling rocks and trees, dying in general. An inimical volition seemed to lurk in all of them. It was not hard to imagine some evil will throwing down the avalanche, or sending the lightning, or drawing the drowning man down to death. In fact, it was easier to imagine it than not to imagine it. . . "

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

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Meet Me at the Pizza Bar Tariq . . .

(from Tradewindsnews.com)
"It appears that a relaxing luxury cruise to Turkey is a good way of preparing for the hardships of fighting in the wasteland of Kobane. The international police organization, Interpol, is calling for airline security checks to be extended to cruise lines as some of those hoping to fight in Syria and Iraq are now going by sea. Interpol's counter terrorism chief, Pierre St Hilaire, said there was evidence that jihadis were taking cruise ships to the Turkish port of Izmir. Carnival’s Costa Crociere subsidiary, MSC Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line are among the operators offering voyages that include calls at Izmir. St Hilaire had no details about how many would be jihadis were taking a cruise to war but up to 15,000 foreign fighters are reported to have joined Islamic State and other groups fighting in Syria and Iraq. "Because they know the airports are monitored more closely now, there's a use of cruise ships to travel to those areas," added St Hilaire. Interpol wants to extend its I-Checkit program that allows airlines to check passenger information to cruise lines and others that might be able to detect extremists going off to fight. But the trade body, Cruise Lines International Association, claims that shipping companies are already taking security as seriously as the airline industry."

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

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Birth . . .

 (from Born of a Woman by John Shelby Spong)
". . . These are the issues that are argued among the scholars. No one in scholarly circles that I know of, however, is willing to defend the historicity or the literalness of the virgin birth story! Continued belief in a literal, biological virgin birth for Jesus of Nazareth is based only on a faith or a dogmatic commitment. It cannot rest on the evidence. Such a belief is no longer defended on the basis of Scripture, not even by Roman Catholic scholars, who have much more invested theologically in this possibility than Protestant Christians do.

The fact that these ideas are commonplace among the biblical scholars of our world and yet are all but unknown among the average worshipers in either church or synagogue is, in my opinion, scandalous. It cannot help but be a reflection of the ecclesiastical hierarchy's fear that such knowledge, if broadly shared, would render the faithful faithless.  Conservative bishops and priests content themselves by asserting that biblical scholarship is an ever-changing, inexact science that cannot be counted on for final answers. They argue that we must, therefore, trust the church's historic teaching authority. It is a weak and almost pathetic argument. . . "

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
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More Confidence. . .

Granted, I did and DO love playing music.  Make no mistake.  And the band REFLECTION (my very first, actual, money-making (dare I say, "Semi-Professional") band) did, as does any living, growing thing, EVOLVE.  First our guitarist Keith moved to another band, an earthshaking experience for the drummer Bruce and myself at the time.  We were just getting musically comfortable with ourselves as a unit and finding a fair amount of work.  I don't now for the life of me remember how he did it, but our drummer Bruce and I connected with Eddie (saxophones and flute),  Rick (trumpet) and Rick H. (guitar).  Since one out of two Ricks and Eddie were music students at the local university, our approach to music became a bit more academic with the use of arrangements, charts, some jazz inflections and the addition of some newer, current songs;  even one or two by Chicago- one of my favorites.  I was doubling as an occasional substitute in Keith's new band and working on arrangements and trying to secure gigs with REFLECTION at the same time.  (It's good to be in demand!)

Keith's new band was a kind of an ever-changing, depending upon the availability of individual players at any time, musical ensemble whose nucleus consisted of the drummer (who was the 'leader') John, Keith on guitar, Randy on trumpet and an intense young alto saxophonist named Ted. The band was loose, but flexible, and frequently delivered quite musical and crowd-pleasing renditions of rocking (or alternately, swinging) cover tunes to very appreciative (and sometimes, dispositionally well-lubricated) audiences. While the weakest link was quite possibly the leader, Randy and Ted were attractive and charismatic front-men doubling on vocals as well as their chosen axes. In short, a good time was (mostly) had by the band and most every gig.

Ted and I played occasional gigs outside of that band and although we were not extremely close friends, I came to view him as a hip, congenial mentor and friend. Driving to one gig in particular, I recall, Ted and I were discussing various musicians we had experienced and he referred to Randy as a 'bitch' trumpet player.  I was taken aback in that I hadn't heard that terminology before. Further into the conversation he also said I was a 'bitch' keyboardist. Almost hurt at first, I soon 'connected the dots' based upon his classifying Randy, whom I know he appreciated and admired, with myself and came to the conclusion that being a 'bitch' player was, indeed, a good thing!   And as a result of my good friend Ted, my confidence increased substantially that very day. (Ted even had me sit in with his top-notch top-40 band awhile later for which we played Satin Doll which was a thrill, I must say, and did not inflict any damage upon that developing confidence either.)

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak

My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

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