Peeking into the rock

This is one reason to have children, or to have friends who have children if you don't. You don't have to learn every little damn bit of new tech to get the benefit of it.

As it happens, I do intend to get on to this eventually, because the potential is too much to depend on the kids. Anyway, Frank got me "I'm going to live the life I sing about" by Mahalia Jackson (I actually think the version I had as a kid was someone else: I think this version is better than I remember it, and isn't that nice for a change?)

Anyway, this is my new soundtrack. Over and over. And who's the genius on the piano? That's not my question, though Kip probably knows. I can find that out. If Red Hot Jazz doesn't have it, some other fanatic will have uploaded a complete Mahalia Jackson discography with all the personnel for every cut.

Edit: the piano player's name is Mildred Falls, who apparently was dedicated to playing with Mahalia Jackson. I did find one instance of a young jazz pianist who studied her work. It's amazing stuff: Falls is so subtle and yet so driving. She opens the piece with a little high-pitched flourish that sets up an expectation of excitrement, then slides down below Mahalia Jackson's voice and just walks it most of the way, almost at a heartbeat rhythm but with just enough crescend-decrescendo and variations in rhythm to make you dissatisfied with just listening, make you want to get the hell out there and change the world right now and where's my father when I need him?

(Repetition number five of the morning just ended. I have winamp on repeat and nothing else in the playlist and my brain is on fire)

I was thinking of uploading it as a voice post but I couldn't make sense of the voice post instructions as they might apply to pre-recorded material. I mean, what if I wanted to do something more elaborate myself than just talking into the phone? That's my question. How do you upload pre-recorded material? It might not be kosher for the Mahalia Jackson piece as it's probably just about fifty years old and therefore maybe still under copyright (I think I'm going to find out in a moment), but what if I wanted to do something clever and pre-recorded with sound effects and a passage read by maybe myself and maybe other people?

On another front: Moher's driving again. She still can't use her right hand for crap, so there's some scary aspects to how she shifts gears (it's an automatic but you know you have to shift anyway). She made me and my brother watch the video of us stumbling through "True and Trembling Brakeman" at my father's memorial.

I have a weird stupid pretentious-sounding accent when I'm recorded. Something stupid about what happens to the short a is what makes it annoying. No wonder people sometimes think I'm supercilious. Honest, I don't mean to sound like that.