Bonds, Barry Bonds

So Barry Bonds is now the Home Run King in American Major League Baseball.

I’m glad that he broke the record in San Francisco rather than on the road. The hometown crowd deserved to see him break the record at home, especially since the team doesn’t have anything else to look forward to this disappointing season.

Sabean will now have the chance to clear salary in the off season and begin the rebuilding effort and hopefully have a contender in the next few years. Given the strength of the starting pitching, the team ought to be at least in the mix of things with a few off season acquisitions. (Hopefully, a good closer among other things)

Given the controversy around Bonds, I suspect that this season will be the end of his career. The Federal witch hunt goes on. I find it kind of scary that they can convene a grand jury for as long as they have and not bring an indictment.

“Innocent until proven guilty”, is the way it’s supposed to be in the U.S. However, it seems that the press with whom BB has had a poor relationship with seems to think otherwise. He may have lied to the grand jury, but he’s never tested positive for steroids. (Yes, I’ve heard that the “clear” was made not to turn up in testing) If I remember correctly, while he supposedly was juicing up, there was no ban on steroids in Major League Baseball. So just because he’s less than a nice guy, the press seems to have convicted him of using a performance enhancing substance. I’d say he’d more likely to be indicted on tax evasion charges more than anything.

Baseball’s Bud Selig seems to be the modern equivalent of Ford Frick. As Frick was a friend of Babe Ruth who hated the idea of Roger Maris breaking Ruth’s single season record, Selig seems intent on marginalizing Bonds achievement in part since Selig is a close friend of Henry Aaron. His statement after Bonds tied Aaron was pitiful.

Baseball has had a long history of cheating, racism, vicious playing, or changing standards which affected the game and its records. The Black Sox scandal of game fixing was due in part to cheap management. Ruth’s homerun record was set in a segregated game. Ty Cobb was an SOB who hurt opposing players. Retaliating for homes is still a shameful thing in baseball. Pine tar, corked bats, spit balls, and greaseballs were all cheats that were meant to give a player an edge. The longer seasons, the lowered pitcher’s mound all affected the game and its records. The lowered mound gave away a pitcher’s edge. With the advent of the reliever, hitters had to readjust where as in the past they may have faced a tired starting pitcher going all nine. Supposedly, there were juiced-up pitchers in the Bond’s prime, so he had to contend with hitting against them as well.

Baseball isn’t the clean All-American game that it’s made out to be. Let’s accept the records as they are and just move on. After all, A-Rod, will likely be along in the next half-a-dozen years to break Bond’s record.

Early Stereo Recordings on Music & Arts

Music & Arts recent release of early 50's stereo recordings done by recording pioneer Bert Whyte is a very important issue in that it provides an interesting comparison between his recording and Mercury's of Tabor from Smetana's Ma Vlast. Experimenting at the Mercury sessions of Rafael Kubelik and the Chicago Symphony, Whyte provides a more spacious if slightly bass heavy alternative to the mono Mercury recording. The availability of stereo here makes for an even more impressive sonic experience than that of the fabled Mercury recording. Whyte's recording seems to be of a single take rather than one edited together. There is a better sense of continuity and intensity in the stereo issue than in the mono Mercury release. The only noticeable problem is a very slight trace of overload in a few of the loud portions of the music.

The other parts of the issue involve part of a Leopold Stokowski/Detroit Symphony Concert from 1952. The works involved include Jacob Avshalomov's The Taking of T'ung Kuan and Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Sonically, Stokie was experimenting with seating here, so we don't get a left/right string configuration, but strings on one side and winds/brass on the other. There is good dynamic range here. There are a couple of problems with warble on the tape in the Tchaikovsky.

The Tchaikovsky has applause between the first & second movements & Stokowski immediately jumps to the coda in the finale to avoid the false ending & the likelihood of applause there. As typical with most of Stokie's performances, there is great excitement here. The Avshalomov is a pleasant enough piece with oriental traces, that seems to suit Stokie well, though the composer had some problems with tempos in this under rehearsed performance. The orchestra which was early in Paray's tenure seems to be a scrappy bunch, lacking the discipline of the Mercury recordings that gave the orchestra national recognition.

Notes include Avshalomov's recollections of the rehearsal & performance of his work; an Edward Johnson piece on Stokowski; and technical notes by Mark Obert-Thorn who did the restoration of the recordings. The CSO is credited as the "Mercury Symphony Orchestra" in the booklet.

Given the quality of these early stereo recordings, one hopes that more of Whyte's recordings are in the wings waiting to be issued.

Joyce Hatto

With the music world a blaze with everyone's theory about the Joyce Hatto case, I might as well put in my own two cents.

It amazes me what kind of theories about this have popped up on the Internet. Some sound even more strange than the Kennedy assassination and Roswell conspiracies.

If this hoax/fraud is true, it probably is the biggest news in the classical music recording industry in years.

Pity the poor critic that gave her recordings a rave as everyone seems to be dishing it out on their "incompetence". Let's give them a break folks. Given the number of recordings issued and reviewed each year, there is no way they can remember similarities between every recording. I have a ton of duplicate recordings of all sorts of music and I can't recall details about everyone. There has to be a level of trust between listeners & the industry that incidents like this don't happen. Can you imagine scrutinizing every single recording that is released?

It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds and what really happened.

Kung Hee Fat Choy / Legend Restaurant

Happy Chinese New Year to all. I believe that it is now the year of the Boar.

China Town in Honolulu was packed on New Year's Eve yesterday. Had dinner at Legend Chinese Restaurant in the Cultural Plaza. The food was excellent, though with the huge crowds, service was very slow. (Dinner took almost 3 hours!) The Kahuku Prawns were like mini lobster's full of juicy meat. The veggie dish was Choi Sum. Legend does a mean Baked Oyster on the Half Shell with Portuguese sauce (a dish from Macao I believe). The Winter Melon soup was terrific with ham, chicken, dried scallops, crab, & mushrooms. Everyone had multiple servings of this. New to our celebrations this year was a char sui style pork ribs with a tempura style sea scallops wrapped in bacon. The final dish before dessert was the Yin-Yang Fried rice with tomato & cream sauce which was very tasty. Dessert consisted of coconut flake coated Haupia balls. (Don't know the Chinese name for it). Finally, there was tapioca soup type dish. Legend continues to be one of the best places for quality Chinese food in Honolulu.

Sushi Ten

When on the west side of Oahu near the Waikele Shopping Center, check out Sushi Ten resturant. It's located in the club house of the Waikele Golf Course. Open for breakfast, lunch, & dinner. They also have banquet facilities there.

The food focus is Japanese as well as Okinawan and American dishes on the menu. The specialty is of course sushi and sashimi. Their teishoku's come with salad, miso soup, tsukemono, & ice cream. Hot tea & water are free. The chirashi sushi & sashimi teishoku's have nice big pieces of ahi, maguro, hamachi, salmon, & tako. The sushi chef reportedly shops daily for fresh fish at the local fish auction. The tempura there is the traditional Japanese type with the frittery batter. There's shrimp, egg plant, & mushrooms in the selection i tried.

Since the resturant also serves as the 19th hole for the golf course, there are also smaller items including sandwiches and pupus along with bar service. Prices seem to range between $10-$20 for complete meals.

Sushi Ten was good when it was in Waimalu and continues to serve great Japanese food on the west side of Oahu.