Movie making consists of capturing and communicating an experience not otherwise safely available to our senses, at least not in this lifetime. One such experience is a visit to Vegas.

Vegas is infinitely trashable.

I've never been to Vegas, and movies that use it as a backdrop lessen my desire to visit... Bugsy, The Godfather Part II, Casino, Leaving Las Vegas, the Tristan Isolde segment of Aria, Oceans 11, and The Cooler. Any others?

Yet Vegas inspires a degree of greatness in those films.

As he does most every day Jackie Mason on August 18th, 2005 presented himself on the Broadway stage, making observations and asking people, challenging them with the question, "Do you understand this?" Thanks to an attorney friend at 13th Street Rep, I finally saw Jackie Mason. I wanted his take on current events, and will probably get that by tuning into his comcast radio show. My favorite observation was a pure joke about job discrimination and fat people... fat people can't get a job. Fat people are starving to death. Do you understand this? He criticises to improve. Would he if he didn't care? No. He loves this country. He uses dirty words because he recognized the audience was comprised of a lower class of people. Change the station if the abusive words offend. For those of you no longer satisfied with verbal abuse, consider a friend who attended a warrior workshop at the Catskills Nevely and came back with a limp and a bandaged knee. It was a workshop where martial arts experts (physical, versus verbal, comedians) suprise-attacked and hospitalized many. Now THAT's abuse. As for those of you prefering the beauty of the ethereal, listen to Jackie Mason's singing voice... ------------------------ I'm adding the details of our cover of Harry Nilsson's Without Her here: My transcendent moment with Nilsson (and Tarantino) occurred when Harry Nilsson’s recording of his song, “Coconut,” played at the end of “Reservoir Dogs.” ----------------- My latest home recording project for Wood Records is a cover recording of Harry Nilsson’s “Without Her,” a song to be distinguished from Nilsson’s “Without You.” July 7, 2005. I just sent my cover of Without Her to Wood Records for its tribute CD. I combined Mr. Nilsson's great recording with the version by Blood Sweat and Tears (in which the melody is lowered a fifth...). I spent a Friday evening in May at George Parow’s home recording studio in Danbury Connecticut. He uses Q-Base software. George and Dale had already been listening to the Blood Sweat and Tears recording of the song. I only knew the Nilsson recording which Mark at Wood Records sent me. We combined the two. I sang Nilsson’s melody (BS&T sang the melody a fifth lower.) and we alternated with the giddy bossa nova rhythm at the chorus. I played a piano keyboard and dubbed a flute solo on a midi keyboard. The following visitors to the studio participated in the recording: Liam Glynn: Harmony vocal Dale Jones: Guitar Dennis Simonson: Bass Although Mark from Wood Records discouraged mastering, George thought it should be mastered and I compromised by doing what I’ve done with all my recordings, I let Alex Abrash run it through his elaborate home system. When I asked Alex what his credit should read, he requested the following: Prism SNS Mastering by Alex Abrash of Tremendos Music. PETER DIZOZZA dizozza600@cs.com http://www.cinemavii.com Albums: Pro-Choice on Mental Health, Songs of “The Golf Wars,” and a new one produced by George Parow!