These are a few of my favorite things

Dr. Joseph A. Baldassarre

These are a few of my favorite things

I'm not going to get mushy and list the individual members of my family, my Dad's instruments, playing music and stuff like that. You all know that should go first here.

Driving my Indian motorcycle

I like to play baseball and racquetball.

Cleveland sports teams, especially the Indians and Browns.

Speaking of favorite sports - Aussie Rules Football - oh yeah!

My favorite former player is (was) Rocky Colavito.

I always wore uniform #6: That was my Dad's airplane number in his squadron, it was Colavito's number when I was growing up, and there are 6 strings on a guitar.

My 1963 Epiphone Professional electric guitar.

My 1930 Model A Ford. I bought it in 1969 and I've owned it longer than anybody else.

I bought it off my uncle Frank Fondale when I was 18. I had my choice of this or a '63 Corvette split window for $1300. I know the 'Vette is worth a lot more now, but this is more "me". I used to take the kids for ice cream in it when they were small, and it really impressed Jan when I arrived in it to pick her up on our first date.

I was a fairly decent baseball player as a kid, but I quit at 14, ending my last season as a pitcher with a 42-7 record and 42 home runs. My Dad suggested that I needed to make a choice - baseball or music. Well, that was a no-brainer! I started playing ball again at age 42 by attending the 1993 Cleveland Indians Baseball Heaven in Florida where my team won the camp championship. I then continued in a national amateur league (which wore major league uniforms and was condoned by the major league clubs in the mid-90's) and the MSBL in Boise through 2002. Most of my "second career" was spent playing 3rd or 2nd base, although I still enjoyed pitching on occasion.

The photograph at right appears on Bjorn Eriksson's Rickenbacker Webpage: www.rickbeat.com. Check it out, it's phenominal. Anyway, these three vintage Rics are terrific guitars - what a sound! I use the 12-string at virtually every job and the 6-string at more than half of them. The bass only comes out when someone hires me as a bass player, not as often as I'd like at all. Will you be my neighbor?

My appreciation of the Rickenbacker sound goes back to some of my favorite guitar players, especially Pete Townshend and Roger McGuinn, but also bassists like Maurice Gibb and Geddy Lee (their earliest recordings), Chris Brubeck and Chris Squire.

FAVORITES and MOST INFLUENTIALS:

Composers: Guillaume Dufay, Perotin, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, F. Moreno Torroba, G.P.Telemann

Bands: The Who, The Byrds, The Cryan' Shames, Gentle Giant

Guitar players (besides me): Manuel Barrueco, Miguel Rubio, Pete Townshend, Andy Nelson, Jeff Beck, Jim Hall, Roger McGuinn and Chuck Berry (of course)

Bass Players: John Entwistle, Victor Wooten

Drummers: Keith Moon, Louis Bellison

Female voices: Julianne Baird, Annie Haslam, Linda Ronstadt

Male voices: Paul Hillier, Burton Cummings, Dan Fogelberg

Top 3 rock tunes of all time:

"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who

"Dance the Night Away" - Van Halen

"I Can See for Miles" - The Who

Most influential rock tune of all time:

"Johnny B. Goode" (of course)

Best attended concerts of all time:

The Hilliard Ensemble - Music of the English 13th Century and Comic opera exceprts.

The Who - Tommy Tour

Favorite movies: A Clockwork Orange, Once Upon a Time in the West, Zulu, Spaceballs, This is Spinal Tap, ANZACS

Favorite comedians: Laurel and Hardy, Eddie Izzard, Red Skelton, Gallagher

Automobile I would like to own: 1907 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost

Motorcycle I would like to own: 1916 Indian Powerplus

Skill I'd like to have: fly an airplane

Thing I would most like to do: fly a Sopwith pup, a DR1 (German WWI triplane) or an Italian CR-42

Birthday present I never got: the Wilson sisters

Personal baseball moment: hitting a double off the left field wall in Cleveland Metropolitan Stadium with my family present (going 2 for 2 that day and scoring a run)

General interests: history, antique weaponry (especially flintlock rifles), World War I, American Revolution and Civil War, Australian participation in Boer War & WWI

American Hero: Benjamin Franklin

Painters: Pieter Brueghel, Cimabue, Hieronymous Bosch, and any Italian of the late medieval or early renaissance

Favorite western outlaws: The Dalton Gang

DISLIKES -

You can't have likes without dislikes:

"Attitude" - it always covers up insecurity, which means that someone with attitude is also a "liar" - another thing I dislike.

Tattos and piercings (they give me the willies)

The New York Yankees - they've won enough and have no class

The Denver Broncos - I'm not prejudiced, I just don't like 'em

Musicals - I don't mind playing in them, but I've seen my fill

Disco, rap and any "bleached" music (easy listening / elevator)

Not funny: Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry Lewis, Adam Sandler, Rosanne

Movies I left before they were over: Star Wars (and got my money back), 200 Motels (but I let Frank Zappa keep the money)

I don't dislike basketball, I just don't get it.

A THOUGHT: I hate being scared, it frightens me.