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One of the world’s greatest drummers has found a new resting place. Louie Bellson died at 84 in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Valentine’s day.

Louie had played with such greats as Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Oscar Peterson, Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.

He had fallen in November, broken his hip, and was in rehab. Complications from Parkinson’s disease are given as the cause of his death.

Bellson, leaves a legacy of rich music, both secular and sacred. At some point in his life, he became a Christian and played rather regularly in his church [more](Emmanuel Baptist in San Jose I do believe). He played with Duke Ellington for his Sacred Concerts, and Duke encouraged him to compose and conduct his own sacred concert, which he did and recorded it with members of the USC studio band.

Louie is recognized as the inventor of the double bass drum at age 15, which earned him an “A” in Art class. At 17 he won a major drumming contest against 40,000 competitors. He was the drummer or conductor on over 200 albums, and his last CD was released in 2008.

It was my pleasure to be introduced to him when he played with the Cal State Hayward Jazz Ensemble, on at least two occasions. It is my pleasure to have in my posession autographed CDs from this giant of music. It was surprising the first time I saw him play, that at the end of the concert, he said “every now and then I get away from church with my wife and play outside like this. Church isn’t a bad place – it’s where I found peace and a reason to live.”

Thank you Louie. Thank you God that I got to see and hear this giant.

[center]Thanks to louiebellson.com for the photograph[/center]

They struck again! This time, they got mine and left the underside of my car looking like this. What’s that you say?

You read right. The catalytic converter thieves managed to cut mine off sometime yesterday while I was at church across the street from where I usually park on Sundays. Not sure exactly when, but according to the Sheriff and my insurance company, they are fast! How fast you ask? Well, there are reports of people pulling into a supermarket parking lot, running in the store for some items (via the express lane) and coming out to find a very noisy car.

That was how mine sounded when I started it up. After all, the converter is in front of the muffler, and there you are, in all your unmuffled glory. I had left my tools and other stuff in the lobby of church, so after driving across the street, I stole a look (poor choice of words) under the car (in the rain no less).[more]

Big as life, it looked like a broken tail pipe, but another look told the full story – it wasn’t broken, it had been sawed through. So there I was, with no catalytic converter, the muffler and tailpipe kind of hanging down under my little red Hyundai. What kind of people…? Well, we know they needed the money for something – food, rent, diapers, gas, hospital bills, etc. (Yea sure Joe, your brain has been fried!) More like d r u g s !

This is big business, because the catalytic converters use precious metals as the catalyst to get rid of all those emissions. Metals like platinum and gold, and they can be sold on the scrap metal market for spare change. Doesn’t take much if you have an SUV or pickup to get yours – just roll or slide under, and with a battery-powered hacksaw you have yourself a unit. Then all you have to do is find someone to buy it. Dealer parts department said that their used ones (read defective or useless) get sold to scrap dealers for about $50.

Apparently, according to a search on the web, finding buyers is not very difficult. They will even “fence” the junk to foreign countries. After all, platinum is presently going for about $1000 per ounce, and in some converters there may be as much as one ounce of the precious metal.

Then the real fun began. Things like checking with the insurance company (covered under “Comprehensive”) paying the deductible and getting a rental car while you wait for a dealer to find the parts, get them installed and return your vehicle to you. I was fortunate that my local dealer’s service department was open on the holiday – that gave me a one day jump. Plus the fact that I had done all the insurance work yesterday, and had filed the report with the Sheriff’s Department via internet.

Some suggestions I found were: motion-sensing alarm on the car; engrave your VIN on the replacement converter. My own mind says stop parking there every Sunday morning. They may have “cased” me, because I arrive early every Sunday, so they got to know my habits.

According to the tow truck driver this morning, most of the people he knows who got ripped off actually have their cars stolen, many right out of their driveway or in front of the house, and other stuff gets taken as well, but he said big as life, the catalytic converter is gone.

So now, it’s not just “watch your back”, but “look under your car.”