i've beeb driving around the countryside, hanging out with my son sam, who's staying with my ma down on the bliue ridge and going to nature camp, and with my bro jim and his wife judy in germantown md. so i know what you're asking, in your desperate stae: what has sartwell got on his cd player as he trawls hither and thither in serch of meaning or perhaps  mere sanity? first off, i'm in a white stripes phase, along with many of my children. "elephant," i really think, is the best rock album of the past x years, but all the stuff is good. the new one - "get behind me satan" - took a while to grow on me, but did. mellower than previously, but deepening jack's continued effort to master and re-appropriate the various traditions of american music. that's what i love: it's very traditional music but fresh as hell. part of this is actually the drumming, which is weird. almost rigid, almost incompetent, but somehow perfectly refreshing to the song structures. also i'm listening to some reggae, as always. i got "freedom blues," by jah cure, a twentysomething jamaican who's been in prison for rape and robbery in jamaica since he was 17. though he's creditied with a roots revival, i still think there's a way to go. but i do keep putting the thing on. and groundation: perhaps the finest marleyesque roots band working today. they come from the bay area, and the singer is astonishing, though perhaps a little mannered after a long set of songs. anyway...