Huckleberry pays particular attention to his scratching post technique.

Bagheera always looks so intense. She's either polishing up her unified field theory or plotting world domination.

There are a lot artists who try as you and they might, never really grab ya. Then there are those who made one single that for some odd reason touched you. No, not there! In the heart or the head or some combination of both. Most are pop artists. And most of these one track wonders fall into the category of the "guilty pleasure."

I love rules of thumb, deep wisdom that can be sketched in verbal shorthand. The website <I>Painter Creativity</I> offers 10 rules for naive artists and designers, but they could very easily apply to any freelancer. Most of these are pretty obvious, but when you're hustling for work and worried about that monthly rent bill, you can panic sometimes and fall for the old "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday" line.

That's "roadie" as in cyclist. Decidedly non-PC and bound to offend folks who object to coarse language, but pretty funny for the rest of us.

Riders, or the contracts laying out what rock groups require for their performances, can range from straight ahead to the ridiculous&mdash;as in Van Halen's famous "no brown M&Ms" clause. Iggy Pop's backline rider is <I>intentionally</I> hilarious.

On our daily rides, Jeff Wong and I have watched a few of these abandoned bikes disassembled part by part as they serve as donor bikes for urban scavengers. Ultimately, all that's left is a lock and a frame&mdash;or, sometimes, just part of a frame.

Jeff Wong sends along this smokin' version of "Perdido" by the Duke Ellington band. About midway through, after some great solos by band stalwarts Jimmy Hamilton and Ray Nance, the camera pans back and we see Paul Gonsalves sound asleep on the bandstand, forcing Hamilton to cover Gonsalves' tenor sax solo.