When you have a three-year-old in the house you quickly grow weary of the traditional nursery rhymes like The Itsy, Bitsy Spider. For relief, I've been introducing my daughter to music we both can enjoy together: The Beatles. Her fab four appreciation and knowledge are growing by leaps and bounds. She can already name all four Beatles, and is slowly learning who is singing on which songs. Her current favorite is Ringo (Yellow Submarine, Octopus's Garden), followed by Paul (Hello Goodbye, Her Majesty). I'd love to turn her on to I am the Walrus, but she's not quite ready yet. Maybe when she's four.

Russell Simmons and Ben Chavis felt the need to issue a press release explaining why it's acceptable for hip-hop artists to refer to women as hos.

Fans of Bob Dylan will find his long-awaited memoir Chronicles: Volume One fascininating and revealing, although non-fans will find little of interest. Dylan writes in a quirky, eccentric idiom whose effect is often poetic but sometimes sophomoric. The nonlinear narrative jumps around randomly from his childhood in Hibbing, Minnesota up through the 1990s. He ignores the publicly well-known events of his life, focusing instead on the people and events that most influenced his personal and artistic development. Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and even Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill feature heavily as early artistic influences.

The most bizarre section of the book describes in detail how Dylan came to change his guitar playing technique in the 1990s. His description of this change in guitar style is more numerological than musical, and ultimately nonsensical, even for the musically literate. Strangely fascinating nonetheless.

The New Morning chapter finds Dylan venting his contempt for the 1960s radicals who wanted to co-opt him for their movements, and for the druggies and freeloaders who constantly invaded his home and privacy. The Bob Dylan of the 1960s was no hippy---he admired Barry Goldwater, owned guns for self-defense, and was devoted above all to his young children.

92.3 KSJO-FM had been a Bay Area rock radio station for 30 years until October 28, 2004 when owner Clear Channel Communications switched over abruptly to a Spanish-language oldies format called La Preciosa. Apparently KSJO's ratings had been in the toilet. I was surprised but, frankly, not particularly saddened to see KSJO go. What I remember of KSJO is vulgar, annoying jocks playing the same old Ozzy Osbourne songs over and over. So although I won't be listening to La Preciosa, I say bienvenidos and wish them well.