And that's it in a nutshell.

Genius often comes at a price. Are you happier to have never played with it, and avoided it's little problems (or big ones) or would the opportunity to work an play and learn from the best in the business make putting up with the baggage some of them carry worth while?

Let's put it this way... were any of us here fortunate enough to have jammed with Parker, Miles (the list goes on forever) etc., do you think we would be bitching about them the way we do some slacker stoner that CAN'T play worth a damn, sober or not..? Hell NO! They'd be bragging to their grandkids till the day they died...

Not too many of us saints around here, anyway (unless the drugs have made us forget our peccadilloes!). And even fewer capable of hanging with the greats!

Sorry, Fran, but I'll take Miles or Bird bombed over you sober, any day! At least they always played what they did