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| entry created: Thursday 25 December 2003, 5:36pm (NZ time) | |
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| Location: Mirella's and Rubia's |
| Local time: Thursday (Christmas Day!), 12:55am |
| Music: some groovy classic Pink Floyd |
Well it's Christmas eve, and I've had a fair bit of Christmas cheer already, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to update y'all on my little life in the Caribbean. On Thursday night Les and I played at Mezzanotte restaurant as usual, and ended up entertaining a table of fairly high profile people, including the Vlaun family and the Commissioner of Labour. It was the second time making their night at the restaurant, and they ended up paying us well and inviting us to a private christmas party for some important people (don't ask me who). So we took our instruments, and ended up playing 3 acoustic songs, walking around mariache style through this big room of dinner tables, and then spent the rest of the night eating (and drinking) mega quantities of amazing food. I sat next to the Commissioner, and had a lot of eyes on me, as they all thought "who are these whiteboys and what're they up to?". And then on Saturday afternoon I ended up jamming with Bob Marley's original, legendary, Wailers band, in their hotel room. Stoked. Totally stoked. What an experience. We played I Shot the Sherriff, and smoked a few Jamaican beers (*ahem*). The drummer showed me a few african rhythms on my djembe drum too (somebody look up "ngaya bengi" for me!). Then we watched them perform in concert that night (bloody good time, sung all the good stuff, and the replacement singer was pretty authentic), then hung out back stage afterwards. Fun night. I have photos, but will put them up another time. Now there's a story I never expected in a million years to be telling. On Monday night we played at a private christmas party in Dawn Beach Estates. An amazing big house, full of about 25 super crazy rich people (jeez, the hostess - our employer - should have a sprained finger from that rock she's attached to it). I think about 5 servants live on the propery full time, and after the party you'd swear it looked like it never even took place. Well it ended up being our highest paid gig ever, and the most money I've ever made in my life, and it was done in 5 hours of eating sushi and drinking Moet & Chandon and playing the occasional song. After the driver had dropped Les and I off back at my apartment (he lives upstairs) we just stared at each other in silent amazement. We are about to start some discussions with these people (the host and hostess of the party) (about 35 and 37 respectively, perhaps, and about to retire next year) regarding them bank-rolling/financing us to start an electric band, buying all the instruments and PA systems etc, and hopefully a band vehicle too. US$10,000 is all we need, I swear! Honest it is! Anyway, stay tuned. This will be very very cool if it happens. And today, Wednesday, Christmas eve, I worked as usual. No music tonight though which is good. I'm having dinner with a few friends in a great apartment overlooking the lagoon. On the boat today, we had 165 people - the most we've had on the boat ever. On the way back to the cruise ship pier after the trip, somebody spotted an object floating in the water, quite some distance out from the main harbour area. It turned out to be a guitar, so the captain turned the boat around, and people were yelling at me to go and get it. Didn't take much persuasion. I jumped into my board shorts and hurled myself into the water and retrieved a classical (nylon stringed) guitar in damn good condition. I lost a contact lens in the ocean, but a small price to pay. Took the guitar back on board, hosed it off in fresh water (that was an odd experience, hosing a guitar), tuned it up as best I could considering all the people-noise around me, and played a few chords over the boat PA system, to much applause. Heh. Weird. So now I have a new guitar, coz it was found on the high seas, so finder keepers, right?! Tomorrow is Christmas Day and I'm again diving all day. We get paid double tomorrow and boxing day, but still, it kinda sucks to be working on these days. It doesn't seem like Christmas really. It's only my second one away from home, and my second one in St. Maarten. At least I don't have to work on New Years Day thank God! So life is still full and happy, but Christmas won't be the same without those special people around me. I miss you all and hope you guys have a great day. *Yawn*... sleepeth aproacheth. |
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