Bieber battle. Dueling Pianos on the NCL Epic

Naples for Pizza

Yesterday I went out into Naples with Vanessa from Spain who is one of the female acrobats that works in the Cirque show. We went out searching for the oldest pizza restaurant in Naples, called Pizzeria Da Michele. We found out later that this restaurant was part of the movie, “Eat, Sleep, Pray” with Julia Roberts. The day was overcast and we kept expecting it would rain. Along the way we stopped for Coffee, and we both ordered Lattes and sat outside and watched the bustling world of Naples pass by. When we finally arrived at the pizzeria, there was a line of people out the door. We went in and took a number (21) and waited about 30 minutes until they called us. The noisy restaurant was lit by unforgiving florescent lights hanging from high ceilings, and we were sat at a plain cafeteria style table with a bunch of other people we didn’t know. They served only two kinds of pizza, Marinara which was basically just tomato sauce, seasoned with garlic cloves and oregano, and then the second kind was Margahritta, which had tomato sauce, slabs of melted mozzarella, and basil leaves. Each pizza was only 5 Euro (about $6.90). We got one of each as well as a bottle of Coke, served in the old-fashioned glass bottles. The Margahritta pizza was outstanding and the mozzarella so fresh and flavorful. The Marinara was good too, but I didn’t like that it was missing cheese.


When we left, we walked through the narrow back streets, paved with stones smoothed by the traffic of centuries, and occasionally had to move aside for a moped or a small car. We passed a lot of stores that had small replicas of ancient town scenes, where you could buy tiny handmade brooms, pots, water wells, trees, spinning wheels to scale. I picked up a couple trinkets for some people back home. We stopped for another coffee in a piazza (square). I walked into the coffee shop and the menu at the counter said that it was 1.30 Euro for a Cappuccino, so I ordered two of them directly from the counter man. The waiter came up to me and told me to sit outside and he would bring them. When he did, he dropped a check for 5 Euro. Apparently in Italy the price doubles if you opt for waiter service.

After the Cappuccino, we continued walking back to the port, where I remembered that I had a postcard in my cabin that needed to be mailed in Italy, as I had already affixed the proper Italian postage on it. So I went back to my cabin and retrieved the postcard, went back through customs and security, and found a mailbox. This was our last day in Italy. Tomorrow we go to Mallorca, Spain and on Sunday back to our final Barcelona whereupon we will set sail for Miami and the Caribbean. Europe was fun but I’ll be glad to be home soon.

Florence, Rome and the Vatican

Aside from the Dueling Piano shows I'm contracted for, I signed up and was chosen to be an escort for a couple of the ship’s official guest tours. The first was an all day tour to Florence. My job as an escort is laughable really. All I have to do is wear my nametag and just be present. The local guides do all the work. So, it’s basically a free tour for me, and these all-day tours cost the guests $230 - $300. 

Florence was like a picture postcard. There are statues and mosaics everywhere, and the streets are lined with old stones that have been polished by centuries of pedestrians, horses and cars. All the buildings are adorned with ornaments and beautiful shutters on colored Italian stucco.  The City of Florence was more or less the center of the Renaissance, so it’s history of Art is deep and broad. They have a plaza that functions as their outdoor museum, and is full of marble sculptures by some of the greatest sculptors to ever live including perhaps the most well-known sculpture ever, called The David by Michelangelo, which is of the beautiful youth, David right before he fights Goliath. So beautiful in fact, that I bought a cheap plaster reproduction. 

The following day I was chosen to escort a full day tour to Rome and the Vatican. The Vatican museum is quite a grand affair, and is absurdly crowded. You are surrounded by a streaming mass of humanity just flowing through the large passageways that house perhaps the most extensive religious art collection in the world. There was so much to look at and so little time to see it. I would love to go back again when I had more time, but I doubt I will. Part of the museum is the famous Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted the ceiling fresco. As you exit the museum you are allowed to go into St. Peter’s Basilica, which is the most important church in Roman Catholicism as it is built upon the remains of the first very pope, the apostle Peter. 

As I type this, I’m sitting at the coffee bar on Deck 5. A couple of the Blue Men actors just came by and we’re talking. One of the things I love about this ship is how much of a community the entertainers have. It’s like we’re all in the same boat…umm…yeah. Anyway, I’ve made a lot of friends.

Ok, was interrupted again by a passenger from Scotland asks me if I play “The Eyes of Texas” (The University of Texas fight song) [yes] and “We Didn’t Light the Fire” [yes] at our piano show tonight.

Cruising with Dueling Pianos

I’m doing a Dueling Piano show on a cruise ship out of Barcelona for a few weeks. I only met my other two partners the night before we were signing on. One of the guys is a vet of about 8 years, and is super nice. The other is a younger kid with about 3 or 4 years under his belt and a great attitude. Actually, I think we all have a great attitude. I don’t mean to gush, but this particular gig is a real privilege to work. You get to travel through Italy and Spain on one of the largest ships on the water, get well taken care of, have sound and light guys, great equipment and audiences that are on vacation and are already predisposed to having fun. All of that, and you get paid.

So far we’ve played 2 shows, both of which have gone well. I was pleased to discover that both of my partners have solid shows and are very supportive on stage. The audience this week is somewhat older, averaging 45-55 years old, and this bunch isn’t very energetic, but they give us love in a reserved way. 

The first show that we played we had very little time to do a sound check as the room was in use until 45 minutes before our show began, and the techs wanted to wait for a third tech to come and help them move the pianos. Then there was a problem getting one of the wireless mics to work, and so we rushed through a sound check in 10 minutes and it just wasn’t enough time.

The following day we helped the techs move the pianos onto the stage, and got right into the sound check, as we already knew what the problems were the night before and could tell the techs exactly what we wanted to change. By the time the sound check was over, the monitors were perfect, and I was really pleased with this.

During my first break, while my partners were up on stage, I was working with one of the techs and we were able to get the main room sound just about perfect as well.

Our schedule on the ship is 4 nights on followed by 3 nights off. Tonight is my second night off, and I’m about to go out and check out some of the other entertainment on the ship.

Disturbing

Two days ago I copied a picture that a friend had posted on Facebook onto my own Facebook status. Here’s the picture:

 

Most of my friends are like-minded and 16 of them “liked” or commented on the picture. The following morning one of my Dueling Piano friends, a guy who I had worked with one weekend about 2 years ago (and don’t know all that well) private messaged me as follows:

[Dueling Piano Guy:]
you`re kind of full of yourself
[Me:]
what do you mean
[Dueling Piano Guy:]
you are
think you`re better and smarter than everyone else
I think you`re arrogant
[Me]
why?
[Dueling Piano Guy:]
why?, you just run your trap about people`s beliefs and opinions like you`d know more than they would...you don`t even have fucking kids
somehow the NY and Cornell thing and allthe breaks you get are some kind of license to run your trap.....since nothing matters to me anymore youdon`t want to crossme
[Me]
Are you talking about the picture i posted?
[Dueling Piano Guy:]
I ought to kick your ass
I think you are full of yourself
[Me]
I think you are off your meds.
[Dueling Piano Guy:]
what the fuck makes you think you know even one iota more than anyone else
Tell me that to my face puke
[Me]
Well are you?
[Dueling Piano Guy:]
Fuck you...best NEVER cross my path
you`ll need meds
asshole

........................................................................

About 8 hours later he sent me the following:

[Dueling Piano Guy:]
sorry Eddie...bad night. You did nothing to deserve any of that. Sorry again.

[Me]
Forgiven Sir. Please take better care of yourself.

[Dueling Piano Guy:]
Thank you from the bottom of my heart Eddie.....good luck overseas....I`ll try and take better care of myself. I`m just so sorry for acting that way.

Budapest guest house

First of all it's pronounced BUHD-a-peSHt, with an SH sound before the last "T". The city is divided geographically by the Danube River, which separates Buda from Pest. I stayed on the Pest side which has a more happening nightlife scene. I rented a room at a guesthouse online while I was still in New York City on a break from a Dueling Piano gig. When I arrived at the building, I had to take an antique tiny 2-person elevator up the 4 floors to my "guesthouse". I entered a very large apartment, and was shown to my room. It looked like something that a minor Hungarian nobleman from 1850 might have been lived in. It was very Gothic with lots of tapestries, over-sized

furniture, a full scale reproduction of Michelangelo's David, marble pedestals, ornamental accents, lots of brass candle sconces and a 9 foot tall glazed ceramic wood burning stove that looked like a piece of art. It was in a very old building that housed large apartments surrounding a courtyard. My windows faced the courtyard and because I wasn't on the top floor, I didn't get that much light, which added to the already slightly spooky effect.

Every time you entered the guest house you needed to key in, and then when you shut the door from the inside you needed to use your key to lock it. The same hassle for the beedroom door, except with a key and lock that was from the late 17th century, and that I never did get the handle of. 

The only thing missing was a grand piano, vampires and organ music. I shall put that on my online review.

A week in Berlin

Tomorrow I leave Berlin after having been here 8 days. I've enjoyed this city. The Berliners are extremely civilized and polite, and don't strike me as uptight at all. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I always found the language to be rather harsh and in-your-face. Of course, being an American, I can't help but think back to the not so distant history where the German people succeeded to overrun all of Continental Europe. Pretty aggressive stuff. And yet the people are polite, they look you in the eye, and are very easy to live with. The city is clean, and there doesn't appear to be violent street crime. It's rare to see police, and everyone seems to behave. I suppose that's to be expected from the number one economy in Europe, but still, refreshing.

I have met some very interesting people here, out at restaurants and also online. One couple from Prague helped me with a German menu, and ended up joining me for dinner and giving me a map and a complete rundown on the cool places I must visit. I met a guy named Zack in a sidewalk cafe and we bonded discussing the failures of the European Central Bank and the IMF. (It's my not so secret pass time. I'm an economics geek. It doesn't come up in conversation with my friends, because none of them are into that. Many are creative types and couldn't give a damn about monetary and fiscal policy.) Zack and I became friends and we went out to dinner a couple of times. The first was an Austrian restaurant recommended to me by an American friend as his favorite restaurant in the world. I have to say, it was pretty outstanding, and the conversation with Zack, who I suspect has near-genius intelligence, was smart and lively.

The second time we went out together, we tried a chicken restaurant recommended by the couple from Prague. It was a German Pub, and they only had one thing on the menu: 1/2 Chicken. It was the specialty of the house and was cooked to perfection. My guess is that it was initially boiled, and then the entire chicken was deep fried. Of course the German potato salad that was served with it was rich, creamy goodness. Towards the end of the meal I noticed an upright piano was sitting near us, and after a word to the owner, she unlocked it, and I sat down and played. There weren't that many people in the place, but everyone who was there clapped after every song, and when we finally got our check, the owner had taken half off, "For the music."

The other day I crashed an art opening. Free beer and cheese.

Today was my last full day in Berlin and I decided to rent a bike. It's a very bike-friendly city, in a way that I wish New York was. There are dedicated bike lanes on most streets, and the car traffic respect the bicyclists. Even the taxis! Very different than New York. I drove all around, including the big city park, the Tiergarten, right in the center of all the buzz, just like Central Park at home in New York City.

A couple of other random notes about Berlin. The traffic light cycles to yellow before it goes to green so that traffic is ready to go when the light does go to green. Prostitution is legal, and quite available from what I see on the streets. There are blue laws on Sundays, meant to uphold the Lord's day, and apparently the only types of businesses that are allowed to be open are bars, clubs, casinos, houses of worship and houses of prostitution. All VAT taxes are included in the prices quoted by restaurants and shop pricetags, so you know exactly what you're paying before going to the register. Taxi's in Berlin are run, it seems, mostly by Germans, and I always felt safe in any cab I was in. The public transit system, the BVG, seems to run more or less on the honor system. You buy your ticket, and it's up to you to time stamp it. Once you time stamp it, it is valid for 2 hours on any train or bus going away from the original time stamp machine. But, the thing is no one ever checks to see if you have done this. Apparently there are police that are supposed to do this, but my new Berliner friends have never actually had someone ask to see their stamped tickets, or for that matter, seen it happen. Could you imagine this working in NYC??

Anyway, Berlin is a wonderful city, very inviting of tourists, safe, interesting and easy to navigate. Definitely a city I could live in. A world-class city for sure. I wonder if they'd enjoy dueling pianos here? Hmmm...

A Fresh beginning

It's been way too long since I updated my blog, and I've been inspired to write again. As most of my readers know, I now make my living as a Dueling Piano player. It's been over four years since I saw my first dueling piano show in Austin Texas. Since then I have completely devoted myself to this craft, and now I can say that I more or less know what I'm doing. If you look at some of my past entries on this blog you know some of my struggles and obstacles as I tried to master this very specific and unique entertainment form. Well, I continue to try to master it with every new performance and every new dueling pianist that I meet.

I travel pretty much every weekend now, flying in on Thurs to some town or city in the Midwest, or the south, doing a show Thurs night, Fri night and Saturday night, and then fly back home to New York City where I spend 4 days at home, before doing it all over again. I've shared the stage with over 100 dueling piano players over the past 4 years, and have learned something from most everyone of them, even the bad ones.

Today I am flying over to Berlin. I was invited to play on a major cruise line as part of a dueling piano headliner act for 7 weeks out of Barcelona. I've already done this gig on this ship, but in the Caribbean. This will be different as the crowds are more European. I didn't think the Dueling Piano format would work in Europe but every one of my colleagues that have done this gig before me tell me differently, so I'm excited to see how it works. I don't sign on the ship until the 25th, but the cruise has agreed to fly me over 2 weeks early so I can explore Europe before I begin my contract. So I will be blogging about my travels. Feel free to make comments.

Democrats vs. Republicans

I see so many threads on Facebook where Republicans blame Obama for the deficit, and Democrats blame the previous administration for inheriting problems they didn't create. The republicans have always claimed they were for smaller government, and yet all they have done is increase it when W was in office. And the Democrats are continuing to do the same. It should not be about Democrats versus Repulicans.

Ultimately, who should be responsible for our fiscal well-being? Should it be my job to take responsibility for my own welfare and that of my family, or should it be the job of my government?

I say, each of us should be responsible for our own well-being and that it should NOT be the government's job. Their job should be protecting our right to three things only: life, liberty, and property. Period! This means that whenever they levy a tax, they are violating two of those rights, because we don't really have much of a choice (violating liberty) in paying those taxes (violating our right to property) right? The more bloated the government gets, the more they take away our property and disburse it as they feel is good. This is never what our country was founded for! Quite the opposite, in fact. I wish people would begin to realize this and realize that the national dialogue shouldn't be about Democrats vs. Republicans, but rather something altogether more profound.

Reflections of 9/11

Nine years ago I got a phone call at 9:10am telling me to go up on my roof in Jersey City. There, less than 5 miles away I saw my two favorite buildings dying. THe thing that struck me about that day was how great the weather was in NY. The sky was blue, the sun was shining brightly, and the temp was about 70. I also remember wondering how much this event would affect my life. Profoundly, I realize now.

I remember vividly the papers people posted all over the city in the coming days, asking for information about their father/brother/spouse/girlfriend who was last seen in Tower 2 or 1 on the 89th floor or the 101st floor. As the days progressed, these notices became more and more painful to look at.

I remember working a piano bar up town on Sept 12, and everyone wanting to sing happy broadway songs at the top of their lungs. I gave them what they wanted and felt like a dirty cheap whore. I hated my job that day.

I remember working a piano bar in the village, much closer to ground zero, on Sun Sept 15th, and everyone was desperately clinging to each other as we tearfully sang God Bless America, and the National Anthem and the song Anthem from Chess, and Billy Joel's Miami 2018. I felt the healing begin that day, and such gratitude that I was allowed to channel that healing through my music and my chosen career.

Subway stories

I was riding the 6 train downtown yesterday. It was crowded but I got a seat. There was a man standing in front of me reading the script for "Death of a Salesman". He was about 50, needed a shave, was perhaps 40lbs overweight, and unkempt in a defeated sort of way. As the train neared the 33rd St. station, the girl next to me got up and this guy went to sit down. The train lurched to a halt and unceremoniously deposited him into the seat. Once he uncrumpled himself, I looked over, and said to him, "You'll make the perfect Willie Lowman." We both laughed all the way to 14th St.

Crazyness in the Markets

Yesterday, I decided to short the S&P500, which is essentially a direct bet that if the broad US markets go down, this trade will profit. Today, everything seems to be falling apart with everyone worrying over possible contagion from the Greek bond markets (Greece is going bankrupt and their bonds are becoming worthless). Also, when I got off my plane in St. Louis today and turned back on my iPhone, all my stock charts had a strange and very deep "V" in the middle of the afternoon. WTF? Apparently all the major markets lost 8% of their value in minutes and then immediately gained it all back. It makes no sense. Something's very rotten. Anyway, the markets closed down close to 3% for the day. I suspect until all of this stuff with the European capital markets figures itself out, investors are in for a rocky several months. I'm tempted to increase my bet against the market tomorrow.

3am swim

Last Tuesday night I found myself doing a NYC bar crawl until 4am with my best friend Link. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but it just seemed to unveil itself without any planning or intention. 3 bars and several vodka’s down the line we were sitting at the bar when Link decides to try and balance his iPhone on the rim of his martini glass. (Of course, for those of you that have iPhones, you know that this would be akin to seeing if your pacemaker works in a strong electromagnetic field just for the fuck of it. And of those of you that don’t have iPhones and are most likely jealous of those of us that do, yes, even you probably can’t fathom such heresy either.) As he begins to remove his hand from the completely unbalanced phone on the rim of the glass, I ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing as, predictably, the phone takes a 3am swim in an espresso martini. The bartender, a close friend to both of us, immediately pulls the phone from back from it’s soggy grave, where upon the phone displays the following message:

This accessory is not made to work with this version of the iPhone.

Amazingly, after drying off the phone as best we could, and letting rest overnight, it still works with no glitches, although there is a subtle coffee smell.

UPDATE: 9 days later and the phone is fine.

booking the summer

I have been talking to two venues for a few months now, either of which would have made for an interesting summer. One was in a coastal resort town in Mexico, which would have been great fun, and the other was much closer to home in a resort on the jersey shore. Both jobs would have taken up most of the summer, and so I stopped booking other dueling gigs to see what would happen with these two. It turns out that both of them fell through, and I was way behind on booking my summer schedule as a result.

So, one morning as I was having my customary cup of French roast, sitting in front of my computer in my underwear, I sent out 5 emails to clubs and agents I work with, explaining that I was seeking to book May, June and July. By 10pm, I had confirmed 8 weekends of work in 5 different clubs.

This is light years away from where I was only 1 year ago when I would struggle with each booking, as I was only beginning to establish my reputation as a dueler. This day, being able to secure so much work with so little effort, is an arrival of sorts. I’ve been working so hard over the past 3 years at this, that it’s nice to get such a material recognition of my accomplishments.

Dueling at the Waldorf Astoria??!!

In October I was contacted by a large restaurant chain to put on a dueling show at their annual corporate conference that they were holding in NYC this year. It was to show appreciation to all of their managing partners, and there would be over 500 of them at this 3 day conference. We were scheduled the second night as one of three “nightlife opportunities” available to the conference particpants. (Aside from us there was also a “dance club” and a Swing Band.) It was a big deal and they were the kind of client that we all dream about. They pay great money, and you can almost make your entire month on one job like this. When I was told that the conference was being held in the Waldorf Astoria in NYC, I almost shit myself. A dueling piano show at the Waldorf??!! There couldn’t be a more inappropriate location for dueling pianos that the stuffy and venerated grand old dame that is the Waldorf. Imagine doing the Gang Bang song, or Bang Bang Lulu next to Cole Porter’s original piano (which is grandly displayed in the lobby)!! And yet there we were!

I subcontracted out two guys from out of state: Jason, a veteran that was driving up from Baltimore, and a very new player, Brian, who had access to all of the equipment and piano shells I needed to put this gig together.

The day before the gig I met with the client’s production manager who walked me through the hotel and showed me how to get to where we would be storing our equipment during the day and where we would then be performing at night. It was quite a trip to navigate from the service entrance to the place where we were to store our equipment, involving winding passageways, two elevator trips, one to the 3^rd floor, then carting everything through a large kitchen, only to take another elevator back to the lobby, and then another winding and narrow hallway that led us through yet another kitchen, and finally to the storage room.

Brian arrived in the city with his Toyota 4-runner packed to the gills with amps, stands, cables, keyboards and of course the two baby grand wooden piano shells in which the keyboards would hide, completing the illusion of dueling “pianos”. I met him out on the street as he was driving by and somehow managed to squeeze myself in his front seat between the gear shift and a casio keyboard. I directed him to the hotel, where we began the laborious process of unloading everything and carting it through the byzantine back passages of the Waldorf. It took us well over an hour but finally we finished and then went to my favorite Vietnamese place for lunch.

Brian and I spent the afternoon walking around midtown, where I showed him Rockefeller Center, St. Pauls, Bryant Park, Grand Central Terminal, and the shops on 5^th Avenue. Finally we retired back to my apartment and waited for our partner Jason to arrive. He arrived at 7:30, and at 8:10, the exact time I had planned for us all to walk over to the Waldorf, I get a call saying the gig has been moved up a half hour! So we rush over to the hotel, and as we are getting close Brian remembers that he may have left 2 pieces of the piano shell outside the elevator in one of the hotel’s kitchens. He goes flying off to try and find these while Jason and I move all the equipment out into the lobby where we set up for our show. 15 minutes later Brian calls me on my cell saying that the pieces are no where to be found. I tell him to get down and set up the sound and Jason and I will scour the hotel to see if we can locate them. These pieces were integral to the set up of the piano shells and had three basic functions: 1. To support the electric keyboard that sits in the wooden shell, 2. A place to install two of the three legs of the wooden shell, and 3. A ridge that would block anything that might be spilled on top of the shell from reaching the keyboard.

After walking through all the passages that we had had to move the equipment through earlier, I set Jason about the task of coming up with an alternative way to set up the piano shells so that we could still do the gig. I then contacted security, and tried to track down the missing parts. After 25 minutes of being escorted to the carpentry shop, the paint shop, every dumpster in the place, and all the many hallways they might have been put, we finally spoke with the kitchen manager who informed me that she had them thrown out as they were cluttering up her kitchen all day and no one knew what they were. She took me to the main trash compactor where she said they would have been thrown, but of course by this time there was no retrieving them.

I returned to my partners in the lobby, where with the assistance of the slick but very helpful hotel manager, they had enlisted the house carpenter to drill new holes to attatch the legs to the piano shell, and had stacked up milk crates to rest the keyboard on. A black table cloth was draped over the milk crates to hide them from view. The piano shells, now with all three legs were strategically placed in behind the keyboards, so that if you didn’t look too closely, and from exactly the right angle, you might think that we were playing baby grand pianos. Of course the illusion was destroyed the moment you walked towards either side of center, but at least we were able to go on with the gig.

Finally it’s time to start and Jason and I begin playing as the lobby fills up with conference participants. I found out later that Brian went into the bathroom and vomited, because he was so upset at having lost those parts. I on the other hand was so happy to just be playing and doing our show, having worried that we might not ever get it off the ground! About 2 hours into the show, a woman comes up to the piano that I’m playing and trips and spills an entire glass of white wine INTO the keyboard. Both my partners immediately come to my aid, and try and wipe off the keyboard while I continue spewing out the words to the Sir Mixalot hiphop song, Big Butts, while unwrapping my microphone from it’s stand and moving my act to the dry keyboard, never missing a lyric. Shortly thereafter, we take a break, where my partners inform me that the soaked keyboard is completely unplayable, as it would launch into demo mode, playing through it’s repertoire of demonstration songs, without any warning whatsoever! (I was wondering why my partner was playing Clair De Lune during my Great Balls of Fire solo!!)

We all agree that Jason, who is the most experienced of the lot of us, would play the working piano, and I would, with great fanfare and grand gesticulations, pretend to play the broken piano. When it was my turn to do a song (every 2^nd song), I would just tell Jason the song and key and hope that he knew it. It was pretty funny pretending to play in front of 100 or more people who never had a clue that my keyboard was completely silent. At one point Jason yells at me, “Get off the bass!!”, a common complaint among duelers when your partner hijacks the bassline of the song you are playing. This was funny since I wasn’t playing anything, of course!

Finally the show is over, the client happily hands over the check, none the wiser, and I make an executive decision to march all the equipment right out the front door onto Park Avenue rather than go back through the employee area and kitchens and elevators. As Brian tries to load up his 4-Runner at 3am, he can’t get everything to fit, because the lost pieces were integral to supporting some of the load in order for everything to fit just so. Jason and I are standing on the sidewalk, trying to be helpful, but not really able to be, waiting for Brian to figure out this puzzle. Finally, it’s all in, and Brian and I go back to my apartment, while Jason begins his long drive back to Baltimore, all of us a bit worse for the wear.

Be very concerned. This is a big deal:

New York Times article today:

Credit Agency Warns U.S. and Others of Risk to Top Rating

...The ratings of the Aaa governments — which also include Britain, France, Spain and the Nordic countries — are currently “stable,” Moody’s Investors Service wrote in the report. But, it added, “their ‘distance-to-downgrade’ has in all cases substantially diminished.”

Growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation,” Moody’s said. “Preserving debt affordability” — the ratio of interest payments to government revenues — “at levels consistent with Aaa ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion....

This is a big deal people. If the US Dollar looses it's status as a reserve currency, there could be economic chaos, out of which a new economic world order would arise. Big scary statement, I know. And those of you that know me personally, know that I'm not prone to hysteria, but rather that I think with a rational, well-ordered mind.

This is the scenario: The first step is increasing our sovereign debt to dangerous levels. We've already done that, thanks to our leadership for the past 25 years, Republican and Democrat alike. The second step is for the credit agencies to downgrade our bonds. That's what this article is portending. The third step is a rush to the exits as people try to get out of the US dollar, and Treasury Bills. That's when the shit begins to hit the fan.

A great change is beginning and at the end, the US will not be the premier economic power that has been for the past 70 years or so. The only question now, is how long is this process going to take, and how orderly or disorderly will it be.

A letter to family and friends

I've been giving this a lot of attention and though in the past 2 years. I've been doing a ton of reading in the past couple of years trying to understand what has happened with the economy, why, and where we are headed. I read entire books, financial blogs, economic blogs and of course the daily financial news (the least informative of the four). I think my opinion is based on some solid information and analysis.

As a country we are in a debt crisis, and what now seems to be the beginnings of a recovery is merely the effects of stimulus actions by the government and the fed, and this recovery is untenable because there aren't really jobs being created, and our economy isn't really creating more products and services. So, I don't see the stock market moving much higher in the next several years based on fundamentals. Here's the problem: As a nation we have racked up so much debt, much of it prior to the stimulus began in Sept '08, and our ability to pay off that debt (through increased tax base due to increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) isn't improving, and yet we keep piling up more debt and doing it faster than ever before. The US is like the family that keeps refinancing their house and taking all the equity out, and then one day they wake up, and don't have the money to pay the mortgages and the bank takes the house back. The difference is that the US Government can always print cash to pay their monthly debt service, but printing money always leads to inflation.

By keeping the interest rates so low, and adding money into the money supply, without a real recovery based on fundamentals to increase Government revenue, we are setting the stage for inflation. Because our National debt is so very high, and getting higher faster than ever before, we have already set the stage for hyper-inflation. There is solid research that states that throughout recorded history, when sovereign debt gets to a certain point, serious inflation is always the result. We are past that point. The Government has been printing money (by selling government bonds) like it's the last night of the world to fund what it can't pay for in actual tax revenue, and our Government has been living beyond it's means for decades.

But there's more. As inflation takes hold, it becomes more and more expensive for our government to restructure it's debt. Today they issue bonds (T-bills) that they have to pay back in 2 years at 0.82% interest. In 2 years they will try get that money to pay this debt by selling more 2-year T-bills, but by then maybe they will have to offer 8% for anyone to want to buy them. And in 2 years from then, maybe 15% or 20%. At some point the market will just stop buying them, and that's the day everyone realizes that the emperor has no clothes.

What does this mean to you, the investor? It means that when the shit hits the fan, your cash will loose much of it's value. With hyper-inflation, if that occurs, your cash will essentially loose ALL it's value (think Wiemar Republic in the 1930's or Zimbabwe in the past 10 years). Your stocks will perform better than cash only in the sense that the stock prices are driven up by inflation, but because inflation is so bad for the economy, the companies won't really be doing well, and thus the share prices after adjusting to inflation will really be loosing money too. Any bonds that you hold will loose value as the interest rates increase (interest rates increase with inflation), so they are not safe. Real Estate value will raise as inflation takes hold, so that's good for homeowners, but will there be any buyers in a currency crisis?

Can a currency crises of this magnitude really happen to the United States of America, where the currency essentially becomes valueless?? Yes, I believe it can. Will it? I don't know. What I do know is that we have gone well past the point of fiscal responsibility with our National balance sheet and that if the US Government was a publicly traded company, it would be a terrible investment.

Here's what I really hope you consider, and not as an investment, but as insurance against a serious devaluation of the US Dollar, and/or high inflation. Buy gold and silver and put it in a safe and forget about it. Really...forget about it. This is not a short-term investment. Precious metals are notoriously volatile in the short run. No, this is an insurance policy against the devaluation of our currency, and in my opinion, our currency will continue to loose value over the next 1-10 years. This is your kids college education in 10 years. Even if doomsday doesn't occur, there is no way that given our ever increasing Deficit and our huge debt load, that a dollar in 2 years or in 10 years will buy anywhere near what a dollar buys today. But hopefully an ounce of gold will. A note of caution: buy the actual physical bullion and put it away. Don't buy futures or ETF's. There are reputable companies that will sell you physical bullion delivered to your door for about $25 or $30/ounce over spot price.

Also, be very careful about how much you put into stocks and bonds. I'm slowly decreasing my exposure in the stock market. Also, since I don't believe in the long-term viability of the US Currency (or US Government Bonds), I'm investigating other currencies to keep my cash in. (The Euro isn't one of them...they are in bad shape too.)

I don't expect you to take what I say as Gospel, and drink the Koolaid, as it were...but I do hope that you take some steps to protect yourself should this come to pass. What happened in the past couple of years has been awful, but I'm afraid there's much more to come.

Working in the deep south

There was some drama this weekend at a gig I did in the deep South, as one of the other fly-in piano players was asked not to perform on Saturday night because his vocals are just too weak, and he is very difficult to understand. It sucked for him, for sure. He's been doing dueling pianos for over 10 years, and the past 3 years he's had to have several vocal surgeries, and his voice is a shadow of what it must have been before. Anyway, he was a total professional about it, and my remaining partner and I did the entire gig, with a bit of help from a local trainee who was understandably nervous, but made up for it with enthusiasm and got the job done. Meanwhile, me and my remaining partner put on an amazing show doing our 2-way, which was immensely satisfying to me. It was a packed house, over the fire code limit for sure. They were the type of audience that gave you so much love and enthusiasm that you feel like a rock star. By the end of the night 2 fights broke out just in front of the stage, but even with that, it was such a great night for us and I that it all was good. Because we didn't have to split the tips 3 ways, we each made more in tips, plus extra money from the house for having to play without a third, in addition to our regular salary. While feeling bad for our third partner, Jonathan, that was sidelined, I couldn't help a guilty feeling of glee as well. Jonathan has always been generally nice to me, but I've always felt an underlying current, subtle perhaps, but undeniable, that he was the experienced dueler and I was the upstart, with so much to learn. So as I said before, it was satisfying to put on such a well-received show, even as we were handicapped with losing the third man, and knowing that Jonathan was watching us do it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want bad things for Jonathan, truly I don't, and I hope over the next year or so he is able to rehab his voice. Loosing your voice is a danger of this profession, and it's one of the reasons I am glad I don't have to work 5 or even 6 nights/week like some of the house players I encounter in my travels.

Massage and friends from the road

When Link and I returned to the hosteleria after the horseback riding trip I immediately scheduled a massage for my hands and feet (which were still sore and crampy from crawling around mountain tops the day before) and my legs. I decided to throw in a facial since I had been exposed to a lot of sun in the past few days. Link went first while I trolled the book exchange in the hostel and left behind the book I had just finished in exchange for a novel called “Stonehenge.”

When Link was finished, I met the girl at the spa, which was a tastefully spare building just down the path from the restaurant, overlooking a hill. First the massage. She had music playing…the kind that all the massuses must be issued with their liscense: the meandering wooden flute music. I much preferred silence so she turned it off. While I laid there I meditated as she relaxed the knotted muscles in my body. I counted my breaths and thought of very little as I experienced the sensation of skilled hands working my body.

After dinner and a glass of white wine Link and I met our horse riding guide, Mauricio at the bar for a game of pingpong. We also met a 22 yo traveler from Scottland named Grant who was traveling south america until his money ran out. The four of us had a lot of fun playing pool, pingpong and then finally chess on a 10 foot board built out of stone on the ground. Grant was the type of person that if I had met in New York I would want to be friends with. But we all knew would would never see each other after that night, and maybe that´s why we were all so relaxed with no agenda other than enjoying the night, the beer, the games and each other´s company.

On Caramelo´s back

The day after we completed the Mandango Loop, we scheduled a four hour horseback riding trip. The guide, Mauricio came for us in a pickup truck and drove us 2 km into town where a boy had three horses ready for us. My horse was the youngest, only 3 ½ years old, and his name was Caramelo. We began at a walk, taking quickly to the paths outside of town. I’ve been on horseback probably 15 times in my life, but I’m not a very good rider. Soon we were trotting and finally galloping. I kept my one hand on the saddle horn to keep balance, an amataur move to be sure, but other than that, I felt pretty good.

We traveled paths in the foot hills around town, taking breaks occasionally for the horses to rest and drink. It was a nice ride, and the views by any standards were wonderful, although having hiked up on the mountain ridges the day before, I now knew what a really amazing view could be. Our guide was a 25 year old wrangler and 7 time bull riding champion. He was very pleasant and I was able to practice my Spanish with him. Mostly Link and Mauricio spoke though.

Although I was third inline, we all switched positions, at times riding abreast and a couple times where I was the trail leader. As the youngest horse, Caramelo was very energetic, and would have no problems breaking into a trot or gallop. Any fear of falling off the horse was completely eradicated by the ridgeline hike yesterday. I just enjoyed the ride…until I didn’t.

It happened after about 2 ½ hours of riding. I began to quickly feel uncomfortable, then sore, then really sore. The constant bouncing up and down of the trotting was hurting my back and my legs. The ride ended an hour later, after only 3 ½ hours. I was happy to get off Caramelo, even though we had paid for a full 4 hours.

After eating a meal at the little town square, we ran into Mauricio again who had already showered and changed from our ride. We set up a tentative meeting at the bar at our hostel for later that night.

The Mandango Loop

Since I’ve arrived in the Andes Mountains here in Ecuador, I’ve been enthralled by the dramatic slopes, peaks and ridges that appear everywhere. The scope and scale of these features is not well described unless you’ve actually witnessed it. Most towns up here are in valleys with the mountains towering above and all around the town or city. Vilcabamba is no different. Link and I choose a German run Hosteleria a couple kilometers out of town which our guide book gave good notices. This particular "backpacker resort" boasted a restaurant with sweeping views, a bar, a spa, a spring-fed pool, WiFi (a rarety, although becoming more common) and most importantly an entire set of trails they designed for the guests to hike the mountains, ranging from 3 hours to 3 days.

The hike we choose was called the Mandango Loop and promised 5 hours of sweeping views of the mountains, a ridgeline hike and finally a decent along a mountain streambed. The description warned the prospective hiker that it is easy to die while hiking the Andes. It also said that you may not want to do this hike if you were afraid of heights. Well, I do have this fear, but it is not disabling and the innkeeper suggested that there was only a very short distance along the ridgeline in which I would really feel exposed. “How short,?” I asked. “Oh, from here to that chair over there,” he points 15 feet away. OK, I think, let’s do it!

We walked along the road about 15 minutes to the trailhead where we were told people might try to stop us as the entrance was on private property, but that we should just ignore them by smiling a wide Gringo smile and saying, “Gracias, gracias!” and just walk past them. We found the entrance, no problem and luckily there was no one to stop us. We immediately begin ascending a gentle slope among trees. I noticed a brown bull that perfectly blended into the backround. He was lying down and we carefully walked around him.

The slope gradually increased and soon we were ascending towards the foot of the nearest mountain. Predictably, the angle of ascent continued to increase until we were climbing up a more or less vertical wall at points. Then we found ourselves on a narrow path that was essentially a ledge that wound up the edge mountain. At points the ledge was only 18 inches wide, or even partially damaged. The drop off from this ledge was almost vertical and would be certain death with any misstep. This would be the theme for the rest of the hike. At points where the ledge was damaged, Link, who was leading, and had no apparent fear of falling to his immediate death, would reach back for me, so that I could use his arm to steady myself as I hopped over the damaged ledge. At one point, while we were doing one of these manouvers, Link lost his balance and because I had grabbed on to some stubborn vegetation with my other hand, I was able to pull him back to his center of gravity. We continued winding up the path/ledge sometimes having to climb vertically, until we reached the first milestone, which was a white crucifix planted on the first mountain top.

The view from this place was exactly the type of view that I had traveled 3,000 miles to see. There were dramatic mountains and green slopes that seemed to go on endlessly. Perhaps I could see 30 or 40 miles. I was high, and it was good. The next marker was a second cross that we could see on a distant mountain top, much higher than the one we were currently standing on. To traval to it, we had to walk along the ridgeline and then climb up to it.


[This photo was taken from the first cross, looking to the second cross which is located on the highest peak in the center of this picture]

The walk along this ridgeline is probably one of the most spectacular hikes on the planet. Walking along the ridge, the mountain fell away from you on both sides by such a steep degree that to go off the path would again be certain death. Much of this ridge was perhaps 3 feet wide, but at times it got as narrow as perhaps 18 inches. To add another thrill, it was windy, which freaked me out. Much of the path I was either crouching or downright crawling along. When the path would widen to 3 or 4 feet I could walk upright. These were times that were the most powerful for me. I could feel the deep fear, but being at that place, so isolated from anything, with such commanding views of the most dramatic spires and valleys for so many miles, … {at this point, I am at a loss as to how to articulate the feelings I experienced. I hate the use of superlatives, as they are so overused and therefore diluted, and yet my mind and my spirit was full of these superlatives as I stood on top of the world. Saying I was one with the planet, or that I was supremely connected sounds like a hackneyed attempt at some new-age bullshit. I refuse. I know that when I stood there, finally managing to get completely upright on that windy ridgeline the fear in the pit of my stomach transformed into something I suspect was as close to enlightenment as I may ever achieve in this body. At that moment there was only that present moment, and how that moment was Present! I was Present.}

We continued to walk/crawl/stoop/climb up along the exposed ridgeline until we finally reached the second peak, which was decorated with another cross, this one brown. After taking some pictures, we continued along the ridgeline. Not too far along, the ridgeline dropped about 12 feet, and we had to descend down a rocky spine, exposed on all sides except the immediate rocky spine we were descending. (Understand that even at the bottom of this decent we were still on the top of a mountain ridge.) After we successfully navigated this, we looked back and named it Angel’s Spine, because Link felt that he was so close to being able to fly like an angel (I wanted to name it The Spine of Lucifer!).

As I continued to navigate this ridgeline, I slowly became more confident and was able to walk upright more and more. I continued to be present with my fear, but also present with my walking and many times I treated it like the walking meditation that I do in New York. One foot in front of the other, feel the ground, feel the wind, hear the wind, breath, feel your breath enter your body, feel your breath leave your body. In this way, I wasn’t focused on the steep slopes on either side of me.

Soon enough the ridgeline became a mountain slope that became gentler as we began our descent. All in all, we were up on that ridge for about 2 hours. Maybe if I did this hike 4 more times, I could completely cure my fear of heights. But, there is no time. On to the next great adventure.

The Drive to Cuenca

Getting ready to leave Guamote I was afraid that we may have to ride in the back of a crowded pickup truck, but we got lucky. Upon walking out to the Pan-American Highway (this is the one road that connects the mountains of Ecuador, North to South and goes down into Peru) there was a tour bus going our way. The bus was only half full and so we were able to stretch out. There was a small Quitua boy of about 11 or 12 who was traveling alone. He was covered in dirt and grime, and no doubt had any parents to take care of him. Even though Ecuador is a poor country, this was the first abandoned child I had seen. He left the bus after about 45 minutes beside a small village. I wondered who or what he had in that place.

The bus took us South to Chunchi, a quant mountain town surrounded on all sides by the towering Andes. We grabbed a cheap meal (they are all cheap meals) by the bus stop and waited for a bus to take us further south to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. Finally a pickup truck came by and the driver was shouting out “Cuenca! Cuenca!” so we got in to the two seats in the back of the cab. Another passenger piled into the passengers seat and a fourth guy hoped into the bed of the truck.

The truck driver took off like a bat out of hell. He was extremely aggressive and very stupid. Up in the mountains all the roads are windy. Luckily this road was very well paved, but he would take the inside curves with his wheels riding on the very edge of the paved road. He would take the outside curves in the opposing traffic lane. He was driving too fast and whenever he came up on traffic in front of him, he would tailgate them, weaving back and forth into opposing traffic until he found a way to pass. I looked behind me out the window to the poor guy in the truck bed. He was sitting on the edge of the truck, holding on for dear life. We smiled at each other. He got out after 25 minutes. The other passenger left 10 minutes after that and it was just the three of us. Link and I were terrified that we would get in an accident and go flying off a mountain, and finally after a particularly harrowing swerving exercise the guy did to avoid some potholes, I yelled at him in Spanish, but Link had to translate, which was kind of funny. After that, the driver seemed to tone down his erratic driving, and we made it without further incident to Cuenca.

The Market in Guamote

Thurday is market day in Guamote and it is the largest market in all of Ecuador. People come from all over the country to buy and sell anything and everything. Items on display included kitchen ware, fabrics, clothes, hats, tools, padlocks, cell phones, chickens, wheat, vegetables, rice, eggs, cows, pigs, sheep and of course many restaurants and food stands. Every street in Guamote was lined with vendors and buyers. The majority of the attendees were the Quechua, where farmers came to sell their goods to retailers, distributors, other farms and restauranteurs.

L and I found ourselves in a large dustbowl where people were selling their sheep and pigs. They were leashed up and you just walked among them and asked the person holding the rope how much the animal cost. Then if you agreed to pay say $25 for a small pig or $50 for a medium sheep, you handed over the cash and they handed you the leash. Sometimes the animals didn’t want to be separated from their family and would squeal as they were dragged away, their legs locked, and the buyer might have to hit their backside with a switch or actually lift up their butt and push them down the street in this way.

the Quechua people

We then made the long journey from the little village of Salinas, back through Guarandas, to the city of Riobamba to catch a small van going to the small village of Guamote where we spent the night in an eco-lodge run by Belgians. We stayed in a dorm room with 10 beds, but there was only one other person in the dorm besides us. I stayed up chatting with the young Belgian innkeeper. We talked about the economy, people and traveling.

He described the indigenous people (Quechua) as very shy and hard to get to know, but also as friendly. He told me that after 8 months working with them, he only just felt as though he could joke with them. My experience with these people is that they mind their own business and never hold your gaze, but if you smile at them, they smile back. They seem to be very sweet people with a strong sense of family and of community. Perhaps they are shy because they descended from the very proud Incans, but have been beaten down so much by the white men over the last 5 centuries that they have forgotten who they are and are afraid of anyone outside of their own. I don’t know.

Salinas

The next morning after a hearty breakfast we took a cab to the village of Salina, about 30 km to the north. Salina is a cooperative that manufactures everything from Cheese, chocolate, textiles, salami, wool, essential oils, packaged medicial herbs, and probably 10 other things I can’t recall now that are sold both in and out of Ecuador. It was a very clean town set in an idyllic mountain setting, and everyone seemed to be happy and friendly. We took a tour of many of these factories and then hiked a mountain path and got lots of pictures and found the cement cross that overlooked the town from a nearby mountain. L climbed to the top of this 15 foot monument. It was scary because if he fell, not only would he fall off the cross, but he would probably fall off the mountain as well. But he survived and when we went back down the mountain, we realized everyone in the town square probably saw his escapade. Before we left we had trout served in a café on the square by a lovely woman. It was like getting fed by your mama. Near the end of the meal, her 14 year old daughter arrived back from school and mama grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a quick tight hug, put her back at arms length and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and shoulders and then embraced her once again. The expression on the woman’s face made it clear that this young girl mattered more than anything else in her world. It was beautiful to watch.

Guaranda and dinner with a hole in my mouth

We have been moving a lot the past two days. After leaving Ambato we took a bus to the town of Guaranda. My handy guidebook, which L and I have been affectionately calling “Pepe”, a name we assigned the Quechua Indian that is pictured on the cover, told us to sit on the left side of the bus for views of the volcano Zimborazo. The views were, in fact, quite spectacular and we got several pictures with our iPhones on the way. We uploaded some of these pictures to Facebook through a rare wifi signal that we got from our hotel in Guaranda. Even though Guaranda is the provincial seat, it is small (20,000 people) and quaint. I saw no other westerners. My dentist told me I was not allowed to eat rice, meat, milk or coffee for 24 hours after removing my tooth, So we found a cool café that served me a nice salad of lettuce, tomato and mushrooms. Still hungry, we went to the restaurant in our hotel where the very kind woman listened to my dietary restrictions then cooked up a meal of pasta, tomato, mushroom, and pepper with a side of boiled potatos. Perfect.

Dental work South American style

About 5 years ago I found a dentist in New York who gave me 6 crowns on my top front teeth. I was so impressed with his work that I recommended him to L (my best friend and current travel companion) who was also looking to get some crowns. As much as I liked his work, his prices have gone higher over the past several years, and he now charges almost $350 for an exam and a deep cleaning. So 2 years ago, when I had traveled to Ecuador last, I got my teeth examined, cleaned and one filling for $65, and was determined to do it again this trip.

This morning after swiftly vacating our lousy hotel in Ambato, L and I wondered around town, looking for breakfast, and most importantly, cafe con leche to start the day. After a $3 breakfast of perfectly cooked eggs, fresh passion fruit juice, a ham and cheese melt, and a fresh fruit salad, we started walking towards the bus station when I saw a sign for a dentist office. We rang the bell, and got buzzed in to an upstairs office where we were told the dentist had time to see me. I was pleased to see that he specialized in orthodontics.

He poked around my mouth with a hi-res camera which was attatched to a flat-screen monitor mounted next to the chair so that both of us could see it. He noted the cosmetic work I had had done by my fancy Park Avenue dentist, specifically the 6 crowns on my top front teeth. He showed me on the monitor exactly how the work was flawed, and strongly suggested that I get myself another dentist. After seeing it on the monitor I couldn't help but agree.

He also showed me an advanced cavity in my upper left wisdom tooth that was too large to fix. He recommended pulling the tooth, since it couldn't be repaired and was bound to cause me great pain in the very near future. I reluctantly agreed after seeing the gaping hole that used to be the side of my rear molar. He began by injecting novacane into my gums. Having been through this process before I knew how painful these shots would be, but suprisingly, they weren't that bad. After I was comfortably numb he began to remove the tooth. I have never had the pleasure before, but it felt as though my bone was going to separate from my face before the tooth separated from the bone. I was honestly scared. And it's a violent process, with your cheek being pulled back far enough to expose the tooth and the dentist using all the strength of an large adult male to separate your tooth from your head. I was seriously questioning why I had chosen to go to a dentist in a developing country, even though by this point I was beginning to think he was better than my NY dentist. I had thoughts of my face being ripped apart and needing reconstructive bone surgery or perhaps the tooth flying out of my mouth as his plyers ripped through my cheek.

At one point I stopped him and asked him if there was any chance that the separation of my tooth from my mouth could fracture my bone. He gently laughed at my ignorance, but in a way that made me believe that I was in competent hands. I finally surrendered and allowed what will be to be.

L, who was watching the entire process said he used a tool that looked like a chisel to separate the bone from the roots, wedging it between the tooth and the bone, and rocking it and forth to loosen it. Then he would use plyers to pull at the tooth, and then go back to the chisel tool, then back to the plyers, until finally, even with my mouth completely numb, I felt a profound movent of the roots finally letting go as he dragged the tooth out of the bone. It felt SOOOO wrong! But it was done, and the dentist was pleased with his work. (As I type this, it is now 10 hours later, and aside from the gaping hole in my gum, I feel no pain.)

After I was done, L decided he would get an exam and a cleaning, even though he had just had one only 6 weeks ago by our NY Dentist. Almost immediately the Ecuadorian dentist identified the same flaws in L's implants as he had in mine. He also found 3 cavities that apparantly the NY guy didn't catch only 6 weeks prior! He filled the cavities and we paid him for all of his work. I was charged $60 for my exam, cleaning and tooth pulling and L was charged $90 for his exam and 3 fillings. I'm guessing this is about 10% of what we would have paid for this work in NY. And I do believe that the Ecuadorian had exactly the same quality equipment and perhaps better education and skills than our fancy Park Avenue dentist.

Quito

Photo: Santo Domingo Church and Plaza Bolivar, as viewed from my breakfast table in Hotel restaurant.

Two nights ago my best friend and I hopped on a plane from New York to Quito Ecuador, by way of Bogata, Columbia. We will be in Ecuador for 11 days. It was a 1am flight and I was unable to sleep. We arrived in Bogata where we spent 3 hours in the aeropuerto drinking cafe con leche (sort of like cafe au lait) waiting for our connection. Thankfully our travel karma was good and all the planes were on time. Upon landing in Quito we found a cell phone shop, and spent $40 on a handset and charged it up with $20. We will sell the handset to someone arriving at the airport as we leave. I always like to do this when I´m overseas so that I can have a local number to call from for hotel reservations, travel arrangements, etc. We have one of the many backpacker guide books, and we were able to find a nice hotel for about $50 in the Historic area of the Old Town. I was here 3 years ago, and it is a comfortable and very historic city and I was glad to return.

After a 90 minute nap in the hotel we went out in search of food. We found this restaurant that was located on the huge wrap-around balcony of an old palace, and we ate like kings. My favorite part of the meal was a deep purple drink called Colada Morado. It is a traditional drink, only served for one week at this time of the year for some unexplained reason. It´s has a fruity taste, but is also spicy with hints of clove and cinnamin, and there are small pinaple chunks floating in the thick, sauce-like concoction. The smell reminded me of a fine mulberry candle.

We then took a taxi across town and found the backpacker area, where there are many travel agents, hostels and laudry shops. There are always cool restaurants and bars in the areas that cater towards younger travelers, and we found the busiest restaurant/bar and sat out on the patio drinking whiskey and eating dessert. After a couple of hours we left to return to our hotel back across town since I hadn´t had much sleep in the past 36 hours and had a little bit of a headache.

We woke up refreshed at 8:30 and ate breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel which overlooks a beautiful old stone plaza with a church and a monastary. There were book sellers in the plaza and the occassional Fransican monk with their brown hooded robes and white rope sashes. We are leaving town today by bus, to travel south along the spine of the Ecuadorian Andes. We did some of this 3 years ago and came back to complete the journey.

Ragtime

A couple nights ago I saw the musical Ragtime. It was revived from 12 years ago and is still in previews. I hadn't even known it was coming back until a few days ago. Apparently the year it opened was the same year Lion King opened and of course Lion King took all the Tonys that year. Ragtime was a brilliant show, and its revival is true to the original. I was lucky to get the best seats in the entire house (7th row, center orch). Not sure how that happened, but I was thrilled. Right before the curtain went up, the actor, Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) sat down in the seat directly in front of me.

As the curtain went up, the entire cast of about 35 people was already onstage and the theater broke out into thunderous applause. I'm sure that many of the audience were friends of the cast and of the show, but many had seen the show 12 years ago and were so happy to see it again. At any rate, the energy from the audience was the best that any cast could ever want, and the show seemed to float on top of that love. Not a cue was missed, everyone gave great performances and everyone had a real voice, something that seems more and more rare in broadway musicals these days. It was a great piece that was executed flawlessly. You laughed, you cried, you cheered and when it was over you gave an immediate and enthusiastic standing ovation. It was indeed a memorable Broadway experience. I highly recommend this show. The last time I felt this strongly about a great show was when i saw Wicked 5 or 6 years ago.

Ghosts from the past

I saw an advertisement for a show that I recognized as the show a friend of mine had written 25 years ago. I haven't seen this friend in a couple of decades, and so I bought tickets hoping that he might be at the performance. The performance was wonderful. I had the demo tapes from 25 years ago, and I was familiar with the music. Of course they had reworked it, but the skeleton was the same, and as the music and the show washed over me, I was brought back to my college days. I had loved this music back then and I had associated it with my friendship with this guy, who was instrumental in my life in a way that he wasn't even aware. We had met as counselors in a childrens sleep-over camp that was geared towards musicals. One night when I was stuck doing bunk duty and all the other counselors were going out drinking, he gave me the tapes and libretto for Sweeney Todd and told me it would change my life. It did. After that summer, I spent a weekend with him at Eastman School of Music, where he studied. His dream was to be a composer of pop music in LA. I returned to my engineering studies after that weekend knowing beyond all doubt that I was supposed to be a professional musician. It took me 10 years after that to actually get around to it, but I finally did.

After the show was over, I was able to locate my friend. He didn't recognize me at first. Once we did the reintroductions, I told him how instrumental he was in my life, especially the weekend I visited him at Eastman. I told him that I now made my living performing, and that my love of Broadway had initiated from the night that he had given me Sweeney Todd to listen to. It was so great to talk to him. He told me he did make it to LA but that he no longer does music. He has been working as an Engineer!

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Roommate 2.0

You may remember a previous post where I got a part time roommate to help me defray expenses in the midtown apartment. Well, after 2 months he left. He claimed it was a money thing. It was upsetting because I was really seeking someone for a long term situation. But C'est La Vie.

I put another ad on Craigslist and quickly got 6 or 7 pretty solid interested parties. I met with 4 of them and was just about to make a decision when I get yet another person emailing me about the apartment. In her first email she tells me that she is a porn star based on the West Coast. She goes on about how responsible and quiet she is, and that she is under contract with one of the major Hollywood studios (not porn) for a TV show. She tells me that she will arrive in NYC the following Weds with all her professional references, a copy of the TV contract, her bank statements, landlord references, cash in hand, etc. etc. etc. She is interested in a part-time long term commitment. I immediately think, well she's a vapid, big-breasted, straight porn star; I will hate her! But, the business part of my mind says, well, not so fast. She's coming at me correctly, let's see where this takes us.

I called her, and we had a really good conversation, good enough, in fact, for me to delay my decision until she came to town on Weds and we could meet. She went on to tell me that she was my age (somewhere between 35 and death), the mother of two, and she has a friend that she likes to visit a couple of times a month here in NY. The more we talked, the more I was drawn to her. Although she had the porn star voice, and she giggled like a girl, she was not at all vapid. In fact she has a pretty solid sense of business and some amazing life experience that she shared with me with no apologies. As one who appreciates directness and hates all things fake, I was under her spell. After the phone call she texted me that she was going to stalk me via text until our meeting Weds, which she did, but not in an obnoxious way.

By the time she arrived, I had pretty much made up my mind that she would be my next roommate. My biggest concern was that she not cause a scandal arriving in my conservative east-side lobby with her big porn titties and skin-tight jeans telling the doorman she was here to see me. When she arrived, there was some protest going on and the streets were all blocked off, so I had to fetch her from the corner to get her past the cops and their barricades. She was tastefully dressed and we recognized each other immediately. We went up to my apartment and had the nicest evening, drinking wine and eating sushi, which she insisted upon paying for. My only last concern, since she was in the adult entertainment industry, was that she not entertain tricks in the apartment. (A week prior I actually had an inquiry about my apartment by a couple of professional girls that wanted to "entertain friends that make living in New York more manageable!") After a very long and honest conversation, I was convinced that escorting is not part of her business model. By the end of the night we were best friends and I invited her to share my apartment and she agreed. The following day she came with the cash, signed the papers and began her 4 day stay. I had to leave for the Midwest the next morning but when I got back to the apartment on Sunday, the fridge was stocked, the apartment was immaculate, there were scented candles and new linens on the bed. She flew out before I got back, but after about 9 days in CA, filming her show she'll be back in NY for 6 nights. I can't wait...we'll have a blast.

My second Hash

Yesterday (Sat) afternoon I went to my second "Hash", which is a sort of team sport/race where everyone (about a hundred of us) runs through the streets and follows clues of chalk marked arrows. Sometimes the clues are misleading and you have to go back to a certain marking and find the correct lead. There is a lot of shouting and silliness, and people are staring at us wondering what in God's name we are doing frantically running in one direction, then another as a very loose group. The runs are designed to last about 4 miles or so, and at the end if you follow the course correctly, you end up at a bar where everyone drinks and sings silly drinking songs while making playful fun of each other.

What made yesterday's run special was that it was the Annual Red Dress Run, so all the participants (half men and half women) had to wear a red dress. My friend and I found a really cheap clothing store way uptown and got two identical red nylon numbers that were probably just glorified nighties. Cost: $8.95 each. So there we were with 100 other hashers, running through the crowded streets of Soho (right by the Zendo where I meditate, coincidentally), Washington Square, The East Village, the West Village, Union Square and back down through Soho again. It was a beautiful sunny day of about 72 degrees and the tourists and shoppers were out in full force. It was so much fun to see their faces as all of these men and women in red dresses and running sneakers ran by. Some would ask what we were running for and we'd shout out things like "It's the Red Dress Run!" (as though that would explain everything) or "for Menopause Awareness Month" or "for Breast Cancer" or my favorite, "for Beer!" Some people would get excited and start hooting and hollering. Some would just laugh. Most reacted with a combination of bewilderment and amusement, with the tourists leaning towards the former and the natives, the latter. At one point we were running down crowded Broadway and we realized that we had missed a clue so we all turned around and ran right back through the same crowd we had just assaulted 3 minutes prior. As we ran past a sidewalk cafe I held my hand out, red nylon sleeve waving in the wind, and I high-fived several of the diners. It was complete lunacy.

Brilliant!

What is he doing to this turtle? Riding it?

It's about fun, dammit!

I'm in the mid-west this weekend, working once again with 2 partners that I've never met before. I always look forward to this aspect of my work, as I have met some really cool people this way. The three of us are staying in a small band apartment with only 2 bedrooms, so the last one to arrive is stuck with the futon in the common area. It sucks, and it's an inadequate arrangement, but what can you do.

My one partner who arrived last is 30-something, and has been playing the gig for a long time. I think he was irritated about having to sleep on the futon, while my other partner and I got private bedrooms with proper beds. He was standoffish to me from the first introduction, and it only got worse.

On stage he demonstrated technically solid piano skills. I also found him to be just as standoffish to me on stage as he was offstage. When I would finish a song, he never once, made any reference to what I had just done, and he never once introduced me to the crowd as is standard stagecraft. He was only slightly more animated with my other partner. He appeared as though he had been in the gig much too long and was utterly dissatisfied. He rarely got up off his piano bench to support either of his partners with hand-clapping or riling up the crowd, preferring to do these things from the comfort of his seat, with an decidedly unenthusiasic bent. At one point after I missed a rather simple chord change, he shook his head back and forth in disgust sitting opposite me on-stage. I have yet to see a genuine smile or for that matter an authentic connection with his on-stage partner of the moment. It was almost as though there were two shows happening on stage, his and that of his partner and rarely did the two intersect.

I found out from my other partner, who has a strange history with this guy, that he was a serious cokehead (I didn't witness this), and that he's always been a miserable human being. I certainly sensed his unhappiness. I know that he was unhappy about the sleeping arrangements, but it ran deeper than that. He has not put together 5 complete sentences for me since we met 2 days ago. Had he not been so cold to me before we ever got onstage, I might have thought it a case an inflated sense of self. Certainly he has much more experience than me, and his piano skills reflect this. I know that there are guys in this gig that feel put-upon when they have to play with lesser experienced players, and perhaps that's part of it. But his bitterness seems to run deep, and for this, I am not taking his coldness personally. I think that what he completely misses is that equally as important (or as many would argue, more important) as keyboarding skills, is an on-stage presence that involves charisma, positive energy, a sense of humor, a skillful reparté with your partner and...FUN!! Ya have to be able to have fun!!! If you are so wrapped up in how much better you are then both your partners...um...you're not having much fun, and the audience picks up on it. You can throw out all the stock jokes and funny one-liners, but if you look bored or put-upon when you say them, you're second rate, and worse than that you are wasting the time of everyone in the club.

It miserable people like this that can't summon up an ounce of visible human kindness, that are the cold-prickly thorns in the side of this gig. The flip side of this is that my other partner is a really cool person and we've made a nice connection that will last well beyond this gig. So, all in all, this weekend was a wash.