The Lovely Lady From Across The Bay...

(Original Post 12/15/07)

I've been working on new material and so has Dante. Although we are thousands of miles apart sometimes I feel like the buggers right next to me giving me the usual constructive criticisms. Open your throat, don't sing through your nose. You sound like a white boy trying to play like a black guy. Ha! so true.

There was a time when we were practicing "Luz". Maybe it was while we were writing it, I don't know. Previous to this I had borrowed a discontinued Putumayo Records album from a lovely lady across the bay and had been listening to it non-stop for like three day's, so I felt like I was the friggin' world champion of playing latin bass lines just listening to this album on repeat,on my little Sony discman wich was about 5 years old and on it's last limb. The only cd player I had. Anyway, I was working on the bassline wich is this slow bossa nova groove. Hours and hours had passed by were I was just working on the bass line. The tension was rising in the lttle room we had spent so many hours in writing and eating and sleeping in. I ask Dante if it sounds good this time. Finally, Dante releases a little of this tension through a few little words..."You sound like a white boy trying to play like a black guy." Well. That pretty much sent me off the deep end. After all my listening to the putumayo cd and building up my ego it was all shattered in one sentence. My pupils dialated. My skin tensed. My fingers grew long and bony and curled up into tigh red fists. My back arched liked Quasimodo. I was pissed. I honed in on the closest small object to release my ego upon. That object being the 5 year old, on it's last limb, little red sony discman containing the discontinued, borrowed from the lovely lady across the bay Putamayo Records album and hurled it at the wall leaving a hole in the surface of the plaster and bits of red plastic everywhere. I stomped out of the room, leaving the house and going for a walk to let off some steam. Upon my arrival back at our dwelling there is faint music playing. As I climb up the stairs approaching the rehearsal room the music is getting louder. "That's not Dante playing? What could it be?" I ask myself. Thinking that. It couldn't be. It. No. It was in a thousand tiny peices. Shimering as they flew across the room... I entered the room and low and behold Dante has a huge grin on his face, laughing actually, and the cd player is taped together playing a cd. The cd spins exposed to the world around it. I can even see the batteries sort of dangling from the side of the little red sony cd player. Hmm. The music playing is not the putamayo cd though. It is something different. "Were is the cd?" I ask. "Right there... and there... and over there." Dante repiles. I just laughed and learned. I explained to the owner of the rare, discontinued Putamayo records album that it had "some how broken in my backpack" and that "I was sorry". Needless to say I never hung out with the lovely lady from across the bay ever again and I still have a sliver of the album in my old room reminding me of my impulsive stupidty. Laugh and learn and know it's just who we are...