by windhorse » Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:09 pm
Nice Pics Pav!! I especially like the close up of the hands!
I'm in Arcata now, and the camp starts this evening. I always keep a journal when I travel, so figured I'd post in the "diary".
Day 1
Last night we had a party to honor Marshall’s move from Colorado to LA. There were 12 of us there, so enough of a crowd to really get a good rumba going,, and it was good!! Steve, who informed us he is also moving to California, was leading most of the singing. Wow, what a great player that guy is! We’ll sure miss him from the local Rumba crowd. His uncle is some kind of famous percussionist in France “Jille” is his name. Also present was my teacher Dave, for just a short while, since he had a gig later that night. ET, who is a great Batalero, Rick, Dan, Hal, Scott, Marshall - of course, Denver Dave, Paco, and Henry who hosted the event in one of his abandoned warehouses. It was pretty nice since it had carpeted floors, but it was still loud in there since it was empty with low ceilings. We had boxes, a full compliment of Bata, and the Denver guy’s drums. Henry had some gourmet food and beers on ice. Marshall did an interesting thing in that he was the one leaving, but he gave everyone gifts. The method that he used was to write everyone’s names on pieces of paper, and then raffle off a bunch of items in a box that he had wrapped up and wouldn’t let anyone open. What was even better was that one of the items being auctioned was a video tape of Giovanni, and a book. These were then won by the person who gave them to Marshall! They came back to their original owner via raffle! Then, I won a metal bell, which when I looked close, had my mark that I always put on my equipment! It was mine! And I won it back! I had also brought a bomba, which was originally owned by Dan and Scott. It’s a long story, but they had passed the co-owned bomba back and forth for years, and had produced much bad blood between them. Then, at one point Scott sold his half of the drum to me, but I held on to it for over a year without Dan’s knowledge just to have a laugh at his expense. So, I chose last night to ceremoniously reveal his bomba, and gave it back to him. He was very chagrined by the whole thing, so it was worth it! The energy in the room was so high that we played each rhythm for about 30 minutes completely exhausting whoever was a little insecure with whatever part they ended up with. The first one I played on was a Columbia and I ruptured a blood vessel in my left ring finger. Rick recorded the session, and Henry got lots of pictures, but I don’t’ know if I’ll be able to get my hands on either. I couldn’t’ stay late since I was leaving early the next morning for Humboldt, so I expect they played until the early morning hours. I got back home by 11:00PM and still did a bit of last minute packing
Today I have just landed in Arcata airport. What a quaint little place! I love it!! It’s about 56 degrees F. and I just put on my sweatshirt. It’s the Middle of the summer and everyone’s roasting around the country, but here I have to wear a jacket! I sat across from Abby on the plane. She’s youngster who’s one of the workshop participants. We had an e-mail exchange two days ago because I had posted on the rider list that I could pick people up since I was renting a car for the week. But, after realizing the folly of spending all that money for the car to sit in the parking lot for the week, I cancelled the reservation. So, that meant that Abby would have to pick up the airport shuttle, which she did minutes ago. So, I’m sitting here and waiting on a flight to get here 30 minutes from now, and good ol’ James will come to pick up myself and two guys coming in on the next flight. They found me the same way Abby did; through the rides wanted section of the camp’s website.