La Banda Familia

So, while I of course miss all my friends and family, I´ve found myself of late really missing Sonnie. I spent a lot of time with him in Moab this spring, and he´s waiting for me right now in Denver, sitting alone in a friend´s basement, just waiting. Awww, Sonnie.

Let me explain. Since I´ve lived in Pete´s house in Moab, he´s been very generous in sharing his things, including his guitars and his knowledge about guitars. However, it wasn´t until this spring that I realized, thanks to some additional info from my friend Chelsea, that if I learn to strum like 3 chords, I can play rudimentary versions of several songs, and even do what I proudly refer to as singing, though other people may call it something along the lines of very heart-felt and very out-of-tune talking. Huh. Anyway, as I was preparing to move out, I asked Pete if I could buy this extra guitar that he didn´t like and that I like so much I´d named. This, of course, is Sonnie. And out of some grand realization that about the absurdity of the myth of ownership--or, maybe more likely, out of his vast generosity--Pete said I could have Sonnie.

So that brings us to this point, with my Sonnie and his beautiful sunburst face locked in a basement alone, and me, an up-and-coming acoustic legend, stranded and guitarless in a foreign land, quickly forgetting the lyrics to all of the three and a half songs that once made up my set.

With the stage set, let me quickly get into my recent activities. Of course I´ve been surfing, though I´ve caught the ocean at high tide the last few times, and have found the waves much more choppy and aggressive. This means that it looks like I´m getting worse to anyone watching, and myself, but really I like to think I´m playing a harder game, and improving in more subtle ways, so subtle that maybe no one can even tell. Yes, that subtle. Also, I´ve been making several friends around the Flutterfy house, and around the area. Fernando, an older man who lives across the street from me is now my bike mechanic, due to his insistence on fixing my flat tire a few days ago (which required not only a screw driver and a new tube, but a battery-powered drill as well--very exciting business). And among other new friends, Julia from Canada stands out. She´s volunteering at a hostel above town, and we keep meeting up out of a mix of coincidence and our common interest in talking for endless amounts of time.

It was with Julie that I went to the Farmer´s Market last Saturday, a small gathering of vendors that seems really to be a gathering of area gringos who have moved here in the last 10 years. After consuming many baked goods, I stopped into the internet place next door, a large open room with two and half working computers, and played poke-the-keys for a while, before I found the girl working here to pay her. Which is when I noticed the guitar leaning against the wall (!) and shyly asked if I could play it.

Quite happily, I sat down with the strange guitar, and began working through my set in the backstage area of this empty room. Struggling through a newer addition, a voice from behind said, ¨House of the Rising Sun, yes.¨ A shorter man in his 50´s had entered the room and in two seconds he was sitting across from me with the guitar in his lap, speaking in eager second-language English about different songs I should learn. He played and sang several for me, and his daughter who´d taken my internet fee joined in with her beautiful voice on a few. Throughout the afternoon, Alexander, this excited Tico musician, showed me videos of his son playing jazz drums in California, taught me how to play La Bamba on the guitar, and asked me to come back and play anytime I wanted. And while I of course still miss my Sonnie, this is awesome!

So, I´m sitting in that same room now, a couple days later. Alexander tells me that tomorrow I should come back in the morning and he´ll have his son´s drumset here and we can all play (as I told him that, unlike the guitar, I actually do know how to play drums at some kind of tolerable level). So mañana, his son Alex will show me some latin rythyms, while his daughter Irma sings, and Alexander plays guitar. Yes, I´m joining a Tico family band. And no, it doesn´t bother me that I´m not a Tica. I know that Rolling Stone will make a big deal out of this fact in our first big interview, and in later interviews they´ll marvel that a drummer can be so skilled on guitar as well as the set.

Not to go on and bore you with my future plans, but I just wanted to let you in behind the scenes. You´ll all of course have back-stage access. But for now, I have to get over to the guitar and practice. (I´m not completely detached from reality--I do of course understand that I´ll have to practice for at least one more afternoon before the record companies call.)

And maybe, a few years from now, when we´re touring the states regularly, I´ll make sure we give special preference to certain previously ignored venues. Yosemite Valley, CA. Moab, UT. Springfield, MO. Oh, and don´t forget Denver... I gotta get back to Sonnie sometime.