- 5:00 am – rise half-rested to drop Holly off at La Guardia airport. Subsequently drive to Queens.
- 10:30 am – Show at Colden Performing Arts Center for 1700 kids. We have a great time. After the show, while packing up to leave, Roman somehow destroys Doc’s oud. Doc takes the bad news fairly well. Roman & David make a commitment to repair the oud before the next show in Atlanta. Many thanks to the incredible theater crew – Vin, Craig, David, Patrick and Dwight.
- 1:31 pm – we stop by at a great pizza parlor for lunch and the post-show debriefing, which is aptly nicknamed “shredding the show.”
- 3:07 pm – Drop off Jahmes, Julio and Doc at La Guardia airport. The rest of us (Thacher, David, Cecilio, Roman) continue onward to New Jersey. We get caught in some terrible traffic, which lasts about 2 hours.
- 7:35 – we pull into Atlantic City, New Jersey. Casinos in the distance change colors as we approach. Everything seems surreal. We finally find our host’s house and meet Shelly, Jack, Emma and Mina. They feed us (“what are you, nervous?”), set us up with great beds, and we prepare to get some sleep.
- 10:30 pm – Roman talks to Sarale in Milwaukee and finds out that his friend Bob Kunz has passed away from pneumonia. Numb with emotion and exhaustion, he goes to bed.
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Jan
14
Jan
13
- 11:00 am – Julio & Roman wrestle on the bed: Roman picks Julio up, Julio squirms and twists out of Roman’s grip, they both land on the bed and Julio ends up with a bloody nose. Just remember kids: It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
- 1:03 pm – Just before leaving the Manhattan Hilton, we check out an incredible street musician – Reggie – who is drumming on plastic buckets and other found objects. Doc and Roman sit in with him for a few minutes.
- 1:37 pm – One Drum deploys from the double-parked van and takes a group picture at the LOVE sculpture like a Chinese fire drill.
- 1:55 pm – In hopes of fixing the fried amp, Doc and Roman visit a repair shop. A few minutes of conversation with the clerk confirm our worst fears: we have to contact the manufacturer directly. On the way back to the elevator, Doc looks at Roman and says, “Do you admit that we should have called the place instead,” to which Roman replies, “Yeah, you were right.” Since the freight elevator was taking forever, we decide to take the stairs down from the fifth floor. A few steps down, we realize the stairs have semi-fresh paint. Our shoes squeak and stick to the floor on our way down. The staircase ends in a profusion of dirty cardboard boxes, which we hurdle on our way down. Our descent terminates in a Latin-Oriental restaurant filled with persons of unclear ethnic origin. We leave quickly before anyone notices.
- 2:23 pm – Provoked by Doc’s tirade about wasted time, David runs a red light.
- 2:35 pm – En route to New Haven, we consider which spirit animals suit what individuals in the group:
David: dragonflysilverback gorilla
Roman: spider monkeytree frog
Cecilio: tasmanian devilchihuahua bred with a pit-bull
Thacher: liongiraffeyetisheepdog
Jahmes: chimpanzee (see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil)bald eagleblue whale
Julio: unicornkangaroogecko lizard (agartijos de Puerto Rico)
Holly: butterflypuma
Doc: turtlelemurgoatpandagnome- 3:54 pm – We pull into the Econo Lodge in New Haven, CT.
- 3:55 pm – Doc resumes his tirade about running out of time before the gig, then promptly thereafter leaves the van.
- 4:19 pm – David takes a break, while the rest of the crew continues onward to the gig.
- 4:21 pm – Paging through a magazine, Julio says, “There’s still an advertisement for the Twin Towers in here.” Doc: “What year is that from?” To which Julio replies, “1999.”
- 4:22 pm – Doc runs a red light to keep up with Shelia.
- 5:00 pm – arrive at Sage American Bar & Grill and start setting up for the benefit concert
- 7:30 pm – the show starts at a low volume – One Drum plays light dinner music. Although the full eight piece band is present, only 4 or 5 musicians are on stage simultaneously. Shelia is a great party hostess, and the restaurant is vibing on the music.
- 9:00 pm – Granted permission to raise the volume to maximum, the One Drum Octet steps up and rocks the house.
- 11:56 pm – We arrive at the hotels to find that Shelia has left flowers, food and cards for us. We are so furtunate to have such a great friend, Godmother of One Drum that she is.
Jan
12
- 10:30 am – Roman wakes feeling on top of the world.
- 12:00 pm – One Drum tour van departs Katonah, NY bound for NYC and the APAP showcases.
- 3:00 pm – Having learned an important lesson from the Knitting Factory incident, One Drum collectively unloads the van with concise, surgical precision.
- 6:00 pm – APAP showcases: The original One Drum Quartet (David, Doc, Jahmes, Julio) performs an excellent “Around the World in 50 Minutes,” while the other members watch and remark on how good they sound.
- 8:15 pm – Cecilio sits in on bongo with Juanita Ulloa, the leader of an awesome mini-mariachi group from California.
- 9:00 pm and 10:30 pm – One Drum Octet performs two rocking 45 minute sets.
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