Chapter 11: Escape From New York
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I awoke around 8.30am, 4 ½ hours straight sleep. A record for our
time here so far but I knew that we would be ok sleep wise from now
on. I went out to get coffee for us both.
[I would make a lovely wife, but Ricardo already has one and despite
being in close proximity to him for days on end, seeing him several
times in his underwear and also having disinhibiting beer in his
presence, I can honestly say I have no ‘feelings’ for him].
We were both walking through a street market by 10.30am
and at Chinatown via a taxi for 11.30.
Lucky Star Bus Co customer care was once again in evidence, we showed
our e-tickets at the booth and a man who never showed his face threw
an arm out of the booth and barked “Wait there”.
“Thank you very much for your service”
we said in our best British sarcastic voices to a silent booth.
Whilst waiting I bought Ricardo a new lock for his bag, and foolishly
gave him the keys as well. An uneventful but once again full 4 hour
bus ride later we were in BOS Chinatown.
——–
Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
Actually, at the stop-off point half way through the journey, we got a scare. When we emerged from the McDonalds inside the service station, the coach had gone.
Thankfully it had only gone for petrol and was a couple of hundred yards away.
We both laughed in the way that really hysterical people do when they realise that they have just lost their hand in a combine harvester accident.
———-
Back in BOS, a stroll through the shops and taxi back to the Hilton Hotel,
where we had booked a room for the night.
Our cab driver was a Lebanese Christian who informed us that
Islam were due to take over the world by 2050, starting in France in
which he informed us they had a good head start.
Why is it that any chain hotel room anywhere in the world that costs
more than £50 a night looks exactly like all the rest? We could have
been in the Britannia in Manchester, Best Western in Paris or Welcome
Inn in Beirut. Take someone blindfolded to any of these and they’d
never guess where they were.
All have unnecessary trouser presses, polyester flowery bed covers and
are decorated in the same taste displayed by lottery winners ? gold taps,
tiled bathroom walls, pulley system controlled heavy curtains
and thinly veneered fitted cupboards with drop handles.
The only clue to where in the world you are seems to be to look at
the Places To Go Pack.
“Ah, the Hollands Pie Factory Tour, must be near Baxenden, Lancashire”.
———–
Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
On Friday I booked us a room at the Hilton. This was all going smoothly until the question ?And how are you going to pay, sir, which credit card shall we charge to?? was asked. Credit card?
?I don?t have one. Cash. I?ll pay cash, you take cash??
Apparently a cash payment is unusual. My little helper had to get a supervisor to talk her through the process. On Sunday I was again asked for my credit card so that they could charge me for any services I used.
?What a pity, I don?t have one? was my answer.
Another supervisor was requested. ?Our customers have credit cards? I was advised in a way that sounded like “That is UN-American Sir, we will be keeping a close eye on you”.
?Looks like I’m staying here on trust then? I enjoyed replying.
So, for amusement on your travels in the US of A, even if you have a credit card, try and pay in cash. A sure-fire way of getting to meet the manager.
———-
We unpacked and had, oh luxury of luxuries, a bath. One Each! Nik,
who we had informed “missed a fucking great time” lent us his Walkman
and we were able to flick through some of our NYC bought CDs. For
some reason we did this in our underwear [but on separate beds I
hasten to add]. Ricardo picked some tracks which he later played that
night.
We tried [and tried] and tried [and tried] and tried [and tried] to
call back to the UK. When we eventually got through we realised that
the time back home was not late afternoon as thought but after 2am.
Our partners were pleased to here from us in a sort of “what time do
you call this” kind of way.
Tourist tip: American pay phones are “not user friendly”.
Purchasing one of those cards where you scratch off a code
and phone a number for another code complicate things further. You can end up entering as many as 50 individual numbers before you get through. If you become agitated this means errors increase, as they do you become more agitated etc.
Up in the ballroom for the night we met Nik again as well as his
friend DJRumbero from NYC. Sets were shared out before the nights
performance marathon began. David Melendez, who had still not grown
into his jacket, announced “stuff” and possibly at this stage [or
could have been Friday, I don’t remember] he said that he was
organising a congress in DC for next year.
“Bruno” I said out loud, but as I had no mic this might well have gone
unnoticed. So I shall repeat it here (wink).
Now, I missed the Saturday night shows, but on the evidence of the
two nights I saw I can say this much: I heard, through warm ups,
sound checks and performances AT LEAST six airings of Muneca. Too
many; Performers put a lot of effort into their routines, but there
is a distinct LACK of “wow, this is new” about proceedings; Americans
clap and whoop whenever someone’s name is announced over the mic;
Niks group were actually pretty good and their outfits, whilst
hideous close up, worked well as a spectacle on stage.
You can check out photos of Nik and co at the Boston Congress website.
There are none of either me or Ricardo anywhere, even in the background,
so you might not want to bother.
———–
Previously Deleted/Lost Scene
Restored Outtake:
Actually, on my return I looked at the [hundreds] of photos posted on the Boston salsa congress website. There were two featuring Ricardo at the side of the stage where performers were strutting their stuff, 1} entitled ?sheer boredom? and 2} entitled ?clapping but not at all interested?.
There were still none of me.
———
One theme that was hammered to death, for me, was “Africa, our
roots”. It went like this [a couple of times over the weekend…]
– Couple of black dancers are on stage, they are at either end of the
stage and bent over double in a seated position, legs and arms
outstretched.
– Some African drumming/old Cuban Rumba/Folkloric/music is played.
This has a 20ft by 8ft luminous arrow, trimmed with 660watt bulbs,
with the words “Africa/roots/beginnings” on it, in neon so you don’t
miss it.
– Rhythmic modern interpretative dance motions are made (arrow
reads “Chango or other deity”, “awakenings” etc)
– The dancers come together and suddenly we cut to some mambo music,
typically TP/EP (arrow reads “and from that we get mambo” “remember
Africa”), a short mambo dance routine ensues.
– Fades out and goes back to more drumming [arrow reads “Africa ?
Mambo ? Africa, the circle of life/salsa”]
– Dancers finish, crowd go wild.
All very well danced but all very similar and all very, very obvious
and uninspiring stuff. Later that night I had a long conversation
with Parya, the lovely Mrs Nik Caswell, about this and we agreed that more
could be done with the performance story. How about picking a song
and basing a routine around what it is actually about – like
unpleasant wife beating/having feelings for your best friends
girl/someone having to turn to prostitution to feed the kids etc etc?
Why not? Because the audience seem quite happy watching people do a
Matrix/Gangster/African Roots/Remember The Alamo routine. And
because many salsa lyrics are sadly not that deep either I suppose[cue
complaints]. Sigh.
Mrs Nik Caswell is bright, smart, funny, well educated, can dance
real good and has a finely tuned sense of humour. She looks
absolutely great as well. What she is doing with a bald man wearing a
Burnley FC shirt several sizes too big for him, I just don’t know.
My carefully selected attire for the evening was my Alma del Barrio
30th Anniversary T-Shirt that Jose (lmu_cuban) had sent me. That had
arrived in a Wally package from LA that coincidentally had included a copy of
the Roena DVD that we had seen in Jakes Bar 24 hours earlier.
I stood near Choco The T-Shirt Guy to show him what eye catching ones
actually look like but all he asked me was “what’s this playing?” to
which I was forced to reply “Cheo with Joe Cuba, it’s off Hanging
Out”.
“Oh, that’s right, I know it” he responded in the manner of a
man who had just learned something new but didn’t want to let on.
You can look forward to this track appearing on Choco’s next under
the table compilation CD. Was I supposed to say that? Anyway, my T-
shirt had obviously marked me out as being a true musical
connoisseur, perhaps some AdB osmosis was in operation here.
Thanks my West Coast friends.
Back in the main room and it was time for Hector to be in the house.
Tricoche was backed up with a band made up mostly of pick up guys
from Boston, however they were much more enthusiastic than the Dopey-
Copa’s and every bit as good, probably better in fact. In between the
band sets Ricardo played a really strong DJ set, and not just `cos a
couple of my tunes were spun.
Now, back in NYC I was surprised that a collector like Ricardo [15
years and counting] was not familiar with Azuquita. I shouldn’t have
been really, he is part n parcel of the type of stuff that interests
me musically, so of course I know about him. Ricardo, as Nik
indicated in an earlier collective post, has concentrated on
Colombian/Puerto Rican and Venezuelan bands from the 80’s and 90’s,
the output of most which has long since become completely unavailable.
A lot of this stuff has been purchased in ‘mom n pop’ stores, in oil drums
on street corners and in those kind of places only collectors know where
to look. Even when this stuff was available it was not that available
anyway.
So, Hector Tricoche. Ricardo knows this guys work inside out
and back to front. Before he introduced me to him just a few weeks
ago, I’d never heard of him.
Ricardo played an old n dirty HT number in his set. Approaching the
singer to ask him what he thought about this, he received the
following response:
“I have not heard that played anywhere in over 25 years.
Man, I sounded good in those days, thank you so much!
Where did you get that one from?”.
HT was extremely pleased, and it’s fair to say Ricardo was pretty
chuffed about this too.
The last song of the night was spun by DJRumbero who announced to
the crowd that this was the last number and that he was DJRumbero.
Unfortunately this might just have given the impression to those
present that the kick ass set Ricardo had just put together was
courtesy of the man with the mic. Ricardo was ‘not happy’ about this,
but with hindsight feel that this was an interpretation based on an
innocent rather than malicious act. My how he laughs about it now
(possibly).
With Hector back on stage and in very good fettle the congress ended
around 1am. We all had some beers to celebrate. Tonight we were to
get a full 7 hours sleep, absolute luxury.