Nailed

I have my new bouzouki.

Last night I met Roger Landes at the southside Guadalajara Grill for the hand-over and ended up having dinner with a travelling nucleus of ZoukFest 2007 performers including Roger, Chipper Thompson, John Carty, Luke Plumb, Chris Smith, Angie Mariani, Connie Dover, and Mason Brown. Roger and John are playing a gig tonight in Taos and then flying on to Denver and Billings, Montana for two more dates before John heads back to Ireland. The others are here to visit and wind down from a week of teaching and performing in Santa Fe.

After dinner, we all drove over to Lisa’s new house to break it in with a jam session. If you know anything at all about this music, you may be aware that some of these people are gods, so this was quite extraordinary. I didn’t play, obviously, but did take out the bouzouki for a time and had the extremely good fortune to hear the masters play it, right there in front of me. After that there was a long pause, about three hours worth, while everyone drank and told stories until around 11:00 p.m., at which time I was falling-down tired. When the session finally got underway, I carried my instrument out to my truck to clear space in the crowded living room. Once outside in the cab of my ’87 Ford, however, the need for sleep was so strong that I just fired ‘er up and slipped away… So I missed whatever happened later. But I’d been hearing the music all week long, and we’re going to the gig tonight.

Last night in the bathtub, though, I was thinking about the beautiful new instrument and suddenly realized I’d been spiritually nailed. Just put these things together: 1) In front of practically the entire ZoukFest staff, attendees, and concert audience in Santa Fe last Thursday night, I won this valuable custom-made bouzouki. 2) I’ve never played a bouzouki. 3) I’m the ZoukFest Webmaster. 4) I’m almost certain to attend ZoukFest 2008… I don’t think I need to spell it out any more, do you?

Yesterday evening, before I drove down to Guadalajara Grill, I was sitting outside our rented adobe, relaxing in a pleasant fog of fatigue, when I saw the most astonishingly beautiful little bird. It had a blue head and shoulders like a mountain bluebird, a copper-colored chest, a white belly, and white wing bars like a gold finch. The bird book showed it to be a lazuli bunting, something I’ve never seen before.

Nailed, all right. Nailed, nailed, nailed…

Okay by me, I can use the guidance.

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