One World.........

Kirstin and I went to the Bonaire Jazz Festival last night. Great music, but unfortunately not jazz; more like a world music festival.  By the way, what the hell is "world music" ?  It's the only genre of music that's defined by what it's not......(i.e. local, of THIS region/country).

Fun true/false factoid (answer in another post)..........72% of all "world music" is actually written, produced, and performed in only two studios (one each in NY and LA) and performed by contract studio musicians.

The first act should have been interrupted by a phone call............."Oh, Rina (the lead singer)........it's actually Cold Play and Tracy Chapman on the phone.........they want their sound back. Rina and Co. were actually pretty good, though. The place started thumping, and all the Dutch chickies started dancing. If you're a Dutch guy you are exceedingly lucky. Dutch girls are probably the worst dancers in the western world. Owing to their excessive height they have no sense of beat and merely bounce up and down.......as though ground clearance was a substitute rhythm.  To add confusion to the mix, their English is perfect but they speak as though they're from Northern Ohio. Kind of weird.

We thought, OK; Rina was good. Maybe the next act will be jazz. I would never have worn my artistic shorts and beret if I thought this was popular music. Next up was Candy Dulfer, a crazy good sax player that is apparently quite famous (she's #1 in Latvia, I'm sure). Imagine Cheryl Crow with an alto sax and with a lot more energy...........oddly enough Candy and Cheryl Crow both played with Prince in their past. Her band, advertised as cool jazz was quite a bit more torqued up than that as well.........including a screeching, full of feedback and distortion (just like guys like it) guitar solo. It was hard to keep Kirstin in her seat, as she wanted to start dancing and singing in the worst way.

Now it's midnight and we're still waiting for cool jazz. Then "Yoscare" the Dominican virtuoso gets up with his band of Ricky Ricardo-like vest wearing slickies............mirror shades and all. All the latina "ladies", if I could briefly dignify this crowd of spandex-jeans wearing, bling blazing, hoochies......went crazy. It was like this guy was giving away US visas or something. Standing next to us was the Dominican Republic's version of Jersey Shore.......Snookie (a 5 ft 1, 250 lb "woman" in a spandex bustier), Ronnie (muscle bound, mono-browed, and probably not a subscriber to the Economist), and Sammie (attractive but with a permanent scowl that screamed "everything's negotiable, mi amigo").

That moment made it "game over" and we walked home. 

All in all, a fun night.