Not All About the Bass - Live-Looping with Cesar

At Sea
March 2, 2015

I haven't been writing much these past few days. You'd think that with all these sea days I'd have plenty of time to write. But I've been so busy playing bridge and being sick that there's only enough time left to eat.

My sinuses were so bad last night I could barely breathe without opening my mouth and sounding like Darth Vader. I went to the doctor and got a Z-Pac and some other stuff, and it's a good thing, because we were about to run out of tissues. The doctor was a nice woman from South Africa. The nurse was a nice man from Romania (who smoked).
 

The weather is not nice. The sky is gray, the water is dark, and Captain Nash says a front is moving in and it will get rougher tonight. Please pass the Dramamine.

There was a flood two doors down from us. Ken walked by and noticed a wet spot by their door and thought someone had spilled something. Then he thought it might be something else, so he went back and looked at it and the water had already gone across the hallway in just a minute, so he called Passenger Services and someone came up right away. They knocked on the door and found the passengers inside! Mr. was sitting on the balcony and Mrs. was sitting on the sofa. And not noticing the flood in their room. They moved Mr. and Mrs. to another room and put industrial fans in the room and in the hallway. During the night, apparently, the wet carpet was removed and replaced with new carpeting. And the leaking pipe was fixed, of course. They can be really efficient on the ship when they need to be. There are crew members on board with all kinds of skills - carpet-laying, plumbing, fixing elevators, etc. It really is like a little floating village.

Before dinner we went to listen to the guitarist, Cesar Paucar. He is quite talented. He plays a number of different styles, including the hard stuff like Flamenco. He has some kind of a live-looping setup that allows him to record himself while he plays and then he plays it back and plays a different melody over it. Then he plays his bass line again and then plays an improvised melody over it. I'm not actually sure whether he was saying "baseline" or "bass line," but it really isn't all about the bass. The result of the looping was amazing. Cesar plays every night, so we will keep going to hear him. He usually plays in a lounge venue, and it is too bad because there are always people talking during his show. Since they are drinking, they tend to talk in rather loud voices.

Ok, so it's a little blurry. He just wouldn't hold still for a photo.

Our dinner was really good. They are featuring a few Hawaiian-themed items on each menu. Tonight we had an appetizer called "Poke." it is raw ahi tuna, avocado, and some other things. Good. Our dessert was part of the Chocolate Journeys. It had toasted coconut in it. Yumm.

After dinner we went to see a show by Ric Steel. He is primarily a country music singer/guitar player, but he has a very wide range and he is such a good entertainer that we really enjoyed his show. Some people know how to relate to an audience, and some don't.

I ate too much today. :(