Stories from the Beach of Gold (playa de Oro)
Rojo's dad, Bill, is one hell of a guy.
You get a feeling when you´re in the company of someone like Bill, a really good feeling, hard to explain but you can just sit and bathe in the sunshine of their light and listen to the endless stories and enjoy the lessons within them. As soon as we arrived, the beers were unveiled and the stories began.
Bill told us all about his time in London in the 1960's. He was flatbroke had somehow worked out that he could use his American cents in the slot machines in London ! Well, he got to thinking that if he started playing the slot machines (or one armed bandits, as my nan calls them !) in the vast multitude of pubs and bars in the city, he could make a tidy profit. The English penny was worth seven U.S. cents in those days, so every time he won, he was making a killing! He survived for about two weeks in London, going from bar to bar, playing the slots until he won and then moving on to the next. His story ended with him sitting in one of the pubs after having won o their slot machine, sipping down a beer or two, when all of a sudden, he hears some English bloke cussing and cursing about ´´ The bloody American cents that were spewing from the slot machine!´´ Needless to say, Bill didn't say a word while the locals and landlord scratched their heads about the mystery of the London slot machine that spewed forth American cents rather than English pennies! Bill reckons that the best way to get to know a city, is to be broke there. That way you have no opportunity to avoid the gritty reality of that particular area, you have to learn the bus routes and find where the cheaper (which usually means friendlier in our experience) food and drink dives are located. It also means you have to sometimes have faith in the openhand of those in the know. Hopefully you find some slot machines and don't stay broke too long though : )
We slept in a little building in the garden, it's not finished yet but every time Rojo goes to visit his dad, they work together on the house and man do they work fast! In the four or five days we stayed with them, a flight of stairs and a new room frame were added to the existing work in progress. Bill is a mason and has taught his son, Rojo (also named Bill), the importance and intricacies of good building technique. There is an honesty and understanding in their building work that ensures that everything that they put their hands and minds to, will work out just fine and stay that way too.The day starts with sunrise and a simple breakfast of fruit and cereal orgrits (an American cornmeal porridge) and eggs with coffee (I´m allergic to coffee though, so we drank herb tea).
Everyone will tell a couple of stories about the places they've been to or some crazy but beautiful guy or girl they know and then the work starts.I played my guitar whilst everyone else worked and my contribution to the pack was of the dish washing sort, best leave me out of any kind of building work, lest you want an igloo for your home!Rojo's friend, Dina worked hard though, she's a fire ball of energy and light and a girl who knows how to work hard, love hard and party hard forsure, when the work ended each day, she woud be smiling like a pretty,Cheshire cat and ready for the Happy Hour at the local bar.
The little bar is a few minutes walk from Bill's place and is a hive of activity for the tiny beach community. Everyone refers to Happy Hour as just 'Happy'. They´ll say things like, '' we're goin´ over to Happy", "We´ll see you at Happy´´, or "Oh God! We´ve missed Happy!"Happy hour occurs twice each day, from 5 o´clock 'til 6 o'clock and from 8 o´clock 'til 6 o'clock. There is often live music at the bar, which consists of a Mexican keyboardist and a Mexican sweet voiced singer. They play cover versions of tacky Western pop tunes (with Mexican lyrics) and also some Mexican favourites. The drinks are super cheap at Happy Hour, $1 a beer and we usually bumped into someone we knew from Playa De Oro.
(carl and Richard in bar)
After ´´Happy¨´, we would go back to Bill´s place for more stories and beer. ´Sometimes Bill´s neighbours, Denise and Skippy, or Carl would drop infor a beer and smokes and to share some laughter.Denise and Skippy are cool. We would drop in to their trailer for a while and Skippy would make us laugh with his huge zest for life and outrageous stories of his days as a part time stripper in Wyoming! They live a good outdoor life and love Rock 'n' Roll just like Bill and Rojo and infact all of our friends in Playa De Oro.The common pastime there, is listening to music on Instant Radio (Satelite Radio) and they like their music loud.Denise and Skippy love all kinds of music but when we were at their place, they would be playing all the cool stuff from the 70's, Neil Young and ELO. Skippy would crank up the volume a notch or two every now and then, just until the music was as much a part of the trailer as the little pictures that hang on the walls, or the shell trinkets that Denise and Skippy have hand crafted and placed around, until the music was embracing the whole vibe and you could just listen to it and just when you think that the volume is all the way up. . . Skippy cranks it up another notch or two for good measure!
(Skippy)
Carl is another of Bill's friends, a stone mason and hunter from Wyoming and a rare diamond for sure.He's so cool with his long hair and painfully sweet eyes. Carl was once in a rock 'n' roll band called Good puppy and his stories about that time had us rolling over man.Getting arrested at their own gig and shit, Carl is rock 'n' roll. He loses the thread of his stories from time to time and they'll be lost in the ether but when he finishes one, you can guarantee you'll be grinning from ear to ear man.
Story telling is a big part of any journey, listening to stories and finding a few of your own, it's the way we get to know one another, to find out about each of our thoughts and experieces in this world.
Sometimes they're good just to make someone laugh and other times, like when you're talking with Bill, they're more than that, they can teach you something you need to be reminded of, about the awe that we all share at the mystery that is life.We recorded a couple of new song ideas for the next record on our little mini disc in the little building we slept in,.
I have christened my new little guitar, El Niño.
On our last day at Playa De Oro, Rojo took us fr a drive in Bill's clapped out old blue pick up truck, along the beach.We chased the sunset and skipped the waves in that old thing and although it had no brakes, we felt perfectly safe in Rojo's capable hands. (a little bit like Further in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test) There is so much I could write about Rojo, he is one of the most adventurous souls you could wish to meet. Rojo embraces life with a knowing smile and rides its turbulent waves with a natural, raucous grace. Bill has passed on his gift for story telling to his son and it is fascinating and intriguing to hear of all his crazy pursuits, Indiana Jones, free and stoned is our Rojo,very cool.Within minutes of picking us up on the Mex 1, he had invited us to accompany he and his freind, Dina, to visit his dad, Bill and now when we look back on that warm sunny day, it seems perfectly natural, perfectly beautiful, that we should have met with Rojo and his dad, Bill, Dina and the warm and inspiring characters at Playa de Oro.
Gracias Amigo´s Bill, Rojo, Dina, Skippy, Denise, Carl, Mike and everyone else who made the journey begin......
You get a feeling when you´re in the company of someone like Bill, a really good feeling, hard to explain but you can just sit and bathe in the sunshine of their light and listen to the endless stories and enjoy the lessons within them. As soon as we arrived, the beers were unveiled and the stories began.
Bill told us all about his time in London in the 1960's. He was flatbroke had somehow worked out that he could use his American cents in the slot machines in London ! Well, he got to thinking that if he started playing the slot machines (or one armed bandits, as my nan calls them !) in the vast multitude of pubs and bars in the city, he could make a tidy profit. The English penny was worth seven U.S. cents in those days, so every time he won, he was making a killing! He survived for about two weeks in London, going from bar to bar, playing the slots until he won and then moving on to the next. His story ended with him sitting in one of the pubs after having won o their slot machine, sipping down a beer or two, when all of a sudden, he hears some English bloke cussing and cursing about ´´ The bloody American cents that were spewing from the slot machine!´´ Needless to say, Bill didn't say a word while the locals and landlord scratched their heads about the mystery of the London slot machine that spewed forth American cents rather than English pennies! Bill reckons that the best way to get to know a city, is to be broke there. That way you have no opportunity to avoid the gritty reality of that particular area, you have to learn the bus routes and find where the cheaper (which usually means friendlier in our experience) food and drink dives are located. It also means you have to sometimes have faith in the openhand of those in the know. Hopefully you find some slot machines and don't stay broke too long though : )
We slept in a little building in the garden, it's not finished yet but every time Rojo goes to visit his dad, they work together on the house and man do they work fast! In the four or five days we stayed with them, a flight of stairs and a new room frame were added to the existing work in progress. Bill is a mason and has taught his son, Rojo (also named Bill), the importance and intricacies of good building technique. There is an honesty and understanding in their building work that ensures that everything that they put their hands and minds to, will work out just fine and stay that way too.The day starts with sunrise and a simple breakfast of fruit and cereal orgrits (an American cornmeal porridge) and eggs with coffee (I´m allergic to coffee though, so we drank herb tea).
Everyone will tell a couple of stories about the places they've been to or some crazy but beautiful guy or girl they know and then the work starts.I played my guitar whilst everyone else worked and my contribution to the pack was of the dish washing sort, best leave me out of any kind of building work, lest you want an igloo for your home!Rojo's friend, Dina worked hard though, she's a fire ball of energy and light and a girl who knows how to work hard, love hard and party hard forsure, when the work ended each day, she woud be smiling like a pretty,Cheshire cat and ready for the Happy Hour at the local bar.
The little bar is a few minutes walk from Bill's place and is a hive of activity for the tiny beach community. Everyone refers to Happy Hour as just 'Happy'. They´ll say things like, '' we're goin´ over to Happy", "We´ll see you at Happy´´, or "Oh God! We´ve missed Happy!"Happy hour occurs twice each day, from 5 o´clock 'til 6 o'clock and from 8 o´clock 'til 6 o'clock. There is often live music at the bar, which consists of a Mexican keyboardist and a Mexican sweet voiced singer. They play cover versions of tacky Western pop tunes (with Mexican lyrics) and also some Mexican favourites. The drinks are super cheap at Happy Hour, $1 a beer and we usually bumped into someone we knew from Playa De Oro.
(carl and Richard in bar)
After ´´Happy¨´, we would go back to Bill´s place for more stories and beer. ´Sometimes Bill´s neighbours, Denise and Skippy, or Carl would drop infor a beer and smokes and to share some laughter.Denise and Skippy are cool. We would drop in to their trailer for a while and Skippy would make us laugh with his huge zest for life and outrageous stories of his days as a part time stripper in Wyoming! They live a good outdoor life and love Rock 'n' Roll just like Bill and Rojo and infact all of our friends in Playa De Oro.The common pastime there, is listening to music on Instant Radio (Satelite Radio) and they like their music loud.Denise and Skippy love all kinds of music but when we were at their place, they would be playing all the cool stuff from the 70's, Neil Young and ELO. Skippy would crank up the volume a notch or two every now and then, just until the music was as much a part of the trailer as the little pictures that hang on the walls, or the shell trinkets that Denise and Skippy have hand crafted and placed around, until the music was embracing the whole vibe and you could just listen to it and just when you think that the volume is all the way up. . . Skippy cranks it up another notch or two for good measure!
(Skippy)
Carl is another of Bill's friends, a stone mason and hunter from Wyoming and a rare diamond for sure.He's so cool with his long hair and painfully sweet eyes. Carl was once in a rock 'n' roll band called Good puppy and his stories about that time had us rolling over man.Getting arrested at their own gig and shit, Carl is rock 'n' roll. He loses the thread of his stories from time to time and they'll be lost in the ether but when he finishes one, you can guarantee you'll be grinning from ear to ear man.
Story telling is a big part of any journey, listening to stories and finding a few of your own, it's the way we get to know one another, to find out about each of our thoughts and experieces in this world.
Sometimes they're good just to make someone laugh and other times, like when you're talking with Bill, they're more than that, they can teach you something you need to be reminded of, about the awe that we all share at the mystery that is life.We recorded a couple of new song ideas for the next record on our little mini disc in the little building we slept in,.
I have christened my new little guitar, El Niño.
On our last day at Playa De Oro, Rojo took us fr a drive in Bill's clapped out old blue pick up truck, along the beach.We chased the sunset and skipped the waves in that old thing and although it had no brakes, we felt perfectly safe in Rojo's capable hands. (a little bit like Further in Electric Kool Aid Acid Test) There is so much I could write about Rojo, he is one of the most adventurous souls you could wish to meet. Rojo embraces life with a knowing smile and rides its turbulent waves with a natural, raucous grace. Bill has passed on his gift for story telling to his son and it is fascinating and intriguing to hear of all his crazy pursuits, Indiana Jones, free and stoned is our Rojo,very cool.Within minutes of picking us up on the Mex 1, he had invited us to accompany he and his freind, Dina, to visit his dad, Bill and now when we look back on that warm sunny day, it seems perfectly natural, perfectly beautiful, that we should have met with Rojo and his dad, Bill, Dina and the warm and inspiring characters at Playa de Oro.
Gracias Amigo´s Bill, Rojo, Dina, Skippy, Denise, Carl, Mike and everyone else who made the journey begin......
<< Home