Lounging’ With the Charge’ d’Affaires in Burma

So it would be like me, to be so ambitious to try chronicling and posting the day to day activities of this tour day by day. And so it is for REALITY, the only thing that can post itself day by day, night by night and it don’t stop… It payed a visit to my box of ambition and put a CHECK mark on it… That being said, in this post I want to wrap-up our first leg of the tour in Burma and update you on where we’re at now (China).

You will be happy to know there will be a lot more stories and pictures coming from each member of Maya’s band as well - that is something you should look forward to… but let me not speak for them or spoil anything they may have in store for you.

So for the record, there’s a lot of love in Burma! And Maya, beside being so talented, sincerely brings love to whomever she performs in front of. People love her and I think as we’re charging through China Maya Mania! is beginning! See what you can find on YouTube… there’s been no less than 40 cameras in the hands of young people at each show… More on that later. But its cool playing in this band. Especially since I have not played straight up SONGS in awhile - 2 verses, 2 choruses, hit it and quit it! But part of the joy of playing in this band is that you feel Maya’s soul just as the audience does. She has won many hearts in Burma and doing the same in China as we wrap up our first week up north in Beijing.

Christian and Ivan are great players who show the same kind of genuine love for people and willingness to share their knowledge. They are all fantastic communicators as well and make life easy on the road. Their skills and passion are consistently demonstrated in performance and workshops. Outside of all that, this band got crazy humor and mad jokes! Maya, singin since she was 4 years old and been an entertainer ever since is always on and ready to receive a wise crack and eager to give one back! And she won’t let up… And tour director-Susan John fits right in! No crocodile smiles up in this piece, they can work the funny bone for for real and for hours! And speaking of Susan John, besides being highly intelligent, efficient, reliable and a gorgeous woman, she is one of the coolest people around. We’ve been very lucky to have her with us and will miss her as she departs from us at the end of this week.

We closed out our stay in Burma with a performance at the residence of the State Dept. Charge’ d’Affaires of Burma- Shari Villarosa. It was a Beautiful, hot, Fifth Dimension - “Stone Soul Picnic” like - Sunday, at a mansion on a manicured piece of property, perched at Inya Lake. Shari made us feel right at home with cool drinks and spacious rooms to change and lounge in.

As the vibe built towards the evening, we all got dressed for stage and Shari put on a flowery dress she got from Haiti. Putting it on seemed to liven her up, so she swirled around for us in it while we finalized a few chomps on a couple of sandwiches and the night began. We played outdoors that night for about 2 hours, to an audience of diplomats, military, state dept. staff, mixed in with some of our friends like J-Me and others we met earlier at the American Center.

In the beginning, the anticipation in the air was that of a southern summer night sermon or recital with all those white-plastic chairs, neatly organized to highlight your every move under the watchful eye of a fire and brimstone preacher. The only thing missing was the tent. But it was just us on stage. We opened up with “Down Down” and gradually picked up the tempo through the next 2 songs. By the time we got to the 4th song, people started getting up to dance.

Maya brought it back down a bit like a tease for 2 songs and then back to the groove we went… It was hot and about to get sweaty… when all of a sudden, in the 80 % heat, someone in a full GORILLA SUITE from head to toe, appeared dancing! It was bananas! Folk came over to shake the gorillas hand and dance. So they danced, sweated and partied!

It was ON at that point, so we had to keep ‘em going… the band dropped some break-beats and disco like grooves and Maya became a momentary disco queen! Seemed like folk needed to get loose, and we were proud to make that happen, soaking wet and all (well at least Ivan and I were). A perfect way to end our stay in Burma, although we all got foot and back massages the next day before our flight. All in the same room at the same time, with 2 people working on each of us! I call that “joy-perfect”.

So, lots of love from Burma and I’ll miss the Bamboo scaffolds, taxi drivers getting’ to close to pedestrians and racing for lanes with no signs telling who to go first, worrying about the black crows dropping “bombs” on me, jasmine flowers, buses with people hanging outside and in the back, barefoot carpenters slinging hammers as they get ready for the “Water Festival”, dried eel and little black, brown and white birds in cages- sold on the streets for you to purchase and improve your karma with, good food everywhere, the lush green and most of all, The People!

Say hello to The People, ya’ll! -B. Mack