welcome to our blog!

This blog tells the story of our 22-month sailing journey from Oakland, California, to Bristol, Rhode Island, aboard our beloved Bristol 32 sailboat, Ute. Please feel free to browse through the archives (partway down the sidebar to your left) to see pics and read stories of our adventures in North America and Central America . (Sorry the first 3 months of the trip are missing - they vanished somewhere in an internet cafe in Mexico - but all you're missing is CA, Baja and Western Mex).

If you're trying to track us down now that we're landlubbers, try us at uteatlarge at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

Friday, September 29, 2006

Thank God It's Viernes / Air Supply Anthropology

I'm a little sad to report that a trip to see Air Supply and relive 6th grade gymnasium-dance moments was not, in the final analysis, in Ute's budget for this month. Taking on enough new canvas projects to pay for the trip woudl have meant committing to being in Bocas for another months or two to finish said projects - so no go.

Mostly we just wanted to see who the hell goes to an Air supply concert in Panama City anyway. My curiosity was borne of two interesting facts: 1) the concert was advertised on a radio station that plays dance music and is pretty clearly marketed to the 18-25 set, and 2) the concert was in some way underwritten by the "Vote Yes on Canal Expansion" folks, because at the end of the commercial the announcer said something to the effect of "if you love Air Supply, you love progress. And if you love progress, support the canal expansion...for the future of Panama."

OK, it loses something in translation, but still..whaaa-at? maybe they were being ironic?

In the last few days they've started running a new ad for the concert, in which the announcer croons in Spanish, "they were there for your first love....your first kiss......your first heartbreak." Sure, they were there for my first kiss, but a Panamanian's? really? I guess that's what happens when you spend the 80's occupied by thousands of Americans running a transoceanic canal and strategic military post. Air Supply is touring El Salvador and Nicaragua this fall too, and I can't imagine they're running ads like that in El Salvador. I can hear it now...."they were there for your first paramilitary coup...your first nun massacre....your first mass grave digging...."

Ah, the 80's. anyway, since the PC trip was nixed by a little thing called Reality, we decide to compromise and take the day off work today and go see: night monkeys! after all, we can experience grandstand shows by aging rock stars when we're back in the U.S., but when we put the Panamanian jungle to our stern in November, it could be awhile 'til we're back here again.

So we recruited a few neighbors to split the cost and share the fun, and called upon our fave boatman, Sebastian, to ferry us to a little indigenous village on the island of Bastimentos where we'd heard there was a great guided hike where we might see night monkeys. And we did! It was fantastic! Time to rustle up some pics....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is the funniest thing I've read anywhere in months! WHAT???? Maybe Air Supply is kicking back some of thier proceeds for the canal expansion? I so wish you guys could have gone.. if only to find your 80's Panamanian twins.. so you could have compared cross-cultural first kiss stories with Air Supply being that important link.. Who the hell knew AS would get such an extensive Central American tour?