People on the Road-dos

You find people in all sorts of places and some are in that great location. "least likely". Wandering around Bocas looking to eat I find a sushi place Raw Tokyo with a funky menu for a veggiemate. Little place with a Rastafarian Itamae although he would say that he was more a Shokunin, someone just skilled at a profession. Trust me he is an Itamae as I have eaten there three of the last four nights and both taste and presentation qualifies him for the honorific title. The place is owned by a 23 year old chica from Toronto who came to Bocas five years ago and loved it so much she came back and opened her own business. {remember my comment about going somewhere and filing the memory for a later time?} She has been open for six months and I think she is going to do well. Tener cajones for any 23 year old to start a business let alone in a foreign country. My second night there drinking sake and Lychee martinis, she said she had entertainment which turned out to be this wonderful Argentinian chica sax player Julieta {hoo-lee}. We drank Lychee's and talked and she also has been in Bocas foe a bit playing around leaving only to do other Panama gigs and studio work back in S.A.
It made me think about the saxophone and it's inadvertent influence on my life and relevance to this whole on the road thing. The Beat Generation spawned this road and sitting here in Bocas at Raw Tokyo I understand how the sax tuned the Beat Generation and Kerouac even titled a novel Dr Sax although it wasn't the instrument he was referring to;
"The eponymous Doctor Sax, also part of Jackie's fantasy world, is a dark, but ultimately friendly, figure with a shroud black cape, a inky black slouch hat, a haunting laugh, and a "disease of the night" called Visagus Nightsoil that causes his skin to turn mossy green at night. Sax, who also came to Lowell because of the Great World Snake, lives in the forest in the neighboring town of Dracut, where he conducts various alchemical experiments, attempting to concoct a potion to destroy the Snake when it awakens." Yeah, Iknow, heavy shit! Read the book.
Watching her play her alto sax I could see that the sax was an instrument of romance and passion. You hold in in your hands close to your body in almost an embrace using a reed which contours to the lips. So unlike the trumpet that requires tight pursed lips with outstretched elbows {I am generalizing I know as I have seen Miles Davis play and he made love to his trumpet} and is an instrument for war in some hands. No cavalry charge has ever been led my some dude on a horse playing the alto sax!
Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins and Lester "Prez" Young would never had led a charge to battle. The sax, the instrument of passion and poetry has been the background music for more people fucking than dying.
Even though you didn't ask:
the saxophone is a conical bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. It was invented by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax in 1841 and he showed his first creation, a C-bass {not the Chilean type} to Hector Berlioz {now there is a name to drop}. In 1842 Berlioz published an article in Paris Magazine 'Journal Des Bats' describing the instrument.
I went back last night for more sushi and more entrepreneurial and creative chicas and will listen to sax music and drink Lychee martinis this night as well. And did I mention that I will go back tomorrow night for Raw Tokyo's big event with all the sushi, sake, Lychee Martinis and sax sounds you want? Some great moments and some great people on this road. Just sayin, TmO...