Friday, 2PM - Left for a 90 minute drive to Manhattan that actually took 3 hours. Oh well, I love Manhattan, totally worth it. Went to my friend Carmine's place, hung out with him and my friend Melissa from Pittsburgh, aka Istanburgh. Did some jamming on the saz, learned some new songs. Awesome. Went to an Afghani restaurant, great food, slow service, extremely hot dippy stuff for the bread. Painful.

Friday, 10PM - Went to Lafayette Grill to see some bellydancing and this incredible band. Oud, clarinet, doumbek, bozouki and keyboard. Ok, the keyboard was cheesy and sounded really out of place but the rest was unbelievable. The clarinet player has a bionic right pinky, there's just no other explanation. Got to bed around 2AM....

Saturday, 6AM - Yep, that's what time we got up to get on the road to go to Jalsah Boston, the latest in Melissa's line of Middle Eastern music and dance events. (jalsah.org) Arrived around Noon, hung out, helped with some set-up. Carmine taught two workshops for well over a dozen drummers. Melissa then taught a workshop on learning middle eastern songs. There was a Cumbus saz (me), a Cumbus oud, a 4-string banjo & 2 violin players. It was a great workshop, everybody was picking up the songs pretty well by the end.

Saturday, 8:30PM - Jalsah begins. Musicians lined up in the front of the room, which was a nice community center acquired by Erzulie. Thanks, Erzulie, and hi Dwayne! In addition to the instruments listed from the workshop, we had a saxa-ma-phone player and a guy playing what he called a dobro (looked like a guitar) lap-style with a slider and stuff. It was crazy, he did some really cool taksims for a guy unfamiliar with ME music. I had my carcabas (man-zills) with me of course.

Saturday, 11:30PM - Jalsah ends. A bunch of us go to Lakshmi (Beth)'s house to hang out and jam some more. 16 people drumming and strumming in a 10'x10' room. Sounds like a scene from a wierd D&D game, which is suitable since we discovered that Lakshmi is a crazy gamer-geek! Pump fist! She had a bunch of White Wolf books on a shelf along with a 2nd edition D&D players' handbook, and NOT a 3rd edition which made me very happy. BETH SMASH!

Sunday, 10AM - Departed for NYC, stopping at a diner along the way where I learned the following: some remote sub-Bostonians refer to a drinking fountain as a "bubbla", and coffee-creamer flipping is a bi-coastal sport with surprisingly complex rules.

Sunday, approx. 3PM - arrived back at Carmine's place, took much-needed nap.

Sunday, approx. 6PM - got up to go to the Figaro Cafe. Raquy Danziger plays a regular gig there with Scott Wilson, but she's been away recently. So Carmine has been filling in on doumbek and said "hey, why don't you sit in with me on bass doumbek?" WHAT!? Umm, ok, sure. And in between I'll play clave on this gold brick I just dropped. We got a ride from Umut, who plays amazing kanun at this gig and grabbed some food beforehand. So...no shit, there I was. Me, Carmine, Scott Wilson on his guitar-oud-saz thingy, Umut Yasmut, and Danny Elias on clarinet. Two hour show, no breaks. Not for me anyway. Amir Naoub, the doumbek player from Friday night, was in the audience so Scott Wilson asked him to come up and play for a bit. So he took Carmine's spot and I naturally figured Carmine would take mine. Not so much. Carmine walked away to get a drink as I shifted my grip to "here ya go" mode. Amir sits down, turns to me and says "so what are we doing?" My reply was of course "you're asking me?!" He was joking of course and proceeded to rock the casbah like Melissa's phone. Before that, Scott spotted Jeffrey and Casey in the audience and Casey came up and played bass doumbek for her birthday. She did a great job.

Sunday, 11PM - Umut drives us, along with Tayyar Akdeniz (folktours.com) to a place that has "pizza & kebabs" for some sutlatch(sp.) with lots of tarcin(sp.)which is rice pudding with lots of cinnamon. It was really good. Carmine paid, which made him the sheker-baba, or sugar-daddy.

Sunday(technically monday), 1AM - got home, unloaded car, crawled into bed, kissed fiance and told her as much as her sleepy brain could handle before going to sleep.

My repetoire of ME songs is up to about 10 or 11. Sweet. I had my first paying gig in Manhattan. Super sweet. I spent an entire weekend with great people playing music. Priceless.