Island fever sets in…death of the Volvo…99 bottles of beer on the sea wall…
Skill Village, 1/28/14
It has been raining heavily for two days straight. The Volvo’s electrical problems finally came to a head leaving us stranded on the other side of the island. Sergei brought us a car to get us home and hooked the Volvo with a long strap to his pick-up and dragged it back to the lot. I decided that in the morning I would bring the car back to his lot and cut ties with Sergei. After about ten minutes of arguing with Sergei about the outstanding balance that I refused to pay, he agreed to call it even. The Ford Ranger that we drove from Miami to San Clemente, CA is here but the tags and registration still need to be sorted out before I can start driving it around. I’ve had no other choice but to hole up in the bungalow with cases of beer and Mount Gay rum watch the heavens pour down and ponder the reasons that I am out here on this tiny rock in the pacific.
Why am I here? What is the meaning of it? Life moves slowly in the Skill Village leaving plenty of time for me to sort it all out. The only thing I know for sure is that the empty bottles are building at a steady pace and every time the landlords see me I’m carrying in another case. I tried to gracefully bow out of my gig cooking at the Timeout Bar and Grill, stating that I just wasn’t ready to start working yet and that I had initially planned to take two months off. Jack wasn’t having it and talked me into staying a part of the team. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him no. It wouldn't have been a smart move anyways. It’s a small island, only about 100,000 actual full time residents and Timeout is a popular place. The last thing I need is to burn any bridges as a newbie and have word spread around the island that I am unreliable. Soon I will need to start really working, and local references mean everything here. Luckily they haven’t called me in to work yet.
I came here to write songs and I finally finished a song that I started about 4 months before I even got here called The Road to Hana. I also have a few new songs I’m slowly working on. The drive from Miami to Southern California has left me with a back log of ideas floating around in my head. I keep thinking about Chuck’s in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Chuck’s is a real dive bar, filthy, open 24 hours, cigarette machine, smoking allowed and a great jukebox. On nights like this I would be happy to be back there drinking Budweiser and Wild Turkey till the sun comes up. But Chuck’s is a long, long way from the Skill Village, many physical and mental miles away, and the rain has finally stopped and it’s time to walk around the village and try to avoid the drunk lady doing burnouts in her truck screaming that she will knock out every white haole mosquito.