It's been a Hard Days Night and....

I've been working like a ......well....that ain't exactly true. But I do work at life, in fact I train for it. I remember my friend Mike Dinkel asked me one day in the gym why'd I train so hard. I was working hard on my muscle tone, body fat and cardio endurance. I told him 'life Mike, I'm training for life".  In fact I try to lose 10 pounds every year before we hit Mazatlán so that I don't get to big when I indulge in the wonderful cuisine that is Mexico.

But back to the Beatles song, we seen em just the other day. Actually we saw the Mexican tribute band Help, and it was fantastic, way more than I thought it might be.  Mazatlán being an old working city it has a restored 150 year old opera house called the Angela Peralta Theatre. It's so cool, maybe a bit like the theatres were in the cities of the east coast in the 1800's. I'm a bit embarrassed to confess that I've only been to a couple plays in my life, like my kids plays in high school and my niece Molly when she was in Brigadoon. But Jeff knows concerts and let me tell you, this venue and this band were about as good as it gets. Here's a pic of me and my running partner in the front row of the 2nd balcony. Gorgeous is all I can say, and MP too eh ?

I have to tell you the truth about the music. When the curtain opened and four Mexican guys in costume broke into a perfect rendition of Hard Days Night I leaned over to MP and said "this is so weird it's stupid"....mmmmm....well I looked around, the power of the music astounded me. People were captivated, transported to another era. It was amazing and never mind the fact that this band was so polished, so perfect there was no way to find fault with any part of the performance. The era correct props were accurate right down to Rickenbacker guitars they played, the bass player left handed of course. In fact towards the end the bass player went to play the piano just as Paul McCartney would and handed the bass to the lead guitarist who played it left handed....THEN he handed the bass to the keyboard guy who played it...left handed. Crazy, I've never seen anything like it, a band full of ambidextrous multi instrument musicians.

So I guess these guys are the ultimate 'cover' band. I've heard people say derogatory stuff about music that's 'covered' by other musicians...well I know this. Every time its played its new and fresh, that's live music. It's the rawness, it's the subtle differences each time, it's the mood, it's the feel....it's the power of real live homemade music. And I got to thinking about the Beatles. Ya know the music was a gift to the world, which we all really paid for when you think about it. So thanks guys, but it's partially our music now and the music world oughta do what they want with it. And keeping it alive, fresh and vital like the other night with so many people having fun is the ultimate tribute I think. It's funny, the Beatles are as popular now in Mexico as they were when they hit America and I was in  Alaska , 1964. So the other night I did a tribute to the tribute and sang one of my favorite love songs, In My Life. ' ya know I'll always stop and think about them, but in My Life, I've loved you more'.

My Robalo quest continues. And let me tell you it's not going like the vision I had for it. I catch a Corvina, Ernie catches a large Robalo. I catch a toro, Ernie catches a large Robalo. I catch a Raton and Ernie catches a large Robalo...In fact the only thing that didn't go Ern's way the other day was that Slah's Corvina was bigger than his Robalo. Bad deal Ern, I feel terrible for ya.  But I feel like I'm getting closer , I actually got to bare hand that Robalo onto the beach so I guess I can say I helped, and that's about it. But all in all for Team X this was a pretty good load the other day.

This morning I had not one but two good 'follows' by the Roosterfish...well, they could have been Toro's....But, the point is I'm going to catch one of those darn things real soon and when I do two things are happening. I'm going to announce it in the local paper along with the babies and then I'm going to post the pic right here....at Mile 14...and that picture will still be quivering.