A Journey to Remember: Nightlife -- Greg, Moe and Minus the Bear

So I get into Amsterdam on my very first day...find the place that I'll be staying for the next week and I'm dying to get out. A couple of good friends selected the first place where I should go -- and I went to find a cool little club called the "Jolly Joker". Very nice place...probably been there for 200 years or more...and an instantly welcoming place. As I'm sitting at the bar, trying to adjust to the scenery, (quietly minding my own business...right?) a wonderful guy named Greg from the Canary Islands befriends me and begins telling me of some of his favorite places in Amsterdam.

Greg is a singer...a swooner in the classic sense of the word (even his card says it -- "The sexy voice of Barry White; Silkie as Nat King Cole; Crazy as Seal") and next thing I know, I have plans to come to watch Greg sing at an awesome Pasta/Wine bar called Pasta e Basta http://www.pastaebasta.nl/. So I went shopping (also as Travis had suggested), bought some new kicks (below) and a jacket (I was wearing it on a previous post). Craziness...instantly I'm having people come up to me on the street asking me for directions (HA!).

Regardless, Greg and the staff at Pasta e Basta welcommed me in like family. The waiter speacial cooked me my favorite dish "Penne all'Arrabbiata" (how the hell we worked that out in Dutch -- I have no idea -- he actually said "Angry Pasta" -- "yep, that one"...hot spicy pasta). Next thing I know everyone in the restaurant is locked hand on hip and dancing in a big line throughout this fancy restaurant (talk about a first night in Amsterdam)...

However, somewhere between saying goodbye to Greg and his good friend Robert (a painter -- yes, that's what he actually gets paid to do), and getting safely back to my hotel room...the gizmo clipped onto me to hold my passport and wallet went away. I know what you're gonna say -- "Dumbass!!" But honestly, for me, it was the best thing that could have happened for the next three days.

I was out of money (and patience) for about two days -- honestly, if that's the worst thing that ever happens to me (from here going forward)...I lead a rather charmed life. Not suggesting it to anyone (let me be your example) but it was good. People offered me coffee, I read an entire book, and I even lost a couple belt notches :)

I still had 20 euro that I'd stashed away and a pre-paid ticket to see a band called Moe during my 2-day stint of roughing it. Moe played at "the Milky Way" (MilkWeg -- in Dutch). http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/moe/albums/album/13099325/review/13232038/the_conch
and absolutely tore it up.

I've never seen "Sixties ballroom San Francisco" (as their sound is suggested to come off) but this is how I imagine it- Blue-sy and Groovin -- and I am very glad that i went.

On the 21st, was the Seattle-based "Minus the Bear" http://www.myspace.com/minusthebear show at an awesome venue called the Paradiso. http://www.paradiso.nl/index2.php. They played in the upstairs of the club in a little room that held about 150 of us. I had more than one person tell me that this amazing place has been the first place in Amsterdam that many a "big hit" US-band has played...and these guys went off! Probably my favorite show of 2007.