THE ANKA FILES
Hello all, sorry for the lack of posts lately. There has been lots going on and to be quite honest haven't been all that interested in posting.....this entry is coming to you from The Calgary Marriot.
For those of you who don't know I go the call to play bari sax with The Paul Anka Orchestra. Quite funny but an opportunity I simply couldn't pass up. I have been on the road a lot before and to be quite honest with you I find it quite comforting. Anyways today was a travel day. The fun part about this gig is that Scott Morin, Alvin Cornista and Kostas R. are all in the section. We were all buddies in college when we played in Brad Turner's 'A' band at that time. I stress 'A' because in college that was the hierarchy. The 'A' band with Turner was as good as it got. Seems silly now but oh well.
I arrived at the check in counter and was prompted to use the electronic check in. Without really even looking at my ticket I just glanced at the gate number so I know where I was to go when we were boarding. I found a restaurant and overpaid for lunch. I then made my way to the gate. I still had seen Kostas or Alvin. I glanced up and saw them but I was listening to my iPod so I didn't yell out or anything, I just thought I would gather myself and go find them. For the life of me I couldn't find them and couldn't figure out where the heck they could've gone. I sat back down and pulled out my ticket because boarding was to commence in about 20 minutes. Upon inspecting my ticket I realized that my row number was 1 and my seat was C. that perplexed me because that meant we were right at the front of the plane which meant we were in Executive Class....and there it was right at the top of the ticket EXECUTIVE CLASS. I then figured out exactly where those guys went. The Executive VIP room. Man was I choked.....what I overpaid for they ate for free....oh well you snooze you lose.
On to the plane we went and wow was it comfy. Alvin, Kostas and I caught up with one another and what was going on in our lives and the flight just zipped by. At the airport we were greeted by P.A. Productions where we were escorted to a cargo van for our luggage and then a van to take us to the hotel. We piled in to a van with about 10 other guys. Obviously these guys were Paul Anka regulars and it was like entering the little clique. It was interesting. I had to sit for 30 mintues listening to some guy tell me that Alberta made an 8 billion dollar profit this year, another guy wondering why the lions and the tigers were put right beside the elephants in the zoo and another guy wondering aloud 'are wolverines vegetarians?' Oh how I was happy to get out of the van at The Marriott.
We walked around downtown Calgary for a bit checking out some of the shops etc. We found this great store that had these shirts with a FENDER RHODES piano on the front and it just said Urban Groove. We all went in to buy one and they said they were only available for free if you spent more than $200........weird!
Thats it for day 1, stay tuned for more. Paul gets into town tomorrow and who knows what will happen. While Im typing this I'm listening to an interesting CD with Phil Dwyer on tenor sax, Terri Lynn Carrington on drums, Marc Rogers on bass and a piano and fender rhodes player whos name escapes me.
For those of you who don't know I go the call to play bari sax with The Paul Anka Orchestra. Quite funny but an opportunity I simply couldn't pass up. I have been on the road a lot before and to be quite honest with you I find it quite comforting. Anyways today was a travel day. The fun part about this gig is that Scott Morin, Alvin Cornista and Kostas R. are all in the section. We were all buddies in college when we played in Brad Turner's 'A' band at that time. I stress 'A' because in college that was the hierarchy. The 'A' band with Turner was as good as it got. Seems silly now but oh well.
I arrived at the check in counter and was prompted to use the electronic check in. Without really even looking at my ticket I just glanced at the gate number so I know where I was to go when we were boarding. I found a restaurant and overpaid for lunch. I then made my way to the gate. I still had seen Kostas or Alvin. I glanced up and saw them but I was listening to my iPod so I didn't yell out or anything, I just thought I would gather myself and go find them. For the life of me I couldn't find them and couldn't figure out where the heck they could've gone. I sat back down and pulled out my ticket because boarding was to commence in about 20 minutes. Upon inspecting my ticket I realized that my row number was 1 and my seat was C. that perplexed me because that meant we were right at the front of the plane which meant we were in Executive Class....and there it was right at the top of the ticket EXECUTIVE CLASS. I then figured out exactly where those guys went. The Executive VIP room. Man was I choked.....what I overpaid for they ate for free....oh well you snooze you lose.
On to the plane we went and wow was it comfy. Alvin, Kostas and I caught up with one another and what was going on in our lives and the flight just zipped by. At the airport we were greeted by P.A. Productions where we were escorted to a cargo van for our luggage and then a van to take us to the hotel. We piled in to a van with about 10 other guys. Obviously these guys were Paul Anka regulars and it was like entering the little clique. It was interesting. I had to sit for 30 mintues listening to some guy tell me that Alberta made an 8 billion dollar profit this year, another guy wondering why the lions and the tigers were put right beside the elephants in the zoo and another guy wondering aloud 'are wolverines vegetarians?' Oh how I was happy to get out of the van at The Marriott.
We walked around downtown Calgary for a bit checking out some of the shops etc. We found this great store that had these shirts with a FENDER RHODES piano on the front and it just said Urban Groove. We all went in to buy one and they said they were only available for free if you spent more than $200........weird!
Thats it for day 1, stay tuned for more. Paul gets into town tomorrow and who knows what will happen. While Im typing this I'm listening to an interesting CD with Phil Dwyer on tenor sax, Terri Lynn Carrington on drums, Marc Rogers on bass and a piano and fender rhodes player whos name escapes me.
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