Look what the cat dragged in

[Timm R Oday25]

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As some of you long time posters remember .
A certain Damien used to frequent here very often .
Eternally optimistic and energetic . We had a chance to have lunch yesterday during the EAA fly in happening in Oshkosh Wisconsin .
He wanted to let you folks know he misses being here .
Seems he has little free time between making custom boat upholstery and hawking airplane lights and dating gorgeous doctors

[Charles Brennan]

Timm, This is how I generally remember Damien:
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That and his infectious laugh.  You can't hear it and not start grinning, too.

Sailing on his 16-footer,  during BEER 2K4:
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Fond memories.
Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

That's what I'm talking about! Yo Damien! Was that the 16footer with the 10K worth of Harken gear

[Ed]

I was soooooo impressed with Damien I started quizzing him as a future son-in-law,
 until I found out he was in his thirties and my daughter was 18ish.  Great guy, love to see him again!  That was a BEER Cruise to remember!

[Riley Smith]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I'm as jealous as a seventy year old with a teenage wife! Oshkosh! Hope y'all had fun.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

That was my first BEER, where TSBBers bought my plane ticket so I could come sing for them.  Charles and I had a blast making music for everyone.  I will never forget Damien's uncontrollable laughter all through Charles singing "Teenie Weenie Meanie".

[Charles Brennan]

Noemi, It was that same BEER cruise in 2004, where this story happens:

We started off with a toast to Doc, from Charlie Jones. 
Noemi started weaving her magic with her wondrous vocal talents.  I kept jumping in there, with comic relief tunes involving Unrequited Love for Vertically Challenged Athletes, just to keep the whole audience from accidentally falling in love with Noemi, you understand. 
That last song really tickled Damien, although in all fairness, he'd imbibed enough beer by then, I'm pretty sure "Ring around the Rosie" would have had largely the same effect on him! 

My personal favorite for the night and something that gave me a lot of insight into Noemi's Character, was a cover of the old Carol King standard: "Will you still love me, tomorrow?"   
We had decided to do it as a slow torch song, where the principal question was not one of doubt, like the way Carol King does it, but one of resignation, as if the singer already knows (to her dismay) the answer.  When you are backing up someone on guitar like that, you let the singer phrase the song, to wring the most emotion possible out of the song. 
That's why no one dances to Mozart, for example. 
The beat isn't steady enough to dance to, since the phrasing is different, in every bar.  Slow arpeggiating on the guitar, gives you enough freedom to support a fine singer doing just that.  Noemi's rendition apparently inspired Charlie Jones to take his then-wife, Laura Griffith into his arms and hit the dance floor. Too many years playing in bars, caused me to go into Automatic Audience Mode, so I changed the arpeggiating to a more structured beat, to support the two Dancing Lovers, but it came at the expense of Noemi's delicate phrasing.  After a brief catch, when she heard what I was doing and understood why, she went into the same dance-tune mode to make the song more "danceable".  All this went on without a single word, or even so much as a glance between us. 
That's when you know you're making Good Music, people. 

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Another fond memory,
Charles Brennan