Greetings from Mykanos.
It is that time of the year, when the weather is hot and sunny. If you call 27C hot, that is. Compared to -40F in Chicago and 45C in New South Wales, it seems very boring here but we like it, and so does the coffee.
In fact so do most things.
All the trees are flowering: coffee trees, avocado trees, citrus trees, ornamentals, and all the birds are multiplying. We have nests being built and used for laying and hatching in almost all our hanging ferns and flower baskets. We even have a return visit by Mr and Mrs Cucarachero, who again built a nest inside the hanging lampshade of one of the overhead lights on the back verandah, and promptly hatched a clutch of Cucaracheritos.
Cucaracheros are named after their favourite food, cockroaches (cucarachas), and we have watched a host of them ferried to the kids with great approval, both from the chicks and from us.
Cucaracheros are locals, but we also have a host of brilliantly coloured tourists here at the moment, from Canada and the US. Considering they would have frozen to death in the trees up north I can see why they prefer to come and see us and produce a few kids to take back home with them.
It’s 2019 and I am very aware of getting older because suddenly a lot of things are celebrating their 50th anniversary. It’s been half a century since the first moon landing, the introduction of the 747 Jumbo Jet, the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village N.Y., the publication of The Godfather, the premiere of Midnight Cowboy, and the Woodstock festival, all of which had a profound effect on me.
But that’s not all.
January 30th saw the 50th anniversary of the last live performance by the Beatles, which happened on the roof of their Apple Corps building in Savile Row, London.
I was a Beatles fan. They influenced my life from age 13 through to 20, and for a long time after.
We Wills were right up with them from the start as my Dad was A&R manager for EMI, and Parlophone (The Beatles’ label) was part of EMI. In fact I almost got to meet Ringo when the Beatles toured Australia in 1964 as part of their World Tour. He arrived in Sydney a week later than the rest as he had been ill and replacement drummer Jimmie Nicol played the Adelaide and Melbourne concerts. My father was due to meet Ringo at the airport and was taking me along. Unfortunately my grandfather died early that morning and Dad didn’t go. I eventually forgave my grandfather.
I remember my Dad, who worked in the music industry all his life, and lived and breathed it every day, telling me that, in his opinion, the three seminal artists in popular music were Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
Bing Crosby, as he was the first vocalist to step out in front of the band and eclipse the bandleader: previously all the singers were just extra instruments.
Elvis, as he made Rock & Roll the force it became, desegregating and redefining the music industry in the process. Interestingly, he was recently awarded a Presidential Medal posthumously by Donald Trump, which is about the only thing he has done with which I agree.
And the Beatles, because they wrote their own material, which everyone else had to follow if they were to have credibility.
My Dad, whose 106th birthday would have been celebrated early next month, lived and worked through the arrival and (in many cases) the departure of: 78rpm, 45rpm, and 33 1/3rpm records; reel-to-reel tapes; 8 track cartridges; cassettes; microcassettes; and Compact Discs; in mono, stereo and quadraphonic. He was expert in Classical, Jazz and Country music, and worked with many of the biggest names in all three genres, both Australian and international, during his careers with EMI and RCA.
He felt that he had been privileged to have made a living out of his hobby, and to have experienced the best years of the record industry.
It’s a different beast these days.
And speaking of different beasts, we have a new arrival here at Mykanos.
As you know, and some of you have been quite pleased about, we have been catless since Pispirispis died. Well, that changed last week.
Adriano was with Juan, our new man here at Mykanos, halfway up the mountain checking the coffee and they met a cat, orange and white and very friendly. It seems he lived wild there amidst the coffee and plantain and all our workers knew him and gave him titbits to eat as he was obviously undernourished. Adriano told him (the cat) that if he followed Adriano and Juan down the mountain he could move in and be adopted.
He did and was.
Adriano tells me that not only did he follow them but he did leaps and twirls and pirouettes and ‘now you see me now you don’t’ and tree jumps all the way, until they reached the gate, and then he went quiet. Adriano picked him up and brought him to the house. He is now Crispin, and it is as though he has lived here all his life.
As Adriano said, “We don’t choose cats; they choose us”.
He is called Crispin after an Indian boy who used to live with Adriano’s family some 40 years ago. He was about 10 years old and homeless, and Don Narciso, Adriano’s father, brought him home and he stayed for some years. Knowing Don Narciso, the motive was to get a free labourer as much as to provide an orphan with a home, but it worked out to mutual benefit.
Hopefully it will with our new Crispin as well. He can enjoy the sofas and pillows and pats and Whiskas and ample affection, and repay us by making us laugh and catching mice.
That seems fair.
Love from him and me
Baz.
