Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Ukulele Superstar: Roman Tudela

Roman Tudela was twelve when he first started playing the uke. A musical guy, he was singing at his church, but wasn’t as serious about the ukulele. A trip to Oahu, Hawaii changed all of that; a trip that lasted for two years. On the island Oahu, Roman’s cousin gave him a real introduction to the uke, showing him the chords. Roman found himself constantly going online, listening to music and looking at chords. From there on out, he hasn’t stopped playing.

With a family so big on music, it’s no wonder. Uncle Roman Tudela has a few albums out. Uncle Roman and his sons are all into the music, as well as the younger Roman’s sisters and cousins, all singing and making music together. Sundays are like concerts; everyone hangs out, plays and sings.

Even with all of his experience, Roman wasn’t so sure he wanted to go public. Fatherhood changed that for him. When his two-year-old was first born, he had a hard time going to sleep, and he’d cry. Roman, outside relaxing and playing the uke, stepped inside while still playing, and the baby stopped. Now Roman plays for his son every night; a son that’s clearly interested in music.

Ludi and Renus Domingo, the owners of Island Kine Grinds in Nampa, knew Roman as the Firestone tire guy. They’d known and liked Roman for years, but had no idea that he could play. When they discovered him on a random YouTube video, they knew they wanted to have him play at their restaurant.

Roman started to play a lot, with friends, and when going out. He’d get invited to sing and play with lots of other people. Playing for Island Kine Grinds was a boost. Then he started to post more videos, and found that he got a lot of comments. A Portland man found Roman’s video through a friend, then invited Roman to play at a concert in downtown Portland during the United Nesian Fest, the fest for every ‘nesian. The Nesians flew paid for the flight, the hotel, and they drove him around, wanting Roman to to experience being in the music industry.

It was a huge event, and Roman was nervous, but told himself that he went there to practice being in front of an audience, so there it was. After singing an hour, he had them all chanting, “More, more, more!”

“When I came down from the stage,” Roman told me, “There were a bunch of people asking for my posters that they made for me, and they were asking me to sign it. Yeah, it was just weird, they started taking pictures and asking if I had CD’s.”

Back in Idaho at Island Kine Grinds on Friday nights, Roman is flexible, and sensitive to his audience. If he feels that someone doesn’t like the song he’s playing, he changes it out. He might play a country song that’s in a Hawaiian style, or a more modern song with an island twist to it. The restaurant’s customers aren’t the only ones who like Roman’s style; his co-workers are fans, too, even though they’re normally into rock.
The uke is Roman’s therapy; it’s relaxing to play, and he says, “It’s nice when you have your family into it. I might be playing, and they’ll come and sing backup, all freestyle. They’ll just make up their own stuff. Sundays are the fun time when we all have our ukes. Someone will start the beat and everyone joins in.”

Roman gave us a demonstration. The man opened his mouth, and out came pure music. Enjoyable, right on with the rhythm, and an obvious up and coming talent.

Roman Tudela; watch for him.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Twenty-Five and More Alive Than Ever: Nampa Festival of the Arts

What speaks to you?

No, I don’t mean the neighbor across the fence that never seems to STOP speaking, or the people at work who talk AT you all day long, rather than TO you…we’ve all had enough of that.

What I mean is…what gets you ‘right there’?

Is it the motion-like energy of someone’s excellent woodworking, the smell of a freshly turned-out masterpiece? The flow of a cleverly created, hand-blown offering of colored glass? How about the happy-go-lucky feeling of a reincarnated piece of metal yard art? Is it pottery, with that deep connection from clay gathered out of the earth itself? It might even be the artist who captured in paint or some other medium the essence of a scene from your childhood, or your happiest moment as an adult, as if they've read your memory.

August thirteenth and fourteenth is a great time for you to find out. Nampa’s lush, green Lakeview Park will be filled with a variety of treasures to choose from as over 150 artists, craftsmen, vendors and showbiz types all share a common goal; to entertain you through the art of expression. It’s time once again for the Nampa Festival of the Arts, in its 25th year and getting ready to host over 15,000 visitors. Make that 15,000 and one. You.

Question: What can you express through art?
Better Question: What can’t you?

“The more ways you find to express yourself, the happier you’ll be,” were the wise words of my Psych 101 professor, and she’s right.

While I don’t express myself through art on a daily basis like I could or should, spending a day or two at the Nampa Festival of the Arts each year often gets those creative juices flowing again. Finally; self-expression once more!

I might, just twenty-four hours later, find myself arranging a floral bouquet for no better reason than that the house needs some color, garnishing a dinner dish with flare as I serve it up to certain surprised familial recipients, or realize that I am absent-mindedly doodling out a landscape on my message pad as I’m kept on the phone, on hold.

The point is, life’s always a bit more exciting once I’ve been exposed to a few gutsy people who aren’t in the least bit afraid to express themselves, or to share their talent. The residual effects are pretty satisfying, to myself and those lucky beneficiaries around me. Bathrooms get repainted and redecorated. Outside shrubbery gets sculpted into a more flattering shape, one that suits my mood. Old furniture gets a new coat of color, then an added and unexpected flourish, bringing relief to the wannabe artisan in me.

They’re all symptoms of one who’s been to the Nampa Festival of the Arts.

What speaks to me? Glass. Colored. Sleek. Light-weight and thin. It’s taken me a few years to figure that out, but there you have it.

Visit the Nampa Festival of the Arts and go find out what it is that speaks most to you. You’ll know it when you see it.

For more information, see:
http://www.nampaparksandrecreation.org/NampaFestivalOfArts.aspx

Monday, August 1, 2011

The Adventure Continues: Twin Springs Resort

Just about the time I began to pray I wasn’t lost in the wilds of Idaho, we found our destination.

Twin Springs Resort (population: 2) seems to come out of nowhere, which a driver might tend to feel that they’re in the middle of, shortly before arriving. The dubious sign letting you know that you’re now ‘leaving the Boise National Forest’, seen seconds before arrival, isn’t reassuring.

“Are we SUPPOSED to be leaving the Boise National Forest?” I nervously asked my two passengers. They didn’t know. Neither did I.

We’d gone by many an ideal fishing hole and campground; and I couldn’t help but exclaim as we bumped along, “We have to go check that out sometime!” While the gravel road was admittedly a little harrowing, I was betting it was all going to be worth the trip; knowing that great experiences often require sacrifice. The best thing I could throw out here would be to soak in the jaw-dropping scenery of the Central Idaho Mountains and enjoy every bit of the ride.

We’d taken Highway 21 from Boise up the hill, then turned right immediately after getting past the More’s Creek bridge. We passed a very populated Spring Shores Arena and kept going. And going. And going. Eventually we saw a sign for the Cottonwood Ranger station where the road split. We kept right, but that’s about where I began to have my doubts. Should we have gone left, instead? Twelve more miles, and I didn’t see anything that looked like the cabins our friends told us about.

As hope was dimming, we rounded the curve and there we were, just that fast. It was everything I’d imagined and then some. If you like rustic, authentic Idaho, this is your spot. Eclectic furniture on the front porch of the office/common area/ bar/ store. A welcome sign, assuring that there would be cold drinks and friendly conversation within. The store/tavern’s motto is that they’ll be waiting for you at the end of the road ‘with a cold one’. It’s up to you exactly which cold one that might be. The establishment also touts snacks, the game on tv, a pool table and a meal table surrounded by chairs, and a common area complete with that living room/ man-cave feel, encouraging friendly conversation. There aren’t many strangers by the end of the weekend, unless solitude is what you crave, and if so, this is your place for that, too.

“We are here to help you have a good time,” said the Twin Springs website.

Well, all right then, I was ready. Any place that can relax a slightly OCD, semi-uptight-at-times person of German descent would get my vote, not to mention a return visit.

Three roomy cabins or even a two-storied house await visitors (called the Gatehouse) to choose from; (providing they called ahead to reserve them.) Each has its own stunning location, peaceful view of the Middle Fork, and built-in hot tub out on the back deck. Hot water is never a rarity with each being heated by the geothermal system. Getting the perfectly-temperatured shower in the morning was not going to be any problem.

“Where are the power poles?” I asked the other guests. They shook their heads. I hadn’t seen any, either, and yet we had electricity in our cabin. I found out later that a lot of effort had gone into creating a hydro-powered community here. Clever.

With the somewhat magical and restorative mineral waters literally out our back door, the river rushing by that both calmed and invigorated the senses, and the sun setting behind the mountains, we had all the makings of a beautiful stay.

After a long soak, a hearty meal and a much-needed rest on a bed with a high-quality mattress, I was beginning to think I wasn’t middle-aged after all. Nothing but nothing hurt on me in the morning. I discovered that I was a much more pleasant person when not dealing with pain of any kind. As the others slept on, the gravel road beyond was calling me. Taking my pepper spray, sunglasses and camera, I set out for a morning constitutional (isn’t that what they used to call them?), or in other words, a walk.

Good that I hadn't read the information on the website about the bears in the area beforehand. Ignorance, in this case, was my bliss.

It would be honest to say that the views I witnessed as the sun came up inspired poetry. Not my own, mind you, but poetry all the same. Robert Frost, to be precise. Crunching up that road made me think of a similar walk I’d taken in Ketchum, some ten years before. It had been morning then, too. I thought about all that had happened in my life during the past decade, and felt both melancholy and gratitude for it all.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I---
I took the road less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.”

Any atmosphere that could bring out the tenderness in me was journal-entry material. It had been a long while since I’d been this in tune with both nature and my own thoughts.

This would be the ideal location to do some serious writing. I wondered if I could swing a trip back up here in the fall, when the men would want to do some hunting, and I’d want to do some creative wordsmithing.

The smiles abounded when I re-entered the cabin. Three out of four fishermen had been successful. One of them had just caught her very first fish, and was glowing with excitement. Multiple fillets were loaded into the little freezer in the kitchen with no small amount of pride.

A few more great meals, another soak, and another sound nights’ sleep saw to it that I was one happy camper in the morning. Another day of fun and sun did nothing to lessen the mood. The group took a trip up the road to a spot called Neinmeyer, a campground with good fishing and even better shade. We played in the water, snacked, and lazily talked and napped while the sportsmen threw their casts and reeled in from time to time.

The only thing that was missing from my complete happiness was the sauna. I wasn’t a sauna-nut until I visited Europe and saw the skin they were all wearing over there. It could be genetics, but it could also be the fact that just about everyone, even those living in the humblest of apartments, had an indoor sauna. It extracts toxins and hydrates the skin, making people look and feel years younger. I could only imagine what fifteen minutes in the sauna would do for me, added to the combination of everything else. But alas, I could not find the sauna. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t asked.

“It’s that stone house right over there,” another guest at the resort told me, but it was dark and I couldn’t see where they were pointing.

“Oh yeah, it’s that stone place thataway,” yet another guest told me, but they pointed too quickly for me to see which direction they were referring to.

I wandered from stone dwelling to stone dwelling, ignoring DANGER: KEEP OUT signs, thinking that was just to keep the place private. That’s how I wound up briefly in the pump house. I found the sauna thirty minutes before it was time to drive back down the mountain; my bad luck. I would save my visit to the stone house for next time. Of course, it was the same little hut that I’d been passing by on my way down to the river all weekend long. Missing it took some talent; perhaps I had simply become far too relaxed to notice details like that during my stay at Twin Springs.

Would I make the long, dusty drive back to visit that part of Idaho again?

In a New York minute.

All bets are that the same hospitality, friendly conversation, beautiful setting, and cold sodas will be waiting for me just around that last bend in the road when I return.

Twin Springs: Population Two.
Highly recommended by this once world-weary traveler. Drive up the hill and find the ultimate place to chill.

Happy Rejuvenation.

To view the pictures from my mini-vacation, see:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=214740278578524&set=a.214739235245295


For more information and rental cabin rates, see:
http://www.twinspringsidaho.com/