The Naked Truth

Well I’ll try not to embellish this next story too much, for it has already been stripped down to the bare essentials.

The day is June 14^th 2008 and we (the band TapWater) were doing our usual promoting Travelin’ TapWater style, which for those of you who don’t know, is our acoustic band doing street promotions. The location is in the Hawthorn district in Portland Oregon which I have come to love a whole helluva lot. We posted up outside the Bagdad next to a bus stop and found a couple of local musicians and started to jam. Upon completion of our jam, someone who had been looking at the local paper exclaimed “Hey, the largest nude bicycle ride in North America is happening tonight here in Portland at 11:59 PM”.

Not surprisingly, we all looked at each other with that all knowing look. We all knew what each other was thinking. Let’s go there and play music…. NAKED! So we all popped into Bud- our new 80’s something Silverado and headed for the rally on night that was shall we say a wee bit nippy. “You’re not really going to play naked are you?” says Anne (our band manager). “I don’t want to see that” she says through her laughter.

“Don’t look” I reply. Simon and I were wishing we had our bikes. We wanted to actually do the ride.

When we got there, we all found out why this was the largest nude bike ride in North America. There were well over a thousand people already there anywhere from somewhat clothed to skin. They were everywhere in all different shapes sizes and color with an electrical excitement filling the air. They had rented these empty warehouses and had DJ’s and dancing and body painting and 2 dollar Fat Tire Ales. The energy was amazing. Personally, I thought that it would be a riot if someone was selling hot dogs. When I looked back Wes and Simon were already down to there skibbys setting up our gear. So I kicked off my shoes and stripped down to join my comrades. As soon as we stared playing, a van full of girls pull up jumped out stripped down and started dancing in the street right in front of us. It caught on like a wild fire for within about two minutes there were hundreds of people dancing naked or partially clothed in the street with us. Then all of the people started flooding out of the warehouse parties and grabbed their bikes to get ready to go. To our surprise we were on the start line. Well at about 12:10 AM the entire place erupted with a roaring howl at the near full moon and the ride finally commenced.

I feel I should tell you that we did NOT stop playing at this time. All of a sudden and for the next 7 or 8 minutes or so we were passed by approximately 1,500 nude persons, all pedaling to their hearts content all cheering for us as they rode by. Finally the last of the bikes had gone by and it was time to pack it in and go home. So we did. I guess I feel we got lucky again. Lucky to have been exposed to such a glorious event. Lucky to be able to participate in our own way as another chapter of life in a band on the road comes to a clothes.

Feeling Sentimental

This morning I woke up feeling sentimental. I feel extremely lucky, on one hand, to have so many people in my life that I consider good friends. On the other hand, there’s a lot of responsibility to maintaining those friendships. I realize how hard it is to stay connected. I would love to have all of the time and money in the world to spend on all of my loved ones. However it is next to impossible to do so with all that I endeavor in. The band takes a tremendous amount of time. When I’m not doing the band, I have to work to pay the bills, yada, yada, yada. I call people and wish I could say, hey, I think I’ll fly to Tulsa and see my lifelong friend Steve Barker or to Wisconsin to see my mom. Then I think about all of the people on the road. This is when it hit me. When we tour, we are so fortunate to get to reunite with family and friends. Through touring I’ve personally been reunited with old high school buddies that I lost contact with 10 years ago that moved away and looked me up on the web and came to a show. Like Dean and Eric in Marin county near San Francisco, and Makana in Oakland. I also have been able to connect with my little brother and step mom in Edmunds near Seattle. How about Andi in Austin? Ryan lives in Bend. I just got to see him last summer. And Steve’s family in Concord and Wes’s family in Atlanta and Tims family in Phoenix, Lisa and Che in Sedona and all the new friends we’ve made along the road. I guess that I just feel lucky…lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. People like you. So if I haven’t talked to you in a while, I’m sure that we will soon. Hopefully I’ll see you in person. Regardless, I just want you all to know that I love you. You make my life richer just to know you, and I am thankful for that. Peace -Ravi