i love to simulate. or to be simulated, so to speak… (well, also with a t, but that will be a different post )
as i try to make my trainings as practical as possible in the ever so popular Confucius tradition (‘i do and understand’, usually anyway), i love to be on the other side of those simulations or cases. and last tuesday i could!
Eagles Flight Benelux is a company that provides these simulation games one of which is the Jungle Fire. with a team of 5 people (in our case) we had to go through a jungle with all of its perils to take home as many diamonds as possible. for this you need medikits, snackpacks, rope and gasoline; not only to go through the jungle, but also to ‘bribe’ the monkeys and anacondas, among others…
the goal obviously is not the diamonds, but decisionmaking, teamwork, risk analysis, etcetera… how do you decide and perform having very limited time and means. we were also triggered to determine the value of information in relation to risk. first determine the goal and then link the goal to the amount of information you need… risk free, limited risk or maximum risk leads to different maximum results. but most importantly as it is reflected in all of the goals of the game, within the team the goal is to have everyone perform as effectively as possible.
all in all i loved the game. we captured the lessons as we didn’t fulfill all of them compliments to Eagle’s Flight Benelux!
now getting back to the looney-bin, i decided to bring the grlz back some Mikey D. as it had gotten pretty late with all the talking and analysing afterwards… driving thru, we ordered, but after having payed and being at the pick-up window, i realized i had forgotten some items. and as i was already thinking about having to drive thru again or going up the restaurant to get the rest, i decided to just ask the boy at the pick-up window. i told him i had forgotten two things and even before i had a chance to ask him whether i could get and pay with him, he already asked what i needed and put the food in the bag after i payed him the extra money!
now, i don’t know whether he had been in one of those simulation games as well with his team, but i can almost say he really doesn’t need it anymore. customer service and personal initiative! damn. compliments to Mikey D’s!
I know, it has been a couple of weeks, but you know, birthdays and stuff….
With my friend Marieke, who has been a fan for years as well, we went to see Zuco 103 Acustico @ the old Luxor in Rotterdam.
An acoustic set, with special guests percussionist Marcos Suzano and guitarist Sergio Chiavazzoli from Brasil.
As usual, when Lilian Viera gets on stage, we are mesmerized by her presence. Some performers, singers in particular feel the need to act arrogant or with their noses in the air, probably from insecurity…
Not Lilian.
Probably because of her background on the one hand and her experience on the other, she is (seems?) perfectly relaxed and enchants the theater as if it was my livingroom during my party… Now, the band is tight as ever, Stefan Kruger on drums and Alex Oele on bass are like siamese twins, Stefan Schmid is one of the best Rhodes-players in Holland and their guests are amazing on percussion and guitar. There is magic on stage, despite their obvious fatigue from the tour… When you like, please support them, all albums are amazing! Check it out…
it’s just… I like dutch comedy, don’t get me wrong. sometimes however, the goal of some of the comedians is not to be hilariously funny, but to tell a story. or to make a statement.
which is fine.
sometimes.
but sometimes, you just wanna laugh like crazy and you don’t need a (political) statement, or some stuff to ‘think about’… I loved the dutch comedians Arie & Sylvester for instance. Not because their humour is so incredibly intelligent, but just because they are stand-up comedians trying to be funny as much as possible. And then sometimes they are funny and sometimes they’re not…
so I like some stand-up comedians, as they just plainly try to make you laugh. a while ago, I discovered Pablo Francisco on television, looked him up on internet and went absolutely crazy! this guy is hilarious, for example when he imitates the preview guy…
so i didn’t hesitate one second when i read he was coming to amsterdam, playing in the (by the way very beautiful new) Rabo-zaal at the Melkweg…
so sunday i went to amsterdam and cried my eyes out for 1,5 hours! he brought 2 sidekicks, who opened for him. they already were unexpectedly funny (“what do you mean, Michael Phelps took marihuana as a performance-enhancing drug? my girlfriend sure doesn’t agree, that weed is a performance-enhancing drug!“) and then he went at it for over an hour… and the crowd went nuts! it is so reassuring you can just let go laughing, ’cause everyone does… Pablo is like Bert Visser on speed…
after the show, i bought his dvd’s of course and at home I am enjoying his show all over again. now this part is just a small bit…
Years ago, i got to know the “De Parade” through my Mariken, who has lived most of her life in 010 and always knew the best events and places to tell me, as an import Rotterdammer… She took me to De Parade, a kind of theatre carnival/festival. All kinds of tents, trailers, containers and everything else, that you can perorm a play in are put together with the addition of bar and restauranttents and -containers.
So after having had some coffee and fantastic pies @ Dudok Continue Reading…
Marzio
told me a little early and asked me to keep my mouth shut marketingwise (which is kind of difficult for me, but I succeeded nonetheless ): he was going to play the Bimhuis in Amsterdam for Blue Note. So, last week we were off to the nation’s capital to enjoy some undoubtedly amazing jazz…
I do have to laugh though, @ the difference between enjoying various types of music live… When we went to Raphael Saadiq for example, it is one big social gathering, loud, noise, fantastic!
a couple of weeks ago, we went to see my friend Marzio Scholten, one of the most promising, young jazzguitar players in the Netherlands by the way playing at the Duke in Leiden. and as reina works in Leiden, i picked her up and we felt like having some sushi before.
before i tell you about the sushi, please note Marzio Scholten. the guy is amazing! he played guitar on my (to be issued) album and he has such a feel… please buy his album “Motherland” ! i did and it is fantastic; in the style of John Scofield, Wolfgang Muthspiel, etc. etc. but with a very personal touch…
so about the sushi.
months ago, however, we went to a big restaurant at the Beestenmarkt in Leiden to have some sushi and teppanyaki, but it was so incredibly nothing, that i had tried to find some others. Ichi ban was one of them and close to the Duke by the way. so we dropped by and had some… amazing sushi that is! now, the only thing, but that seems to be symptomatic is the service; kind of slow and nonchalant. but when you serve this quality sushi, you get away with a lot of shit… and that is what this sushi definitely NOT was, quite the contrary…
reina and i were supposed to go to the latin village festival in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, as me for a while already and reina since i played her their last cd, after the carnaval, are crazy about Zuco 103. and they were going to be playing at this festival end november. unfortunately, the friday and sunday of the 3-day festival were cancelled, so again, no deal! but then i saw the billboards for the keytown jazz festival in leiden and, yes, zuco 103 were coming to play.
with martine and vincent we were going, after a bite at a not so memorable restaurant, so i won’t mention it. at the festival, compare it to north sea jazz, Continue Reading…
we love jazz (and almost all other types of black music, we are actually a kind of musical racists), so in Istanbul too, we checked out a beautiful jazzclub, Nardis, and discovered one of the most amazing bassplayers i ever saw, selcuk karaman, who incidently will be coming to amsterdam in 2009 as well…
both were amazing, the club and the concert, which entailed some hard fusion, standards and there was some serious musicality going on… always beautiful!
we were at the balcony, where we enjoyed some lovely food and amazing jazz, check it out…
of course these are the artists that don’t perform in the Arena in Amsterdam or Ahoy in Rotterdam, that is also why i like them so much…
being one of the tony’s in Tony Toni Toné !, he was a frontrunner in the swingbeat/new jack swing at the end of the ’80s and beginning of the ’90s. then, their sound already was different, so it was no surprise he teamed up with the d’Angelo and The Roots, to (in my opinion) be the founders of nusoul, producing some damn fine vibes and hiphop…
in 1999, one of the en vogue ladies, Dawn Robinson and Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest got together with Saadiq and formed Lucy Pearl, also producing some phat grooves…
as a solo artist he made “instant vintage”, which it was and “ray ray”. his latest release is an obvious tribute to rough ’60s soul, “the way i see it”, so my reina and i were very anxious to go and see him play at Paradiso in Amsterdam.
and we were not dissapointed; the whole show was a soul revival with appearances, dances and of course the music! later in the show he got to some more modern grooves, only to return to the soul stuff in the encore… amazing show, amazing music and very inspiring!
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