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Girls of Cristiano Ronaldo
There are a lot of advantages of being a famous athlete.
One of them is the ability to get almost every girl you want.
And don't forget that Christiano Ronaldo is just 24 years oldJordana Jardel – 2002
Karina Ferro – 2002 – 2005
Daniele Aguiar – 2005
Isabel Figueir – 2005
Diana Chaves – 2006
Nuria Bermudez – 2006
Soraia Chaves – 2006
Merche Romero – 2006
Luciana Abreu – 2007
Gemma Atkinson – 2007
Bipasha Basu – 2007
Karina Bacchi – 2007
Carolina Patrocinio – 2007
Lucia Garcia – 2008
Maria Sharapova – 2008
Niki Ghazian – 2008
Tyese Cunningham – 2008
Nereida Gallardo – 2008
Mia Judaken – 2008
Imogen Thomas – 2008
Letizia Filippi – 2008
Alyona Haynes – 2008
Olivia Saunders – 2009
Gabriela Endringer - 2009
Luana Belletti – 2009
Paris Hilton – 2009
Raffaella Fico – 2009
via acidcow.com
Pics of the horn
So a few weeks ago, I was on a big band gig in downtown St. Louis. The gig was dinner music for the local USO. Great group of people, both civilians and military. The band, who I sub with a few times a year, sounded great. I was also happy with how I played throughout the night. All in all, the gig was a great success...up until one of the trumpet players, not paying attention to where he was pulling a cord, knocked my horn (stilling on a stand) over, putting a rather vicious dent into the slide. It was probably one of the worst ways to end a gig. I took the horn to my friend and trusted repair tech in the area and the pictures below are his work. Not only did he fix the slide, he also stripped and scratch-finished the bell, giving it a cool, unique look.
For any brass player (especially trombone) in the St. Louis area (or anywhere if you are comfortable shipping your horn) needing work done to your horn, I can't recommend my friend Aaron highly enough. Leave a comment or drop me an email should anyone like to have his contact information.
Baby JCred
Even back then... it was obvious. A look at my face was a look into the eyes of a visionary.
The night I witnessed Willie Nelson make a room full of grown women breakdown and cry
It was somewhere close to 11:30pm, we had been drinking all day and my apartment was full of chicks. Well, let me qualify that for you: the chicks were actually my wife and her four best girl friends. We did in fact drink all day, out on a boat on Sydney harbour....and in a string of bars...and, finally, back in our apartment.
As was the case, and as I am want to do in situations like that one, turned to the stereo.
Usually when I kick-off a late night song splurge, I pour myself a tall glass of Wild Turkey with plenty of ice. The occasion in question though called for something with a little more moxie: The Grievous Angel.
What is the Grievous Angel? It has only two ingredients: Mango Gatorade and Jose Cuervo (your mouth is watering, isn't it?). I only break out this particular libation for creating late night stereo vibrations. It's origins date back to living in Florida, playing my tunes at top volume, hankering for a mood alteration and only having only the two aforementioned ingredients on hand.
Like they say, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with..."
With drink in hand, I started to pull songs from my vast collection in hopes of turing the girls on to new stuff. Once they were knee deep in a serendipitous sound sampling, I decided to throw 'em a (country) curve: Willie Nelson.
"Willie Nelson?!", they yelled out in unison. "Please don't play Willie Nelson. If you are going to play country, at least put on some Brad Paisley or Keith Urban".
[silence]
After they picked me up from the floor and wiped away the blood that tricked from my ears, I attempted to teach them a lesson about country music.
"Country music," I told them, "comes in four flavours: Willie, Johnny, Waylon and Merle. There is no room in country music for candy-assed cowboys, "guyliner" or GAP ad posers. Just because you sing about your truck, heartache and BBQs doesn't mean you are fucking country singer".
They laughed at me: "What do we want with that craggy ol' country fossil anyhow?"
Surely the drink had gotten to them. They were delirious, crazed from the heat, strung out on hubris...but, they persisted.
"What makes you think Willie Nelson is going to be able to sing anything that'll make us swoon over him? He looks like his horse has been riding him for all these years. He was lucky Julio Iglesias let him sing with him".
Things were getting out of control and really staring to amuse themselves. I had to put a stop to it and there was only one thing left to do...take a deep swig of the Grievous Angel, give the gals a steely look and pull out the big gun: "A Song for You"
Do you know this song? It was written by Leon Russell in 1970. Aside from Willie's version, it was most famously covered by Donnie Hathaway (another personal fave performer of mine). Here is a wikipedia link for the song if you want to see who else covered it (please, I BEG of you, forget the fact that Michael Buble covered this song...in fact, forget that Michael Buble ever existed).
"Song for You" is a flat out heartache no matter who sings it (aside from "you know who"..."MB"). I love the Willie version best. If you didn't know it before, after listening to his vocal, you know that that his voice is one of the true treasures of American music. It is not just country, it is Country; USA...pilgrims; pioneers; patriots.
For my my money it is one of the best straight vocal performance ever put on record. It is such a clean vocal. It has depth and sincerity and feels like an apology, a love letter and a pleading, yearning request for forgiveness and appreciation. Seriously...I am not overstating this. Really...
The girls decided to give me and Willie one shot to win them over. I played "Song for You" for them. I quieted the room, turned the lights down a bit, moderated the volume to give the vocal the right effect, and I hit play....
Have you ever had a good cry? The ones that make everything right and cause you to laugh out loud? You're not really sure why you are crying, but you feel the need to just emote. Yes? No? Well, this is what the room felt like at the end of that song. The girls that had never heard it (my wife excluded) sat quietly until sniffles and tears gave way to smiles and call-outs to "play it again...in fact, don't stop playing it".
I knew it would work. We played the song over and over again until one by one they started to nod off. I had tried to play other Willie tunes, but it was too late...they had been sweetly seduced by the Redheaded Stranger.
They swooned for Willie.
_____
You should have a listen to the other two versions I recommend: the original version by Leon Russell (again, he wrote the song) and the incredible, soul-drenched version by Donny Hathaway:
Also, you MUST watch this video of Leon, Willie and Ray Charles do this song on one of Willie's primetime TV "Willie & Friends" specials. Ray was in bad health and there was question if he could make the show. He ended up not only making the show, but stealing it with his performance here.
Watch Willie get lost in Ray's presence as he tries to hold back his own tears. Shit, I just stopped writing to watch it again...son of a bitch choked me right up. Whew. Powerful.
_____
Post Script:
When these girls flew from the States to visit us in Sydney in 2008, they all stayed at our apartment. Four women visitors, a wife, two dogs and me in one apartment. Can you imagine the shit-fight I would have had trying to get into the ONE bathroom?
I was a bit scared about this..until my wife approached me with one of the best ideas she has EVER come up with. She said, "Would you mind if I just rented you a small hotel room in the city while the girls are here?"
Reason #108 why I love my wife.
Ah the bachelors life...just like riding a bike. I felt like I was in my Boston apartment again: no TV, only beer and water in the fridge and music playing 24-7 (minus all the other stuff...because playing bachelor is much different that actually being one).
Here are some snaps of my (temporary) home-sweet-home.
amazing Twin Peaks photo gallery
http://gallery.mac.com/richardbeymer#100084&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=0
Smile Sensor
New camera arrived today, 10.1 megapixel Sony Cybershot. Previous Sony pocket camera has started to go old as it was bought for Mothers Day in 2006. Seems these point and shoots are very much consumer durables, especially flash. :-( but still better than my current mobile phone cameras maybe only by with the exception of N95 in outdoor conditions.
The Cybershot is actually not the one as in this video but here's some tests with the Sony smile detection algorithm. It's a feature apparently around since 2007 Sony cameras that takes pictures automatically when "right smile" appears to the picture. It can as well be adjusted like the video clip suggests. Pretty fun. To be seen if it really works with kids as it's always so difficult to get "everyone" to smile in the picture or even look at the camera. What next? Maybe a funny sound generator to get babies to look at the camera?
There's also some "steadyshot" logo on the camera, maybe need to figure out later what it means. Here's the first tests with my daughter and automatic smile sensor set to min setting.
Ps. I actually kind of like the new Sony website, take a look: http://www.sony.com
Pps. I am still shopping for a "real camera". Right now Pentax (due to my old equipment) vs Canon. To be seen..
