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We Are the Mariners – Basel Parade

Here are a few pictures from our parade-pub-crawl through Basel and the festivities afterwards.
 

This is our oar. It comes to every event and contains the names of all the deceased Mariners. It has two sides.
 

Wogs pulling the canon. You can think of wogs as Mariners in training. The one on the left is actually a phenomenal drummer.
 

Narrow streets, lots of drums, thunderous sound. You’ll have to take my word for it.
 

Fife line. Mostly Swiss guys in this picture.
 

Good looking fellow ain’t he? What the hell, it is my blog, after all.
 

Big spoon, Big man. As my Irish buddy says, “You don’t get that big not like’n food”.
 

Happy to see they are all in step.
 

Everyone always asks, “Where are your shoes?” To which I always reply, “I don’t own any.” There is never a second question.
 

Beer break. This lady found a relaxing place to sit down. What she did not realize is that thought the canon is loud and looks sturdy, it is essentially made out of paper mache. Fortunately, she didn’t do any damage.
 

Aren’t they pretty? Old Moeller drums, new paintings, calf-skin heads, warm sunny day, cold beer, Basel…life really is good.
 

I’m sorry, could you hit those things a bit harder? My ears aren’t bleeding yet.
 

Mariner exercise program. Oh, reminds me of a good joke…
Q: What did the bass drummer get on his IQ test?
A: Drool.
Sorry guys, I couldn’t resist.
 

After the parade in Basel we jumped on a tram and headed out of town for a party. Our Swiss friend Peter shows us how he can play the drums while hanging upside down like a bat. He might be crazy.
 

That’s Bob. He is crazy but he’s ours.
 

A gift From the Swiss. The dead fish is their logo. Cool.
 

A gift To the Swiss. It was full when we gave it to them. It wasn’t full shortly after.
 

This one is a little hard to explain.
 

As usual, tunes all night. Good times.

We Are the Mariners – The Baggenstos Whipple

 
While in Switzerland I recorded what I could of the after hours scene. The Swiss turned a bar, called the Baggenstos, into our Mariner home, complete with Mariner artifacts from past years, uniforms draped from the ceilings, sails hanging in the back patio and a flowing tide of beer. While going through my recordings I came across this wonderful version of the Whipple from the Baggenstos.
 

 
The Whipple, or more accurately entitled, Whipple and the Gaspee is the finest fife and drum medley ever created. It is a melodic, harmonic and percussive work of art. It was sequenced decades ago with a variety of classic sea songs including the cotton screwing chantey Whup Jambouree. After a brief drum solo enters a great Scottish ballad called Henry Martin, which is arranged as a foux bourdon, a technique used in the late middle ages where the melody is harmonized against one line that plays a perfect fourth and another that plays a sixth. I could go on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that it is the standard by which all other medleys are measured, at least in my book.
 

 
There are three neat things about this recording. First, all the percussion is being played on tables since we are in a bar. Second, nobody had any idea it was being recorded. It simply is what the Whipple sounds like at 3am in a bar in Switzerland, including the erroneous c natural three notes into the melody. Lastly, I have never heard a better live recording from within a bar of fife and drum music.

One more note on the origins of the title. Whipple was an American sea captain. The Gaspee was a British ship. I won’t go into any other details except to leave you with this great exchange between the British Captain Sir James Wallace and our beloved Abraham Whipple:

You, Abraham Whipple, on the 10th of June, 1772, burned His Majesty’s vessel, the Gaspee, and I will hang you at the yard-arm.
–James Wallace

To Sir James Wallace, Sir:
Always catch a man before you hang him.
–Abraham Whipple

We Are the Mariners

I had every intention of blogging while in Switzerland. Our ‘active schedule’, however, consumed any time I might have had for such an activity. Now that I am home, and reeling from the experience, I will begin plowing through my pictures, recordings and memories in an attempt try to convey, in some simple manner, the enormity of what happened during our ten days in Switzerland.
 


 
To be honest, I don’t really know where to begin. My feeling is that it would be easier to explain what the Alps are like to someone who has never before seen a mountain than to tell you our tale. Also, I am really not sure how much I want to tell you. No, I’ve got nothing to hide. Instead, I’ve so much to keep, and I fear that watering it down for you will dilute its richness in my own mind.

Part of the challenge, is that the seeds for this trip were sown not only in the weeks and months preceding it, but the decades. There is a very rich history between the Ancient Mariners of the United States and the Swiss Mariners that dates back to the early seventies. That history has been building and evolving, much the same way a healthy marriage unfolds. We learn from each other, we grow with each other, we argue with each other, we laugh with each other, we sing and play with each other, we cry with each other and we love each other. Consequently, our reunion culminated in a synergy that is really beyond my ability to verbally describe. Every story is enriched, in our minds and hearts, by the history and the duality that hangs on everything we do. We are not only travelers hoping to see some foreign attractions, we often are the attraction. We are not only old friends, we are also new friends. We are not only guests, we are at home. We are not only the Ancient or Swiss Mariners but, simply put, We are the Mariners.

The pictures and sound that I can offer you don’t really do any of it justice. But until you are on the mountain with me, they are all you can have.