Ok, here’s how it all started:
I had been working all summer with CNN, as an intern for a show called WorldBeat, a half-hour weekly music show that airs on CNN International as well as domestically. Well, we had a meeting of everyone who works on producing the show, and the executive producer was going through a list of ideas for future shows. He also wanted to know if anyone else had ideas. So I said that the Gipsy Kings were going to be playing in town on Labor Day Weekend and that I thought it would be a good idea for us to do a piece on the Gipsy Kings and to go to the concert for an interview. He said that was a good idea. Then after our meeting, I asked the producer, if we do decide to do the Gipsy Kings piece, that I was really, really interested in doing it. He said that would be fine and asked if I wanted to do the interview. I said yes of course! That was on a Friday. Then on Monday, I called Peter Himberger, the publicist for the Gipsy Kings and asked if they would like to do an interview with us. He said yes! So then of course, I told our executive producer and double-checked to see if I could still be the one who does the interview. He said, "I don’t see why not." I was so excited! Our other producer said I should make sure not to have any coffee the day of the interview! (I didn't) =)
So I told our senior producer for World Beat about it, and he said that he would call in a couple of weeks to set up the exact time for the interview and book a camera crew and everything. So I reminded him a couple of weeks later and he said that there was still time and that he’ll call the next week. Well anyway, he didn't end up talking to them until the same week of the concert. By then, when he tried to book a camera crew, there were none available! And when did I find this out? Friday! Yes, the day before the concert, I find out that there will be no interview because we couldn’t book a camera crew. I was disappointed, to make an understatement. Well, I called the publicists' office and told them what happened and told them how much I wanted to go to the concert anyway and be able to meet the band, since I am such a huge fan. Well, they totally hooked me up and gave me two backstage passes. So, even though I was really, really upset about not being able to do the interview, I was happy that at least I’d get to see the show and meet the Gipsy Kings!
So on Saturday night, September 5, 1998, my good friend Roya and I went to Chastain Park, in Atlanta, at about 8:00pm. We went to sit down at our seats which were about halfway back from the stage, not too bad. Well, the concert was slammin’ and when intermission came, we tried to get backstage. But the security guard wouldn’t let us, even though I showed him my CNN I.D. He said I needed to have the proper backstage pass to get in. He said the pass I was given was for only after the show. I told him that if he would just ask Peter, he would tell him to let me in. He said he didn’t even know who Peter was. :( So, we decided to at least try to sit really close to the stage. So we went into the front section where there were lots of tables set up and we found an empty one! So, we just sat there like we knew what we were doing and when the concert started again, we were right there! We were so close, man! So close that some of the Gipsy Kings would smile and wink at us, and when I yelled Patchai’s name, he heard me and then I said, "Yo te amo!" (I love you) and I kissed the air with my fingers to my lips. It was so cool! Then, when they came out again after their fake ending to do Bamboleo as their encore, all these women got up on stage and started dancing with the band (Paya Bimbos as they are called). It was so wild! Then, when the show ended, we went to go backstage. At first the security guard said we would have to wait about ten minutes before we could go, which sucked because he had just finished letting all these women backstage! Then I saw this guy come out from backstage, and he looked important so I asked him if he had seen Peter backstage. He said yeah, and asked if we were friends of his. I told him that I was with CNN and that Peter knew me. So he let us in right away and introduced us to Peter and Pascal, the publicists. =)
Peter was disappointed that we wouldn’t be doing the interview but he was cool anyway. Then, the band started to come out into the parking lot out back and I got to meet a few of the guys, which was totally cool. Also, all these people wanted to meet me and give me their business cards just because I work with CNN (btw, now I work there kind of as a paid intern of sorts, while I’m still in school). So, the driver of their bus gave me his card. So all the Gipsy Kings were getting on the bus to get ready to go to the hotel and I asked the driver if that’s where he was going. He said yeah, and I asked which hotel and without any hesitation he told me! So then I asked Peter if it would be okay for me to call him at the hotel tomorrow and he said yes, but asked what for. I told him so that I could come over and hang out and meet the band. He said sure!
So then on Sunday,
we were gonna go to the hotel. But then, I had an idea. I decided to try to
book a camera crew on my own, just in case there was one
available now. So, I called CNN, not knowing the direct line for
the guy who usually books our camera crews, Waldy. I didn’t
even know his last name, dude. But man, I was determined to get
an interview. So, I first called CNN’s main number and
talked to the receptionist; then she connected me to someone;
then he connected me to someone, and so on and so on and so
on… one guy was even rude to me dude! He was like, hey man,
why’d you wait so long to book a camera crew for today? I
explained how I was trying to make the best of a bad situation
and expressed my surprise to him at how he wasn’t really
trying to help and why wasn’t he? Well, he kind of chilled
out after I said all that and he tried to help, although he
wasn’t able to do anything in the end. Anyway, I eventually
got Waldy’s pager number! Yay! So, I paged Waldy. Man, this
whole time I was praying so hard… I knew that
Bahá’u’lláh would help me out if I trusted in Him. So
anyway, Waldy returned my page – woo hoo! So I explained my
situation to him and he gave me the home phone numbers for two
cameramen and said that I should try to talk to them, cause
they’re the only one’s left.
So I called the first guy and left a message on his machine. And then I called the second guy and he was home! My heart’s beating with anxiety now! Well, obviously, he decided to do it! Ohhhh yeahhhh… I was lovin’ life! It turns out that he was on vacation and he decided to shoot the interview anyway. And, his wife was gonna be the one doing the audio!
Here's me with Steve and Lynn Sorg, the camera crew.
(Click on any photo on this page to view it full size)
So I called Peter at his hotel and left him a message about having finally found a camera crew. Then I went to the mall to meet Roya so that we could go hang at the hotel. But, while I was waiting for Roya (I was in a music store), guess who I saw looking at CDs? Pascal! Yup! What luck, eh? I tell you my friend, none of this whole weekend had anything to do with luck. You may think I’m crazy, but I have no doubt that all the happenings of the weekend were by the grace of Bahá’u’lláh. He hooked me up on this one. So anyway, I told Pascal that I found a crew and asked if we could still do the interview. He said sure! He told me to meet him at Chastain at around 5:30pm so that we could shoot the interview before the show and shoot some of the rehearsal too. Dude, my heart was on fire now! All of this was like a dream coming true before my eyes. I couldn’t believe it!
So then Roya came and I told
her the good news. By this point, we didn’t really have any
time left to go hang with the band at the hotel, so we went to
Kinko's so that I could type up my interview questions. I had
just written them after talking to Pascal while waiting for Roya.
Dude, look how happy i am just typing the interview questions!
So, we went to Kinko’s and I typed my interview questions and then it was off to Chastain!!! Ok, so we got to Chastain (via the artists’ entrance!) around 5:00pm and went backstage to wait for Steve and Lynn (the camera crew). Well, while waiting for them, we said hello to Peter and Pascal and just chilled… We also met David, the assistant manager for the band. Then I saw the coolest thing… all of the Gipsy Kings’ guitars were lined up in a row on this long guitar stand, each one with the respective owner’s name written on a piece of tape on the stand in front of his guitar. Tonino, Nicolas, Canut, Patchai… the whole crew! And at the end there were two guitars labeled "spare." I asked the tech who was tuning the guitars if I could play on of them. He said I could play one of the spare ones. So I did!
Dude, their guitars are so
sweet! Man, I
played the chords for Bamboleo and for A Tu Vera and I was in
heaven. I felt almost like a Gipsy King! Well, not quite, but
hey, a man’s gotta dream! Then I tried to pick up and play
Tonino’s guitar but the tech said nope. Well, I told him I
just wanted to be able to say that I touched Tonino’s guitar
– he laughed.
Woo hoo! I'm playing a Gipsy Kings spare guitar!!!
Then Steve and Lynn
arrived and we talked to Pascal about when and where to shoot the
interview. We
decided to set up in the bleachers (Chastain is an amphitheatre)
with the stage as a backdrop. 
Pascal said to go ahead and
shoot some of the rehearsal and then we’d do the interview
with himself translating for Patchai.
Woo hoo! Rehearsal before the show... check out the fuzz on Nicolas! He looks like all of my uncles! (Yup, it looks like Persians aren't the only hairy ones...)
In the meantime, the Gipsy Kings had started to arrive and some were backstage and some were rehearsing on stage.
As they came in I introduced myself to a few of them whenever the opportunity arose. In particular I told both Patchai and Tonino how meeting them was my dream and how much I love their music. They were all so friendly dude!
Me and Patchai... and me and Tonino (and Andre).
Patchai goofing around before the show...
I stood on the wing of the stage for a while and just watched them rehearse. The cool thing was that some of the guys remembered me from being in the front row the night before. So then I decided to go backstage to their dressing room to see if I could hang with some of them there. Ohhh yeahhh…. That’s when I hit the jackpot! Georges and Michael were just chillin’ on the sofa and I poked my head in and they graciously invited my in. I introduced myself to them and the cute thing was that they introduced themselves back! Yeah, like the Gipsy Kings need to remind me who they are! Ha! How humble of them though… So I chitchatted with Georges and Michael for a while. I spoke to them in my limited Spanish that I had learned in high school, and it ended up being sufficient for basic communication. They speak Gitane of course, which resembles Catalan. So anyway, it worked.
Then came time for the interview (click it!). So I asked Patchai my
questions, and Pascal would translate them into French and then
Patchai would answer in French and then Pascal would translate
into English and so on and so forth. It was so great man!
Absolutely unbelievable. I mean, I can’t believe I was
interviewing Patchai for CNN!!! Woah! Like they said in Back to
the Future – this is heavy! The coolest thing about
the interview was that the whole time, when Patchai was answering
the questions and when Pascal was translating them, they were
both looking right at me and smiling! And I of course would smile
back! I think they could sense from me how much I was a sincere
fan of theirs and they knew my interest in them was genuine and
personal, not just from the perspective of a journalist. So I
think because of that, Patchai was usually smiling when he
answered me. =)
So then when the interview
ended, I went backstage again to hang with the guys… I had brought along my guitar
with me that night and so when I went to their dressing room
again, I took my guitar with me… Georges and Michael and
Andre were back there and I promptly busted out my Sharpie black
marker that I had bought earlier that day, and asked if they
would sign my guitar… Sweet mama! They passed my guitar
around and my heart went with it! After Georges signed it, he
asked if he could play it… dude, of course! He played my
guitar for about 20 minutes dude! Aw man, my guitar strings were
blessed! Every now and again another one of the guys would come
into the dressing room and I’d get him to sign my guitar.
Eventually, I got all of them to sign it – Nicolas, Tonino,
Canut, Patchai, Pablo, Andre, Georges, and Michael. And they
didn’t just sign it either… Patchai wrote "Amistas
de Gipsy Kings" (kind of like, "souvenir from the
Gipsy Kings") and he dated it as well.
Another cool thing was that sometimes the guys didn’t have their shirts on, and they were so hairy! Just like us Persians, man. Hair all over their backs, arms, chests, stomachs… oh so cool! Just like big, cuddly Gipsy teddy bears man! Pablo was one of my favorites… he would come in from time to time and start singing flamenco style all kind of random and what not. He was all smiles and came and talked to me and asked me what I do… man he was so friendly! I can’t begin to adequately describe how I was feeling this whole time… I’m serious when I say that it is the closest to heaven I have ever felt. Now you may start to think, or perhaps already have at this point, that I am a bit too FANATIC TO THE POINT OF INSANITY about this. Well, duh! One of my lifelong dreams was coming true! I mean, from a few years ago I told myself that I was determined to meet the Gipsy Kings. And not just meet them, but to actually hang out with them. I didn’t know how or when it would happen, but I convinced myself that it would because I wanted it so much. And here it was finally unfolding before my eyes.
Another thing too! I played and sang Bamboleo for the guys in the dressing room! Georges and Michael and Pablo were there… and I can’t remember exactly who else was there… I think Nicolas and Tonino might have been there too for a little while. It was so cool to get to play and sing for them! Pablo was clapping flamenco style while I sang Bamboleo and Georges thought it was cool that I was playing for them… I also played A Tu Vera and Georges sang it while I played. Man, that was o-so fresh!
Anyway, all this lasted a couple of hours I think and then around 8:00pm I took my place in the front row to watch the concert for the second night in a row! Now that was the bomb! I mean, not only was I three feet away from the Gipsy Kings, but now they all knew me and during the whole concert they would look at me and smile and wink! And during "Baila Me," when Nicolas was singing the chorus, he lifted his hand in the air like he does when he’s singing and he kind of pointed it towards me while he was singing and I was singing back to him and he was smiling and waving his arm at me and it was BEAUTIFUL MAN!!!!!!!!!!! And of course, Georges and Michael would frequently nod or smile or whatever at me and the whole time, I was yelling, and jumping, and shouting, and dancing, and clapping, and singing along and whenever one of them, like Tonino, or Patchai, or Nicolas would notice me singing and getting all into it, they’d smile at me. Aw man, my heart couldn’t handle all this love exploding from it!
Then during the intermission, I went backstage and just chilled while they all took their break in the dressing room. Then I said hello to them on their way back on stage. Then I went back to the front to watch the rest of the show. By the way, Steve taped the first three songs of the show and then gave me the tapes to take back to CNN. So then I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the concert and only one thing was remaining in this dream of mine that had yet to be fulfilled… I wanted to play on stage with the Gipsy Kings.
So after the second to last song, when the band pretended to leave, I went backstage and asked Patchai if I could play Bamboleo with them on stage and I told him how it was a lifelong dream of mine and how incredibly happy I’d be. Well, he said that he and the band didn’t mind, but he didn’t know if the publicists would be cool with something like that. So he told me to ask Pascal. So, I did. And I got sooooooo close man! Of course Pascal said that I couldn’t perform on stage with them, which I expected coming from a publicist, but I knew I had to try. He said that it was okay for me to play with them during rehearsal but not during the show. I told him how I knew it was a long shot and that I was just giving it a shot for the heck of it. He understood.
So during Bamboleo, I watched and clapped and sang and danced from just off stage as the crowd went wild – no Paya Bimbos on stage this time though. Then they came off stage and went to their dressing rooms to change. So me and Roya and Niya, Roya’s roommate who had met us at the concert that night, all waited outside for the guys to change and come out to get on the tour bus. And I saw the cutest thing! There was this really old woman backstage who was just in love with Canut! She went up to him and gave him a big hug… and Canut was so receptive to her! He hugged her back and held her old, wrinkly hand for a while… it was so sweet dude!
Then slowly, one by one, the Gipsy Kings started to make it out of their dressing room towards the bus. I said goodbye to I think all of them personally expect for Canut and Andre. They were the least outgoing of the whole bunch that night. Still very nice though. It was so cool cause when Patchai saw me after the show, he came up to me to say goodbye! He said thanks for the interview and we shook hands and smiled and said goodbye and I said thanks of course!
I even got to say goodbye to the drummers (left and center), the bassist (right), and the keyboardist (not pictured). They were all so friendly and so humble.
And Pablo was sooooo sweet
when he came to say goodbye to me! He gave me a big teddy bear hug and I kissed
him on both cheeks! (In that Eastern culture kind of way)
Wow! How cool! Of course Roya took lots of pictures of all this
stuff.
And
when I saw Nicolas getting on the bus, I yelled his name –
"Nicolas!" Then Pablo said something to him and Nicolas
came and shook my hand and smiled and said goodbye to me… Aw
man! What a way to end the evening – to say goodbye to all
the Gipsy Kings and get in a few hugs and kisses and photos in
the process!
I will never, ever, forget this weekend! I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about it... Whenever I’m in my car listening to the Gipsy Kings, I start to think about that weekend and it just drives me crazy with excitement, awe, and gratitude! Thank you Bahá’u’lláh for hooking me up! I’m just so amazed that such a huge dream of my life has become a reality! Pablo and a few others even said things like, "See you next time" and "See you next year." Wow! I could go on and on forever, but it would be no use. My heart cannot be containedin words… joy joy joy!
