• Home
  • Archive
  • About
  • Awards & Media
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Courting Destiny

  • Courting Classics
  • Fiction
  • Mainstream Media
  • New York Stories
  • My Parents
  • Mental Health
  • N. Myrtle Beach

Sign Up For My Weekly Newsletter!

Cream reminded me of this Traffic/Blind Faith story

October 27, 2005 By pia

My friends the Ralphs are friendly with Steve Windwood, and his wife. James Ralph can be very proper; but is saved by being a great conversationalist. Only with people he likes, but he likes me so….He lives for good conversation and good wine, along with good behavior.

One night, a mutual wonderful but crazy friend, Joey, invited himself to dinner at a good downtown restaurant. The Ralph’s are half Italian, and only eat at Italian restaurants, The Union Square Cafe and a few other restaurants like that. I have always wanted to pit my sister against the Ralph’s in a find the best restaurant in a half hour contest, no Zagats allowed; fifteen block area. Anyway enough fantasy.

Don’t remember where they had dinner that night. Do remember that the Ralphs were ecstatic. Joey didn’t get more drunk than anybody else; and was on exceptional behavior.

During a lull in the conversation, Joey said:
“Hey Steve I have a question that I want to ask you.”

The Ralphs began to die; they just knew it was going to be sick. Steve asked what the question was.

Joey waited a good 30 seconds to ask it. The Ralphs were ready to die.

“So, whatever happened to Ginger Baker?”

The Ralphs truly wanted to die; Steve waited another 30 seconds before answering:

“Funny, you should ask. A lot of people have been asking that question recently….”

The Ralphs were very proud of Joey at that moment, but didn’t take him along the next time that they saw Steve Windwood. Okay this isn’t a story I often tell but there was The Cream reunion, and the first song I heard on the radio this morning was a Traffic song.

Don’t think we ever found out what Ginger Baker was doing then but we do now.

Should explain that for a long time nobody seemed to know what Ginger Baker was doing, and “do you know what Ginger Baker is doing,” became a joke. And we heard it first.

There were Ginger Baker sightings; they weren’t like Elvis sightings. It was just something to wonder about in the pre-Internet days when people actually wondered about things, ocassionally. I miss those days.

Filed Under: New York Stories Tagged With: New York Stories

« Wednesday Wandering through the Blogosphere
it's my party and I can gloat if I want to »

Comments

  1. mrsmogul says

    October 27, 2005 at 6:16 pm

    Hmm I don’t understand, who’s Ginger Baker? Also I only think I know what Steve Winwood looks like, does he have long hair? Also I think I am too young to know Cream!

    I like the taste of cream though. I used to go to Carmine’s on the upper east side.

  2. Jason says

    October 27, 2005 at 6:18 pm

    Hehehe…I hink anybody who’s known anyone with any amount of celebrity can relate to this story.

  3. the village idiot says

    October 27, 2005 at 11:15 pm

    So what did the Ralphs think he was going to ask? I don’t think I understand the story… is Joey supposed to be a boob who thought that Steve Winwood was in Cream or was he a pretty astute fan who knew that Ginger Baker and Steve Winwood played together in the band “Blind Faith”?

  4. Leigh Ellwood says

    October 28, 2005 at 12:24 am

    Well, be thankful he didn’t pull a Rosie O’Donnell and tell Steve how wonderful he was in “Buster.”

  5. Marinade Dave says

    October 28, 2005 at 1:03 am

    I knew about the Cream reunion. Ginger Baker brings back a lot of old and fond memories. It’s back when I used to tell people to stop Bogarting.

  6. Doug says

    October 28, 2005 at 2:16 am

    Funny, Marinade Dave. I was having a similar thought.

  7. josh says

    October 28, 2005 at 7:09 am

    Ginger Baker has actually stayed pretty active in music; he’s on a lot of jazz records. He’s recorded with Stanley Clarke, among others. Although I’m sure the Cream windfall will see him safely into retirement.

    So did you see Cream? I wished I could have gotten myself to want to, really I did. But I just didn’t.

  8. cooper says

    October 28, 2005 at 10:23 am

    I know blindfaith and cream via my fathers stuff not traffic though although i venture to guess he had those too. They went through a rebirth among people my age who thought they were cool ,aka me, when i was in about ninth or tenth grade.

  9. josh says

    October 31, 2005 at 9:10 am

    I finally got around to listening to the live CD Cream recorded in London in April. Great stuff, to my surprise.

    I think Ginger Baker is going to hang onto this ride as long as possible. Because I hear Cream has a dental plan.

Search for your favorite post!

Follow Me!

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Sign up Now!

Sign up now and get my latest posts delivered right to your inbox!

About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

Categories

Archives

All material contained herewith is owned by Pia Savage, LLC

Copyright © 2021 Courting Destiny · Designed by Technology-Therapist