Source: http://www.crazydaysandnights.net

While I have a lot of San Juan stories, I’m not sure how many of them you will really care about because very few of them involve anyone who is a celebrity.

Over the past couple of weeks I have watched as a lot of the places I have spent a great deal of time have been destroyed.

You get the feeling there is an out of sight out of mind kind of element to what is going on. No one seemingly cares about what is going on in the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Did you know the French President flew all the way from Paris to St. Martin/St Barths to make sure things were happening and they felt they were being paid attention to.

The people of Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands should not have to worry their country is abandoning them.

Right now at least it feels like they are.

To a happier time.

This was back in the day.

It was before the blog started.

Not long before it, but definitely predates it.

I had wanted to see the still new Coliseo in San Juan and had bugged this A list singer from the island to get me some tickets when he performed there.

Of course he picked the high season to perform so every room was ridiculously expensive.

I ended up crashing with someone from his band.

One thing about this singer is that he is super private about his personal life and his family.

They are not being splashed all over tabloids.

I am calling him A list and he is probably actually A+ list in the Spanish speaking market and definitely is the A++ list king of a genre too.

This was right when he was hitting it big.

Super big.

Prior to that, we would run into each other at clubs that had 50 people there. Now? Well, he was selling out this venue.

I have seen a lot of venues that were electric, but this was a hometown guy playing in front of a psyched crowd and that was a show that still gives me tingles and goosebumps thinking about it.

Anyway, after the show we went to a casino.

Nothing fancy.

No private section.

We just wanted to get a drink and the place we picked had a casino.

We aren’t planning on gambling, but where we were seated was maybe two or three feet from a roulette table.

We had been talking and he was buzzing after the show and he asked if we should put a buck down on the table.

I said a buck each and we have to agree on the number.

So, we did.

We put the two bucks on 8.

This was just something to do.

We were still at the bar actually and he had leaned over a partition and given the money to the dealer. The next thing you know, the number comes up.

We win about $70.

Something like that.

We are excited, and in the excitement, he spilled a drink on the bar.

No big deal.

He is looking down and moving things out of the way and the bartender comes to help and the next thing you know, we realized we forgot to take the money off the table.

Well, it stayed there and the number that came up was an 8. Yeah, so now we are up to $2500.

What had been we can’t believe we had forgotten was now $2500.

Well, there was no way we were leaving that money on the table.

We both wanted our half and I knew I could actually get a room for the night.

We get our chips and are bringing them back around the partition to the bar when the ball stopped rolling again.

On the 8.

Honestly, we laughed ourselves silly crying but didn’t care we had picked up the chips.

I think about happy we were that night and how happy I have been on other nights in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and other islands there and wonder how many people are happy right now and when they will be happy again.

Ricky Martin

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