Images from Key West # 4: The Green Parrot

After starting my day in Bahama Village, with lunch at Blue Heaven, I continued my walking trek, finding and photographing street signs and telephone poles advertising Emma Street and Amelia Street, for certain sentimental reasons.  With my bike parked and locked securely at the afore mentioned restaurant, I continued my journey by foot inside the Truman Annex for the Little White House, which I hoped to see and tour.

With no luck, and a stubbornness to ask, I continued walking, and suddenly, at 601 Whitehead, with a thirst brought about by walking within a location at 24* N, 81 * W in late July, I saw a bar arise in front of me, like an oasis in the desert, and it was called The Green Parrot.

When thirst is a priority, Coca Cola may alternate with the house amber, and that's o.k.  Upon finding a place at that bar, which was no huge deal at that time of day (2:30 pm), I had the opportunity to take in the atmosphere, which welcomed tourists (like, oh my, myself), and locals, alike. 

The Green Parrot is a beautiful bar, and if for no other reason, its slogan, No Sniveling.  Of course, there's the horseshoe shape, and the music that is played live. 

I must say, I enjoyed talking with the woman in the separated gift shop as much as the bar tenders, who were amazingly attentive.

I will, in the chance I land again upon this key again, frequent this place of business again and in numbers more frequently than times past.

 

A Note to Emma from Key West (7-20-14)

Emma,

I am in Key West
making use of my favorite gift.
Pen on paper,
sweating in its most favorable sense,
as I reflect on the day,
searching for suitable words.
Today I am a Hoosier Beachbum,
in a land where my phone
rebels against humidity.
Where my notebook is my
conduit to expression.

 Daddy

Images from Key West # 3: Captain Tony's

I went down to Captain Tony's

to get out of the heat.

When I heard a voice call out to me,

son, come have a seat...

from The Last Mango in Paris by Jimmy Buffett

 

 

 

I will admit that the opening lines to that song are what drew me to this iconic bar the first time I walked the streets of Old Town in 2005.  Captain Tony was making appearances a couple of times a week, and Laura and met him and chatted.  He reminisced of some "hookers from Kokomo" he once knew when we told him that Indiana was our home.  He may or may not have had hold of Laura's backside when we took a picture with him.  He was 84 or 85 at the time.

Tony is gone now, but I made sure that my first drink would be at the bar that bears his name.  Little has changed over the years.  It's still dark and cavernous, relying on the large open doors for sunlight during the day, and dimly lit at night.  They offer several beers on tap, including a house amber, as well as a Pirate's Punch, available in a large sized souvenir cup if desired.  A Budweiser always seems appropriate in this place.

I've found the bartenders extremely friendly.  Ask them about the bar, or Captain Tony.  It's also a good place to break out a journal, because they'll leave you to yourself as well.  Check out the walls.  You can learn quite a bit about the man that way.  I enjoy the mayoral candidacy signs, endorsed by Jimmy Buffett himself.  Look at the pictures of featured guests, like Shel Silverstein.

As you take in the atmosphere, your senses will be bombarded by the sounds of live music, usually a one man (or woman) show with acoustic guitar.  You'll take in the dollar bills on the walls, or possibly the bras, of endless colors and sizes.  Maybe you'll gaze at the "hangin' tree", which grows just beyond the horseshoe shaped bar in the center of this little piece of history.

Yes, this is a biased piece on a little bar on Greene Street in Key West.  Stepping into its confines lightens my heart, however already lightened by being in the Conch Republic.  But just remember, this is the original Sloppy Joe's!







Images from Key West # 2: Blue Heaven

Located within Bahama Village, you walk inside to discover that you are actually outside.  The 20 minute wait for a table for one on an early Tuesday afternoon lets you know that despite the laid-back ambience, this is a place to be.

After checking out the rooster cemetery against the far wall and listening to the gentleman on the steel pan, a bloody Mary seems obligatory.

It's not just likely, but pretty much guaranteed that a fowl will take passage underneath your table, searching for an easy handout.  Remember, this is Key West.

A mahi sandwich provides fuel for the afternoon trek on the bike, parked outside on the rack.

Images from Key West # 1: Schooner Wharf Bar

Located in the historic seaport area, it's casual even by Key West standards.  Open air, low key, and good music.

 

Gulf oysters, Key West pinks, and beer.  Dinner.

Guitar player had the vocals and the funk.  His partner accompanied on the flute and 3 saxophones:  alto, soprano, and tenor.  Impressive.  Good music.  Good first night.  And where else do you get a kiss on the cheek from your waitress before leaving?

For My Daughter, A Love Song to Emma

You had me the day you were born,

I am putty in your hands.

I am constantly amazed by you.

In a short 17 years,

you know more about music than I ever will.

Unless you count singing along to an iPod.

I can do a mean Avett Brothers,

and a more than sufficient Mick Jagger.

But you actually play.

You’ve built your reputation on the French Horn,

and I love it and wonder about the difficulty

and the beauty of such an instrument.

I’m a sucker, though.

A sucker for those moments when

I catch the sounds of you playing

your guitar and singing lyrics

to a song I may or may not know.

In your room, in secret.

But I hear, and I listen.

I think of the time you played

You and Me

at Arts on the River,

and I fell in love with you all over again.

And now I have these songs

etched in my heart because

when I hear their melodies

and sing the words,

it’s you I see in my mind,

my heart heavy with adoration,

and words I wish to express

to my daughter

who is beautiful in person,

and song.

 

And the words to this song...

Wanna pack your bags, Something small
Take what you need and we disappear
Without a trace we'll be gone, gone
The moon and the stars can follow the car
and then when we get to the ocean
We gonna take a boat to the end of the world
All the way to the end of the world

Oh, and when the kids are old enough
We're gonna teach them to fly

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby
You and me together yes, yes (x2)

You and I, we're not tied to the ground
Not falling but rising like rolling around
Eyes closed above the rooftops
Eyes closed, we're gonna spin through the stars
Our arms wide as the sky
We gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world
To the end of the world

Oh, and when the kids are old enough
We're gonna teach them to fly

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby
You and me together yes, yes

We can always look back at what we did
All these memories of you and me baby
But right now it's you and me forever girl
And you know we could do better than anything that we did
You know that you and me, we could do anything

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby
You and me together yeah, yeah
Two of us together, we could do anything, baby
You and me together yeah, yeah
Two of us together yeah, yeah
Two of us together, we could do anything, baby

?? to reach the end of the world

 

      -DMB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jackson, Wyoming June 2014

Amid the Teton Mountains

where pines climb steep ridges

until disappearing into

sheer rock faces topped

with snow that often

blends with clouds

that linger

before slowly

moving to distant peaks

causing onlookers to peer

upward

finding a blue sky

melding flawlessly into the

terrestrial landscape.

A Record Player and a Little Reminiscence

My daughter, Emma, turned 17 last week.  My wife, Laura, bought her a turntable, one of those Crosley models.  So maybe I was a little more excited about the gift, but I’m the one with Rubbermaids full of old albums, the fruit of my lawn mowing jobs starting sometime in junior high. 

Record albums.  Large. Bulky.  Space-hogging.  The collection of songs on my albums could fit into the memory of an iPod which slips easily into a pocket or clips to a sleeve.  But let’s forget about convenience for a moment, and talk about aesthetics.

I look at the front and back sides of an album cover, and sometimes the inside, if it opens up, and think of them as canvases for a display of the musician’s or band’s individuality.  Photography, paintings, illustrations, and even literature.  The display area of a compact disc is, by necessity, minimized.  And except for the display area of your mp3 player, nonexistent. 

I ceremonially chose a Bruce Springsteen album, Nebraska, to christen the player with, an album so acoustically stark, that it begs to be heard through a needle pressing down upon its grooves.

I found my Buffett albums, going directly for his 70’s Key West sounds.  I started with A White Sport Coat and A Pink Crustacean, and placed it on the record player, before studying the beauty that is album cover art, and, in this case, the literature that follows.

The entire front cover is a photograph of Buffett taken by one of his old Key West cronies, Guy de la Valden.  In blue jeans and barefoot, his head adorned with a cowboy hat, and wearing a white sport coat with extra-large lapels, he sits on lobster traps in front of a wooden fishing boat at the docks, a blue Florida sky in the background.

The back cover is simple, the lyrics to every song of the album displayed in order of appearance on the record.    But what struck me was the ode to the musician and album by Tom McGuane, who reached his literary fame after writing 92 Degrees in the Shade in the 70’s.

The folk orientation in recent music has always been selective and a little arbitrary. We are the beset by the quack minstrels of a non-existent America, bayed at by the children of retired orthodontists about "hard times" and just generally depleted by all the clown biographies and ersatz subject matter of the drugs-and-country insurgence that is replacing an earlier song mafia. In fact, maybe your stereo has already shorted out with slobber anyway.

Nevertheless, it does not seem too late for Jimmy Buffett to arrive. He is dedicated as ever to certain indecencies and shall we say reversible brain damage; his duties toward the shadowy Club Mandible of Key West have yet to be explained. And of course he was among the first of the Sucking Chest Wound Singers to sleep on the yellow line. And as a souvenir of some not so terrible times, this throwback altar boy of Mobile, Alabama brings spacey up-country tunes strewn with forgotten crab traps, Confederate memories, chemical daydreams, Ipana vulgarity, ukulele madness and, yes Larry, a certain sweetness, But there is a good deal to admire in Buffett's inspired evocations from this queerly amalgamated past most Americans now share. What Jimmy Buffett knows is that our personal musical history lies at the curious hinterland where Hank Williams and Xavier Cugat meet with somewhat less animosity than the theoreticians would have us believe.

And just like they don’t dance like Carmen no more, music isn’t packaged as prettily as it was once upon a time.

 

 

Avett Brothers White River Park June 14, 2014

Scott Avett was asked once by somebody listening to their NPR Tiny Desk concert if he had swallowed an amplifier, a reference to the projection of his rich, if at times, gravelly, voice. I grinned while thinking of that figurative description as I listened to that voice in fine form, working in union with his brother, Seth, whose smooth tenor contrasts just enough to make every song an adventure in style and tempo.

The concert, set against a burning westward sky, took place on a cool June evening atypical of the humid, Midwestern summer.  It started strongly with Live and Die from The Carpenter, and proceeded full-tilt boogie with Down With the Shine, which, for a song that could be considered a waltz, radiates undeniable energy in a live setting.  Laundry Room followed suit with its otherworldly I am a breathing time machine lyrics, and erupting in its hoedown climax in which you see upright bass player Bob Crawford and cello player Joe Kwon jumping up and down while picking and strumming their respective instruments in frenetic rhythm.  The energy continued with a frantic rendition of I Killed Sally’s Lover before slowing down a bit with George Jone’s The Race is On and a pretty rendition of the traditional Be Kind to Man While He’s Down, which I’m quite certain I’ve heard Old Crow Medicine Show perform live, as well.

The climax, from my perspective, was Pretty Girl From Chile, ebbing and flowing and culminating in Seth’s Latin guitar solo that would likely have any individual with a little soul in his heart jumping to its beat.  The encore ended with I, and Love, and You, which is fine, if expected.

A last note on showmanship goes to the almost indescribable knee jerks of Seth on his guitar and Scott on his banjo in the throes of rhythm and song.  Like Mick Jagger’s stage strut and Dave Matthew’s instrumental dance silliness, I would emulate their performance presence if I had the talent to be up there in front of thousands.

 

 

A Note on Music to Mom and Dad

I was driving Emma to her friend’s house tonight to practice for her ensemble performance.  I told her she could play music through the car radio from her i-Phone.  I didn’t know the music or band, and wasn’t sure if I liked it, but asked her who it was and how she learned about it.  For some reason, it made me think about music and both of you.

Music has always been very important to me.  At least from a fairly young age.  Could never really play a lick of it, but sure as hell enjoyed listening to it.  Still do.  Music has always brought out emotions, and evokes memories.  I can measure stages of life with the music I was listening to.  There is a song that used to come on the radio, particularly when my clock radio alarm would go off in the mornings when I was in 7^th grade.  It was the month or so prior to spring break, and we were going to Anna Maria.  It seems that each time I heard that song, it was a day closer going to a place I loved.  It was that much easier to get out of bed.  When You See a Chance, Take It by Stevie Winwood, in case you are curious.

It started with sitting in the rocker in the living room in Milford, where the stereo was.  I listened to my first album, The Monkees’ Greatest Hits, over and over.  I knew it was the best music ever.  As I sang along, I wondered how it couldn’t be. 

I realized that musical tastes are often cultivated in the car.  There’s the radio of course, but in my formative years, it was the cassette player.  Dad-You had a tape that I think about to this day.  It was a year’s worth of top hits from the top country artists.  I remember listening to the lyrics of Skip a Rope, by Henson Cargill (Had to look that up on the Internet) and D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette.  I learned that songs told stories.  I didn’t realize I was learning about social issues, as well.  And talk about stories.  I’m quite certain that cassette tape contained Jimmy Dean’s Big Bad John.  I realize now how parents influence their own children in various ways.  I might not have admitted that I liked that music then, but I sure do appreciate it now.  I understand and love the fact that traditional music, Americana, builds on the blues of the south and string instruments of Appalachia.  With XM radio, Outlaw Country stays close to the roots.

Mom-You took me to my first concert.  Neil Diamond.  I wish I knew where we saw him.  Riverfront Coliseum?  I’m just not sure.  I remember my Neil Diamond phase.  My favorite song is still Shilo.  About the boy who had the imaginary friend.  I remember feeling comfortable enough to play my music in the car with you.  The Buick Regal.  I’d play my Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, and music I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate.  But you were always ok with it.  That was important to me.  I felt like I could experiment with music.  Test it out to see if it was worthwhile.

One thing I will always remember is that neither of you ever censored my music.  In Milford, I finally got my own turntable for my bedroom, and I bought and listened to KISS.  Davy Hemminger wasn’t allowed to listen to that band, so he’d have to come over and listen to it at our house.  I remember my first job, cutting Mr. Pauly’s lawn each week.  He paid me $35 each time.  I spent a significant amount of my earnings on records.

One of the most exciting things you ever bought me was my first stereo system.  Dad brought me to Swallens, and we picked out a tuner, cassette player, and turntable.  We added a cd player my freshman year at DePauw.  I still have most of those components, though they’re not functioning any longer.  I hang old records on the wall of my classroom.  They’re kind of like antiques to the students.

It makes me smile to think of such things, as music goes.  I’m happy that my children appreciate music, and can actually play it.   I love that I understand the influences in my life.  Music isn’t a cure-all.  But it sure can make you feel good.  And if you want, it can provide a soundtrack to life.