Parrothead Ramblings

Wayners in action and back in form. No spleen = no worry!

Well, today is that day when Parrotheads feel just the least little bit blue. The party was fantastic, the crowd was electric, and the show was simply off the hook. But today it's back to reality and to the grind of earning a living. Our ships all set sail away from the Island of Margaritaville about 11:00PM last night, and we're left to wonder when - or even if - we'll sail there again. Our ships might be listing a bit today, but we'll stay on course. The great thing about being a member of a Parrothead Club is you learn quickly that the good times and escapism have less to do with Jimmy Buffett than with good Parrothead phriends. And we had them in abundance last night!

The pre-concert party was everything we hoped and more! A couple of members showed up with RVs, so restroom hikes and long lines were someone else's problem. That alone was worth its weight in gold - trust me on that. The Club's sound system was soon up and running, which saved battery power for almost everyone, because our tunes could be heard in Glendale. I say "almost" everyone, because Cultural Infidel still managed to run his battery down somehow. No worries. I had a jumper box available for just such a contingency. Dead battery response is in yet another chapter of the Crime Dog Parrothead Concert Preparation Handbook (now available for 1/2 price at Barnes and Noble).


TFMCD under attack from a land shark. Didn't you see him circling, honey?

The Top Parking Lot highlights:

A guy next to Cheap Bastard had a Margarita blender with a gas engine. It looked like he made it from a roto tiller or something. It even had handlebars, and one of the grips was the accelerator, just like a motorcycle. I thought that was just too cool until......

Another guy rolls up on a Segway, decorated like a Tiki Bar and towing a generator. He had some kind of super-industrial high performance turbocharged blender on the front of that thing that looked like it could turn rocks into sand. Mateo had a bucket of Margaritas on the rocks that he dumped in there, and it turned it into frozen Margaritas in about a millisecond.

Not far from us was a shot luge, but it was just a one tracker. Don't these guys know a luge is a race? You can't race against yourself.

The Fetching Mrs. Crime Dog, Janners, The Jello Shot Queen, and I all sang a decidedly off-key, off beat rendition of Margaritaville for News Channel 3. The nice news lady asked me just what the hell this insanity was all about, and I spoke with great profundity about escapism and states of mind. Whether it made the tube, I haven't got a clue.

There was an anorexic looking young woman who was....how can I put this tactfully.....oh well, screw tact. This woman's tits looked like mosquito bites, and her top consisted of band-aids that covered only about 3/4ths of each nipple. Interesting perhaps, but far from titillating.

I met a Utah couple ("Utanians", they call themselves. It rhymes with Ukrainians") down for the show. We chatted for while until it dawned on us that we both work for the same large corporation. We swore one another to secrecy, since we were both "at work" at the time.

At one point, a whirlwind hit a couple of canopies nearby and shot them both, fully intact, about 50' into the air. It was an awesome sight, a sort of "Canopies Gone Wild" show that was well worth the price of admission. They swirled around each other up there and headed east about 200' or so, when the larger of the two homed in on the top of Mister Lizard's Tahoe and nailed it. The smaller one hit a Honda about another 50' down, thus winning the distance competition. The larger one picked up a few style points, because it just looked so cool to see 100 square feet of canopy, legs and all, sailing through the sky like that. All it needed was Dorothy and Toto hanging on for dear life to complete the image.

The show was a little different than what we've seen in the past, lacking the lavish production and big horn section. It's almost as though Jimmy is headed back to his roots. Remember when Saxophone ("If I had a saxophone....") didn't actually have a saxophone in it? He might be headed back there to some extent, and being a 30-year Parrothead, that idea has great appeal to me. When Jimmy opened with Peanut Butter Conspiracy, I knew it was going to be my kind of show. Now if we could just get a reunion show together with Marvin Gardens, Al Vacado, Kitty Litter, and Kay Pasa, the ship will have sailed full circle.

The Whole Gang. What could be better? Miss J, Z-Man, Wayners, Janners, Rocky, Steve-O, The Crime Dog, The Fetching Mrs. Crime Dog, Bo, and Mateo. Just Wait Till Phins.

And speaking again of ships, I hope you've set a course for Phins To The West. It takes a little off the edge off the first-day-post-concert blues. See you there!

P.S. To the people who scattered trash everywhere: You're assholes. If I knew where your worthless asses lived, I'd have picked it all up for you and dropped it off in your front yard so you could dispose of it properly. Dickwads.
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