Parrothead Ramblings

Freddy displays his fine sense of political correctness at the Friday evening party. I see a new nickname on the way here.

Friday morning in Margaritaville actually began late Thursday. Bob Karwin returned to the stage for his late night "adult" show, what we Parrot Grande folks call the
"8th Floor Show." The later the evening grew, the more often Wayner, Steve-O, and I all repeated the mantra:

Man, am I glad we aren't playing golf tomorrow!

I didn't even bother rolling out of bed till nearly 9:00AM. Grabbed a leisurely breakfast, helped out at the Mini Mart set up. The damn wind was really whipping out there, and if that wasn't bad enough, someone at the Avi failed to deliver the Mini-Mart tables. They did, however, deliver an assload of round tables onto the lawn nearby, apparently for the cheeseburger buffet scheduled for the following day. So, instead of a couple of badly needed rectangular Mini Mart tables, we ended up with dozens of big round ones with no chairs, and in a place where no one would need them for over 24 hours. The Unruly One politely (I'm sure) advised them that all those unused round tables were very nice, but what was really needed were the Mini Mart tables, and could they bring them right away?

No problem. They responded by delivering another load of round tables to the buffet area. Sigh.

No matter. We stole a round one, and Unruly got busy hustling tee shirts and hats.

As usual, the pool party was off the hook. I didn't know there was as much Corona on the entire planet as 450 Parrotheads can put away at a pool party, when they're only $1.75 apiece. The volume was staggering. I entered a lime diving contest, but when I saw what was actually involved with lime diving, I slunk away, tail between my legs. I thought it was a pool activity. Wrong. It's a "shove your entire head into a big bucket of ice water and try to pull out limes with your teeth" activity. I have a couple of sensitive teeth, so no way my head was going in that thing. Not happening. A guy named "Kody" had the technique, pulling out four. Most contestants got nothing but brain freeze.

Stars On the Water took the big stage Friday night, with personnel most of us were seeing for the first time. Man, those dudes can play. Late that night, as the band was packing up, an odd, softspoken, rail thin guy, hereinafter referred to as "Norman Bates," who had been in the crowd all evening, was taking photos of the late hangers on, of which TFMCD and I, Steve-O, Crash, and Freddy were a part. Picture after picture after picture. That person in, this person out, now you take one, now you....on and on. I finally grabbed the camera, announced I would get a really good picture, and flopped down on the floor to take it from a different vantage point. Norman Bates loved it. Next thing I know, he'd taken his camera back, and gotten TFMCD to join me on the floor for picture after picture after....you get it. It turns out we had all underestimated the creepiness factor of the guy, whose partner had somehow found a mike and was loudly singing "After The Loving." We got up off the floor, Steve-O commented that he could take a picture of our asses headed out the door, and we ignored Norman's protests as we took off like a bunch of scalded cats.

Crash wanted food, as did some others, so off we went in search of late night grub.
We had the pleasure of enjoying our midnight chow with Andy Tirpak, one of Stars' amazing guitarists. Turns out that he's not only a fantastic picker with something like five San Diego-area bands, he's also a baseball coach. Interesting fellow and a genuinely nice guy, who gave me some good guitar tips and even said he'd love to hang out and pick guitars with us next time we're in San Diego.

On our way back up to our room, we kept a wary eye out for a skinny, soft-spoken man, dressed like a little old lady and carrying a camera in one hand and a large knife in the other. He was nowhere to be found.
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