Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Not all heroes wear capes.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

An almost top 10,000 blog!

This really is a full service blog.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / Saturday Morning Open Thread: RIP Jimmy Buffett (And Other Summer Pleasures)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: RIP Jimmy Buffett (And Other Summer Pleasures)

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I’ll confess, I always was and will probably always be an Autumn child… but I admit that this particular turn of the seasonal wheel always comes with a tinge, an acknowledgement that mortality is as much a part of The Eternal as birth.

Headin’ out to San Francisco / For the Labor Day weekend show…

Gift link from the Washington Post — “Jimmy Buffett, musical ‘mayor of Margaritaville,’ dies at 76”:

… “Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” a statement posted on his website and social media accounts said, adding: “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.” No cause of death was disclosed.

Mr. Buffett, a frustrated Nashville country artist, found his muse when he moved to Key West, Fla., in spring 1972, leaving behind a failed marriage and stalled career. Surrounded by blue water, he donned Hawaiian shirts, cutoff shorts and flip-flops, grabbed an old blender, and embraced the quirky beach community with his musical soul…

Over the next several years, he helped birth tropical rock, a blend of calypso, rock, folk, country and pop music, and rode its vibe into a five-decade career that married his alluring music with astute business acumen…

A self-described “Mark Twainer from way back” — for his love of colloquial satire — Mr. Buffett long held court at Key West’s Chart Room cocktail lounge, exchanging stories with fishermen, sailors and drug runners as well as visiting authors such as Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison and Truman Capote…

As Parrotheads continued to swarm to his concerts along with their children and grandchildren, Mr. Buffett pivoted to a more family-friendly image and introduced a line of children’s books. “He understands his brand, which has substantial reach,” Warren Buffett told the New York Times in 2016. “One of the secrets to his success is that he never really loses any fans.”

One of his rare misfires was a musical stage adaptation of Herman Wouk’s 1965 book “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” about a middle-aged man who flees to the Caribbean. His jukebox musical “Escape to Margaritaville,” which featured his vast discography, had a short and poorly received Broadway run in 2018 but enjoyed a long, critic-proof national tour before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic cut it short.

His voracious commercial appetite and his restless creative drive was evident to anyone looking behind the free-flowing beach clothes and the party-time persona.

“I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working — when I first moved to Nashville — working in a bar in a Holiday Inn,” he told “60 Minutes.” “And it was obvious that it had been somebody that’d been there and come back down, and I never wanted to make that run back down. ‘Remember me back in 1977? I had this one hit, “Margaritaville.”’ I did not want to be one of those people.”

Salutations to Mr. Buffett, and a rueful version of my favorite Autumn song…

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Jimmy Buffet in Key West, and he was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton, and democrats

    Good artist and good man.

  2. 2.

    Van Buren

    The Buffett lyric sticking in my head this AM, from Cowboy in the Jungle:

    Spinning around in circles

    Living it day to day

    And still 24 hours may be 60 good years

    It’s really not that long a stay

     

    Carpe Diem, folks

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled

    The story can be summed up as “Galt’s Gulch meets NIMBY,” tho I am unsure if the Galt’s Gulch is truly applicable to their plans. That is their own damned fault tho for keeping this whole thing tightly under wraps for the past 4 years while they were buying up the land for it. People instinctively impart evil intents behind projects planned in secret.

    “Why don’t they want me to know?”

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Utopia is wherever the rich decide it is. Right now their plans, while they talk with all the right buzz words, are so vague there is no telling what is on the board. Except for the pretty pictures they had made up to sell their “dream”.

    eta: I’m sure Musk would disagree with them just because.

  9. 9.

    Maxim

    @OzarkHillbilly: Bunch of tech bros up to no good. Plus, a bunch of the land they bought is literally right up to the fence line of Travis AFB, which raises a lot of potential security issues — and the Bro consortium refuses to say whether it has any foreign investors.

  10. 10.

    Yarrow

    Oh, gosh. End of an era. His concerts were really fun for everyone. RIP, Jimmy and thanks for the music.

  12. 12.

    Quinerly

    This one hits very hard. At least 50 concerts since 1978, including $5 student tickets at ECU, NCSU, and UNC…..Carowinds and Kings Dominion. Many NOLA Jazz and Heritage Fests and a couple of Key West bars. 2 close personal encounters when I was in college at East Carolina University….. Beers at Pantana Bob’s in Greenville,,NC after a concert….he and his band came into my old college bar, I guess around 1979-1980…..and the summer of 1981, I had a few dates with one of his “body guards” who was living for part of the summer in a house down the beach from my family’s place. Jimmy was on tour and was rotating some of his guys around. Had rented a beach house on Bogue Banks and some of his guys were chilling there while the tour moved West. Talk about a party house……I want the last 40 years back. Jimmy, you were so much a part of my life for so many years …..what a sad morning.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    From ‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’:

    Foa added that Alabama’s new published protocol for death-by-nitrogen was “alarmingly vague – officials evidently don’t know what they are doing and are hoping for the best. The state is treating a human being like a guinea pig in a laboratory and calling it justice.”

    The protocol includes a brief passage on nitrogen hypoxia that has large sections hidden from public view. “This is a vague, sloppy, dangerous and unjustifiably deficient protocol made all the more incomprehensible by heavy redaction in the most important places,” said Deborah Denno, a law professor at the Fordham University law school who has done pioneering research on execution methods.

    The protocol, the first that a state has released publicly for nitrogen, indicates that the gas will be pumped into Smith through a “mask assembly”, which will be connected to “breathing gas tubing”. “The mask will be placed and adjusted on the condemned inmate’s face”, it says, and then after the prisoner has been allowed to make a final statement “the Warden will activate the nitrogen hypoxia system”.

    The gas will be passed through the mask into the prisoner for 15 minutes, or for five minutes beyond the moment that he flatlines, whichever is longer, the protocol says.
    ……………………….
    Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and an expert in lethal injections at Emory University, said that even the term “nitrogen hypoxia” was a misnomer. “Hypoxia means low in oxygen, so someone has combined that with nitrogen and called it a thing. Medically, it’s not a thing – there is no such thing as nitrogen hypoxia. It’s a made-up term,” Zivot said.

    Yep, that’s Alabama.

  14. 14.

    Quinerly

    “He’s somewhere on the ocean now
    That’s where he ought to be
    With one hand on the starboard rail
    He’s waving back at me”
    -Jimmy Buffett, The Captain and the Kid

    I guess if you believe….JB is with his grandfather, The Captain…….

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Maxim: Oh yeah, according to the article they’ve already gotten the attention of the FBI and DoD.

    @Lapassionara: I love all the beautiful hills and valleys surrounding the folks in the pics. From what I can tell (which isn’t much) the land they have bought is as flat as a pancake.

  21. 21.

    espierce

    Met him once in the ‘70s at a bar down in Gulfport the night before he was doing a concert with The Eagles at the old Tampa Stadium. I was walking across a crowded dance floor around 1:30 am and had to step over a person laying on their back looking like he was having a seizure. As I stepped over the guy, I saw it was Jimmy and asked him wtf he was doing
he smiled real big and said “I’m doing the crab”. He was wasted away in Margaritaville, I guess
.true story and he did show up for the concert the next day.

    RIP, Jimmy

  22. 22.

    M31

    @JPL:

    sure it’s pretty but something sinister is damn well about to happen

    maybe starts with unseen creepy children’s laughter offscreen

    then the sun rises and it’s that Teletubby sun, but it’s Elon’s face

    maybe you get free continental breakfast but later techbros harvest your organs

  23. 23.

    Nukular Biskits

    Can’t  say I was a Parrothead but did enjoy the music.

    “Margaritaville”, while a good song IMHO, overshadow his other work.

    And, while Buffett I’m sure had tons of friends, for some reason, this has stuck in my mind for nearly 20 years:

    60 Minutes The Personal Side Of Ed Bradley

    TL;DR version:  Jimmy Buffett and Ed Bradley were good friends and Ed would sing for him.

  24. 24.

    jerry

    Not only did Jerry Jeff Walker write and perform a whole boatload of great songs, but he’s also the one that introduced Jimmy Buffet to Key West back in the very early ’70s. For better or worse, but that’s how a piece of popular music history was made.

    I couldn’t stand Buffet’s music until the summer of ’87. I was in a deep depression, couch surfing in the middle of Michigan’s lower peninsula, no job, motorcycle barely running. One night, my friend Ellen (may she finally be finding the peace she desired) said, “hey, let’s go to my parent’s house and I’ll have my dad take us out on Lake Michigan on his boat.” So, we tumbled into her car and she drove us down to the Muskegon area. The next day was a perfect summer day on the mitten-shaped paradise; sunny and tiny bit too hot. We boarded early in the day and took off for an entire day of crusing around Lake Michigan, diving off the boat and swimming when I couldn’t handle the heat of the sun, grilling, drinking beer, and listening to Jimmy Buffet. It was one of the greatest days of my life and while I never turned out to be a parrothead, a deep appreciation of his music was deveolped on that day.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, Hell no. They surround themselves with people who’s sole job is to make them feel good about themselves. They have all these nifty titles like, Director of Research, or Chief Financial Officer, but their real job is to smile and nod, smile and nod.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @espierce: Great story! After reading some of his comments in an interview (can’t remember what publication), I admired Jimmy Buffett’s decision to quit being a beach bum barfly.

    He said his rowdy party dog image wasn’t an affectation — he really did drink way too much and smoke too much pot, etc., for years, and he made no apologies for it. He said it was a great time!

    But as he saw friends and contemporaries burning out and dying, and realized he had a wife and kids to look after, he decided he had to change, so he did.

  31. 31.

    kalakal

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m also seeing a big disconnect between the landscape of the illustrations and the reality. Also they missed out the domed forcefield to keep the subjects residents contained

  32. 32.

    Quinerly

    @Nukular Biskits:

    When Ed was alive, he was a fixture at NOLA Jazz Fest. I can’t even guess how many times I would see him buzzing around the fairgrounds in a day. I always saw him at the food vendors….soft shell crab po boys!!! These were back in the years before the fest became so huge and young guys would come up to me and ask if I was Emmylou (and I would be offended since she is a bit older….I started turning gray at 18)….. I had a 20 year Jazz Fest run ending in 2007. Some of the best days of my life, for sure. Don’t tell anyone about my sharing a joint with Adam Duritz in the audience at the House of Blues stage……but, I digress.

  37. 37.

    Quinerly

    @jerry:

    Great post. I have been a huge fan of Jerry Jeff Walker for many years. Huge talent. His death and John Prine’s death during Covid Times spiraled me into a huge depression. “Navajo Rug” is a favorite (although not written by Jerry Jeff).

    Highly suggest the book, “Mile Marker Zero: The Movable Feast of Key West.”

  38. 38.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Quinerly:

    When I was “coming of age”, so to speak, politically, etc (early 40s, kids almost grown, finally taking a look around to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life), I used to watch “60 Minutes”.

    I well remember the segment where they interviewed Buffett, et al, about Bradley, and showed clips of “Teddy” on stage performing. Not that I was a Bradley groupie but I would have never guessed Bradley was that much fun to be around.

    Also, despite having lived within 90 miles of The Big Easy for over 36 years, I’ve never been to Jazz Fest.  Time to add that to my bucket list.

  39. 39.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Bummer.  Not my cup of tea musically (mainly because I had to play Margaritaville in so many cover bands), but seems like he was a really good dude and his music made a lot of people happy.  My condolences to all of the big fans here.  It sucks when we lose the artists we love :(

  40. 40.

    Quinerly

    @Betty Cracker:

    He and Jane had just celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary.

    I highly recommend the “shows” he did at home during Covid Times lock down. His daughter interviews him. He tells the background of his older, less commercial songs. Jane pops by off camera from time to time. They are all up on YouTube. I think there are 10-12 of them.

  41. 41.

    espierce

    @Betty Cracker:

    He kind of jumped the shark when he wrote “A Pirate looks at 50”. Buffett was a pilot and he’d bought an amphibian airplane called an Albatross and was really proud of it. Problem was, he could never get permission to land at any foreign (Caribbean) amphibian airports because of his reputation. I kind of backed away from it all when he went really mainstream and Parrotheads became a thing although my 92 y/o mother was a Parrothead and attended several concerts in the early oughts with one of my sisters.

    Gone too soon!

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A Utah woman who gave online parenting advice via a popular YouTube channel has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated child abuse after her malnourished son escaped out of a window and ran to a nearby house for help, authorities said.
    Ruby Franke, whose now defunct channel “8 Passengers” followed her family, was arrested on Wednesday night in the southern Utah city of Ivins. She was taken into custody at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt, who owns a counseling business she says teaches people to improve their lives by being honest, responsible and humble.
    Franke has recently appeared in YouTube videos with Hildebrandt posted by Hildebrandt’s counseling business, ConneXions Classroom……………………………….The neighbor saw duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists and called law enforcement, the affidavit said. The boy was taken to hospital, where he was put on a medical hold “due to his deep lacerations from being tied up with rope and from his malnourishment”, arrest records said.
    Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was later found malnourished in Hildebrandt’s house and was also taken to hospital, officers said. Two other of Franke’s children were in the custody of child protection services, the affidavit said.
    Franke and Hildebrandt were arrested on suspicion of two felony counts of aggravated child abuse, though charges had not been filed, according to authorities.

    I can’t help wondering what kind of parenting advice she dispensed: “Duct tape is good for shutting up the whiny little brats when they are hungry. Also works for quick and easy hair removal. No more barbershops!”​.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: I am unsure if the Galt’s Gulch is truly applicable

    After what happened in Grafton, New Hampshire, maybe the whole development should be considered a wildlife sanctuary. Who knows, an approximation to the California grizzly might re-evolve.

  46. 46.

    Quinerly

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Jazz Fest is nothing like it used to be. I still feel at age 62, I have one more in me though. Was hoping it would be a year Jimmy played. Back when I did JF, we had a group from St. Louis, mostly from my old city neighborhood of Soulard, that numbered 40-50. We mostly camped at those rough campgrounds on Chef Menteur Highway for really cheap. Basically took over a campground with our set ups. It could be tough when it rained and the mud. Those campgrounds mostly were destroyed during Katrina so cheap motels or that state park about 45 mins away became our options my last years.

    I retired at 59 and am now in Santa Fe. Most of my old St. Louis krewe😉 now have switched over to French Quarter Fest which is before Jazz Fest. FQF is on my radar in a year or 2. I’m going to try to get myself organized for Telluride Blues Fest in Sept 2024. I was thru Telluride in Sept 2021 when they were setting up. Instantly liked the layout and the feel.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @espierce: My mom was definitely a Parrothead — she and Buffett were around the same age. My husband and I had a Parrothead neighbor once, and on that basis, we tried to play matchmaker between him and my mom one time when she was between boyfriends. But after we set them up, she reported that he was “boring” and looked “like Ross Perot with a ponytail.”

    LOL! She wasn’t wrong…

  51. 51.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Quinerly:

    Part of the reason I never went to Jazz Fest (other than I had so many other things demanding my attention) was New Orleans in mid- to late- spring is starting to get a little warm and muggy.

    I’m born/raised here in MS and used to hot & humid but, particularly in the summer, New Orleans is a different kind of sauna.

    My advice to anyone going to Bourbon Street for the first time is never go in the summer.

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    We loved visiting the Conch Republic a couple of years ago. The rest of Florida has DeSantis, and they can keep him, the sweaty redneck.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    New York Mag has a profile on Gisele Fetterman, wife of Senator John. I already thought she was awesome, but she’s more impressive than I knew. It may be paywalled, I’m not sure, but here’s a link.

  55. 55.

    Quinerly

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Jazz Fest can be rough weather wise. Way back in ’93, I only did second weekend that year which started on Thurs. Rained from the time we left Soulard Wed after work driving, through the entire fest, and the drive back Sun/Mon after the fest. 3 of us jammed into my 1993 Ford Probe, with some camping gear. There’s a pic from that year I have wanted to get my hands on. I’m covered in mud, after Santana, somebody had put a Harley bandana on my head. I’m holding a beer and a joint, in my Daisy Dukes, and a bikini top. I always said that I needed to run for office and then that pic would show up. Fun times, for sure. Dancing in the rain and racetrack mud.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Last year the Washington Post had a longish article in their “Style” section about Gisele Fetterman. There was a little about her family background in Brasil, and some comments by journalist Connie Schultz about being a “political wife.”

    There was also an interesting comment by Giselle Fetterman about her husband: that John Fetterman is “an introvert.” That is a view I had not taken of him before, but I figure she would know.

  59. 59.

    Quinerly

    Fun and sweet thread. JoJo is demanding that I throw the ball on his fake turf. I am 1.5 hrs late. Then I have a couple of small fiestas in Cerrillos and at Rancho las Golondrinas today. Have a great day everyone.

    I’ll add this….Hard for me to comprehend JB is dead. I felt it was coming, though. He looked so frail in the last video I saw when he did a song at one of Mac’s shows. Then sometime in the last few days he cancelled a show. He has been in and out of the hospital for the last year

    Fingers Taylor is still alive. Dementia. In a nursing home.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    Mr. Buffett, a frustrated Nashville country artist, found his muse when he moved to Key West, Fla., in spring 1972, leaving behind a failed marriage and stalled career. Surrounded by blue water, he donned Hawaiian shirts, cutoff shorts and flip-flops, grabbed an old blender, and embraced the quirky beach community with his musical soul


    RIP…

    I respect that he was able to reinvent himself.

  61. 61.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: I wouldn’t call anything near Fairfield a utopia. For many years it was a wide spot in the road with a biker bar, then the developers realized that people were willing to commute from there to jobs in or near San Francisco.

  62. 62.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I’m only a casual Buffett fan. Know his big hits but not much else. That said, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” is possibly the truest song about food-based hedonistic delight ever written. And he’s not wrong.

  63. 63.

    brendancalling

    I wasn’t a fan of JB until I heard his first couple of albums, which are quite good. I’m listening to Down to Earth as I type.

    Fun fact (also shared at LGM)—my old band, the Flat Possum Boys, were on the side stage when JB played what was then the Tweeter Center (either before or after the Shania Twain impersonator, I can’t remember which). It was a bizarre scene. Lots of drunk people in their 50s drinking giant margaritas out of souvenir cups, wearing fake grass skirts and leis. Then there was the woman who made the questionable choice to wear a bikini top that was made to look like two cheeseburgers—get it, “cheeseburger in paradise?” Only this was more like “cheeseburger with somebody’s mom’s boobs.

    Good times though! Safe travels, JB.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    Jimmy Buffett made people happy. He brought joy and community and isn’t that the best thing a person can do with their life?

    Heading upta camp.  I’m running late today because it was just too busy this week for me to prepare in advance for the weekend.

    I seriously considered taking my mom to see the drag show and the kid play tonight but I can’t drive two hours home starting at 100 am.  They played last night and had a ball and they are really looking forward to playing tonight.

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    Better businessman than Trump.

    “If you’re an artist, if you want to have control of your life . . . then you gotta be a businessman, like it or not.” JB

    From Forbes…net worth $1B

    • Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett turned his classic 1977 song “Margaritaville” into the Margaritaville Holdings empire. He he died in September 2023 at age 76.
    • Buffett forged his tropical rock sound, combining folk, calypso, rock and pop to create a new genre, during a 1970s stay in Key West, Florida.
    • He launched the Margaritaville brand in 1985. It grew from selling trinkets and t-shirts to offering resorts, restaurants and housing.
    • By the time of his death, Margaritaville also spanned apparel, home decor, pool floats, pickleball sets as well as tequila and margarita mixes.
    • Buffett’s fortune included 28% of Margaritaville, some $570 million earned from touring and recording, a $50 million music catalog and $140 million in planes, homes and Berkshire Hathaway stock.
  70. 70.

    Soprano2

    @Quinerly: We recently went to St. Louis for a couple of Cardinal games. We stay out in Maryland Heights then drive to Maggie O’Brien’s by Union Station to take the game day shuttle. Boy has Maggie’s changed! We hadn’t been there since 2019. They occupy the whole building now – the front is the bar, the back is where you can get food. All because of the new soccer stadium across the street. Union Station is nicer, too. We rode that ferris wheel while we were waiting to go to the game on Sunday. If we go next year we may stay near there and not have to drive so much.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    Skies are overcast, so their brilliant color doesn’t come through, but here’s a pair of Roseate Spoonbills looking for crawdads. It’s like a buffet line here somedays.

  75. 75.

    JWR

    Some people really belong in jail.

    Douglas, Georgia (CNN) — The breach of the Coffee County elections office can seem almost out of place in the 97-page Georgia indictment of former President Donald Trump and associates.

    The sprawling racketeering allegations spread from centers of power with pressure on the vice president to ignore the Constitution, reported calls to secretaries of state to change vote counts, and the creation of slates of fake electors for Congress. They also include the invitation of a tech team to a non-public area of a small-town administration building.

    Racist f*cking a$$holes. And now I’m fuming again, dammit! :(

  76. 76.

    Maxim

    I was never a Buffet fan, but a few years ago I caught a broadcast of one of his shows, and it was so much fun. Huge band of skilled musicians, all having a great time and turning three-minute songs into eight-minute jams, and a relaxed, friendly, family atmosphere. Even not being a fan, I would have happily attended one of his concerts.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    I will be forever grateful to the man for introducing me to the concept of Heinz 57 on my burger and/or fries. 😋

    (not every time, mind you!)

  78. 78.

    Quinerly

    @Soprano2:

    I knew the original owners of Maggie’s. In fact briefly dated the one owner after he had been bought out. It was named after a combination of the 2 owners’ grandmothers’ names. My friend’s grandmother was the Maggie portion. The last of those 2 owners (Harry) sold to then long time manager a few years back.

    So many changes were made in the last years. I don’t know if the union still owns that building or if Maggie’s owns it.

    Next time in town, check out my old neighborhood of Soulard down near AB Brewery and my old stomping grounds….the Irish bar and restaurant….JD McGurk’s. It’s expanded over the years from one room to almost a block. Beautiful courtyard and gardens, patio.

  79. 79.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Speaking of summer pleasures, for complicated reasons I’m reading a collection of Agatha Christie plays. As I was getting into the most recent one (“The Hollow”), finishing up Act I and enjoying getting to know a new set of characters, I suddenly remembered. “You don’t want to get too fond of any of these people. In the next few minutes one of them is probably going to kill another one of them.” I’d forgotten for a moment while enjoying the writing.

    The older I get the more I am fascinated by the bones and the process of writing. The reason I’m reading this thing is that we saw a BBC production of “Witness for the Prosecution” and were so surprised at some of the plot twists and character choices that we got curious about how faithful it was to the original short story. Answer: 95% faithful but the Beeb definitely added some stuff. Or was it them? For comparison I got the 1925 story from the library, then the 1953 play by Dame Agatha, and eventually we’re going to watch the 1957 Billie Wilder film. It’s fascinating to see the little tweaks made to characters and plot twists and how they change things.

  81. 81.

    frosty

    @Nukular Biskits: My advice to anyone going to Bourbon Street for the first time is never go in the summer.

    Yep, we made that mistake. We ended up ducking into shops two or three times on each block for the A/C. And to get away from the smell of piss on the street.

  82. 82.

    Quinerly

    @Soprano2: and a shitty one, I heard.

    Never was a fan of Tan Tar A back in the day. When I was practicing, that’s where all the Bench and Bar Conferences were in the 1980’sand 1990’s.

    I had a respected judge once wink at my roommate and me at the conference and say, “What happens at Tan Tar A stays at Tan Tar A. He was about 50 years older than we were. Gross.

  86. 86.

    Quinerly

    @frosty:

    Used to go to NOLA 2-3 times a year for 20 plus years. Been on Bourbon once. Daytime. NOLA is so much more than Bourbon Street. Amateur hour.

  88. 88.

    frosty

    @Betty Cracker: Lucky you! There are three in Baltimore Harbor on Hart-Miller Island. I was on a birding tour there last Thursday but no Spoonbills showed up. Nine snowbird trips to Florida and I’ve only got a glimpse of one flying over Big Cypress. Maybe next year, we’ll be in Ft Myers and close to Ding Darling for a few days.

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits: That is nuthin’ I want to see. In all my travels down there I have yet to visit the French Quarter, not even when dropping my son off for a shift.. Maybe one of these days I’ll spend an early morning there while all the drunks are sleeping it off.

  94. 94.

    frosty

    @OzarkHillbilly: The renderings are precious. Not a single car. Houses front on a street with kids riding bicycles. Right. So are there garages and alleys in the back? How do the alleys connect to the arterial streets so you can get somewhere? How far do you have to walk to the public transit? No one will walk more than a quarter mile; say two blocks.

    I’ve lived in two rowhouse neighborhoods in Baltimore with streets in front and alleys with garages in back. The streets are bumper to bumper parked cars on both sides.

    Plus the rolling hills, LOL. This area isn’t the Piedmont – like an earlier commenter said, it’s flat land. What a joke; I hope they lose their shirts.

  96. 96.

    JWR

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    @AnonPhenom:

    This week the group behind the effort, Flannery Associates, launched a website for the initiative and released a series of sunny renderings showing Mediterranean-style homes and walkable and bikeable neighborhoods.

    And best of all, no Black peo…, er, I mean no crime! Srsly. Their own renderings show maybe 2 or 3 people of a slightly dusky hue.

  99. 99.

    dmsilev

    @OzarkHillbilly: My favorite part of the story is that they’re suing a bunch of people that they bought land from, claiming that the previous landowners …told each other about the pending sales, and that caused them to pay more than they otherwise would have.

    Oh noes, the veil of secrecy has been penetrated and now we will have to actually pay people more money before even starting our Clever Plan! This cannot be allowed to stand! Lawsuits!

  100. 100.

    gwangung

    Heh. My one time to NOLA was during summer (it was for a work conference). Shorts and T-shirts, but drenched in sweat all the time…but it was great touring music places at night.

  101. 101.

    kalakal

    Mrs kalakal was not a Parrothead but used to go to his concerts because they were just so much fun when she lived in Cincinnati. He used to play there about twice a year every year. Once after a gig she and her first husband want to a bar on the river and saw him there. Her husband went up to him, clapped him on the back, got as far as “Great conc…” when 2 huge bodyguards grabbed. JB was really cool about it, calmed it down and everybody was laughing about it in under a minute.

    Cool fact. He was big in getting manatee protection laws passed in Fl, he and ex governor Graham started the “Save the Manatee Club” and getting money from he “Save the Manatee” license plates earmarked

  102. 102.

    Geminid

    @frosty: The nice pictures also don’t show where those people work. Establishing sources of employment will be the developers’ heaviest lift.

  105. 105.

    CaseyL

    Good morning, everyone! Looks to be a perfectly nice day here in Seattle, starting off cool and warming up through late afternoon.

    I should do something. Nothing much is coming to mind. Trying to figure out which cute little neighborhood with adorable locally-owned shops to go bop around in. Somewhat limited in that I’d rather take the train than drive, so wherever it is needs to be within walking distance of the train.

  107. 107.

    JR in WV

    RIP Jimmy Buffet!

    After I completed my US Navy school at Great Lakes my first (and only) duty station was on the USS Howard W Gilmore, AS-16, home ported in Key West, from late 1970 until I was discharged in 1973, while Key West was a tiny shrimper and fishing town. Back then the whole harbor space was the Navy base, and there were no cruise liners calling because there were no  berths for commercial traffic.

    We got to know Jimmy Buffet because he sang for drinks and tips at Arnold’s bar across the street from the Dr Porter House, a 3 story apartment house built back in the 1800s from cypress lumber striped from wrecked ships on the reefs off Key West. We lived on the 3rd floor and our rent was $90/month back then.

    There were great restaurants, bars with great music, artists galore, but when we returned to Key West just a few years ago it was so different, many hotels, clothing optional bars up on the roofs, fast food chains…. etc. Not the Key West we loved back in the early 1970s at all.  The Cuban joints were the only remaining remnant of Key West from back in the 70s. It was a little shrimper fishing village back when we lived there…

    RIP Jimmy Buffet, you were a great club singer back in the day!

  108. 108.

    Almost Retired

    @Quinerly:  Wow, I’d forgotten that I’d forgotten about Tan Tara, site of a long ago family vacation.  All I have is a family photo of everyone dressed in Peak 70’s Midwestern Dork.  Me in a Gilligan hat, my Mom with B-52s hair, my sister in Cindy Brady braids and my Dad in a flame-proof Leisure Suit.  If they were any space alien visitations during that era, I’m sure they turned around and went home in disgust.

  110. 110.

    Another Scott

    On our honeymoon in Hawaii in the late ’90s, we saw a “Cheeseburger in Paradise” restaurant there. We didn’t go inside, but it looked nice. It looks like the chain closed a while ago.

    RIP JB. You made a lot of people very happy and that’s a good thing.

    Meanwhile, BlueVirginia.US:

    President Biden directed the Democratic National Committee this week to pour $1.2 million into Virginia legislative races to counter record-smashing fundraising by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), whose prospects as a potential last-minute presidential candidate could rise or fall with the outcome on Nov. 7.

    The money will bring the DNC’s contributions to the Democratic Party of Virginia this year to $1.5 million — 15 times more than it invested four years ago, the last time all 140 seats in the state Senate and House of Delegates were on the ballot.

    So again, this is good news, but we still need a lot more. How much? I don’t know exactly, but it would be nice to see $10-$20 million more through early November to counteract the massive influx of dirty dollars to Youngkin from his Nazi memorabilia buddy, the “brutal” employer Ronald Cameron (who also, ”When an old friend told him he was gay,” responded, “‘And I also know you’re going to Hell’, then “turned his back and walked away”); etc.

    Which means that now, with just 20 days until early voting starts on 9/22, it’s time for many millions more to pour in to Virginia Democrats from national environmental, pro-choice, gun violence prevention, LGBTQ, labor, etc. groups, as well as from individual/small-dollar donors! If you want to know which races are the highest priorities, click here […]

    Click on over for embedded links.

    There’s so much at stake in these Virginia elections…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    Quinerly

    @Almost Retired:

    I only knew the place from the Bench and Bar Conference days.  Only got to St.Louis in 1982 and probably never ventured to Lake of the Ozarks except for those conferences. I know a lot of St. Louis folks have lots of childhood memories of the place. I don’t even know when it bought Buffett’s name.

  114. 114.

    Quinerly

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Oddly, I’m playing JJW right now. Can’t do Buffett this soon. I’ll think of dancing with my mother as a teenager at the beach place and cry….. My dad laughing and watching “his girls.” He loved JB’s version of “Stars Fell On Alabama.” We would play that when my mom and I took a break.

  115. 115.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The YouTube comedy series Yacht Rock has a pretty hilarious episode that makes playful fun of Buffet and Parrotheads.  It’s a really absurd series so I wonder if Buffett ever saw it and what he thought of it.  I would’ve been kind of honored, if it were me.   The whole series is fun, though a bit dated with some jokes that wouldn’t play well nowadays.

  118. 118.

    martha

     

     

    @Geminid: ummm, and even more important, that stretch of I-80 is a parking lot 60% of the time. So if you want to get to Sacramento or Davis or SF Bay Area, good luck. Oh <smacks head> they’ll teleport themselves /s. Oh wait, they can’t even do that
Travis AFB won’t let them use the secure airspace 
.

  122. 122.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @frosty: ​I’ve lived in two rowhouse neighborhoods in Baltimore with streets in front and alleys with garages in back. The streets are bumper to bumper parked cars on both sides.

    Curious as to what neighborhoods zackly.** Not a lot of storage space in most Bawlmer rowhomes. If they have full basements, those cellars are probably full of junk, and the garages are junk annexes, which explains in part the parked cars. (In my current neighborhood there’s room on the streets for roughly 2 cars per address, but some multigeneration households have 4 or 5, which can make parking problematical for us one-car live-alones.)

    ** I gather you haven’t lived in any of them for some years now, so it ought to be safe to say what neighborhood or even the nearest cross streets. Go on, you know you want to…;^D

  123. 123.

    Shana

    Several months ago The New Yorker had an article about Margaritaville retirement communities, kind of like The Villages but smaller. They were careful to not say they were a Democratic version of The Villages but that was definitely the vibe given off. I figured if I had to go to one his would be preferable even though I’m not much of a fan of his music.

  124. 124.

    Quinerly

    @MagdaInBlack:

    Don’t know if you are on the Book of Faces. Lots of sweet clips and memories being posted in the fan groups. Lots of fanatics, too. JB has a strong Repug following even though he has made it clear about voting for HRC. I had kinda backed off on JB since he became so commercialized and was selling his name right and left. Sorta came back home to him during Covid Times when he was doing those videos at his home with his daughter interviewing him. I highly recommend them.

    I gotta get going or I would post links. Go to YouTube and search Jimmy Buffett and Delaney interviews. Great versions of The Wino I knew, Death of an Unpopular Poet, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Captain and The Kid…with stories behind the songs. Most are songs pre 1985

    Edited to add…these interviews have a lot of shout outs to old friends, including JJW.

  125. 125.

    trollhattan

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
    Huh. Wonder where they’re getting the fucking water for all that fancypants landscaping?

    There’s also the small matter of the weather there, which ranges from windy and hot to windy and cold. It’s definitely not the Peninsula and IDK if the richer than god types will cotton to that every day.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    one of my favorite Buffett songs, Pascagoula Run.

    Friday night at the stateline bar

    Where the waterfront people dwell

    Better watch my step, if the floor caves in

    I’ll go right straight to hell

  127. 127.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Quinerly: I’ll find them. Friend and I are swapping clips back and forth

    We were big JJW fans too. We named a dog “Lucy Fay Lorraine” ( taking side bets on the game.)

    Have a good day and thanks for the tip

  132. 132.

    trollhattan

    Mormons on Youtube. Can’t trust ’em.

    A Utah woman who ran a popular parenting advice YouTube channel is facing child abuse charges after her malnourished son escaped from home, officials said.

    Ruby Franke and her business partner Jodi Nan Hildebrandt were arrested in Ivins, Utah this week. Officials also found Ms Franke’s 10-year-old daughter in a malnourished condition at her partner’s house. Both women were charged with six counts of child abuse on Friday.

    The BBC has contacted Ms Franke and Ms Hildebrandt for comment.

    Police say Ms Franke’s 12-year-old son climbed out of the window and ran to a neighbour’s house to ask for food and water. “The calling party [the neighbour] stated the juvenile appeared to be emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities,” according to a statement from the Santa-Clara Ivins Public Safety Department.

    “Upon arrival, law enforcement observed the wounds and the malnourishment of [the boy] to be severe,” the department said. The boy had to be taken to the hospital “due to his deep lacerations from being tied up with rope and from his malnourishment”.

    Ms Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was also taken to the hospital.

    Officials later obtained a search warrant in connection with the incident, and in total, four children were taken into the care of family and child services, according to the statement. On Friday, Washington County officials in Utah formally charged Ms Franke and Ms Hildebrandt.

    The charges stem from the alleged abuse of two children in three different ways: physical abuse, malnutrition and severe emotional harm. Each count carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000 (ÂŁ7,940), Washington County officials said.

    They sound nice.

  134. 134.

    Kelly

    A high school buddy said “you have to listen to this” and put “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean” in his cassette deck. We were 17 driving out to an old covered bridge for a moonlight swim with his girlfriend and her cousin from out of town.

    Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Jeff Walker, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver were what I listened to in the 1970s.

  136. 136.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Ken:

    After what happened in Grafton, New Hampshire, maybe the whole development should be considered a wildlife sanctuary. Who knows, an approximation to the California grizzly might re-evolve.

    We won’t know if we don’t experiment with releasing grizzlies into  a fenced in wildlife sanctuary filled with herds of tech bros. Because science.

  138. 138.

    Spanish Moss

    @kalakal: The Orlando Wetlands are great for spoonbills as well, I have never seen so many at once anywhere else. Winter Wren and I just discovered these wetlands in the past year and now visit them regularly on our frequent trips to FL. Haven’t made it to Ding Darling yet, hopefully next year!

  140. 140.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @MomSense:

    Jimmy Buffett made people happy. He brought joy and community and isn’t that the best thing a person can do with their life?

    Never was particularly into his music myself, though I found it pleasant, but I’m loving seeing the joy he brought to other people’s lives.

  141. 141.

    Spanish Moss

    I saw Jimmy Buffet in concert on a Miami Beach back in the eighties. I have long been a fan, and what a perfect location for hearing his music live!

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Xavier: that song gives me chills

    I plan to crawl outside these walls

    Close my eyes and see

    And fall into the heart and arms

    Of those who wait for me

    I cannot move a mountain now

    I can no longer run

    I cannot be who I was then

    In a way I never was

    extraordinary words to put in father’s voice, after June’s death

  148. 148.

    Spanish Moss

    @raven: Hmm, I suppose there was a name for it but I don’t recall, our attendance was sort of a spontaneous last-minute thing.

  150. 150.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    My advice to anyone going to Bourbon Street for the first time is don’t. ;-)

    My wife and I were there about 15 years ago, and enjoyed it.  It was January, before things were starting to warm up for Mardi Gras – my WAG is that unless one loves a mob scene, not only is Mardi Gras in NOLA to be avoided, but you’d also probably want to stay away from Bourbon Street and environs the last week or three beforehand.

    But the food was fantastic – I wish I could get a decent plate of crawfish etouffĂ©e without having to travel halfway across the country for it.  We’ll be back sometime, probably in the fall once the kid’s in college.

  151. 151.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    Many years ago,I used to subscribe to the Jimmy Buffett list serve.  Occasionally, some newbie would ask “Who is Sky’s niece Penny*?” or “Who is Ricky Ricardo*?”  Hilarity would ensue.  What a way with words he had.

    * Pencil Thin Mustache

    I’ll miss you Jimmy

  153. 153.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    4.5 billion years ago, when I was a very young lad (this would have been late 60s, early 70s), there used to be a hole-in-the-wall beer/bait/bar at what is now the Franklin Creek Exit off of I-10 (I-10 wasn’t fully constructed then).

    AL was dry on Sundays and folks would come there to get “refreshed”.  We stopped there seems like every weekend on the way to/from Pascagoula with the boat.

    I wonder if that’s what the song is referencing.

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