pt at large

Louisiana: New Orleans to Lafayette in Crisis

Dispatches In A Time Of A Keep Your Distance Stay Home Pandemic

March 29, 2020

Louisiana, especially New Orleans, is getting crushed by  COVID-19. I was introduced to New Orleans and southwest Louisiana in 2009. The experience changed my life. Check the "Louisiana" archives on this page.

My born-and-bred Baton Rouge guide loved knew just about every good place to eat, dance, and see some history every mile down I-10 from New Orleans to Lafayette. She taught me how to pronounce words a Yankee would never ever get right if he said them like they were spelled (or could pronounce in the first place). I learned how to dance to Cajun and zydeco music, tasted exotic (to me) foods boudin, gumbo, jambalaya, alligator, shrimp grits and gravy,po'boys (dressed!), andouille, crawfish étoufée, muffuletta for starters.

From 2009 till last February, I've met some of the friendliest, most welcoming people on the planet. I've visited Lafayette scores of times since my first visit in 2009. It was named the happiest city in the USA in 2014. Based on my most recent visit with dear friends in February, that hasn't changed much.

Last Saturday, I sat in front of my computer and tuned into a Zoom party organized to give all of us required to stay indoors a lift and put some money in a tip jar for the Lafayette musicians whose performance fans from southwest Louisiana, both coasts and lord knows where else watched.

Like everyone else, I've been watching the COVID-19 numbers in Louisiana getting larger and larger. I am praying all my friends are safe and stay healthy.

A few days ago, I sent this image with the note, "To all my Louisiana friends...sending positive energy and luminous love your way..."

We can't have dinners or dance together but there's comfort in staying connected with Zoom and Skype and text until we get to the other side of this.

 

 

Robin Redbreast Chirps..."Play Ball!"

Dispatches In A Time Of A Keep Your Distance Stay Home Pandemic

March 28, 2020

Chirrup, chirrup...

The gate to the track was locked. I headed for home.

I stopped in my tracks when I heard that familiar chirp. A flood of memories ensued. Since I was a kid, seeing, and especially hearing, robins had been a sure sign that Spring had arrived.

Time to take my trusty leather Rawlings baseball glove out of the closet, oil it up, put a baseball in the glove's 'pocket' and stuff it under the mattress to form the shape I wanted. No matter that playing in the field across the street a couple of weeks after the snow finally melted meant wear an extra layer of sweater and sacrifice a pair of sneakers for the next couple of weeks, mud season. The field was still squishy, the grass hadn't even begun to green up. The leather baseball we agreed to sacrifice felt like a shotput by the time a game was finished. Nevermind that in early Saturday morning games you could see your breath. We were playing baseball!

As the years passed, the field appeared to get smaller as we got bigger. Hitting a homer was no longer a prodigious feat but watching the ball carry across the street and into the woods was still a major satisfaction

Standing in front of that locked gate, it was comforting to let the childhood memory envelop me. I felt the contours of the glove on my hand, the camaraderie of boys immersed in play, the smell of the soaked grass underfoot…a wonderful time travel moment, consoling and momentarily freeing from the exigencies of life in this moment in time.

Today, the threat of COVID-19 has closed every park in town. The robins thank god are not under order to stay in their nests. A few chirps was all it took to take me back to a simpler time, when all I had to worry about was being on time for dinner and keeping my beloved baseball glove oiled and ready.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/baseballs-glove-man-77865726/

Sign Of The Times

March 24, 2020

State and local lockdown...unprecedented measures, themes of science fiction become reality.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Puccini in a Tshirt

Dispatches In A Time Of A Keep Your Distance Stay Home Pandemic

March 24, 2020

One of my favorite tenors, Roberto Alagna, in jeans and T shirt,in rehearsal with with wife Aleksandra Kurzak, sing "Vogliatemi bene" for Puccini's Madam Butterfly..totally blew me away, watching the singers and orchestra, dressed more like Saturday afternoon in the back yard, sing and play some serious stuff.Their was nothing held back in the singing or orchestra and an occasional outburst of playfulness, some mugging by the two stars, that was amazingly refreshing.

I'm playing the chorus...opera in a T shirt and jeans...a mind boggling way to see how art is created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpVBbZtak8

and in concert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCx9dMn6pE

LitHub: A Literary Lifeline In A Time of Pandemic

Dispatches In A Time Of A Keep Your Distance Stay Home Pandemic

March 22, 2020

State of mind...

Desperate is not the right word but it's in the ballpark playing left field with pandemic in center and stay at home in right. Reminds me of Abbot and Costello's Who's On First. For me, a sense of humor these days is a necessity to balance anxiety, fear, and walking in the dark. So is music, subject for another day.

Today's life ring for the waters I'm bobbing around in...literature. If reading is one of your things, LitHub is a godsend. Sign up and you  get an email with links to several stories a day. You can cherry pick ones that look appealing or just click into unknown territory.

Another cool thing. Every email starts with an image captioned TODAY and a piece of literary trivia.

I need information and balance. A dose of fear, anxiety, and social responsibility keeps me 6 feet away from anyone else on my daily walks. To be honest, I wouldn't have latched on so appreciatively to this literary link in non pandemic times. I embrace this link and literature today more than I probably should have in my years at St. Michael's college.

If you're of a certain age, required to grasp the cultural references, here's a start that might perk you up.

Go to https://lithub.com/  , scroll down right side column to SUBSCRIBE TO THE LITHUB DAILY, ENTER YOUR EMAIL

 

A Virtual Dance Party...Boston to Lafayette

March 20, 2020

COVID-19 has closed down gatherings of more than 5, 10, 25  depending on your source. No contact closer than 6 feet, stay close to home. For sure, no public dancing.

I needed a dance fix.

8:00 PM
Text my friends Bernard and Rubia in Lafayette. 
“Put on your dancing shoes, The Revelers are in the CD rack, we’re gonna have a party in our kitchens!”

“Call us in 15, we’re finishing dinner.”

8:15 PM
Sent them a set list of 4 songs. A brief phone conversation about logistics ensues. "We’re going to connect a cell phone to a little boom box on the counter," they say. They are all in.

8:20 PM
Crank up the volume on the speakers in my kitchen.
Dial Lafayette on my cell phone.
Cue up the music… whoop and holler dancing around the stools around my kitchen table as if they were other dancers crammed into the tiny dance floor at The Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette. I'm in the moment in my own alternate reality, feel the energy of the crowd, imagine the band on the stage about two feet above the dance floor, the musicians taking turns with their solos and me and my imaginary smiling dance partner in synch, styling away with spontaneously invented moves that draw smiles from the other dancers.
I can hear Bernard and Rubia doing the same thing together in their kitchen.

Our little fais do do finishes with a waltz, often a way the band in a Cajun dance hall ends an evening.

The best dance in Lafayette that night…maybe in all of southwest Louisiana and probably the only one!

Facetime, Zoom, Skype…we’re gonna get creative. We’re not going to miss a beat.
Danses virtuelles, la vague du futur

Based in Lafayette, this band has a national following. These top notch musicians play a mix of Cajun, Zydeco, swamp pop, covers and original material in one of the most musically alive cities in America.

PS

Asked Bernard to tell band members he knows what we just did... could be a wave of the future!

Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The Back Bay Chorale: The Golden Age of Brass Concert

COVID-19 is a game changer, the world’s pace of life is changing daily. If you’re a music lover as I am, showing up for live concerts and shows is now a no-no.Tonight’s concert is the last one I will attend for a while. My devices are ready to fill the gap. I’ll play my favorites on my phone, laptop, listen to my favorite radio stations, and dance in my kitchen. Music is another game changer, but the best kind for me, a mood enhancer, a psychic salve. I can get lost in song. And I don’t have to wash my hands after listening.

The Back Bay Chorale: The Golden Age of Brass

Saturday March 7, 2020, 8 PM
The Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, MA

A special night for singers, musicians, the crowd, and director Scott Allen Jarrett -A Rich Program Delivers A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

This was no ordinary evening of cultural entertainment. The tide of COVID-19 was rolling in to Boston. The public was skittish. Whether patrons would attend or not was in question. In the days preceding, several public events had been cancelled. When we arrived at 7:15 PM, about fifty people were rattling around in the pews of the historic Emmanuel Church. That’s about 500 people short of its capacity. Not encouraging.

You could see the relief on their faces at precisely 8 PM when the performers filed onto the stage. About 300 patrons awaited them. The loyalists in the pews knew the score, not the one on the pages of the performers' song books but the chance that this would have been a major (but understandable, considering the circumstances) disappointment for the 110 singers in the chorale, plus the six soloists, and the six musicians with period style instruments in hand, if the audience had stayed home.

The reception was not lost on esteemed conductor Scott Allen Jarrett. Visibly moved, he stepped down into the aisle on level with the first row, hands clasped, and delivered his own solo of heartfelt gratitude. Ardent supporters had showed up for the Chorale. He was aware that tonight there could have been more people on the stage than in the audience. It was a poignant moment.

In another departure, Jarrett took the time to give us a tutorial on tonight's program, "The Golden Age of Brass" that featured the music of Giovanni Gabrielli (1553-1612), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630) and Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672).

“The late 17th century composers wrote some of the richest pieces in the canon. I love their work. They added new techniques to older tradition to enrich choral singing, they are not played as often as they deserve to be and we’re thrilled to perform them for you tonight.” Their collective creativity introduced contrapuntal technique and fused Italian and north German musical and concerto styles.

I am familiar with the Italian names Monteverdi and Gabrielli thanks to my Saint Michael's College professor Dr. William Tortolano  The Germans Schütz and Schein not so much. They all made stirring polyphonic music. (By the way, Dr. Tortolano, at 90, "still practices on the organ at Saint Michael's when the priests are not looking!")

Sitting in a semi-circular pocket in the midst of the chorus was the early instrument sextet, Dark Horse Consort. The sextet plays three sackbuts (early trombones), two cornetti (early trumpets), keyboard and a strange looking theorbo (a plucked string instrument of the lute family). The small grouping of brass and strings was calibrated to undergird the chorale and soloists with just enough instrumentation to be heard, not overwhelm, and add a soft brass layer to the chorale. The aptly named cornetti were so small they looked like a children’s instrument (but certainly didn't sound like ones).

Add the 110 member chorus, three female and three male soloists who could blow out candles on a birthday cake at ten paces and you got a glorious sound that filled the acoustically perfect Emmanuel Church with music that was divine.

Choral, even classical music, are becoming less played and performed as a host of rich popular music takes over the airwaves. It took my ears a few minutes to become accustomed to it. Soon, I felt myself settling into the warm curve of the 150 year old sturdy burnished oak pew in the venerable church. I was transported into a world of long ago when the sounds of voices in harmony and a few brass and stringed instruments could transport you a little closer to a world you imagined you would some day inhabit.

 Ready to perform...

As the chorale settles into their places, conductor Scott Allen Jarrett delivers an impromptu heartfelt thanks to the audience for showing up...

and an explanation of why tonight's music is special to him and why it was chosen...

A standing ovation...Well done!

Artistic Consultant Justin Blackwell and Artistic Director Scott Allen Jarrett

Stained glass window, back of church, behind the pews

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Sonny Landreth Slides Into Somerville

Sonny Landreth
February 20, 2020
Once, a theater space in Somerville, MA

Sonny Landreth… you not going to see a more spectacular display of slide guitar virtuosity for a long time.

The silver bottleneck on his pinky flashed as fleetingly as a shooting star as he nimbly rode it up and down every inch of the guitar’s neck, caressing, thrashing, plucking every inch with jaw dropping riffs, his hands inches apart from the bottom of the neck of his Resonator and the throat of the guitar body. Mesmerizing.

The blues he played in the first half of his set was lyrically drop dead beautiful and played with the atmospherics that few players can emulate. Not much body language, the man just sat there, whaled away with alternating finger fast slides and achingly slow holds to caress one note. Gasps were audible, some of them mine. His percussionist and rhythm guitar player were on stage but all eyes were on Sonny.

Long gray hair flowing straight down to his shoulders, faded shirt and jeans, he looked more like a geek at the back of a computer store. When he sat on a wooden chair and made that guitar sound like the sound track to a rocket to heaven or a slow decent into the blue room in hell, the rest of the outside world simply disappeared from consciousness. For many, he ascended a throne for the next 45 minutes.

Sonny got into an instrumental run for the second half of his set. As brilliantly as he played, my ears got used to the unremitting genius of his playing and longed for another killer blues song to complement his playing. The full house at Once Theater in Somerville didn’t seem to mind.

You’re gonna have to go some to find virtuoso slide guitar playing like this. In the spirit of Mardi Gras, which was today, he played a zippy Zydeco song with so much zap that a few couples found enough space to dance in the corner.

He’s on the road with Long Tall Marcia Ball. There, my friends, is a double bill of Louisiana music that has more energy than a bomb hurricane.

Photo, videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Amy Kucharik Lights Up The Burren Backroom Concert Series

The Burren

247 Elm St, Somerville, MA 02144

February 20, 2020

Give Amy Kucharik a couple of spoons and a wooden box top and she could entertain a crowd in front of a WalMart in Anyplace, USA. Give her a ukelele and a few talented musicians and she can, and did, entertain a full house in The Back Room at The Burren in Somerville tonight.

Singer/songwriter is a feeble way to think about what she does. She's a master of the ukelele for starters. "I like to learn new things," she says as she picks up a guitar, adjusts the capo to set it in ukelele range and sings one of her original songs. That's after she's accompanied herself with a harmonica and some righteous foot stomping. And what you have to hear to believe, a kind of humming she calls mouth harping that sounds like a trumpet with a kazoo for a mouthpiece. Your jaw will drop the first time you hear this. Delightful.

The woman loves music that tells stories. She pitches them to us with a bit of their history, a personal anecdote, a bit of philosophizing, and natural sense of humor (some delightfully at her own expense). Several songs are from her 2018 album "Until The Words Are Gone" (original songs) and a few from her 2014 "Cunning Folk" album (more original songs!).

A nod from Amy, and Shazam!  ...her regular crew of sax, keyboard, and standup bass players tattoo the song's intent, from lyrical to raucous, in a six lane highway spanning blues, punchy 1920s/30s ragtime  jazz, folk, pop, and country, with show-stopping energy that elicit spontaneous applause from us, and grins from her band mates.

The Amy Kucharik partisans in the crowd were treated to Amy at her best, haunting, jaunty, and humorous...this is why you come to hear live music.

A light - hearted moment, one of many tonight...

Down Hearted Blues, a 1923 Bessie Smith classic - Amy sings and plays, the band kills it with inspired solos, note Amy's inventive 'mouth harp" at around the 4 minute mark.

Knock down blues....oh, my...blues dancers and listeners delight, Amy and the band are in a serious groove covering the 1936 blues "A Fine Romance." This is why you come to listen to live music.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The Burren Backroom Series is hosted by WUMB. FM, Boston, tonight's MC Perry Persoff.

 

Arrianna Huffington's Time to Thrive

Ten minutes well worth your time... it made me late to pick up dinner as I listened to the last few minutes of the radio program.

 

I recognized the sound of the woman's voice, the accent, and couldn't identify who it belonged to. Next day, I found a link to the program on the internet thanks to a helpful woman at WGBH radio.

 

https://mastersofscale.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/mos-episode-transcript_-arianna-huffington.pdf

 

The topic is entrepreneurship. As a retired elementary school teacher, it would seem to have little to do with me...except it turns out to it have everything to do with how I organize my life, manage time, and sensibly carve out a sense of well being on a daily basis.

 

Reid Hoffman’s questions and Adrianna Huffington’s responses in the transcript are fascinating. It took a life crisis to inspire Huffington to leave Huffington Post and launch Thrive Global in 2016. A research wonk, she found that 75% of healthcare causes and healthcare problems are stress-related and preventable. 

 

Wellness, enough sleep, corporate culture...would never appear in the same sentence before Thrive came along.

 

"Thrive is about only one thing (this Forbes interview explains Huffington's philosophy of managing performance using micro-steps): How do we build our best lives? How do we achieve everything we want without burnout and stress, bringing together ancient wisdom, the latest science, and new role models? " And all do-able since they're micro steps to build habits to reduce stress, improve well-being and maximize productivity." Her own bout with burn-out inspired the vision.

 

I’ve taken her last comment (below) to heart. It has changed my life (ok, a little hyperbole but not far from the truth). Her earlier comment about “prioritize” is a close second.

HUFFINGTON:​​ And wake up in the morning and have a minute, that's another micro step. Take a minute to remember what you are grateful for, set your intention for the day before you go to your phone. Over 70% of people sleep with their phones. The first thing they do is go to their phone. If you think of it, our phone is everybody else's agenda for us. Our bodies are flooded with the cortisol stress hormone before we have even gotten out of bed. These are small changes, small microscopic changes that can have a huge impact. That's what is so wonderful. That's why I'm so optimistic. These are not huge changes. We are not asking people to leave their jobs or move to a Caribbean island."

I guess the last sentence is optional.

 

The Statue of Liberty: A Closer Look

December 12, 2019

The torch, the crown, the Greco-Roman stylized robe flowing gracefully from Lady Liberty's broad shoulders to her perfectly formed feet, we all know what she represents.  Her powerful arms bearing the torch seem to illuminate the path to a land of possibilities. For over 100 years, the popular narrative is that the Lady is welcoming the "poor huddled masses." Wrong.

Those immigrants may have been immigrating from countries with monarchies, iron clad social strata, and bleak penniless futures. Surely, their eyes were on the Lady, regal, resolute, representing the end and the beginning of their journey...but what about those chains and broken shackles around her beautifully formed toes.

...a Washington Post May, 2019 story  upended just about every idea I had about the The Statue of Liberty. The purpose of the monument, originally developed in France, was to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States, not, as I have believed for years, to welcome the arrival of immigrants.

What happened? Why? Will the original purpose be restored?

The monument was imagined in 1865 by Édouard de Laboulaye , a Frenchman passionate about the cause of freedom. He was an abolitionist, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and a scholar of the U.S. Constitution. The French Revolution had torn through his country 65 years before that. The emancipation of slaves in America and freedom as a universal right rang a bell for him. He gave epic speeches about freedom and by 1867 floated the idea of creating a commemorative gift that would celebrate importance of the liberation of slaves in America.

The French artist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi  had proposed a statue resembling Lady Liberty for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. His idea was rejected.  Bartholdi recalled that Édouard de Laboulaye had proposed in 1865 that a monument representing freedom and democracy be created for the United States. Thus began a 16-year campaign of fund-raising and politicking by these two enterprising Frenchmen.

By 1884 Bartholdi had completed the statue in France. In 1886 he oversaw the statue's reassembly on Bedloe's Island, an outcropping in New York harbor that he saw on one of his fund raising trips to America and immediately envisioned as its placement (6 years before the nearby Ellis Island became a gateway to America).

Immediately after the statue's dedication, the Black Press pushed back. Racism, discrimination, and segregation persisted.  The two Frenchmen's ideal was heartfelt, perhaps propelled by projected wishes for an end of the monarchy in their own country. For African-Americans, it was a bitter pill to swallow. Still is.

The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York harbor will surprise, shock is not too strong a word, most visitors. Forget the plaque with the Emma Lazarus poem — “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — added until 17 years later, in 1903.

The 305-foot statue's original purpose was to celebrate the end of slavery.

In an early model of the statue by the French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi from 1870, Lady Liberty is depicted holding broken chains in her left hand, a clear reference to emancipation. Bartholdi based the statue on the Roman goddess Libertas, who is usually depicted wearing a Phrygian cap, traditionally worn by freed Roman slaves.

In Bartholdi’s final model, the broken chains in the statue’s hand were replaced with a tablet that represented the rule of law. Bartholdi placed the broken shackle and chains beneath Lady Liberty’s feet, making it nearly impossible for visitors to see at most angles.

Above and below: pull-quotes in italics from a May, 2019  New York Times story:

The museum doesn’t shy away from the fact that this symbol of “universal liberty” was far from a reality for people of color and women during the late 19th century and for decades afterward.

That point is highlighted by a quote taken from the African-American-owned Cleveland Gazette, which wrote one month after the statue’s opening, “Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an inoffensive and industrious colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family, without being ku-kluxed, perhaps murdered, his daughter and wife outraged, and his property destroyed.” It also quotes a suffragist pointing out the inconsistency of using a female figure as the face.

The Statue of Liberty...The American Myth or The American Dream?

I had to revise the narrative I've believed for years.

How about you? Pass the story along, the timing is perfect.

xxxxxxx

Photo courtesy of Statue of Liberty Museum

https://libertyellisfoundation.org/statueoflibertymuseum/gallery.html

 

Dennis Stroughmatt: "The Key's In The Mailbox" - A Tribute to Tony Booth

November 27, 2019

“I loved your rendition of ‘Together Again,’ says I to Dennis Stroughmatt.

“You might like this collection of Tony Booth songs I just recorded,” says he.

Looking for a CD to play while boiling water for a pasta dinner, I saw Stroughmatt's face on the cover and without reading the title, racked it into the CD player.

Stroughmatt’s annual show with his band Creole Stomp at The German Club in Pawtucket, RI, draws a full house for his stellar interpretations of old time Louisiana Cajun and Canadian French ballads, waltzes, and frisky two steps.

The man’s a scholar of French Creole music, has been honored at the Kennedy Center, and is as good as it gets for listening and dancing to French Creole music with a vein of the Missouri Ozarks embedded inside it. What I heard on "The Key's In The Mailbox: A Tribute to Tony Booth" blew me away...14 of the most indelible western swing/honky tonk songs you're likely to hear on one album.

Dennis’s stratospheric baritone with its evocative vibrato illuminates every song in his catalog. And here he is in full Ray Price mode…deep country  and a long way from Louisiana.

Stroughmatt’s diaphragm must be made of Kevlar. His clear, resonant register lights a fuse to the lovelorn lyrics that, with his traditional phrasing, shows why old time country music, classic short stories of love and loss, has stood the test of time.

His clarion voice has an edge that would cut through the crowd chatter in any dusty Texas roadhouse then draw them to the dance floor. The baritone that he unleashes with this CD, “The Key’s In The Mailbox A Tribute to Tony Booth,” has the energy of his cajun/creole catalog but more evocative and downright Texas. Forget Price. This is pure Stroughmatt.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Dennis Stroughmatt and, unless you’re a die hard country music fan, of Tony Booth. Tony Booth’s albums were on permanent rotation on Stroughmatt’s father’s turntable when Dennis was a teenager. Booth topped the charts with a slew of hits in the early 1970s. He faded from the charts but he's still belting them out.

Dennis, fiddle in hand, reprises Tony Booth songs that mesmerized him when he was a kid. Tribute? Sort of. More like a gift to a boyhood hero. Stroughmatt picks 14 songs from the Booth archives and kills them. Each one is just under three minutes long, perfect for three-for-a-quarter in a juke box back in the day, and pull on your heart strings and make you yearn to find the nearest hardwood dance floor. There’s probably a verse in every song that you’ve lived yourself.

“Apartment No. 9,” “The Keys In The Mailbox,” Happy Hour,” “Second Fiddle,” I’ve Carried This Torch,” “He Don’t Deserve You Any More,” “Would You Settle For Roses,” Under Your Spell Again,” Cinderella,” …do you need to be told we’re talking heartache? The searing power of his voice reveals hurt and longing.  Its shimmering vibrancy tells you that no matter how strong the winds, the singer is going to weather the storm.

This is a CD of full-boil country swing Texas two-step honky tonk music that you're likely to wear out like Dennis's father wore out that first Tony Booth 33 rpm record back in the 1970s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwXBdnWvWDM

"The Key's In The Mailbox Come On In"...Tony Booth's version of this song got worn out on the Stroughmatt family's record player in the early 1970s...Dennis Stroughmatt does it proud in his tribute to Tony Booth today.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Margaritaville: Where It's Always 5 o'clock

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville
500 Duval Street
Key West, FL 33040
October 23, 2019

I doubt there’s anyone in America who hasn’t heard the song “Wastin’ Away in Margaritaville."  The real deal, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, is the Queen Bee of Duval Street and a hive of activity from morn till night.  Ol’ Jimmy has parlayed that song into an empire.

Whether they arrived by car or plane or stepped off a humongous cruise ship, the place is humming with tourists. There’s probably not a local in the joint except for the staff.  

“It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” to quote a line from one of Jimmy’s songs…translate, it’s time for a drink. You might not find your lost shaker of salt, but, as I can tell you from experience, you can toss down a first rate Margarita and a ridiculously fabulous burger from a menu that’s easy on the wallet.

2:13 PM, patrons from 28 to 78 are blissfully marinating on island time and the laid back sound trop rock, the kind of music that made Jimmy a millionaire. The only thing missing here at 500 Duval Street is sand and the smell of Coppertone.

Sooner or later, or maybe never, the patrons will find their way to the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservancy or the Harry S. Truman Little White House or the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum or the wondrous sites in Old Town Key West.

There are some hidden gems and seriously outlandish outposts among the scores of bars on this tiny island.  

Margaritaville is not Cheers, but everybody knows its name.

Hard to walk past 500 Duval Street without hankering for a margarita...

in Jimmy Buffett's place...

for an iconic drink rimmed with salt...

or a first rate cheeseburger...

with Jimmy or the house parrot looking over your shoulder...

and people from all walks of life...

enjoying the food...

and since this is the annual Fantasy Fest time, body paint artists just inside the door here and in stores up and down the street, are busy all day long

and a sense of humor reigns supreme...

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Songs Of Our Native Daughters: Attuned to history

Songs of Our Native Daughters


Featuring Rhiannon Giddens,(banjo, fiddle, vocals), Amythyst Kiah (guitar, vocals), Leyla McCalla (banjo, cello, vocals), Allison Russell (banjo, clarinet, vocals)


Tonight: Jason Sypher (standup bass), Jamie Dick (drums), Francesco Turrisi (piano, accordion)
Anderson Hall
, 205 South Main Street, Wolfeboro, NH


July 27, 2019

Pride and pain. These daughters don’t let you forget for one minute the pride and pain of the female black experience. In the pride department, they make damn sure you realize that the banjo, that many think of as the quintessential American instrument, is a descendant of gourd fashioned into a string instrument used by Africans long before the painful ascent of slavery. And the fact that their female ancestors endured beatings, rape, separations from kin, and survived, endured, and passed their resilience along to their daughters. The CD of the same name is a statement album. So was this show tonight.

Their set at Anderson Hall was electrifying. The songs, largely from their album "Songs of our Native Daughters", mine historic sources and define the group’s mission to reclaim, actually rejoice in, the stories of their forebears. The four musicians collaborated to work on songs whose lyrics are often third rail subject matter they sourced from troves of archives.

Even the most jolting of them, "Mama’s Cryin’ Long", reinforces strength and resolve. I don’t know how they managed to stitch together such gut-wrenching material in a way that levitates rather than depresses. They’re aiming for an emotional kick to wake you up, to open your white mind/heart to history that matters to them and they want, no, need, you to know about it.

The singing tonight is democratically shared, sometimes solo, often accompanied by one or many others and always with emotional grit. Their personal chemistry, forged over 12 days of composing in a cabin outside Lafayette, LA, as they created their album, bubbles, floats, and penetrates the hall. Voices? Distinct, passionate, charged with the particles of interpretation of historic sources that resonate inside their individual souls. The instruments in their hands are extensions of their inner spirits. When Leyla McCalla switches to cello, (3 minute mark at Newport Folk Festival the day after this show, 7-28-19), it brings an odd but effective European mix to the sound.

The women haven’t chosen popular chestnuts to sing. They’ve delved into 17th, 18th, and 19th century sources. In the spirit of singer songwriters the world over, they’ve re-interpreted old songs or created new songs from the original sources, and filtered them through personal experience. Tonight they’ve given this 98% white audience way up in Wolfeboro, NH, a window into history from a lens rarely so completely focused on their point of view. If there's a note on the music scale between affirmative and righteous, these women are singing in that key all night long.

When they charge into the joyous finale, "Up Above My Head, I Hear Music In The Air," they loosen up in an explosion of dance with Allison Russell swaying in her own mighty cloud of joy.

Foot stomping, hand clapping, banjo plucking, all had the ring of a front porch in the rural south or before that of a clearing in sub-Saharan Africa.

Music is the most soulful way to unearth and honor our various ethnic histories. "Songs Of Our Native Daughters" is a gem in that tradition.

Bringing down the spirit...

Standing ovation...

"Polly Ann's Hammer"...you may have heard of her husband, John Henry.

"Black Myself"

Grand Finale: "Up Above My Head, I Hear Music In The Air," popularized by legendary singer/guitar player Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1947...gospel leaning toward early rock 'n roll, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah are clearly the metaphorical daughters of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose story so clearly represents the strength and resolve of the women they are channeling tonight.

Up above our heads, I can feel the spirits of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Polly Ann Henry, and countless nameless heroines of the women on stage joining hands and shouting jubilant hallelujahs to their sisters on stage below.

Photos, videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

25th Annual Ride for ALS: Part 3 Photos, Videos

25th Annual Fund Raising Bike Ride for ALS

Ride to Defeat ALS, September 22, 2019

The Longfellow Health Club,  524 Boston Post Rd, Wayland, MA 01778

"I Ride For Nana"...

This pretty much summarizes the spirit of the day. Every one of the 305 riders carried the name of someone with ALS in their hearts or written on their bibs.Whether they rode the 70 mile ride (7 AM), the 50 mile ride (8:30 AM), the 25 mile ride (10 AM) or the 10 mile Family Ride (11 AM), they rode with purpose and the intent to end the scourge of ALS.  ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease, was identified in 1869. We have found cures for cancer. ALS...not yet.

An 'orphan disease' is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people nationwide. Approximately 5000 men and women are diagnosed with ALS every year. In 2018, an estimated 1,735,350 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the United States. It doesn’t take much math to see why ALS is considered an “orphan disease” and offers drug companies less incentive to fund research. Trust me, the researchers digging in to find a cure are as relentless as the disease in their work.

Despite the nature of this brutal disease that renders the body incapable of voluntary movement and eventually ability to speak, eat, move, and even breathe, the mood today was incongruously celebratory.

Out of the 365 days of the year, this was one day in which people dealing with ALS could smile, feel good, have a lighter heart precisely because of a manifest sense of togetherness and commonality of purpose, a tribe on the warpath to defeat ALS, here to raise money to find a cure and support the MA Chapter programs to care for their Nana’s, neighbors, fathers, mothers, colleagues...the list goes on.  The money raised today has a number. The spirits raised today is incalculable. The Ride to Defeat ALS puts the rubber on the road and galvanizes hope and action with this one day fund raiser.

Registration and Participant Center FAQs

Before, during, after...everything you need to know about the day's rides, plus fees and fund raising requirement FAQs here.

The 10 mile family ride assembles at 11 AM...

25th Anniversary Ride!

Mission accomplished for this day... researchers and care-givers resume their work tomorrow.

Carol Ranson, Myke Farricker, DJ Mr. Jonathan

Myke Farricker and a contingent of Rude Boys who rode in memory of  Pete "Wheels" Farricker

The 10 mile ride is sent on their way...

Team Hope...

Team Hope members in their blue shirts were all over the place today. So were AppleFriends4ALS, Team Roy, Dalpe's Victory Crusaders, Spirit Team, Wheels for Welchie, Mitch's Marauders, Johnny's Reply, Biogen Rolling Clones, and George's Team and a score more.

Special Events Coordinator and Myke Farricker (co-owner of The Longfellow Health Club) after sending off the 10 Mile ride

The Rude Boys raised $10,000 in honor of Pete "Wheels" Farricker, a member of the world champion Ultimate Frisbee Team

Ride founders Paul Tamburello and Myke Farricker with Special Events Coordinator Ashley Corbin

MA Chapter E.D. John Hedstrom, Special Events Coordinator Ashley Corbin

A hug from Dad...

Channel 5 Cindy Fitzgibbon, today's MC, opens the program

Food and beverages tent busy all day long

Motorcycles! A NEW 40 Mile motorcycle route that will leave from the Longfellow Health Club at 10:30 AM, and should take about 1 hour and 15 minutes to ride.

Revved up and ready to ride...a great new tradition to add horsepower to the anniversary ride...they'll be back again next year.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

25th Anniversary Ride for ALS: Notes From A Founder

The great grandmother (and first) of all bike ride fund raising events in the country...maybe even the world, for the ALS cause!

September 22, 2019 - 25th Anniversary Ride To Defeat ALS - 305 riders, 48 teams, about a dozen motorcycle riders (yes motorcycles!)  raised over $270,000 (and still counting) for research and for support services provided by the MA Chapter ALS Association

Months of planning and organizing rolled out perfectly under a sunny cloudless blue sky …Ashley Corbin's program script knitted together everything that sets this event apart, the deep sense of commitment to finding a cure, the involvement of people who have a direct stake in finding it - patients, their families and caregivers - and volunteers who want to be part of such a one of a kind event. Positively healing, nurturing, community building and soul-settling just by being there.

The beginning of the story...The first "A Positive Spin for ALS," a solo ride from Plymouth Rock to Provincetown, MA, happened in 1995,  created by Paul Tamburello. It later merged into the participatory event "Ride to Defeat ALS" staged from The Longfellow Health Club in Wayland, MA. It has raised over 2 million dollars for the ALS cause since 1995. A pretty good number considering approximately 5000 cases a year are diagnosed compared to an estimated 1,735,350 new cases of cancer that were diagnosed in the United States in 2018.

ALS organizations have come a long way since 1995, are better equipped to support men and women diagnosed with ALS, closer to a cure but not there yet. Yesterday was a flawlessly organized milestone, the 25th Anniversary Ride for the ALS, descended from  A Positive Spin for ALS,  the first and longest running bike ride find raiser in the USA for the ALS cause. 

This anniversary year, we resumed the "Roll Call of Honorary Riders," a feature of the original A Positive Spin for ALS. Myke Farricker co-owner of The Longfellow Health Clubs (and one of the founders of the fund raising bike ride with which Paul Tamburello merged his Positive Spin for ALS0 and I read the names of the men and women for whom todays bikers raised money and rode one of the four routes . Somber, reflective, celebratory all at once, it is what a musician friend of mine refers to as "Calling down the spirits."

 

The Rude Boys contingent reminds us every year of the the legacy of Pete “Wheels”  Farricker, their friend and teammate whose character so indelibly impacted the sport of Ultimate Frisbee that the organization created the Farricker Spirit Award ("The Farricker Spirit Award is given to the player in the men's division of the USA Ultimate's National Championship Series adjudged to have exhibited personal responsibility, integrity, and fairness combined with a high standard of playing ability.") They've come from near and far. If one of them couldn't get here, they rode a route somewhere else in Pete's honor.

 

I’m grateful for my friendship with Myke Farricker that began years ago when we met at a personal growth seminar and restarted when the Longfellow Club hosted a fund raising ride for ALS.

 

I thank the stars that Ashley Corbin took over the ride in 2016. Myke recalled that the number of riders and contributions  rose significantly every year since she took over. Numbers aren’t everything. How about adding having an open heart, being approachable, a good listener, being a certifiable inside and out of the box thinker with a well of energy deeper than Poland Springs. That begins to explain Ashley Corbin.

 

Vignettes from the day: 

+++

Small world connection - Steve Kowalski. a recently diagnosed man who works for Apple. I told him that my school system, Brookline, MA, was an early adopter of computer technology, and that in around 1986, my school, The Pierce School, received a lab full of Apple IIe desktops. My job was to learn how to use them then teach my fourth graders how to use them. His response floored me.

 

“I was involved in the rollout of that computer,” he says, then says, “Do you know Jane Manzelli?” 

 

“Yes! She was a motivating force promoting computer technology, gave us in-service workshops, told us this was the wave of the future, and she was right. She also lived in Watertown a half mile away from me.”

 

“I worked with her to get those computers into your system!” Steve says.

 

When I give him my email address so he can send me a confirmation for my donation that Apple will match, he smiles when he sees my Apple email address. Amazing...You could have knocked me over with a feather.

 

Steve tells me that in order to be doubled, I need to write the check to him and he will send to Apple. “You won’t be able to claim your contribution as a deduction since you’re making it out for me but it will be doubled,” Steve says.

 

In honor of the 25th anniversary, I donated $100 for each year of the ride. Whatever deduction I might gain was dwarfed by the fact that Apple would match the funds employee Steve Kowalski made to this fund raiser.  Steve's team (AppleFriends4ALS) received the "Most Spirited Team Award."

 

This out of the blue connection was stunning, right out the theory of six degrees of separation.

 +++

Doug McIlvaine, recently diagnosed, was the bravest speaker today. He started shaky and like an engine pulling a heavy load, picked up speed. I watched in awe and admiration as he gained momentum and purpose telling us how he wanted to live his life after being diagnosed and finished by hammering home the theme of hope (his Team Hope was everywhere today). Today we matched Hope with action. The positive effect of his message was not lost on anyone today.

+++

Roland’s wife Sandy ( on the Honorary Rider list) died May 2, a little over 4 months ago. Their son Austin borrowed a bike to ride in last year's event. He got the cycling bug, bought his own bike and rode today. A very together young man, he said his dad was waffling about coming to the ride, that he encouraged him to come. Roland not only showed up but did the 25 mile ride. Good medicine for both of them. Austin tells me how he and his dad cared for Sandy, managed the feeding tube, daily suction of saliva from her mouth, and the support, equipment, and advice  from MA Chapter ALS Association. There was alot of love between father and son as sometimes their roles reversed. And hundreds of very brave people taking part in the Ride to Defeat ALS.

 +++

Larry Shaps, whose brother has ALS, tells me about the book “Chicken Soup For The Soul” by Joan London , The Caregiver Edition.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13259702-chicken-soup-for-the-soul

 

Larry talked at length and with gratitude for the support from MA Chapter ALS Association for equipment, resources to manage the disease,  and the comfort of human connections when they needed it.  Scores of people here today got love and support from the MA chapter. That and the inclusive community nature of the event are what drives them here.

 +++

Music...from morning right to the finale. Mr. Jonathan Is My DJ is a whiz at reading a crowd. The guy has a library in his laptop that could fuel a two week party. He picks music that's keeps the mood festive and upbeat in just the right balance.

 

“We’re singing this for Ash…” Devri an Irish/Country/ Western Swing band with energy to spare sings…”500 Miles,”released in 1988 by The Proclaimers, a Scottish band composed of identical twin brothers, Charlie and Craig Reid (born 5 March 1962, in Leith) “We de do it at a faster pace than the original” says Declan. leader of the band, after the song finished and boy oh boy they rock it with fierce foot stompin’ energy.

+++

Motorcycles

That was the coolest new wrinkle in the 25th ride. A bunch of motorcycle dudes and gals all decked out in their gear, they were an imposing sight at last year's ride. I asked  one of them what the connection was and learned a friend was riding for a motorcycle buddy diagnosed with ALS. Ashley Corbin connected with them. "Ride on your motorcyles!"  It makes so much sense. It invites this tight community to do something that gives the public a kinder and more gentle outlook on them as a group often stereotyped negatively.

 

+++

A contingent of Rude Boys (and Girls)

This group of former Ultimate Frisbee champions contributes $10,000 every year to the ride in Pete's name. They have become one of the signature teams and contributors of this ride. The way they bond as a community, attack the ride in their own in imitable style, is a testament to Pete’s charisma, sportsmanship, and spirit and it's effect on everyone who played with or against him in his career of playing Ultimate Frisbee...that would include these Rude Boys  who unfailingly bring the spirit with them every time they take to the road in Pete’s honor. How much of an impact did Pete have on the game? How about the USA Ultimate, The United States National Governing Body for the Sport of Ultimate creating a Spirit of the Game Award in 2002: Farricker Spirit Award is given to the player in the men's division of the USA Ultimate's National Championship Series adjudged to have exhibited personal responsibility, integrity, and fairness combined with a high standard of playing ability.

+++

More Pete

One more thing from the website link above: About Peter Farricker

Peter "Wheels" Farricker was a person of spirit — teammate, friend, brother, son, husband and father. He was swift, clever, funny, smart, kind, and he attracted people with an ease and calmness many admired. Fair on the field, he was strong in skill, superior outside the lines. He was champion in many ways. Taken seriously without being overly serious, loved by many, he was and is for many of us a model of what we hope we can be.

 ++++

The Domino effect

Pete would  appreciate that that there were dozens of riders and men and women on Sunday who, like  him,  exemplified spirit and courage. It was inspiring...the beauty of it is that it rubbed off on anyone who witnessed it.

Photo courtesy of Jarvis Chen

Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

25th Annual Ride for ALS: Routes, Details

2019 Route Descriptions

70 Mile Route  - 6:00 am Check in- 7:00 am Start
50 Mile Route  - 7:30 am Check in- 8:30 am Start
25 Mile Route  - 9:00 am Check in- 10:00 am Start
10 Mile Route   -10:00am Check in- 11:00 am Start

All rides will start and finish at the premier racquet and fitness facility, The Longfellow Club, and ride through the scenic suburbs of Boston.

The 70-Mile Ride | 7:00 AM Start

Riders will journey through “The Crossroads of New England”.  These riders will be riding a combination of the 50 and 25 mile route and get a tour of the scenic Metro-West region.

Riders on the route are fully-supported by the Safety Team, SAG Team, and rest stops strategically located throughout the routes.

The 50-Mile Ride | 8:30 AM Start

Riders will start their ride through the peaceful open spaces of Wayland and ride through the charming Village of Sudbury.  Riders will be thrilled to arrive in the “outdoor lovers’ paradise” of Hudson with its’ scenic New England charm.  As they continue to cycle, riders will be treated to the picturesque community of Bolton and then onto the beautiful sights of the small community of Stow which boasts several apple orchards.  After breezing through the forests of Acton, the riders will then embark upon the “natural world of beauty” in Concord and finish back at the Longfellow Club in Wayland.

Riders on the route are fully-supported by the Safety Team, SAG Team, and rest stops located every 4-10 miles.

The 25-Mile Ride | 10:00 AM Start

Riders will start their ride through the semi-rural setting of Wayland and ride through the open spaces of forests, marshes and fields which surround the river.  They will then go through Sudbury’s charming village taking in the picturesque atmosphere of wildlife and conservation land.  Riders will have a quick spin through Concord’s natural world of beauty and then back through Sudbury and to the finish at the Longfellow Club.

Riders on the route are fully-supported by the Safety Team, SAG Team, and rest stops located every 4-10 miles.

The 10 Mile Family Ride | 11:00 AM Start

Riders will start their ride through the semi-rural setting of Wayland and ride the peaceful open spaces to Sudbury.  Here they will enjoy the beauty of this charming historic mill village and serene neighborhoods.  The ride will bring them back to the Longfellow Club

Riders on the route are fully-supported by the Safety Team and SAG Team.

++++++++++++++

Before the Ride

Safety Training
The strength and endurance required to complete a ride will vary depending on your fitness level.  To train, start with a length of time that you are comfortable with, then work your way up gradually to just below the miles you have committed.  Consider cross-training in your training plan to decrease injury while building muscular strength and cardiovascular fitness.

Experimenting with cycling gear, nutrition and hydration is an essential part of training.  Use trial and error to figure out how your body reacts to specific gear, fluids and snacks during exercise. Always, listen to your body. Drink when you are thirsty. Eat when you are hungry. Stop and rest when you are tired. Make sure you have adequate sleep. Eat small amounts of carbohydrates every hour during exercise to maintain your blood sugar and provide your muscles with a source of fuel.  Alternate between water and sports drink. This combination of beverages will help replace the nutrients your body is using and may prevent dehydration or mineral imbalances that are common during endurance activities. 

Fundraising
We have many online tools to help you get to your goal! Click here to access the 2018 Rider Packet or e-mail ashley.corbin@als-ma.org to learn more!

Chapter Communications
Make sure to check your email and our Facebook page to stay up to date on the latest news!

During the Ride

Check-In
You’ll need to stop by the check-in area to pick it your registration packet the morning of the event. Your packet includes a goodie bag with cool stuff from sponsors, a Ride t-shirt, rider number bib. You must meet the $250 fundraising minimum before you can Ride. You must check back in with the registration volunteers to let us know you have returned to the Longfellow Club safely. 

Jersey Orders
If you've raised $500 by the morning of the event, you can order your jersey at the Jersey Order table. If you're not sure what size to order, please try on one of the samples. (If you have not raised the $500, you will have 4 weeks after the event to meet the minimum. We will contact you about your size.)

Day-of Registration
If you are registering on event day, you will be required to pay the registration fee, $75, and the $250 fundraising minimum.

Meals
Each rest stop will be stocked with goodies to keep you going! Lunch will be served, starting at 12 PM, until the last rider gets back to the Longfellow Club.

Route Markings & Maps
The routes will be marked in a color corresponding to the distance you are riding. It will be posted on this site and also reviewed before each wave of riders departs. Maps (aka cue sheets) will be available for download through the Participant Center and will also be at the maps table next to check-in and at the start line.

Safety Team
We will have a SAG vehicle prepared to pick you up along the route, should you have any bike maintenance or medical issues. We will have medical personnel and bike maintenance volunteers at the Longfellow Club in case you need immediate medical attention or need simple bike maintance. Please make sure you pick up the cue sheet at the registration table with the cell phone number to call in case of emergencies. 

Rest Stops
Rest stops are located every 4-10 miles. The route maps will show the distance to each rest stop. Each rest stop will have water, gatorade, and snacks to keep you hydrated and fueled to continue on your ride. 

Finish Line
Once you cross the finish line, there will be plenty of food, music, and activities for the family. 

25th Annual Ride for ALS: Part 1

2019 RIDE PROGRAM

Sunday, September 22, 2019
Longfellow Tennis and Health Club
Wayland, MA

The great grandmother (and first) of all bike ride fund raising events in the country...maybe even the world, for the ALS cause!

12:15 PM –
John Hedstrom, MA Chapter ALS Association E.D.:

"Welcome to the 2019 Ride to Defeat ALS – and it’s the 25th anniversary of the ride! It’s great to see so many people gathered here today to raise awareness, for ALS, and to raise funds to support our cutting-edge research, vital patient care services and critical advocacy work at both the state and federal levels."

John introduces Cindy Fitzgibbon

"Back for her 3rd year as our Emcee is Cindy Fitzgibbon of NewsCenter 5's EyeOpener and Midday Meteorologist. Fitzgibbon is active in the Natick community where she lives with her husband and two boys.
It is my pleasure to introduce Cindy Fitzgibbon, Channel 5 Meteorologist, who will serve as our MC today."

Cindy Fitzgibbon:

"We’re not only here to show our support for those with ALS and their families, but we’re also here to raise essential funds that help the ALS Association provide support and services right here in the Massachusetts. Your fundraising dollars support things like home visits for newly diagnosed patients, support groups, insurance and benefits counseling, medical equipment loaners and funding the Curt and Shonda Shilling Certified Treatment Center of Excellence in Burlington."

"Last year, we introduced a new program called our Quality of Life Grants program. Grants of $500 per patient are awarded for items such as generators, DME Repairs, personal emergency response systems, hospital beds and transportation. With this program, we have been able to assist more than 40 families, to offset some of the extreme cost of care. We have seen the importance of giving support to children who have a loved one affected by ALS with our involvement for the past 4 years with the Hope Loves Company camp. To continue the outreach of support for kids, we have added a Y Cares Program to our fall symposium which will provide them with education about ALS. Our Technology Integration Specialist, Elisabeth Dolloff has increased the technology and communication program for the chapter exponentially. We have more communication devices and equipment than ever, and she has worked diligently this past year to help set up a program to provide specialized equipment and resources for those with ALS to be able to do voice banking, which allows them to have their own voice linked to technology."

"These are real-life services which help our neighbors, friends, and family and they would not be possible without your help. Thank you to all of you who raised funds for today’s Ride!"

"We would now like to take a moment to personally recognize today’s top fundraisers and top teams. A huge thank you to each and every one of you for your dedication and extraordinary efforts to help us further our mission!"

Special Events Coordinator Ashley Corbin presents awards as Cindy reads the names.

"Top Fundraiser: Geoff Marchant

If the team captain for the following teams could come forward and collect the prizes for your team:

Top Fundraising Team: Team Hope
Rookie Team of the Year: Team Hope OR Johnny’s Reply TBD
Most Spirted Team: AppleFriends4ALS

Congratulations! Give yourself a much-deserved round of applause!"

"The Massachusetts Chapter staff is made up of a group of dedicated people who worked tirelessly, and show tremendous commitment to the advancement of the mission of The ALS Association."

"Let’s meet the staff. Please wave when I introduce you:
John Hedstrom, Executive Director
David Bodah, Deputy Executive Director
Ashley Vellante, Special Events Manager
Loretta Lane, Communications and Advocacy Manager
Shannon Sullivan, Care Services Manager
Eileen Garry, Care Services Coordinator
John Adebayo, Care Services Coordinator
Elisabeth Dolloff- Speech and Language Pathologist and AAC Specialist
Heidi Henderson, Finance Manager

And last but not least…the person responsible for organizing this spectacular event -

Ashley Corbin, Special Events Manager"

"We are grateful to the many businesses that have supported our ride this year by becoming a corporate sponsor."

"A huge thank you to our 2019 Corporate Sponsors Victory HVAC, Village Bank, AASP-MA, Environmental Chemical, The Longfellow Health Club and Franks Spoke N Wheel. Our Ride Route Sponsors and Partners: Zarb Corporation, Accurate Graphics, High5Em, Castle Island Brewery, Mobility Works, Assabet River Bicycles, Atkinson Pool, Cultivate Care Farm, and Lincoln Sudbury High School."

"Special thanks to our lunch sponsors: Blue Ribbon BBQ, Jose’s Mexican Restaurant, and Crosby Marketplace.

We would also like to thank our in-kind sponsors for their generous donations to the event.

A couple of housekeeping reminders, - be sure to stop by the Tribute Wall to add a note or photo to share why you rode today. Also, if you haven’t already done so, make you sure you get a Ride Team picture with our excellent professional photographer, Jarvis Chen. Jarvis give a wave so people know who you are!"

Cindy introduces Patient Speaker Doug McIlavaine

"Our next speaker is here with his new ride team, Team Hope, who have been a huge part of the ride this year. He was diagnosed with ALS earlier this year and is here today to share his story with you. Please join me in welcoming Doug McIlavaine."

Doug shares his story. (5 minutes)
Back to Cindy

"Thank you Doug for your courage and sharing your story with us."

"A special recognition today is to a couple of important people, who without them, there would not be a Ride to Defeat ALS. Paul Tamburello started the ride 25 years ago, and  teamed up with Myke Farricker in 2002. Their original “Positive Spin for ALS” was the first bikeathon in the country dedicated to raising money for research and services for those with ALS. Myke graciously hosts us every year here at the Longfellow Health Club and goes above and beyond to support the event. We would like to invite both of them up here, and Paul is going to share some important history of the Ride."

Paul Tamburello speaks:
"Welcome to the great grandmother of all ALS Fund Raising Bike Rides…!
Every one of us here today has someone riding on our shoulders. 

They’re our Honorary Riders, with us in spirit or in person."

"A little history: In my appeal letters before my solo rides from Plymouth Rock to Provincetown, I included an insert with a return envelope that said, “I will place the names of all contributors in my bike bag when I wheel to Provincetown. Whether you wish to contribute or not, if you know the names of any ALS patients, past or present, whom you want to “ride” with me, please send their names to me. I will be honored with their company.”

Every name got packed into my bike bag on the handlebars. To commemorate and to celebrate the spirit of the Honorary Riders, Myke Farricker, Susan Lyman of Provincetown, and I stood on the jetty at the end of Route 6A to read the names of those men and women in what we called a “Roll Call of Honorary Riders.”

Names matter.

We’re about to reintroduce that powerful tradition today. In the words of a musician friend, “We’re calling down the spirit.”

Before we begin, I have to tell you one story. Scrawled on the insert returned to me before the 1999 Positive Spin for ALS was this note…”Bring Sally for the ride, she’d love it. Smoking Section, though. TEE HEE” in caps.

I called the sender and told him that until this year my bike bag had been a “Smoke Free” zone, but after receiving his letter, I opened a Smoking Section and sat his mom, “Smokin’ Sally,” smack in the middle of it. We both laughed at the image. I’m sure everyone in this crowd knows living with ALS doesn’t mean living without laughter.  Honorary riders, get ready!"

Myke Farricker (co-owner of The Longfellow Club) and Paul read the names. See list below...We thank each of you riders for being here today, and for riding in honor of your loved ones.

Back to Cindy

"We now have a few special awards we would like to present to some teams who have been an extensive part of our Ride.
Could we have a team captain from each of the following teams: Inker’s/Cathy’s Team, Spirit Team, George’s Team and Team Roy. You are being recognized today for your annual participation in the ride for 10 plus years!
Could we also have a team captain from each of the following teams: Boston Aussie’s, Dave Z’s Antiques, Hudson Outbacks, Team BuLL, Team Beson, Mitch’s Marauders, Shelley’s Heroes and Team Mrs. B – all of you have been part of the ride for 5 plus years. Let’s give a huge round of applause to these teams for their amazing dedication!

Now let’s celebrate all that has been accomplished here today and for the past 25 years – enjoy your lunch and stick around for the band!"

Note: DJ Mr. Jonathan was busy spinning upbeat music all morning long as teams assembled, rode, and returned to The Longfellow Club in Wayland. The band Devri treated the crowd to more upbeat music when the speaking program ended. Lots of positive energy all day long.

HONORARY RIDERS

 

25th Anniversary Ride for ALS: Part 2: Message from the Special Events Coordinator

September 22, 2019

The great grandmother (and first) of all bike ride fund raising events in the country...maybe even the world, for the ALS cause!

Message from Special Events Coordinator Ashley Corbin...

"It is hard to begin to find the words to express the genuine appreciation and thankfulness that we have for each of you who participated in our 2019 Ride to Defeat ALS. Yesterday was an incredible day from start to finish and each of you who were with us yesterday - whether you were a rider, volunteer, family member or part of someone's cheer squad, you all made the day the most memorable ride that we have ever had!! It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, and see the hugs that were given out as if it was a large family reunion - and that is what we are, we are a family in this fight together!! The bar was set high for this year, and you all took on that goal and did an incredible job making this event a huge success!! With our 48 teams, and a total of 305 riders, you all not only reached the $260,000 goal but went over the goal at $270,000 and counting!! 

The amount of love, encouragement and hope was present in every part of the day, and we have all of you to thank for being there and pouring your hearts in to this ride. The sun was shining down on our celebration of 25 years of riding to end ALS, and we cherish the memories we shared with all of you yesterday, and we look forward to many more in the future!! We would also like to thank our wonderful photographer Jarvis for capturing the day for us - here is the link to his photos from this year! 2019 Ride to Defeat ALS

From the bottom of my heart, and from all off us at the MA ALS Association - THANK YOU!!!! 

Love, Ashley Corbin and MA ALS Association Staff

Photo courtesy of Jarvis Chen

Mr. Rogers: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

July 24, 2019

Stop what you're doing. Set aside ten minutes to read a story about Fred Rogers that will change your life for a few minutes or maybe forever. The stop and set aside ten minutes is not negotiable. You might start skimming the story. Sorry. Not possible. By the fourth paragraph you'll be hooked by a story that grabs you by the lapels and lets go only after the final word. Stories like this just don't come around that often.

The story about Fred Rogers made me laugh out loud, cry, sob, think of life in ways in which I've forgotten register it. A tour of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood from its birth to its place in heaven...the story  will remind you of all that is important in life.

The innate ability of this man to connect deeply, intuitively, intentionally, with men, women, children, strangers, his TV audience... a rare gift - that's Mr. Rogers. Never overt, the power of prayer, simple, unadorned, unaffected, and a well of empathy deeper than the ocean, motivated him. So did grace, found in every corner of the man's life and neighborhood.

Mr. Rogers' story unearthed the entrance to my own rabbit hole of memories, over time buried with the turf of life, illuminated nooks and touched chords, like the ones Mr. Rogers played on his piano, and practically ordered me, with a need that took me by surprise and fullness of heart, to sing along.

The story by Tom Junod, a journalist who slowly, with an initial bit of skepticism, found his way into Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as he shadowed the man over time in 1998 and updated in 2017 is the most deeply realized story you'll read in a long, long, time.

Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers in a "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood", a film based on Tom Junod's story, will be released in late 2019...Hanks, who can convey the natural grace of Fred Rogers with the ease of, well, Mr. Rogers himself, and right around Thanksgiving...how perfect.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-hero-esq1198/

 

Block Party: THE VIDEOS: A Touch of New Orleans on Pearl Street

Saturday, May 18, 2019

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/05/block-party-a-touch-of-new-orleans-on-pearl-street.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/05/block-party-a-touch-of-new-orleans-on-pearl-street.html

 

Block Party: A Touch of New Orleans on Pearl Street

Saturday, May 18, 2019, Watertown, MA

4:30 PM – 8:30 PM

The Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street Neighborhood Block Party was a Saturday afternoon blockbuster in all the right ways.

This was the great grandmother of all block parties. All the right stuff: high-grade potluck food, both sweet and savory, covered the tables set up on Pearl Street (closed to traffic between Fayette and Palfrey). The desserts donated by resident Nobuko Maruyama from her bakery Koko were a big hit.

Little kids were playing games and drawing on the pavement with huge stubby pieces of chalk, while their parents were chilling alongside them. And neighbors cheerfully chatted on this, the most gloriously sunny and warm spring day of the year after a brutally cold, rainy,  blustery stretch of days since Spring officially began on March 20.

I had no idea what was in store for us later in the afternoon when it rolled from a sedate gathering to a rollicking Second Line street dance to the hot-as-boiled-crawfish sounds of The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club of Somerville, MA… but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

On the social side of things…

Libby Shaw, President of “Trees for Watertown,” the thriving, green, non-profit organization founded by my Oliver Street neighbor, the late Adelaide Sproul, delivered an update of the organization's work. Another neighbor, David Meshoulam, Director of Teens for Trees, recognized teens who volunteer for the program. I don’t have to tell you what an investment it is for the kids of Watertown to become stakeholders in the organization.

The organizers asked us to bring non-perishable items for the Watertown Food Pantry…we did.

 At 5:15 PM Neighbor Richard Herman stepped up to the mic, banjo in hand, playing sing-alongs for the kids, joined by Carole Tierney on the accordion.

At 6:00 PM  The Great Hawthorne/Oliver/Palfrey/Pearl Street block party is cruising right along. A bunch of festively dressed men and women walk up the street. Is that a tuba? No, two tubas! And they’re breaking out trombones, saxophones, and a big ‘ol bass drum emblazoned with “Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club” on its side.

Whoa, Mama! Am I dreaming? A brass band...on Pearl Street?

They bolt out of the gate with a New Orleans rolling thunder brass band classic “Do Whatcha Wanna” and are airborne for the next hour. My neighbors do what any self-respecting New Orleaneans would do...they break out their second line moves.  

If I close my eyes, I could be standing in front St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square where brass bands play with joyful abandon from morn till night. This band is out of the same mold. They got swagger! Directed by the spirited sax player, trombone, saxophones and trumpets blast full-tilt funky brass band solos. Bass and snare drums pound out rhythms that translate immediately to the feet of everyone within earshot. 

Swingin', swayin' and occasionally singin', the band is having fun. I am in a delicious near out-of-body experience,  reveling in the midst of authentic, honest-to-goodness brass band playing and second-line style dancing I usually travel thousands of miles to New Orleans to savor. I AM A FIVE-MINUTE WALK FROM MY HOUSE!!! 

My neighbors - people I see walking their dogs, pushing their kids up the street in carriages, gardening - become transformed and are stylin’ with improvised moves I see in the Tremé or the Marigny or at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I REPEAT…FIVE MINUTES FROM MY HOUSE!

New Orleans music, brass bands and all, is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic gumbo that combines music played and sung by slaves in Congo Square in the late 1800s with European military band music, rhythms from Cuba and the Caribbean, and music made by black and white musicians from way before Louis Armstrong till today. There is no music on earth quite like it.

Music, second-line dancing, and food are the H the 2 and the O of New Orleans culture. When you hear a brass band, you know there’s a funeral, a wedding, or a spontaneous ignition of joy coming down the street.

As of today, I'll have to add a Watertown neighborhood block party to that list.

Big props to the Watertown Community Foundation for covering some of the costs and to our block party hosts: Eileen Ryan, Heather Caldwell, Lisa Cole, and David Meshoulam. Their brilliant idea to invite The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Club Brass Band helped us reconnect after a long winter and listen and dance to the uplifting music of a brass band…social aid and pleasure indeed!

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Video above by Dan Usher

 

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Pizza Roma: Pizza Parlor, Mood Elevator

A first time visit for a slice of pizza on the day before Easter inspired this story…local owner-operated places like this and people like Tony are getting scarce, if you’ve got ones around you, give them some love.

 

Pizza Roma

212 Waverly Avenue

Watertown, MA

April 20, 2019...the day before Easter Sunday

 

Fabulous pizza but the floorshow is da bomb. No sooner do you walk into the shoebox size pizza parlor and the chatter begins.
 
Joe is happy doing two things: making pizza and regaling customers with stories, boasts, and wise cracks. We’re in a chapel in which soft dough is communion and a huge steel oven is the chalice that will consecrate it before serving it to us.  Father Tony is our pastor on this day before Easter.
 
It’s not on a scale with the miracle of the loaves and fishes but Father Joe can replicate making a perfect pizza all day long. He cuts a rectangular hunk from a mound of dough on his podium and within minutes a transformation on the order of water into wine transpires right in front of my eyes. He knows the tactile geography of a round of dough like a man knows the contours of his lover’s body. His palms and stubby fingers shape, smooth, stretch, and pat the yielding dough into a perfect thin circle with pride, self-satisfaction, and well, a with the devotion of a man of the cloth forming a sacrament from flour, water and eggs.
 
He’s standing just inside the entrance in front of the window on Waverly Avenue in Watertown, MA, piled high with pizza boxes soon to be filled and handed to customers who call ahead or come to sit down and enjoy the show while they wait. He notices everything and everybody.
 
“I used to live nearby and moved to Waltham,” says the young woman sitting on one of the six stools arranged against the wall of the place with a wingspan of about ten feet. “I miss the place and I brought my boyfriend here to taste this wonderful pepperoni pizza we’re taking home.”
 
On the left as soon as you walk in is Joe with every topping for a pizza in trays an arms length in front of him. The huge oven and the trusty wooden paddle to insert and remove perfectly cooked thin crust pizzas is right behind him. I would bet money that Joe could make a margarita pizza blindfolded.
 
Every move he makes is done with the economy of movement of a man who’s done it thousands of times. The bonus is that he can sing, joke, tell a story, pose for a photo, and talk to the customers without missing a beat while making a perfect pizza in the process.
 
The man is a born showman. Proud of his artisan-ship, he has more anecdotes than boxes of pizza piled up in the window, and is waiting for the perfect time to regale you with some inspired antic. He was born to do this. You walk out of Roma Pizza feeling better, in a better mood, than when you walked in. Aside from the guy the woman from Waltham brought in, I appear to be the only first-time customer.
 
It is impossible to be here without him engaging you.  This is his stage. We are the paying audience. But we’re getting way more than we’re paying for. I would pay a cover charge to just sit down for half an hour and witness the zany unpredictable interactions that are bound to happen.
 
Aside from everything else this might be the safest store in Watertown. It’s not unusual to see one of Watertown’s finest pop in for a slice or a sub or a good laugh on a day when he could use Tony’s banter to ease a day of tension from being with people who are a light year away from knowing what it’s like to be in Tony’s open-hearted universe.

Irrepressible Joe...

Spaghetti and Meatball..."He calls me Meatball, I'm short and round. I call him Spaghetti, he's like a piece of linguini!" says Joe.

what a team

In a matter of minutes one of the orbs of dough in the pan at Joe's left is transformed into a smooth thin perfect circle of dough waiting to be topped with fresh ingredients...

 

for example, this pepperoni pizza these customers came all the way from Waltham to take home.

212 Waverley Avenue, Watertown, MA...Pizza Roma!


The tiniest of all seven storefronts along a short block of stores at the corner of Orchard and Waverly Streets in Watertown.

 

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Notre Dame In Tears

April 15, 2019

Gone..."the forest" of oak timbers that framed the  east end of the 850-year-old cathedral, the spire, the conical lead-lined roof, and lord knows how much of the interior paintings, relics, statuary, stained glass, in a fire that brought Paris and much of the world to its knees in sorrow.

Notre Dame...is it necessary to add "of Paris"? There is only one. If you've seen it, felt its history drape over your shoulders as you entered its cavernous Gothic interior, smelled the pungent aroma of incense and burning wax candles, often visible in the haze of a technicolor shaft of daylight slanting through the nave, you never forget it.  And how, you wondered, is it possible to feel so close to an almighty spirit in a church that can hold 6000...and learn that what are called flying buttresses along its exterior walls were necessary architectural devices to keep them from collapsing from the weight above. Where to look? At the vaulted ceiling a mile overhead? At the enormous pillars the size of sequoia trees that shoulder the weight. At the fierce faced gargoyles? And be overcome by a sense of serenity in the midst of the thousands of others who are in the massive cocoon with you. The tops of the two towers on the west end are barely visible behind the transept and the spire in the photo above.

The Notre Dame east end on the Isle de la Cité...April in Paris 2007...grace and symmetry, gravitas and grandeur, artistic architecture with the dual pulls of gravity and the celestial.

The most iconic view of Notre Dame are the massive twin Gothic towers (pictured in photos at bottom) that front the west end facade on the Isle de la Cité, a small island on The Seine River in the middle of Paris. The the apse at the east end (above) behind the two towers with its conical roof, intricate carvings and graceful flying buttresses steal the show. So impressive is the intricate stone work, statuary, graceful curves coaxed from limestone by the chisels of artisans for over nearly 200 years (1163-1345). The top of one the twin Gothic bell towers is barely visible behind the spire.

Prayers echo through the cathedral, rise like the wafts of incense drifting heavenward toward the vaulted ceiling.

Towering marble columns...

Ancient wooden pews worn smooth by constant use over centuries, with small chapels at each side of the center nave.

The radiating spokes of the South Rose Stained Glass Window, installed around 1260, 12.9 meters in diameter, 84 panes of  glass. One of the best examples of European stained glass construction ...the smoke of incense that day is benign, yesterday's conflagration, a savage accident. What has survived?

Has she survived?

A place of solace and individual contemplation, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of votive candles burn day and night, each one symbolizing a prayer...reports are that many of the votive candles were still burning after the fire in the cathedral was extinguished...think about that.

Entering the cathedral, I immediately felt safe and removed from the hubub of the outside world. If I had x-ray vision, surely I could see Heaven hovering just over the vaulted ceiling.

Alone, if not with God then with your spiritual core, and in the arms of a universal embrace in which religious affiliation is second to affiliation with your fellow human beings. An overwhelming sense of tranquility settles over my conscious state, a sense of peace beyond understanding.

Notre Dame, considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, is the jewel of Paris, rising majestically on the Isle de la Cité, the Seine River the aqueous ring in which it is set. Its innovative use of the rib vault and flying buttress, enormous radiating stained glass windows and carved limestone has the stature of one of the architectural wonders of the world. 

The iconic view of one of the most famous Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages.

Notre Dame on the Isle de la Cité in the heart of Paris. The two 69 meter towers are visible behind the apse and 750-ton  295 foot-tall spire which sat over the transept and altar of the cathedral. Pont Saint Louis Bridge. The Palais de Justice, the French Supreme Court, is to the right.

Pont de la Tournelle with Notre Dame in background. 13 million visitors a year to this medieval cathedral...averaging 30,000 visitors a day!

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. April in Paris 2007. https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2007/04/pt_in_pareean_a.html This sad news may bring more posts from Paris before this rueful day.

Unbearable loss...a test for Parisians and for all who have memories of "Our Lady".

Getty Images

 

Hemingway, Cuba, and Boston Connections In The News

April 12, 2019

San Francisco de Paula

Finca Vigía in the news...

The $1.2 million dollar conservation center built by the Boston-based Finca Vigía Foundation intended to preserve the legacy of Ernest Hemingway opened last week on the grounds of Finca Vigía, the Cuban villa on the outskirts of Havana where the novelist lived from 1939 to 1960.

https://www.wpi.edu/news/restoring-finca-vigia-hemingway-s-home-havana

The Finca Vigía Foundation was founded in 2002 by Jenny and Frank Phillips and Congressman James McGovern (MA). The late Jenny Phillips is the grandaugher of Ernest Hemingway's editor and longtime friend Maxwell Perkings. Board of Directors member Bob Vila, a Cuban-American, is well known as host of the home improvement TV program "This Old House."

https://fincafoundation.org/preservation-effort-makes-hemingways-cuba-home-look-like-he-never-left/

May 1960, only time the men met, Fidel scored first prize and won a silver trophy at Hemingway's annual marlin fishing contest.

http://www.cuba-hemingway.net/en/ernestfidel.asp

 

 

Hemingway, Cuba, Boston, and The Old Man and The Sea

Hemingway, Cuba, Boston and The Old Man and The Sea
Hemingway Museum, "Finca Vigía"
San Francisco de Paula
12 miles from Havana
April 7, 2019

Cuba and Ernest Hemingway. Just about everyone knows the names and has opinions about them. Few know about Finca Vigía, one of the man’s favorite refuges 12 miles outside Havana. 

It had everything that mattered to Papa…it was close to the sea, far enough from Havana for him to relax on his own terms, large enough to host parties with literati and movie stars with names like Ava Gardner, located on a rise that offered a panoramic view of Havana, and close enough to El Floridita , his favorite watering hole in Havana, where Constantino Ribalaigua would be waiting, shaker in hand, ready to mix a "Papa Doble." 

The main home, guest quarters, outdoor pool, his dry-docked yacht “Pilar,” have been an international tourist attraction for years.  Although Hemingway’s home on twelve-acre site is called a museum it’s the only museum I’ve ever been to that you can’t get inside. 

Along with other tourists piling out of tour buses on my visit in 2015, I walked around the back of the sprawling house gawking into windows and felt like an extra on the set of the TV series called  “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”  I don’t know why a bathroom or living room once occupied by a larger than life character becomes a tourist attraction but there I was getting in position to photograph the orderly interior through the windows, closed to keep the interior climate controlled and the public from rummaging through the man's library, closets, and desk drawers.

Ernest Hemingway was a brand way before the term became fashionable. His handsome mustachioed face was on a black and white cover of the September 1, 1952 Life Magazine, the gold standard of the American Dream in the 1940s and 1950s. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He often wintered at Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm). Between 1939 and 1961, Hemingway spent more time in Cuba than in any other place on earth. 

Peering inside those windows, walking around the Pilar and the empty pool, I conjure the magic and mystique of the man whose books I read as a college student. I imagine the musty scent of those books that line the shelves and the hands that leafed through them. The artifacts in the house, all in a state as if he’d just left for an afternoon of banging down his favorite daiquiris at El Floridita, are vaguely connecting with an experience that began after my youthful reading of 'A Farewell To Arms' then later 'The Old Man And The Sea'.

The lookout tower, a few steps from Hemingway’s house, is open to the public. The one room at the top is a perfect Hemingway scene…ancient Corona typewriter, a telescope, bookshelves, and portrait of Hemingway on safari in Africa are juice enough to imagine the man, cigar clenched between teeth, clattering away on the vintage typewriter and taking occasional breaks to peer through that telescope to see the weather in Havana. I'm standing in a tourist attraction that feels more like a shrine. A sense of reverence seems to float over the site like the smoke from one of Papa’s cigars.

Cuba is changing and by Cuban standards, changing fast. The economic reforms begun in 2012 ended the days of everyone being equally poor and have begun an inevitable era in which people with capital can become a class of unequally rich. Tourism, an undeniable change agent, generated over 4.5 million arrivals in 2017, and is one of the main sources of revenue for the island.

I signed onto a Road Scholars trip to Cuba in 2015. Like others on the trip, I wanted to see Cuba before it might end up being gobbled up by Starbucks, Wal-Mart, become a consumer economy, and, for better or worse, lose what we thought to be its unspoiled Buena Vista Social Club ethos. 
(NOTE: as of January 15, 2015, “Educational Activities” is one of the 12 categories in which Americans can visit Cuba without prior permission of the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control)

Cuba has a rich cultural history but is not overly sentimental about it. Over the years, the architectural splendor of the homes along Havana’s north facing Malecón have been allowed to slide into elegant decay, unoccupied and crumbling from the effects of the Atlantic Ocean. Time, benign neglect, and tropical conditions took a similar toll on the buildings and grounds that comprise the Hemingway Museum. A recently found letter confirms that Mary Hemingway intended Finca Vigía, which became the property of the Cuban government after the revolution, to be a gift to the people of Cuba in memory of her husband.

In 2001, a near miraculous set of circumstances led to a collaboration between the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation and the Cuban group Consejo Nacional de Patrimnio Cultura. Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern, who forged a positive relationship with Fidel Castro in 2002, facilitated the inter-government restoration that saved the property from ruin. The Finca Vigia Foundation painstakingly and respectfully restored the interior and its contents, and intends to open a paper conservation center on the property to preserve Hemingway’s personal papers, manuscripts, and his 9000 book library. It helped that Fidel was a Hemingway fan, especially after reading 'For Whom The Bell Tolls,' with its sympathy for the loyalists’ failed resistance to Francisco Franco’s fascist Spanish regime. 

Cuban and American preservation specialists, architects, engineers, restored Finca Vigia to look exactly like it did the day Hemingway walked away from it in 1960…and that’s the attraction I saw that day in 2015, totally unaware of its transformation.

Cuba’s history in the 2000s, the revolution that unseated a brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista and the U.S. embargo that followed the Castro years, is complex. Whether the socialist state of the Castro years was a sociological net plus or minus is going to be debated as the future unfolds. Nevertheless, with its mix of Spanish and African roots, Cuba is still the least commercialized island in the Caribbean. 

Hemingway wrote “The Old Man And The Sea” at Finca Vigia. Many believe that Gregorio Fuentes, the first mate on Hemingway’s boat Pilar that was moored in nearby Cojimar was an inspiration for the Old Man. 

World photographer Keith Cardwell’s photo of Gregorio Fuentes was recently gifted to me by a friend of Cardwell’s.  Cardwell’s book Cuba, The Buena Vista Years, 15 years in the making, shows the island, its everyday people, leaders, and way of life in poignant black and white photographs. His photo of Gregorio Fuentes is one of them. Perhaps my parlor is now the northernmost outpost of the Hemingway Museum.

Photo essay...

The main house at Finca Vigía, "Lookout Farm," built on a hill in San Francisco de Paula in 1886 . Hemingway spent time there between 1939 and 1960. The twelve acre property contains a guest house, a lookout tower, swimming pool that Hemingway used daily, and his dry-docked boat Pilar.

The master bedrooom and guest room. Evidence of Hemingway's pride in his hunting is in nearly every room in the  house. With its cream-colored walls, buffed floors, and handsome wood furniture, the low profile, single floor home has an aura of spare elegance and modernity.

 

Hemingway's study and library. The home has 9000 books crammed in shelves in every room including the bathroom...

along with works of art and trophies from his safaris in Africa and the American west.

Hemingway obsessively recorded his weight and blood pressure on the bathroom wall...

and that inspired this photo of me and our extraordinarily knowledgeable Cuban guide, Yohandra (“Jo”) imagining adding our heights to Hemingway's bathroom wall.

A former garage, then guest house and now office; the in-ground pool in which Ava Gardner is said to have skinny-dipped; Hemingway's boat "Pilar" now refurbished, sits in a cradle next to the pool. Pilar is the name of a heroic character in "For Whom The Bell Tolls" ; also the nickname of Pauline, one of Hemingway's four wives.

Here the elegant yacht sits, with varnished brightwork and meticulous detailing, its finely chiseled prow pointing toward the sea, as if waiting for Papa to come aboard for a day of fishing for marlins.Were it not for the Finca Vigía Foundation, Pilar may have been lost to dry rot and decay. Pilar was restored with technical advice from a consultant from Mystic Seaport and lovingly rebuilt by Cuban boat builders who removed plants and termite nests before restoring and added temperature and humidity gauges in the galley to monitor data when they finished.

 

The captain's chair in which Papa fished for marlin. Even when officials arrive for a viewing, NO ONE is allowed to sit in Papa's chair.

The lookout tower was built by Hemingway's fourth wife. On the third top level sits a typewriter, desk, a chaise-lounge, a painting of Hemingway posing cheerfully next to a kill on safari, a telescope, and of course, more  books. It is said that the man had a hard time throwing things away, certainly was the case with books.

He and his guests certainly enjoyed the glorious vista from the top of the "Lookout," with Havana on the horizon.

Tourists of all ages have reasons to visit and arrive by taxi and tour buses ...

and can relax in the shade of banyans, bamboo and celiba trees outside the house.

Next to the entry gate, remnants of a  small baseball diamond on which Papa, his sons, and neighborhood boys played the sport that has captivated Cuban boys for nearly a century...stay tuned for a story about Hemingway pitching to neighborhood kids on this lawn just inside the gate.

Keith Cardwell's photo of Gregorio Fuentes, the first mate on El Pilar, who is said to be the man who inspired Hemingway's "Old Man And The Sea." When Hemingway left, he entrusted Pilar to Gregorio. When Gregorio Fuentes died he left the boat to the people of Cuba. The vessel was lovingly restored as part of the Finca Vigía Foundation.

Photos,with the exception of the photo of the three-story lookout, by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2015/11/cuba-chronicles-cigars-and-rum.html

 

Singer/Songwriter Hannah Bethel: On The Verge

Hannah Bethel
Holiday Express Hotel Lobby
920 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee
January 12, 2019 

For a singer/songwriter, Nashville is the first stop toward recognition, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or the last stop before you press the dream like a rose between the pages of the Nashville phone book. A nameless busker, you sing everywhere…anywhere in search of the possible…airport terminals, street corners, taverns, bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies. 

 

You want to breathe the air of Music City USA, uncork the bottle that will release the genie and spin your straw into gold. If you’re not driven and don’t have the long view, stay home.

 

You’re singing to an audience of two or two-dozen, unfazed by an audience with faces in their phones or watching the plasma TV blaring in the corner. You’re singing from the deep uncharted place in your psyche, following your North Star, singing from a manger and hoping that the three wisemen, one of whom who’ll tell a cousin in the industry about the fabulous singer he just heard, will pass your name along.

 

Right now you’re the only person in Nashville who believes in you. 

 

Setting foot in Nashville is the secular version of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage that you have to take, one foot in front of the other, on the road heading for stardom. Singing on that chair in the corner is the moment that counts. You’re singing from your guts, grateful for a smile, a tip jar filled with folding money, a smile of acknowledgement, any small tokens of appreciation until lightning strikes.

 

Willie Nelson couldn’t break through the Nashville ceiling in the early 60s. In a few hours, at the galactic “Willie: Tribute To An American Outlaw” show, 18,000 fans will fill every seat of the Bridgestone Arena. How’s that for inspiration?

 

That’s why Hannah Bethel is perched on a high backed chair in the corner of the Holiday Express Hotel at 5:30 PM. Guests are grazing appetizers in the lobby. To most of them, she’s acoustic wallpaper. In her mind, and to my ears, she’s singing for a full house. 

 

A request from the audience… Kris Kristofferson's “Help Me Make It Through The Night.”

 

The atmosphere in the room turns on a dime. The guitar chords are bare bones. But the voice… supremely supple, original pacing and phrasing, emotive cry breaks, tenderly evocative, focuses an imaginary spotlight to her corner of the lobby. By the time she hits the final chords, people have stopped chatting mid fork. I swear that some nights she must sing herself to sleep with the lyrics. She kills the song. VIDEO

 

Most guests are passing time in the lobby before heading to the Bridgestone Arena for the “Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw” tribute show. Kristofferson, one of the original  Highwaymen back in the day with Willie and Waylon and Merle, can’t sing that song with more genuine soulful depth than Hannah Bethel.

 

“I moved here from Michigan ten years ago,” Hannah says as I put folding money in the tip jar and ask for her web site address. She’s been paying her dues for years, dove headlong into climbing the ladder, trying to gain altitude at roadhouses around the country. 

 

Bethel's web site notes her recent successes but I was surprised by the two songs on it. In that little hotel lobby she was a woman with a voice and style that set her apart from the crowd. For me, "Train" and "Witchy Woman" are too much Nashville and too little Hannah. The purity of her supple voice gets lost in a Nashville-ized version of  her best feature...just sayin'.

 

This song of Kristofferson's? Bethel’s voice lilted, skimmed, and caressed the lyrics with a style all her own. Conversations stop in mid-sentence. Her range, depth and tonal purity, it’s all right here, in one tender, evocative, emotive, vulnerable song, with sub-strata of conviction, not desperation. Anyone who can sing with such conviction can survive. 

 

She’s got the goods.  Will she thrive?  If one of her pared down originals leads off the samples on her web page, she’s got a running start. 

 

 

Hannah Bethel, Holiday Express Hotel, Nashville, TN

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Sing with conviction, hold nothing back, no matter where, no matter when...you were born to be here right now

Photos, videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

The Berkshire Athenaeum: Morphing from the 19th to the 21st Century

The Berkshire Athenaeum
Pittsfield’s Public Library
1 Wendell Avenue
Pittsfield, MA
March 14, 2019

The Berkshire Athenaeum on 1 Wendell Avenue…

A place for scholarly endeavors, a community center, a nexus for social interaction, a drop-in center, a quiet oasis of tranquility thankfully without a plasma TV in sight, rooms dedicated to local history…that’s a start to describe the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Not a drop of stuffiness here. The modern two story building wraps its arms around you as you walk inside, a spacious atrium, airy and well-lit, offers a silent handshake of greeting to the visitor. Surrounded by the usual stacks of books arranged with the Dewey Decimal, navigation is aided and abetted by signage, an efficient self-explanatory guide to the first time visitor.

Before you’ve even begun to take in the contents, your eyes are drawn to a powerful black and white photographic montage that plants you square in the historic and cultural ethos of Berkshire county.

Those large photos, printed on cloth and draped over the perimeter of the second level, give a visitors and locals a very specific sense of time, place, and people that are the fabric of Berkshire County. "Facing Berkshires Heritage" photographs by Nicholas Candida capture the spirit of the county.

I was born and raised in Pittsfield. Those photos hit a chord for me. I can smell the new mown hay, feel the chill air around Mt. Greylock, hear the lowing of cows and the voices of farmers in Savoy as I explored what was down the road as a 16 year-old with his first drivers license.

Facing Berkshires Heritage photographs by Nicholas Candida VIDEO

The staff keeps it real with displays as fresh as today's news. You’d have to have been living under a rock not to know that “The Green Book” was named the 2019 Oscar Best Film. A glass case just past the circulation desk contains an original copy of “The Green Book” with photos and details of how “Negro” visitors could find gas stations, hotels, and restaurants where they could be served and not shunned right here in Pittsfield.

Pockets of reading rooms and a food and drink room are tucked around the first floor perimeter. Two areas with banks of computers, being used by three generations of residents, are nestled toward the end of the first level. Spacious, well-lit areas to work or research or read whatever you need to read on the internet are arranged around the stairs to the second level. The Auditorium, located in the basement seats 175 people, and is often used to host meetings involving town matters.

An early definition of Athenaeum is “a place in the temple of Athena in Athens where writers and scholars met.”

Back in 1876, the city’s elite wanted to upgrade Pittsfield’s cultural standing by erecting a building with such erudite purpose. If they were to stroll through today’s athenaeum I’ll bet they’d be proud by the egalitarian way the pursuit of knowledge and social connectivity has evolved.

 

Berkshire Athenaeum Exhibit: The Green Book

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The Berkshire Athenaeum signage makes navigation easy for visitors

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Berkshire Athenaeum: A community destination

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Berkshire Athenaeum exterior on Wendell Avenue

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At noontime the library hosts a crowd composed mostly of senior citizens. After 2 PM, a younger generation will show up as students from Pittsfield High School, a five minute walk away, show up.

Original library, 1876 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Athenaeum

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

The Harvard Art Museums: Three Museums in One Luminous Cloud of Culture and Scholarship

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138 
March 5, 2019

A museum brazenly steals the show from it’s world class contents…

Wow…I stopped in my tracks. My feet were on the ground. I felt like I just walked into a transparent cumulous cloud.

That’s a likely universal reaction to a first timer’s foray into the Quincy Street entrance to the Harvard Art Museums. Every visitor I watched enter did the same thing – stood transfixed a few feet inside, eyes involuntarily trained upward, gazing to the glass vaulted ceiling five stories above.

A sunny day, blue sky looking like a freshly painted fresco visible through the pyramid of glass atop the five story structure, this moment is an affirmation of brilliant design. Rapture is not too strong a word to describe what I felt. When’s the last time you could say that upon entering a museum?

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/about/mission

The Harvard Art Museums are what happens when an institution thinks big, has the dough to shoot for the stars, and hires rpbw architect Renzo Piano, whose bloodlines channel Leonardo de Vinci, to imagine the form and function of a museum of the 21st century. https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/about/history-and-the-three-museums

Beginning in 2008, the university closed the ancient Fogg Museum (1895) and the staid Busch-Reisinger Museum behind it and took a bold step that reinterpreted what a museum's purpose could be. For the next 6 years, a chunk of the block between Quincy Street and Prescott Street was a construction site; entire walls were removed, cranes resembling prehistoric birds hovered and built a glass nest three stories high high over the Fogg Museum. The 1991 building that had housed the Busch-Reisinger Museum, located right behind the Fogg, was demolished. The Quincy Street exterior facade remains untouched. The Prescott Street entrance looks as different as the two sides of a coin. The inside…well, it was reassembled with the inter-connectedness of a Rubik's cube.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/11/01/with-opening-expanded-harvard-art-museums-complex-patience-rewarded/DGhCKlNLxmBqwlvB3ZatMK/story.html

The Harvard Art Museums are the equivalent of a world-class teaching hospital. Its patients are historic artifacts and priceless art from a millennium or so. Its doctors are directors, curators, and faculty. Its interns are students and scholars from around the world who preserve and document and study the collection in their care.

Areas for study, preservation, scholarly work and teaching surround the atrium on the top three floors - all visible through glass doors with huge glass panes admitting from outside. On any given day, the space looks like an inside out beehive, students, scholars and conservators visible as they work in offices on the perimeter of the glorious atrium. The building has loads of 21st century green technology but none of it can match the generative smack of natural light that imbues the glass bubble with the sense that its floating in an architectural amniotic fluid filled with creative ions that charge the animate and inanimate forms inside.

The Harvard Art Museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, Sackler) each have their own philosophies and guiding principles. Miraculously, they retain their identities, bonded together by the diffusion of natural light and visitor friendly flow design and signage.

One of my favorite museums, the Fogg fell off my radar when it closed in 2008. Eleven years later, I felt like Rip Van Winkle when I strolled inside after such a long hiatus. I came to the museum to see the Bauhaus Show that my architect friends and scholars wanted to see. The Bauhaus Show was mesmerizing but honest to goodness, in this first visit, the design and architecture of the Harvard Art Museums were the stars of the show.

Photos...

The original brick exterior structure of The Fogg Museum remains intact. The glass pyramid centered across the top of the structure is visible in the first photograph.

Toggle through the photos...

Harvard Museums Quincy Street Entrance

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Natural Light controlled by shades, blinds

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The blinds and shades are in a constant state of flux according to the needs of the researchers, students, scholars in the offices that surround the atrium on the third and fourth floors.

Luminous multi-purpose interior

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Harvard Art Museums Prescott Street Entrance

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The old Busch-Reisinger Museum was demolished and replaced by the addition to the museum with an entrance on Prescott Street. Note the brick exterior to the Fogg Museum behind the newer cement and steel addition.

No detail left without natural light, even the Gift Shop...

Harvard Art Museums Gift Shop

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Terrific guide to help plan your visit...

Visit the tiny Jenny's Cafe, eat in a  cozy seating area or saunter out find a table in the original atrium under the pyramid of glass five stories above.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Carnival Time in New Orleans: Marching Krewes and Inspired Madness

Krewe du Vieux Mardi Gras Parade
Marigny and French Quarter Neighborhoods in New Orleans
February 16, 2019

Oh, my…The Krewe du Vieux (pronounce Voo) is about as New Orleansy as a Mardi Gras Krewe can get. Wildly politically incorrect, satirically magnificent, it is more like a no holds barred SNL propelled by brass bands. Like most of the parades in New Orleans weeks before Mardi Gras day, this is a walking/marching krewe. 

The floats are pushed or pulled along by the marchers themselves (link to parade route). A few are drawn along by mules, paying respect to the parade tradition before mega krewes got the idea to build floats the size of The Queen Mary, transported aboard 18 wheelers, and so mammoth that they can’t navigate the narrow streets of the French Quarter. 

Fearless lunacy abounds. Sacred Cows? The 17 sub-krewes of Krewe du Vieux gore them all with their interpretations of this year's theme, "Yes,Yes, Oh God, Yes," (a vaguely tongue-in-cheek reference to Mayor LaToya Cantrell's positivity campaign to brand New Orleans as "The City of Yes.")  Yes, indeed...but best to leave the kids home when you head for this one. The list of sub-krewes speaks for itself.

SUB-KREWES
SEEDS OF DECLINE
Theme: Let us Prey (Priests)
KREWE DU MISHIGAS
Theme: Red, White and Jew (RBG)
KREWE OF SPANK
Theme: Bead Busters
KREWE OF THE MYSTIC INANE
Theme: RoadwerkNOLA.gov
KREWE OF UNDERWEAR
Theme: Hop On, Get Off
KREWE OF K.A.O.S.
Theme: Objection Overruled (Gender Equality)
KNIGHTS OF MONDU
Theme: Robbin' Goods: Irvin Mayfield
KREWE RUE BOURBON
Theme: Domino PotHo
KREWE OF L.E.W.D.
Theme: Submission Control: In Space No One Hears Your Safe World
MYSTIC KREWE OF SPERMES
Theme: Entergize the Pussy
T.O.K.I.N.
Theme: Bong Voyage
KREWE OF DRIPS AND DISCHARGES
Theme: Screw Dat
KREWE OF C.R.U.D.E.
Theme: The Lyin' King
KREWE OF SPACE AGE LOVE
Theme: Pot for Potholes
KREWE DE C.R.A.P.S.
Theme: City of No No oh God No (Priest Abuse)
MYSTIK KREWE OF COMATOSE
Theme: Kills the Story (Kashoggi)
KREWE OF MAMA ROUX
Theme: Mama Roux Sees You

Gotta love the names of the krewes and the spirit of satire - international, local, political, zany, and gleefully delivered by the costumed marchers. Their floats are hand-made, also a throwback from the earliest Mardi Gras parades.

Krewe du Vieux's purposeful goof ball sub-krewes are the most unfettered, unflustered, uninhibited gang of merry makers…the only thing they take seriously is maintaining the spirit of satire and organic homemade theatricality and pointed humor that was an ingredient of many original New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.  

Mardi Gras spectators are the Laurel to the parade’s Hardy. They play their roles to perfection, often decked out in wild, absurd, outfits, lustily cheering the goings-on in the street, and an instant flash mob of convivial bon vivants. In these smaller parades with spectators three or four deep for blocks along the parade route, bonhomie rules.

“Sure, come on up!” is the response every time I want to get a photo and I’m at the back of the pack. 

No “Throw me something, Mister!” beseeching from the crowd….no plastic beads flying to the crowd. Tiny paper handmade something-or-others, cards or pamphlets with scurrilous drawings are handed out to us on the parade route. 

One of my favorites. “Do you like beer?” a krewe marcher asks. “Have one,” and he hands me an Abita Beer bottle cap with a tiny color cameo of Brett Kavanaugh pasted inside the cap. They must have been putting these together for months.

In the closing days of Carnival, the parades are huge and attract visitors from all over the country. In the earlier weeks like this, it’s a local party that began on January 6 (The Epiphany) and gains steam steadily until Ash Wednesday (about 58 days this year). If you want a taste of time tested traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras Carnival Season, book a flight right now. 

The whole parade season in New Orleans...may as well be in another galaxy, a good one...http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com

Krewe du Vieux "throws", no beads, no plastic, small bits of fierce satire handed out to spectators along the parade route. There were a few political hand-outs so scurrilous I declined to include them...not because I'm a prude, just don't want to scandalize readers who may not share Mardi Gras' wild west humor as much as I do.

Krewe du Vieux Throws

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PHOTOS - Krewe du Vieux, krewedelusion
https://www.neworleans.com/event/krewe-du-vieux-parade/3242/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krewe

 

The Long Road to Mardi Gras 2019 New Orleans

The Long Road to Mardi Gras 2019 New Orleans

Mardi Gras in southwest Louisiana… it’s a whole dang season, called “Carnival Season.”

Mardi Gras Catechism: Carnival Season always begins on January 6, (The Feast of the Epiphany). Mardi Gras day (French meaning “Fat Tuesday”, also known as Shrove Tuesday) is always on the day before Ash Wednesday. The date for Ash Wednesday changes every year because Easter Sunday is never on the same Sunday each year. Easter can fall on any Sunday between March 23 and April 25. Mardi Gras day always takes place 47 days before Easter. Got that?

In my Yankee thinking, I thought the Mardi Gras parades always happened on Fat Tuesday. Mais non.

Not in this part of the world. There are 50 parades in New Orleans that roll between January 6 (Feast of The Epiphany) and March 5 (Fat Tuesday). Back in the day, the parades used to wind their way through the French Quarter. Then came along Super Krewes that hired tractor-trailers with enough muscle power to haul the Queen Mary, and say goodbye to big parades in the French Quarter.

These big rigs that resemble floating islands roll through the wider streets in Uptown and Mid town. Smaller parades and floats still roll through the narrow streets of the French Quarter.

The level of frivolity, creativity, unconventionality, political lampoon and/or social commentary is evident in just about any parade in the season.

The krewes often adopt a theme for the year. Being New Orleans, there are no sacred cows…the more sacred the cow, the larger the lampoon.

The rest of SW Louisiana is no slouch. There will be hundreds of parades from Slidell to Lafayette to Lake Charles and in every small town in between. There’s a parade in Iota whose population is about the same number of the seating capacity of the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette.

For research pt at large is going to investigate a few parades in New Orleans this weekend.

On tap Saturday, February 16, Krewe de Vieux, Krewe Delusion

Sunday, February 17, 'tit Rex  hint...floats are made out shoeboxes that look like full size floats.

2019 Carnival Madness in full...http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com

 

Jesse Lége and Bayou Brew Cajunize The Burren

The Burren
Back Room at The Burren
https://www.burren.com
247 Elm Street, Davis Square
Somerville, MA 02144
February 7, 2019

You could be blindfolded but when you hear that voice you know damn well that’s Jesse Lége singing. He’s in rarified territory in the voice department. Deeply sonorous, freighted with emotion that channels the pains and joys of his Cajun forebears, Jesse projects his music like an old soul, all the way back to the enormously emotive Améde Ardoin.

His piercing singing register comes physically from his voice box and his diaphragm but psychically from DNA rooted in a rural upbringing, no electricity, in a one room house deep in the prairie. The week’s entertainment – tuning in the Grand Ole Opry or The Louisiana Hayride if the batteries for the family’s transistor radio had enough juice.

This is not a pretend act. He was born at home near Gueydan, LA, was suckled on the sounds of music heard on the porch on Saturday nights under skies so black you could see all the way to the Milky Way, back in the days when electricity hadn’t reached the prairies of Louisiana.

Tonight he’s playing with his trusty band mates The Bayou Brew who bring their own Cajun sensibilities to the stage. Jesse’s as much a story teller as a singer. He’s an ambassador to Cajun culture, especially in places far flung from Louisiana, where his audience knows such history.In an accent as thick as a good roux,he’s likely to introduce a song with an anecdote, background about the song, and who first sang it. A good one tonight was his explanation of the subjects of many Cajun songs. "The Rayne Bounce" - getting the title since Rayne, LA, is called the "Frog Capital of the World".

Usually, to hear music like this you have to be at the Café des Amis in Breaux Bridge, LA, or the Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette. Not tonight.

What a gift.

Photo, videos  by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Band L to R

Darren Wallace, fiddle; Missy Roser, fiddle; Jesse Lége, Accordion; Erica Weiss, rhythm guitar; Evelyn Schneider, bass

Kudos to the manager of The Back Room, who cleared away enough tables for the roomful of dancers to whirl the night away while Jesse and Bayou Brew played from the stage.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22q1cHuboE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=P9YxiHNg1Ro

MORE VIDEOS COMING AFTER FEBRUARY 21

 

 

Willie Nelson: The 2015 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize

Let’s hear it for serendipity doo dah. On the previous post, a reader commented she had seen part of the “Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw” on public TV. I still can’t find it but did stumble upon this video recording of Nelson being honored as recipient of the 2015 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

The all-star tribute to singer and songwriter Willie Nelson, 2015 recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, features performances by Nelson, Edie Brickell, Leon Bridges, Rosanne Cash, Ana Gabriel, Jamey Johnson, Alison Krauss, Raul Malo of The Mavericks, Neil Young, Promise of the Real (Young, Lukas and Micah Nelson), Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural, Jr.) and past Gershwin Prize honoree Paul Simon.

I had no idea Willie was the recipient of the 2015 Library of Congress Award that “honors the enduring legacy of George and Ira Gershwin and the continuing legacy of this year’s honoree, Willie Nelson.”

http://www.pbs.org/gershwin-prize/shows/gershwin-prize-willie-nelson/

And I had no idea of the award when I wrote the last paragraph,
https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/01/willie-life-and-songs-of-an-american-outlaw-the-setting.html

“Look at the range of songs the man’s written and sung. Willie’s sort of a one-man Rogers and Hammerstein or a singer with the range and sensibility of George Gershwin who wears cowboy boots and a red bandana. With his country lyricism, jazz influenced phrasing, and soulful sensibility, Willie doesn’t even fit into the category of Americana. “One of a kind” sounds about right.

The Gershwin Prize event had the feel of a pre-quel to the January 2019 tribute “Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw” and definitively connects to a man who has made a Gershwin sized mark on American music. The tribute is more polished but to a way more buttoned up audience than the one in Nashville on January 12, 2019.
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Holy Cow. I spent last few hours watching this 2015 video, taking notes on the fly, and remembering similar moments from the tribute to Nelson  on January 12, 2019.

Don Was, the same guy who directed the tribute in Nashville, directs the house band. It showed. Spontaneous notes I banged out while viewing the one hour twenty five minute video appear below…

Oh boy, I warn you if you have any Willie Nelson bones in your body you’re gonna have to put your life on hold, actually you’ll tumble down the Willie Nelson rabbit hole without consent and get in touch with how much of Nelson’s songbook filtered through our music DNA and has a way of making us laugh, cry, comfort us, or nod our heads in absolute agreement with those lyrics of Willie’s.

Another cast of luminaries here, one of whom, Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural, Jr.), never made it to 2019.

The Library of Congress our nation’s oldest federal cultural institution presents the 2015 Prize for Popular Song with an all-star salute to this year’s recipient Willie Nelson.

1st minute
Promise of The Real, upbeat light-hearted “Stay All Night” Lukas and Micah Nelson and Neil Young, get the show off the ground then host Don Johnson takes over to celebrate the 2015 Gershwin Prize For Popular Music tonight honoring the remarkable American songbook of Willie Nelson,

6 minutes
Leon Bridges "Time Slips Away," soulful take on the song that breathes fresh life into the phrasing and shows how many ways there are to sing a truly classic song. Leon keeps it going with this soulful take with longtime harmonica virtuoso Mickey Raphael’s phrasings, swings sweet evocatively sweet. Orchestration is toned down, lets Bridges take the lead.

10 minutes
Raul Malo of The Mavericks sings “Crazy” backed by the Don Was top-tier band and the soft croons of the female chorus. Funny how these classic songs, all written in one week, repeat, ONE WEEK, are trademark Willie lyrics.

14 minutes
Vignettes of Nelson’s daughter Paula and Amy Nelson-Niccore, photos of growing up and being on stage with their dad, cool that he involved them, that they had no idea how unique it was till they began formal schooling and learned that’s not the way other kids grew up early. Warm, loving.

15 minutes
Annie D’Angelo, current and fourth wife, video tells how they met 23 years ago, two “surprise” sons Lukas and Micah… “him I like,” she says after first meeting Nelson.

16 minutes
Gershwin recipient Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, “Remember Me” from 1975 “Red Headed Stranger” album. Good lord, all these songs, the lyrics, the melodies, and a little totally Willie and Trigger riff by Edie in the middle, not just so listener friendly, but heart friendly. I can’t help thinking that these early songs, maybe certain others, are rooted in Willie’s own history, he was just about 30 years old at the time, had no real prospects for success, but was willing to put it all on the line, and in the grooves of those 45 or 33 rpm records, sort of a diary set to music, of what he was thinking about, of what came to mind as he was living day to day, allowing his thoughts to bubble to his conscious level, spinning his thoughts, dreams, realizations into words and melodies. His songwriting wasn’t a fit for Nashville and his life experience certainly wasn’t conventional, raised by loving grandparents in Abbott TX at the tail end of the depression in 1933, grand parents were music minded, from country to church choir, music was probably what kept him grounded, surrounded him with a comfort zone, and he had the uncommon ability or the uncommon drive, to stay with it, let it stay with him, through his youth way down in Texas, where, actually, people take music pretty seriously.

21  minutes
Rose Ann Cash sings Pancho and Lefty, a Townes Van Zant song someone sent to Willie. The more you get to understand Willie, the more you get an idea why that song appealed to him, get a sense of Willie’s sensibility. What are we talking about? Friendship? Relationships? Loyalty? Taking Risks? Loss? Good Times? Adventure? Longing? Sustaining Love? The mystery fits perfectly.

26 minutes
No one can better describe the way Willie thinks about music than he can in this video. “I was always around music, I cant remember any time when I wasn’t hearing music or trying to play music or trying to write music and it was just a language that i grew up with, I found out through the years that its a universal language, the same music that affected me in my early days in Abbott Texas." Powerful close ups of Willie talking, vintage photos of 1930s Texas, you almost have to brush the dust off your coat after watching.

27 minutes still can't identify the speaker who nails the essence of Willie down to a few paragraphs
“America is an idea and America is one of the few countries on earth that was built around an idea… the singing cowboy was a very important element in the culture….” who is the guy with these great comments at 27 min mark and says that "Willie is a magic messenger who appeals across the spectrum to young and old and he is one of the few who has sustained a long time and appealed to a spectrum young and old and he did it through wandering through the raw poetry of time” wow other great observations too. who is this man? a wonderful video follows this

29 minutes
video, great close ups, Woody Harrelson tells story about being invited by Annie to join the crowd in the bus, through a haze of smoke, Willie shouts “Hey, come on down…”; other guys listening to the story add their own comments they call “Willie-isms”

29:35 minutes
Kris Kristofferson nails how to describe Willie’s songwriting, “I wouldn’t call him country or soul or exclusively anything, he’s had some of the most popular songs that have ever come out of country music…he’s one of a kind.”

31:00 minutes
Don Johnson reads a letter from Jimmy Carter a long time fan, saluting Willie.

32 minutes
Jamie Johnson, “Georgia On My Mind” with backup singers, organ and band, slow, not much electricity, church organ and harmonica solo by Mickey Raphael gains traction in last 32 bars. The song would have fizzed without the vivacious 3 female singers soulful chorusing from the back row of the set.

37 minutes
Michael Feinstein says that " in 1978 Willie recorded an album called Stardust, includint a standard (Feinstein sings a few bars of “Someone T Watch Over Me, ” that album has sold over 5 million copies, so that ain’t hay.  In 1985 the US Congress posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to one of  America’s most beloved songwriting teams, George and Ira Gershwin, for 'outstanding and invaluable contributions to America music and theater and culture.' In commemoration of the Gershwin brothers, the Library of Congress named its prize for popular song, which is the nations highest honor for popular song, after these two extraordinary and prolific recording artists. Ladies and gentleman please join me in honoring the enduring legacy of George and Ira Gershwin and the continuing legacy of this year’s honoree, Willie Nelson.”

38 minutes
clips of Willie introducing Farm Aid Festivals along the years with other great performers including Johm Mellencamp, Dave Matthews; Willie, wearing his Farm Aid cap running the show, tens of thousands audiences, raises millions for farmers of the USA. The man’s instincts are generous, his heart open. Other than Bono, can you name a world class artist who’s waded in to highlight a humanitarian cause year after year? And those musicians on stage are bringing it for real.

41 minute, first truly show stopping moments
Alison Krauss "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground" and she kills it just like she did in the Nashville 2019 tribute, great atmospheric pedal steel solo this song burrows into your heart kindling any memory of a lover whose memory clings into your heart this song brought tears to eyes of Willie’s wife Annie and to be honest mine too such a richly evocative in melody and words, a marriage made in heaven for the angel flying too close to the ground oh my
the sweet, high keening, emotionally pitched sound of her voice and perfect timing of her phrasing stirs up memories from some deep place in my heart that I hadn’t realized were there, the words being the conduit into a tender inner space in my heart.  This is one song that in the right hands rises like early morning dew into the clouds this is one of those die and go to heaven songs for your playlist. I guarantee you’ll play this song again and again.

46 minutes
Alison Krauss is joined by raspy voiced Jamie Johnson, perfect for this song, for a version of Willie and Ray' Charles “Seven Spanish Angels” a song reminiscent of Marty Robbins' “El Paso” that I had never heard until Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express played it at La Poussiere in Breaux Bridge, LA. Jamie sings the words but Allyson sings them with feeling; the band backup  with Mickey Raphael, spare, with great trio chorus a romantic western song story with the greatest title of any western song ever written.

50: 00 minutes
Don Johnson salutes Don Was and the band and ‘the 3 beautiful sisters’ back there in the chorus’

51 minutes
Johnson introduces “I Never Cared For You,” a curious title, mid-60's, one of Willie’s most beloved songs sung by 4  time Grammy nominee, one of the most acclaimed Mexican singers in the history of Mexican popular music, Anna Gabriel. Willie’s neighbors in Abbot, Texas, were Mexican. Willie remembers listening to the music; distinctly Mexican flourishes in his guitar riffs pop up all over the place as he channels memory, culture, and personal history, his fingers deftly finger picking with flourishes instantly recognizable as his own…no one, absolutely no one, including his hero Django Rhinehart, sounds like Willie.

51:51 minutes, another show stopper
Anna Gabriel “I Never Cared For You,” sings in Spanish oh boy this is just the jolt this show needed, the band in overdrive to the passionate singing from the inside out from Anna, powerful passionately driven, animated body language, arms outspread to encompass the whole theater, gets the audience clapping along, Anna is killing it. This song captures the unapologetic romanticism, Spanish rhythms, emotive, country operatic then veers into pounding salsa rhythms that course through your veins then she changes up slows down to finish with a grand operatic flourish. Oh boy. Absolutely lit a fuse. Whoever put the set list together is a genius.

54 minutes
Video clips from Austin City Limits 40th anniversary, Willie was one of the originators of the event! video medley of Willie songs of course leading off with his trademark opener “Whiskey River” with various artists including Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris, what company!

55:15 minutes
Graybeard Neil Young and the band Promise of the Real in a vaguely rumba-ish version of ‘Whiskey River,’ a slow rolling train with Lukas Nelson and the band Promise of the Real with other son Micah rocking it along and jamming gleefully with Neil Young, you gotta see this one, two generations voluntarily drowning in Whiskey River with the band in full pursuit, or descent, take your pick. You ain’t gonna see Neil Young rock out as gleefully as this.
Lukas Nelson sings lyrics with entirely fresh phrasing and a voice eerily reminiscent of his dad’s. If Lukas picks up the torch, he’s not going to be afraid to put his own stamp on his old man’s songs. Check out Willie nodding to the timing. That’s one proud daddy. 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=who+sings+whiskey+river+with+neil+young+at+gershwin+award+2015&view=detail&mid=30C6D39599761264E0AC30C6D39599761264E0AC&FORM=VIRE
a bunch of other songs from the award program here too

1:00 hour
 “Man With The Blues” Paul Simon, Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Duran, Jr. RIP), whoa a rumba-ish zydeco mash-up that rocks. The show is lifting off, baby, fasten your seat belt. The un-emotive Paul Simon shows signs of life even if he doesn't seem to pay attention to Dural right beside him. Buckwheat’s accordion is a joyful instrument with his rubboard sidekick recognizable in any Louisiana dance hall. This is the most upbeat song about A man with the blues you’re ever gonna hear. I woulda loved to hear Buckwheat sing this one.

1:02:38 Willie in a nutshell...
Don Johnson recalls the kinship between Ray Charles and Willlie and says, “Ray Charles said it best, “Willie has the sincerity, the soul, the wit, and the wisdom …when I hear Willie, I hear the voice of America."

Don Johnson, with a photo montage rolling on the huge screen, reads…
"Born in 1933 depression years, raised by loving grandparents, nurtured by western swing of Bob Wills and the honky tonk of Ernest Tubbs, he picked cotton, pulled corn. Even as a boy he wrote songs, songs of loneliness, songs of faith, songs of despair, songs of  hope. As a young man, he scraped and scrabbled his way across the country, played with whatever band would have him, even worked as a disc jockey in radio station in the far northwest."

"In the 60’s our hillbilly hero drove his broken down Buick to Nashville where his songs like the enduring classics like “Hello Walls” and “Crazy” “Nightlife” and “Funny How Time Slips Away” were covered by superstars yet Willie fell short of becoming a super star. His quirky style did not conform to the Nashville norms."

"Well all that changed in the 70’s when he moved to Austin and embraced the gap between hillbillies and hippies, rednecks, and rascals.  His music and his irrepressibly generous spirit embodies all the opposing factions, from then till now he has maintained a zen-like presence as a peace loving music-maker for all generations."

"His surprising 1978 album “ Stardust,“ for example, helped revive interest in the great American songbook and stayed on the pop charts for no less than 10 years. In the mid-80’s his impassioned concern for the lives of marginalized  and struggling small farmers led him to help establish Farm Aid. Three decades later with $50 million raised for a great cause is still stronger than ever. Now as he roars into his 80s, Willie is stronger than ever. He continues to live his life as he loves to say, on the road again, playing over 100 one-nighters a year."

"This past year alone  (2015) he has cut three new albums. A duet session with Merle Haggard, A tribute to his mentor Ray Price, and in honor of this august occasion an album of the songs of George and Ira Gershwin."

"Willie Nelson has earned his heroic status. In doing so, and this is the beautiful part, he has sustained a spirit of deep humility and common decency. His songs like his singing and guitar playing reflect a simple decency that warms the heart and informs the mind. With 11 Grammy awards, 68 studio albums, more than 40 million records sold in the United States, and for his remarkable contribution to American Music, and to the cultural life of this nation, the Library of Congress is proud to present The 2015 Gershwin prize for popular song to Willie Nelson.”

1:07
Seven congresspeople including Nancy Pelosi appear on stage, Acting Library of Congress Director David Mao presents the award.
Willie’s acceptance thank you speech is short, direct, and that’s all it needed to be. We know we love him and why. He doesn’t need to add a damn thing.

1:08
Willie thanks Don Was and his crack band then settles in to sing “Night Life.”
Perfect. Willie’s spent most of his life on stage at night, “the night life ain’t no good life but it’s my life…” say the lyrics but we know better. It’s the kind of life that’s made ours, at least mine, all the richer for  Willie's songs, singing, styles that cover just about every spectrum of the American songbook.

1:10 – 1:14
Willie can still play the blazes out of that battered guitar, appears creatively inspired every time he gets his fingers on it. This is his acceptance speech. His guitar Trigger was his speech writer.

1:14
Willie just cut album of Gershwin songs, invites Cyndy Lauper, flaming pink hair glowing in the spotlight, to the stage and they have spirited fun with “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” in the midst of which Willie takes a guitar solo that reminds you why he’s here. Have you ever seen two people dueting have any more fun and chemistry with this Gershwin classic? The audience is giddy…this is the way to land the show.

1:17
Willie invites Lukas and Micah, says he wrote this a long time ago, says “I think this is the most appropriate songs we could do in this period in America.”
http://www.songlyrics.com/willie-nelson/living-in-the-promised-land-lyrics/

“Living In The Promised Land” The song hit like a thunderbolt from Austin... Lukas Nelson, the timbre of the voice, the subtle timing and phrasing, that are his alone have the stamp of living and listening to his dad since the boy was in a crib. You’ll be pardoned when your jaw drops in wonder and awe. Then pardoned again when Lukas takes a solo…guess who his licks remind you of. The final licks are fierce. The sisters in the choir charge the song the ways they’ve been adding all night long. That was all back in 2015. Good lord we need those sentiments of that song now more than ever.

1:21
Finale - Willie and sons sing "On The Road Again" what else did you expect... “Feel free to sing along if you want to” says Willie and every one in the audience is on their feet singing and clapping! …. then the whole cast rolls onstage for one big time finale. I am still  floating along in Willie Nelson ecstasy...enjoy the ride yourself. https://www.pbs.org/video/gershwin-prize-willie-nelson-library-congress-gershwin-prize-full/

WHOA NELLIE ! 

 

Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw, The Setting

Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw

PART 2; THE SETTING
Bridgestone Arena
Nashville, TN
January 12, 2019

There’s Red State America, Blue State America…and Willie Nelson America. 18,000 members of WNA crammed into every seat in the cavernous Bridgestone Arena to pay homage to the man who has been writing songs since 1962. If the event would have been on pay per view, Willie could have bought the state of Texas with the proceeds. The level of anticipation in the arena was as thick as those two long pigtails hanging from under Willie’s cowboy hat. 

Anyone who owned Willie merchandise was wearing it. The forty-ish woman wearing a light blue Levi jacket with a Willie Nelson portrait on the back was walking to her seat in the hallway ahead of us. “I had it painted especially for me last year,” she said. “The same artist painted that one of Johnny Cash on my husband’s.”  For the rest of us, our devotion to Willie and what he stands for is painted indelibly on a small cameo in an invisible locket hanging on a delicate chain around our necks. 

 

Listen and you’d hear people telling Willie anecdotes. The couple sitting next to us had driven two hours from eastern Tennessee for the show. Judging by the conversation with Willie as the fulcrum you’d think we’d known each other for years. 

 

WNA comes in all ages and income levels and is mostly white. They have their favorite songs, can tell you the first time they remember hearing it and can recite the verses. They are here to honor the man whose songs have been on their playlists for years. The fact that the man is 85 years old is another driving force for reasons that need no explanation.

 

The Tennessee accents I hear around me would be perfect for making a Jack Daniels Black Label Bourbon radio commercial. As the arena fills up, a good ol’ boy with a bushy beard and grey streaked pony tail poking through the back of his baseball cap is belting out a George Jones song much to the amusement of his neighbors. “I drove up to his house one day, knocked on the door and he answered it. I asked if he’d sign my fiddle and damn, he did.” 

 

Read the lyrics to Nelson's songs, listen to his own renditions. The man’s a philosopher, a poet, a seer, a romantic sometimes of the hopeless kind but has the sensibility to avoid the saccharine and write the core truths. If you’ve loved, loved and lost, or just plain lived, he’ll be singing your song.

 

His songwriting phrasing and timing can croon or swing or muse whether balladeering or country two stepping. The man’s not just a songwriter, he’s a storyteller. To say that he’s country… well you haven’t listened to what he’s written or co-written since 1962. Those 367 songs are not about pickup trucks. They’re steeped in his own life experiences. Can you name another Texas songwriter who covers Hogie Carmichael and, hold your breath, his next project will cover ol’ Blue Eyes himself. To think Willie is country misses the point. 

 

I’m thinking that Willie is the Buddha of American music, toking on weed instead of drinking tea. That unmistakable Willie voice, slightly nasal bourbon baritone, is best listened to neat, just the voice and his trademark guitar ‘Trigger.”

 

Check out the man’s catalogue. Chances are you’ve heard his songs covered by artists way better known, Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” for example, more than you’ve heard Willie singing them himself. Look at this list of 367 songs and categories.

 

Look at the range of songs the man’s written and sung. Willie’s sort of a one-man Rogers and Hammerstein or a singer with the range and sensibility of George Gershwin who wears cowboy boots and a red bandana. With his country lyricism, jazz influenced phrasing, and soulful sensibility, Willie doesn’t even fit into the category of Americana. “One of a kind” sounds about right.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/2018/10/30/willie-nelson-recording-academy-grammy-2019/1817954002/

Farewell Alligator Man: A Tribute to Jimmy C. Newman: Photos, Video2

Farewell Alligator Man: A Tribute To Jimmy C. Newman
Acadiana Center For The Arts
Lafayette, LA
Louisiana Crossroads Series Presented by Downtown Lafayette
Friday, January 18, 2019

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/01/farewell-alligator-man-a-tribute-to-jimmy-c-newman.html

Farewell, Alligator Man2

• Doug Kershaw, PT, Marty Stuart
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Farewell Alligator Man: A Tribute to Jimmy C. Newman: Photos, Video

Farewell Alligator Man: A Tribute To Jimmy C. Newman
Acadiana Center For The Arts
Lafayette, LA
Louisiana Crossroads Series Presented by Downtown Lafayette
Friday, January 18, 2019

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/01/farewell-alligator-man-a-tribute-to-jimmy-c-newman.html

Farewell Alligator Man: Jimmy C. Newman

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• This was one special night of music. It had superstars Marty Stuart and Doug Kershaw who played Newman’s music with sparkling energy but the night belonged to local musicians Kelli Jones (Fiddle, Guitar and Vocal), Joel Savoy (fiddle, vocals), Gary Newman (Bass and the son of Jimmy Newman), and Chris Stafford (Piano and Guitar), who were joined by Caleb Klauder (Mandolin, Guitar, and Vocals), Reeb Willms (Guitar and Vocals, half of the Klauder/Willms Duo), Rusty Blake (Pedal Steel and Guitar), Matt Meyer (Drums), and Jesse Lége (Accordion) all of whom played Newman’s music and sang his lyrics with utter affection and supremely original takes on old time music.

Reeb Willms takes the lead on "Cry, Cry Darling", Jimmy's song that reached #4 on the Country Charts in 1954.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9nQNsvBJio

https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2019/01/farewell-alligator-man-a-tribute-to-jimmy-c-newman-photos-video2.html

Photos, video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

"Farewell, Alligator Man": A Tribute To Jimmy C. Newman

Farewell, Alligator Man: A Tribute To Jimmy C. Newman
Acadiana Center For The Arts
Lafayette, LA
Louisiana Crossroads Series Presented by Downtown Lafayette
Friday, January 18, 2019

The Blood Red Moon expected to illuminate the firmament on Sunday was preceded by a blazing comet streaking over the skies of Lafayette on Friday, January 18. The comet had its own virtual soundtrack, familiar to local residents, the songbook of Jimmy C. Newman, born in a small Louisiana town far from the bright lights of Nashville. His songwriting output of American country music, later infused with songs influenced by his Cajun upbringing, covered as much territory as the comet that streaked over Lafayette.

I can’t read the notes I scribbled in the dark interior of the Acadiana Center for the Arts but I can tell you that I witnessed a night of dazzling music sung and played with cohesion, presence, expertise, and genuine love that swirled between spontaneity and synchronized beauty.

“Farewell, Alligator Man” was a tribute to Jimmy C. Newman (August 29, 1927 – June 21, 2014) a man whose type of rootsy music is never going to go out of style. I was surprised at the solid country sound and feel of his songs. I expected to hear music that sounded like the iconic Cajun singer Dewey Balfa and here I got a night reminiscent of Hank Williams. What else would you expect from a man who listened to Gene Autry when he was growing up in the small town of Mamou, LA.

This was one special night of music. It had superstars Marty Stuart and Doug Kershaw who played Newman’s music with sparkling energy but the night belonged to local musicians Kelli Jones (Fiddle, Guitar and Vocal), Joel Savoy (fiddle, vocals), Gary Newman (Bass and the son of Jimmy Newman), and Chris Stafford (Piano and Guitar), who were joined by Caleb Klauder (Mandolin, Guitar, and Vocals), Reeb Willms (Guitar and Vocals, half of the Klauder/Willms Duo), Rusty Blake (Pedal Steel and Guitar), Matt Meyer (Drums), and Jesse Lége (Accordion) all of whom played Newman’s music and sang his lyrics with utter affection and supremely original takes on old time music.

The carousel of Newman’s songs was played at what felt like rehearsal level and that’s a compliment. Every musician was in the moment, waiting to cover a song, add a lick, take a solo, or just beam a wide smile as they listened to a band mate interpret a Newman song with breathtaking freshness. This was way more than a concert, more like a piece of in-the-moment performance art for voice and instruments.

There is something universally appealing about Newman’s pure, direct singing and writing from half a century ago. Savoy, Jones, Klauder and Willms discovered Newman’s music independently, fortuitously met at venues across the country, and bonded over their mutual admiration.

Joel Savoy, fiddle player extraordinaire, and founder of the Louisiana-based label Valcour Records in Eunice, LA, promotes music and musicians with similar sensibilities. One of his first grand ideas after being named curator for the esteemed Louisiana Crossroads concert series at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Downtown Lafayette was to put together “Farewell Alligator Man, A Tribute To Jimmy C. Newman.”

Valcour Records had last year just recorded “Farewell, Alligator Man: A Tribute to the Music of Jimmy C. Newman” with Savoy, Caleb Klauder, Reeb Willms, and Kelli Jones. Savoy asked heavy hitters Jesse Legé, Marty Stuart, and Doug Kershaw, who had known Newman over the years, to come along for tonight’s ride. They were honored for the invitation and had a blast playing alongside the whippersnappers.

Newman got his start playing on the radio program Louisiana Hayride out of Shreveport. You might know the names of a couple other young singers who launched from the hayride, George Jones and Elvis Presley. In an astonishing 50 year run at the Grand Ole Opry, Jimmy C. Newman had a big run of country songs. The song that launched his career was “Cry, Cry Darling’” in 1956.

From 1954 to 1970, he hit it out of the park and charted 33 songs on the Billboard Country Chart. He began to integrate Cajun influences into hit songs like the 1961 release of "Alligator Man" and a year later, "Bayou Talk." He claimed that the C in his name stood for “Cajun” and the man never forgot his roots and never stopped including Cajun songs in his shows.

Tonight’s “Farewell, Alligator Man” might have been more aptly titled, “Hello, Cajun Country Man.”

A loping rendition of “You Didn’t Have To Go,” opened the show firing on all cylinders, Savoy, Jones, Klauder, Willms trading lyrics and virtuoso solos. As they would do all night, Rusty Blake’s eloquently mood setting pedal steel, Gary Newman’s rhythmically thumping standup bass, Matt Meyer’s steady subtle drumming, Chris Stafford’s solid work on keyboard/electric bass, provided the musical roux, the perfect atmospherics for Newman’s songbook.

Kelli Jones, with her soaring Appalachian tonality that must have come from listening to music in her hometown of Raleigh, NC, mesmerized us with “I Wanna Tell All the World.”

This short sweet song was as country it comes. The dye was cast. We were in for a night of pure, heart on your sleeve, inspirationaLly delivered music played by musicians who have found what, for them, is the Holy Grail.

Swapping vocals and playing jaw dropping solos on mandolin, fiddle, accordion, guitar, and keyboard, they covered just about every song on the Alligator Man CD and several chosen by the performers. SET LIST BELOW

Hall of Fame musicians Marty Stuart (whose elegant black tour bus was parked in front of the ACA for two days) and Cajun legend Doug Kershaw knew that tonight they were part of the show, not THE show. They knew they were part of this campfire evening in which musicians took turns shaking new life into old songs or recreating them with the same purity Newman wrote them. "I've Got You On My Mind"...exhibit A.

Most of the songs were about three minutes long, just the way they were played on the A and B sides of the 78-rpm records back in the day.

Willms can swing sweet or sassy depending on Newman’s lyrics. Klauder and Savoy match Newman’s intent with vocal range and back it up with their crafty playing. Savoy and Jones fiddle playing was crisp, spritely or plaintive depending on the song. Part of the fun for me was watching their eye contact as they played duets standing close together as one unit on stage. Caleb Klauder’s mandolin playing was melodic or insanely flying fingers picked.

Marty Stuart and Doug Kershaw were inspired choices. There was Stuart representing Newman’s country side, wearing his white suit with black piping around lapels, black shirt, and flowing gray and black scarf, and 83 year-old Kershaw representing Newman’s Cajun side wearing a bright yellow open collared shirt with crawfish embroidered above the black pockets.

Then there was Jesse Lége. Lége is the Caruso of Cajun singers, his voice at once raw, sonorous, plaintive, and richly evocative. When he sings Jimmy C. Newman waltz, I feel like I’m embedded in amber listening to a house party on a porch down in Gueydan, LA. Descended from the tradition of Dewey Balfa, the man is the most senior balladeer carrying the flag of Cajun music still touring around the world.

My belief that SW Louisiana is Cajun and Creole music territory into which country sounds were imports from honky tonks across the state line in Texas has taken a serious revision. Jimmy C. Newman was an authentic country star, not as luminous as Hank Williams, but bright enough to light up the Grand Ole Opry and the sky over Lafayette tonight.

The evening’s last two roof- raising songs saluted Jimmy C. Newman with hits that celebrated his Cajun roots. “Alligator Man”…do I have to tell you how a title like that resonated with this crowd?

Doug Kershaw put a foot stomping charge in the evening’s final song, Newman’s spirited Cajun anthem, "Diggy Liggy Lo", that featured the entire cast singing and playing the daylights out of the song, and the audience standing, cheering, and singing along.

People from these parts revere music that celebrates their roots and musicians that proudly call Louisiana home. The Alligator Man crossed over country and Cajun genres. His star still shines bright in the Louisiana night.

Set 1 (courtesy of Joel Savoy)

You Didn’t Have to Go- Key of G
I Wanna Tell all the World- Key of D
I thought I’d never fall in love again- C
Let’s Stay together- Key of E
Got You on my Mind- Key of E
Jolie Blonde Ayou Toi T’es- Key of A
Great Big Fais Do-Do- Key of D
Cry Cry Darlin- Key of Bb
If you Tried as Hard to Love Me- Key of G
Cajun Baby- Key of D

Set 2 (courtesy of Joel Savoy)

Louisiana Man- Key of D
Colinda- Key of A
Day Dreamin- Key of A
Let the Whole World Talk- Key of D
Blue Darlin- Key of G
H Brown Shuffle - Key of F
Hole in my Heart- C/G after 2nd Chorus
Again in your Arms- Key of C
Alligator Man- Key of A
ENCORE: Diggy Diggy Lo Key of A

VIDEOS, PHOTOS

Tim's Kitchen: Down Home Blue Plate Louisiana

Tim’s Kitchen
1000 Albertson Parkway
Broussard, LA

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

I can always count on my friends Bernard and Mark to take me to good ol’ classic restaurants when I visit Lafayette. Today’s excursion, Tim’s Kitchen at 1000 Albertson Parkway in nearby Broussard.

“This is one of our favorite ‘Plate Lunch’ places”, says Mark as we drive by barren sugar cane fields and new condo developments springing up as older cane fields disappear around the outskirts of Lafayette.

The interior of Tim’s Kitchen is fresh and new since it’s been in business since early November 2018. What’s on the menu however are staples of down home SW Louisiana food for decades.

The first thing you see after entering the well lit place featuring a counter and about a dozen tables is the list of Plate Lunch Specials detailed in beautiful colored chalk writing on the wall at the back of the room. Monday – Friday. Today, Wednesday, Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, Smothered Liver, Hamburger Steak, Baked Chicken and Chicken Fried Steak.

“I had the Chicken and Sausage Gumbo the day Beverly and I found the place,” says Mark, a devotee of Plate Lunch restaurants. That’s all I needed to know – Gumbo for me today.

Four women enjoying their food are animatedly chattering at a nearby table. Since Tim’s Kitchen closes in half an hour, we’re the only customers.

Our waitress Maggie, born and raised in Lafayette, recites other items on the menu with an accent as distinct as the aroma of home made food wafting from the kitchen.

Five minutes later, Maggie cheerfully delivers Bernard’s Hamburger Steak, Mark’s Stuffed Cabbage, and my Gumbo.

I spoon the side of rice into the tasty bowl of gumbo filled with generous helpings of chicken and sausage, start chewing on the fresh roll and every so often take a bite from the cup holding potato salad. This is where my Yankee knowledge of traditional Louisiana food gets an upgrade.

“Down here, people put the whole lump of potato salad into the gumbo, “ says Mark with a grin. One minute later, potato salad floating in gumbo, I’m eating like a regular.

Plate Lunches have been part of SW Louisiana culture for decades. They feature staples of Cajun and Creole home cooked basics. Since they’re cooked ahead of time, they’re served quickly, are affordable and fill your belly with satisfying comfort food. And of course, they’re served on a single plate.

Crystal, our personable hostess, who found her way to Lafayette 10 years ago from Jacksonville, FL, fills me in on Tim’s history.

“His mother owned three restaurants in Lafayette, all named Ruby’s, and closed them all a few years ago. Tim, born in nearby Church Point, was head chef at the most popular Ruby’s.”

The business is in his blood. It’s hard work but there’s no vaccination to make you immune from wanting the rush of creating good food for an appreciative audience.

Opening Tim’s Kitchen hit the sweet spot for this man who’s been in the business for decades. It's open five days a week from 10:30 AM to 2 PM. Tim, trim and friendly, is as comfortable talking to customers as he is whipping up food in his kitchen. “Want some gravy to cover the gumbo you’re taking home with you?” he says as he eyes the cup of gumbo I couldn’t finish.

“Come back on your next visit to Lafayette,” says Crystal.

I’m a Plate Dish kind of guy. Next time, I’m going to leave enough room to sample the home made Banana Split Cake.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Tim's Kitchen, Broussard, LA

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Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw...A Not To Be Missed Tribute in Nashville

January 12, 2019

"Willie: Life and Songs Of An American Outlaw": do you even need a last name?

Saturday, January 12, 2019, 7 PM CT, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN, the event honors 85 year-old country music legend Willie Nelson...and a cast of luminaries are gonna testify at the altar of Willie, probably much to his embarrassment.

Let's start with this 1997 video, Willie, his guitar, and a small audience. To me, this is the definitive Willie Nelson, the inimitable sound of that guitar, the flawless picking, the honeyed sandpaper slightly nasal voice, the Django Reinhart chord changes, the vaguely Mexicali riffs. Country? Nope, the man can sing anything in the American Song Book, standards to country, and can cross over genres as easy as you can walk out your front door. Trust me. He hasn't lost a lick since 1997.

MORE to come...I'll be in the audience

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/willie-nelson-funny-how-time-slips-away-austin-738679/

Man In The Ring: Emile Griffith's Title Match with Life

"Man In The Ring", Emile Griffith's Title Match with Life
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Tremont Street, 
Boston, MA
December 16, 2018

"Man In The Ring" is a poignantly sad, strangely sweet story of a man whose hands could make a beautiful hat for a show room and deliver thunderous haymakers in the boxing ring. It will stay riveted in your memory long after you've left the theater.

It’s the story of two Emile Griffiths told in parallel, opening with scenes of the 70 year old mentally demolished (pugilistic dementia) older Emile searching for a shoe then ping ponging back and forth to the younger Emile, the kid filled with dreams who immigrated to New York from St. Thomas, V.I.

It’s painful to watch young off-the-boat Griffith enter the world of boxing when his employer in the hat making district discovers how strong and muscular he is and brings him to the gym to become a fighter. He had fast hands and could box - a natural.

We know where the play is heading and can’t close our eyes as we know how those dreams of fame on the baseball diamond or as a designer on the floor of a hat making business give way to a life of boxing that will give him the fame then crush him for being open about the kind of man he is. This is the 1950s and 60s. Homosexuality was taboo. Bisexuality was unthinkable. Combine that with the fact we're talking about a world champion boxer and it strains credulity. And it's true.

The characterizations of Griffith (1938-2013) lean on liltingly accented island English, poetic and filled with colorful local colloquialisms that eerily underscore what happens in Griffith’s life. The recurring rhymes of childhood songs that Griffith faintly remembers, songs that teach them how to behave in male/female relationships, hold the both the play and the older Griffith together as his brain struggles to focus on where he put his shoes, and wracks him with nightmares about a 1962 prize fight for the welterweight championship in which he killed Benny Paret with a brutal onslaught of punches. Paret had made fun of Griffith's sexuality at the public weigh in before the title fight. We are left to decide whether or not Griffith intentionally savagely beat the man senseless.

The six time world champion made and lost a fortune. A scene as he sells the belts he won as a world champion in the welterweight and middleweight classes to make ends meet breaks your heart. The champion is an emotional wreck, relentlessly remorseful for the fatal night in the boxing ring and deeply yearning for forgiveness and understanding for the life he chose to live.

'I killed a man, and the world forgave me, yet I loved a man, and the world wants to kill me," Griffith says uncomprehendingly.

He never tried to hide his sexuality and hardly seemed to understand his bisexual nature himself. Considering the era in which he lived, his openness, naive or intentional, was as brave as his valor in the ring. The result tormented him.

From the very first moments on stage, John Douglas Thompson and Kyle Vincent Terry inhabit the roles of the elder and younger Griffith with the magnetism of the man’s personality and the irreconcilable contradictions of his lifestyle. Luis (Victor Almanzar) as the elder Griffith’s lover and caretaker is tender, gentle, and the only link Griffith has with the real world. The portrayal of Griffith''s mother, who emigrated to the United States years before Griffith and prostituted herself to make a living is two dimensional.  She clearly has no idea how to nurture her son but is happy take his money as he rises to fame. The cruel aunt in St. Thomas she asked to care for him was cruel and devoid of any love. For nurturing and any kind of parental love (his father was long gone after he was born), Griffith began life with a mandatory eight count. Luis is the only constant source of love Griffith may have known his whole life.

How is it possible to make the life of an immigrant bisexual boxer a compelling piece of theater? Director Michael Grief, playwright Michael Cristofer, and music director Michael McElroy know exactly how they want the play to unfold - using imaginatively staged and illuminated vignettes that gradually fit together the people and the pieces of the puzzle that was Griffith's life.

The boxing scenes, strobe lights popping to show in freeze frame scenes of his knockout punches in his fights are starkly effective as are scenes of the champion patronizing gay bars. Even in 2018, the bar scenes contradict every notion we have of men in the prize fighting business, let alone world champions prize fighters.

The clever two-tier stage setting features a place for musicians to play the melodies of children’s songs as the boxer brings them into focus and a huge screen backdrop that shows crawls of headlines from Griffith's career and brief black and white video clips of Griffith during arc of his brilliant ring career from 1958 to 1977 (85 Wins [23 Knockouts], 24 Defeats [2 Knockouts, 2 Draws).

The man was either way ahead of his time or recklessly self-destructive. In his boxing career, he was willing to take punches to wait for an opening to knock out an opponent. In the ring of life, he absorbed the pain of being battered for who he was. Years after his death, this powerful, deeply realized portrayal of the most complex world champion boxer the world has ever known awards him a TKO over the misery he suffered in life.

Griffith's bisexuality may have been an open secret to the closely knit world of boxing but was never a story newspapers would run at the time. A meeting with Benny Paret's son when Griffith struggles for the words to ask for forgiveness at the closing moments of the play puts the entire audience into a sob mode. This is not a theatrical device. It happened.

The single bed on the set is a metaphor for the island on which Griffith finds himself stranded with only memories to keep him company.

 

Dan Gabel and The Abletones: Swing With Class

Dan Gabel and The Abletones
Swing City at The Cambridge Youth Center
680 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, MA
December 8, 2018

http://www.theabletones.com/Dan_Gabel_and_The_Abletones/About_Us.html

Swing City, Saturday, December 8, 2018, Swing City advertises that Dan Gabel and the Abletones is the feature band. I’d never heard of ‘em so I checked out a few clips on youtube. The sound of the full orchestra was a little bright for my taste, but am I ever glad I decided to take a chance and show up anyway.

The Abletones come in two varieties, a compact ten-piece band (dectet) featuring music of the 1930s - 1950s that's playing tonight and a full eighteen-piece orchestra.

From the proscenium stage of the new Cambridge Youth Center, Gabel is fronting a versatile, effortlessly smooth bunch of musicians. The guy plays a mean trombone but his gift is his love of the music of the swing era that translates to a supremely glorious evening of dance music – swing, fox trot, cha cha, a sprinkle of rumba and waltz tempos – all of them with solid back beats and rhythms that make dancers deliriously happy.

The band leader introduces every song with a brief synopsis of title, band that made it famous, the band that made a rendition he’s about to play, the date of recording, and a bit of trivia that connects it to the zeitgeist of the era. He’s not showing off or professorial. He’s just wearing his devotion to the music on his sleeve.

By the time he’s finished, we’ve learned something and are ready to do justice with our feet to the music he’s described. In the hands of a pedant, this approach could be stultifying. With Gabel, it’s satisfying and lights a short fuse leading to a wondrous few minutes of Fred and Ginger inspired moves on the smooth, polished oak floor.

Every swing band needs a vocalist whose crooning can transport us in an invisible time machine to a bygone era. Elise Roth, in a tailored deep ruby dress and black pumps, nails tone and style in the few songs she sings every set. Close your eyes and you’re tripping the light fantastic in a cloud of nostalgia on a dance floor in the 1930s and 1950s.

“I really love the sound of your band, and the way you’re curating the music you’re playing tonight,” says I to him at the break. And joke with him about a comment he made to his band a moment before they launched into a song. “Chart 10A, guys, not 10B.”

Dan points to a rumpled stack of sheet music a few inches high on his bandstand. “We’ve got a pretty deep repertoire,” says he with a grin. He’s had a hand in arranging most of it. And that sound? I learn later that he has toured with the World Famous Glenn Miller Band and has been collecting and documenting vintage big band recordings for years. If Gabel’s parents paid for his education at the New England Conservatory (Masters Degree, 2014), they must be pretty proud of their son.

Tonight’s ten-piece band is nimble and smooth. The honeyed sound is a perfect blend of reeds and brass that swings like the old time bands and has a trademark groove masterminded by Gabel. Result? Dan’s dectet swang and swayed with class and style at the Swing City tonight.

Courtesy of Abletones web site

Courtesy of centersandsquares.com

“Miracles and Other Deceptions”: Sleightly Wonder-ful Show at the Omni Parker House

“Miracles and Other Deceptions"

Omni Parker House, 60 School Street, Boston, MA, 02106
Fridays, 7 PM and 9PM
November 16, 2018

I’m rolling up my sleeves to show I have nothing to hide as I tell you this is one of the best evening’s entertainments in Boston right now.

“Miracles and Other Deceptions,” a 75-minute program of theatrical sleight of hand magic is all of that. Paul Gertner was smitten with the idea of magic when he was a kid. He’s so good at it, he presents all over the world. He’s fooled Penn and Teller. Three times. Fooling me was a lot easier and I loved every minute.

No grand stage illusions by levitating a woman, or having her climb into a small box, driving swords into the closed box, and then opening it up to discover only air inside. This is the best kind of magic. Small scale, a few props, and big surprises with playing cards, coins, and cups and balls.

The set up is perfect. A small room on the Omni Parker House mezzanine level, a large round table covered in black velvet seating 12 people, plus one for Paul Gertner. Risers accommodating a dozen others are set behind the table close enough to see the goings on. I was two seats away from Gertner; my pal Myke who invited me to join him for the show sat right next to him.

"The closer you look, the less you'll see!" Gertner says in the first few minutes. Giving into glee is much easier.

Telling you what happened would spoil the fun. I can tell you that with playing cards, coins and a few cups and balls he will bedazzle you with magic and patter that makes the show feel like a musical that hums along just fine without the music. Back stories, anecdotes about his father, children, Johnny Carson, and wife seamlessly connect with the sleight of hand he performs. It is utterly mesmerizing for the ears as well as the eyes.

“Does anyone have a $20 bill?” he asks. I quickly reach into my pocket. What happened next had something to do with a lemon and was stupefying.

I haven’t had so much fun since my mother, her mother, and all her sisters were playing Peekaboo with me when I was an infant. OK, that’s an assumption. A fact is I haven’t done as much oooo-ing and ahhhh-ing in a long time.

“The sense of wide-eyed wonder you had as a kid still lurks in your psyche,” he tells you upfront. No small part of his show is that he makes that re-appear too.

SIDEBAR
Pricing; VIP “At The Table” $60, 12 people; General Admission: $45 in second and third row and close to the magic, 12 people, seats not assigned. Definitely recommend VIP seating.

Seating: Arrive 30 minutes early, wait in the hallway on the mezzanine level till Gertner’s wife Kathy opens the door 15 minutes before showtime. The 12 seats around the VIP table are first come, first served, as are second and third row. Myke was the first ticket holder for the table who entered the room and got those fabulous seats right next to Paul Gertner.

A Happy Thanksgiving message that magically turns into a personal timeline/mini biography from Paul

“Miracles and Other Deceptions" program covers.

 
Myke, Paul Gertner, PT

The residual memories of the joy of seeing magic being performed a few feet from my chair at the table in synch with an evening of personal anecdotes that scaffold the illusions has kept me beaming days and days after witnessing it.

https://gertner.com/developing-new-magic-trick/

https://gertner.com/upside-down-thinking/

Thanksgiving: Alternate Takes About What You Learned In School (UPDATED NOV. 21, 2018)

November 18, 2018

UPDATE FROM JESSIE LITTLE DOE BAIRD, A LEADER OF THE MASHPEE WAMPANOAG TRIBAL NATION,  ON NOVEMBER 21, 2018 (The true story of the first Thanksgiving and what it meant)...deep context for information and links that follow.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/11/21/the-true-story-first-thanksgiving-and-what-meant/fZFrN9YZQhVLZF6fLel5PJ/story.html

The New York Times weighed in. So did Readers Digest, not everyone's cup of tea, but as far as I know, it has no driving political motivation to fake us out. To this day, there are contradictory references of how English and Native Americans gathered on that first occasion. A mix of myths and facts surrounds the holiday. To steer clear of complicated history, best to look at it with a small lens focused on friends and family and the ties that bind us together. Politics is the third rail, don't even think about it unless you are completely certain you're with kindred spirits.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html

• A few factoids asserted in this story...

• Squanto - complicated: He was captured by the English in 1614 and later sold into slavery in Spain. He spent several years in England, where he learned English. He returned to New England 1619, only to find his entire Patuxet tribe dead from smallpox. He met the Pilgrims in March 1621. Extraordinary story.

• Native Americans (approximately 90) did participate in a three day feast of food, games and prayer; there is no written record of how they were invited.

• First feast day of Thanksgiving in 1621? Nope, a day of Thanksgiving had been celebrated for centuries by Europeans and Native Americans after successful harvests.

• No turkey, no pie (no butter, no wheat flour) at first feast... sorry.

• 1863 Abe Lincoln declares a day of thanksgiving for Union victories.

• First boatloads called themselves were Separatists looking to establish a theocracy, which they did.

• The company that sponsored them was a business looking for profits, first settlers shipped them animal skins, fur, lumber.

https://www.rd.com/culture/thanksgiving-facts-that-actually-arent-true/

• A few factoids asserted in this story...

• First arrivals called themselves “Saints”; the term “Pilgrims” not applied generally until around 1880.

• When took place? Likely late September/ mid October after harvest brought in.

• Turkey? Nope; the big dish was venison, something new to the newcomers. “Back in England, deer were on estates and people would be arrested for poaching if they killed these deer … The colonists mentioned venison over and over again in their letters back home.”

• No buckles, tall hats, black clothing; 19th-century artists painted them that way and we've been stuck with that image ever since.

•1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring “a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise,” the culmination of a 36-year campaign started by so-called “mother” or “godmother” of Thanksgiving, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale—a magazine editor and writer.

• 1939 Franklin D.Roosevelt declared Thanksgiving to be a federal holiday. The exact date? Into the weeds with this timeline here.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

The tradition of celebrating the holiday on Thursday dates back to the early history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, when post-harvest holidays were celebrated on the weekday regularly set aside as “Lecture Day,” a midweek church meeting where topical sermons were presented. A famous Thanksgiving observance occurred in the autumn of 1621, when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited local Indians to join the Pilgrims in a three-day festival held in gratitude for the bounty of the season.

Thanksgiving became an annual custom throughout New England in the 17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga. In 1789, President George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday, when, at the request of Congress, he proclaimed November 26, a Tuesday, as a day of national thanksgiving for the U.S. Constitution. However, it was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to fall on the last Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated nationally.

With a few deviations, Lincoln’s precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president–until 1939. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt departed from tradition by declaring November 23, the next to last Thursday that year, as Thanksgiving Day. Considerable controversy surrounded this deviation, and some Americans refused to honor Roosevelt’s declaration.
For the next two years, Roosevelt repeated the unpopular proclamation, but on November 26, 1941, he admitted his mistake and signed a bill into law officially making the fourth Thursday in November the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day.

https://www.pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_What_Happened_in_1621.pdf

• Primary source contradicting information on one source above, identifies who was present, what happened on first day (actually three days) of what we celebrate now as Thanksgiving.

Edward Winslow's Journal, September 6, 1621 to March 22, 1621

• The most detailed documentation of the settlers early days, worthy of a docu-drama.

• Thanksgiving is considered a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans since the event marks the negative influence of white settlers on their culture and livelihood.

UPDATE FROM WAMPANOAG NATION NOVEMBER 21, 2018

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/11/21/the-true-story-first-thanksgiving-and-what-meant/fZFrN9YZQhVLZF6fLel5PJ/story.html

https://plymouth400inc.org/OurStory
Squanto: brought to England as slave; returns to Plymouth and aids survival; this site dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing in Plymouth; time will tell if they get the story of the Wampanoags right.

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving
All things Thanksgiving

The whole story about the Separatists, Saints, Pilgrims, Wampanoags, is intriguing and complex. Google Squanto, Separatists in the Netherlands, William Bradford and his two volume "Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647" for starters. His appalling account of a massacre of 300 Pequot when the English burned their village gives credence to why Native Americans label our day of Thanksgiving as a Day of Mourning.

Happy Thanksgiving...

 

To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults

To Survive On This Shore

Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and
 Gender Nonconforming Older Adults

A Project by Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre

A presentation and book signing at the Harvard Bookstore, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
November 13, 2018

Part 1 Impressions

Where to start?
I’m in an audience of gay, straight, transsexual, transgender, transfluid, bisexual, gender non-conforming adults - quite possibly the most non-judgemental group of people I’ve ever gathered with. After a few minutes. I stop trying to use personal pronouns to describe my fellow attendees, millennials to septuagenarians. Downshifting to put my stereotypical mind into neutral gear, I stop worrying about it.

 

Welcome to the world of “On This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults,” A Project by Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre, who are presenting tonight.

For the next hour, I’m taken on a passage to that shore, about as foreign to me as Madagascar.

Sitting in the Harvard Bookstore before the presentation I think about the title, “On This Shore,” the perfect metaphor for this project. To reach a shore, you have to make a voyage, often without a reliable map, over rough seas, and an uncertain timetable. Landing on shore isn’t the end of your voyage, it’s the beginning. What lies beyond the shore? Allies? Adversaries? A place you can call home?

Dugan and Fabbre have made their own voyages. This is the night to present their project, the story of men and women in their fifties to seventies, forerunners, who, often at great risk and sacrifice, transited to the other shore.

Part 2 The Project

One mission, two vocabularies, one using a lens, the other using a pen, Dugan and Fabbre created “On This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults.” The photos won’t work without the subjects. The words would have no context without the photographs. Look for yourself.
https://www.tosurviveonthisshore.com/interviews/
https://www.tosurviveonthisshore.com/portraits/

Dugan and Fabbre, accomplished photographer and writer, respectively, tell the story as well as they danced together at a country line dance when they met at a gay cowboy country bar in 2012.

Over time and a developing relationship, they found they had overlapping interests in the LGBT community, the subject of aging, and the expertise to tell that story.

You’re probably saying, what the heck are the prospects for a project that tells the stories of subjects in their 50s all the way to their 90s…they’re old and trans-something and we’re in a youth oriented heterosexual culture. It took a generation for gay culture to become normalized through TV, films, and celebrity personalities. If transgender society follows the same path, this project will be one of the tipping points.

Part 3 The Harvard Bookstore event

As brilliant and perceptive as they may be, photographers and writers are not always reliably the best presenters for their own material. Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre are an exception to the rule. Over the next 45 minutes they carefully assemble the pieces of their story and the story of this book with clarity, warmth, and empathy. The bookstore is filled to capacity, 90 people crammed together on folding chairs, standing around the perimeter, and sitting on the counters.

This pair was way ahead of a cultural curve that now talks out loud about transgender matters. Referendum question 3 on the Massachusetts ballot this year was about transgender rights. This week, President Trump has been lobbying to refuse transgender men and women the right to serve in the military.

This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. For a long time, the way out of the mainstream subject generated fear and loathing in heterosexual society. But, for their subjects in the shadows of misunderstood sexuality, tonight is an affirmation.

The creators tell us upfront that the project is a conscious and intentional vehicle to pay tribute to the generations who paved the way for transgender identities and to give younger trans people a sense of their past and their future. This can be scary stuff for people in the midst of it. I think of this book as a gift to them.

The project took shape between 2012 and 2017. One of the first subjects was Grace Sterling Stowell, whom Jess, describing herself tonight as a “baby queer” teenager scouring the bookshelves for stories about sex change surgeries, had met while she was working at this very bookstore. Grace is the executive director of the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth.

“We started the project with people we knew, others found out by word-of-mouth. We called LGBT centers to ask who are your trans elders,” says Vanessa.

“I think 2015 was a trans tipping point. We did not want to do Hollywood or celebrity stories. We wanted to do relatable stories of real and complicated people,” says Jess.  Dugan’s photos are character studies in black, white and infinite shades of gray. Fabbre’s text mirrors the subtleties of the photos.

Others got wind of the project after The New York Times wrote about it. “Many of our subjects wanted to have their stories recorded. They had a conscious wish to give something to the next generation, “ says Jess, who holds a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, a Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies from Harvard University, and an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.

“Their motivation was clearly intentional,” says Vanessa. Most had ‘come ashore’ during an era when it had no precedent in everyday culture and was, frankly, dangerous. They were survivors. With the rise of the transgender population becoming a mainstream topic (Caitlin Jenner), having the opportunity to tell their stories to understanding artists, without fear, must have felt liberating.

“We would meet in the home of a subject, or an LGBT center, or a park, that allowed people to be where they wanted to be situated and that felt like home for them,” says Jess.

They knew from the start they wanted a diverse range in age between 50 and 90 years old. Diversity was key. Trust me, it’s as wide as the Mississippi River…age, race, ethnicity, social status, gender identification and categories - and uses terms like binary, non-binary  that I had to look up to understand their meaning.

By the time they finished, they had profiles and photographs of 65 people for the book although they interviewed and photographed 86 people. The subjects they profiled, from small towns to metropolises across America, had made a transition between 1970 and 2016. The book was published in Germany in May 2018 and in America in August 2018. It has sold out. A second printing is being considered.

“We consciously wanted to balance struggle and joy to tell a complex story and not sugarcoat it. We asked a question to one subject who’d experienced poverty and discrimination and he spoke for one and a half hours straight, then said, ‘We’re done,” says Jess.

Vanessa, PhD, LCSW, an Assistant Professor at the Brown School of Social Work and Affiliate Faculty in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, uses that story in her classes. Her research explores the conditions under which LGBT people age well.

“By agreement we used subjects first real name. This was a big emotional deal for us and for our subject. After parents of a subject read the story, they apologized for all the years of using the wrong pronoun for their child,” says Vanessa suppressing tears.

Comment from the audience: “As an older person, I feel we have lost a sense of community and I sense a divide between the younger and older generation. As young people, we were aping heterosexual models. I see this book as a cry for community.”

Jess responds. “The subject of community came up from our interview subjects. We want people to use the book to manage the gap. Organizations like SAGE bring younger and older people together at inter-generational meals to build community and break down misunderstandings that still divide younger and older trans people.”

SAGE Advocacy and Services for LGBT Elders reports that the U.S. census has never measured how many LGBT people live in America and estimates that there are currently around 3 million LGBT adults over age 50. That number is expected to grow to around 7 million by 2030.

They will have the elders in this book to thank for paving the way.

“There is no road. Walking makes the road,” says the poet Antonio Machado. The subjects of this book have made their own roads where there were none. Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre show us the maps.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello,Jr.

 

David Bromberg and His Band: Americana Tour de Force

David Bromberg Big Band
Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
November 8, 2018

David Bromberg and His Big Band is a dazzling three-ring circus. For sheer musicianship, you’d be hard pressed to find a tighter, more accomplished group of players on any stage.

Bromberg is the ring master holding it all together center stage with his collection of guitars and stage presence; the quintet of saxophone/clarinet, French horn, trumpet, slide trombone and bass guitar lines up on his right; lead guitar, violin/fiddle to his left; timekeeper and drummer barely visible sits atop a platform behind; another platform to accommodates three Bromberg-ette singers.  Several band members add vocals, and boy do they ever get into it.

The whole stage becomes is a marvelous kaleidoscopic performance - Bromberg soloing, playing with the quintet, playing with lead guitar and fiddle/violin, playing with the force of the his entire band.

Bromberg is having fun, singing with gusto in his slightly nasal baritone, with a good deal of body English to punctuate the lyrics. Gusto is good. His devotion to the spirit of the music and the sentiments from which it was born is better. 

A student of American musical heritage and genres, Bromberg’s repertoire is wide and deep.  In his fifty-year and counting career, he’s played with Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Emmylou Harris, and inspiring bluesman and mentor Reverend Gary Davis. Blues is Bromberg’s home territory.

Blues is story-telling set to music. Bromberg is channeling the emotions that created them with an easy going controlled vibrato, some downright righteous gospel inflected testifying he probably learned from his days of leading his blind mentor Reverend Gary Davis to the Sunday church services where he preached and sang, or crooning that perfectly projects the sentiment he wants to convey. I feel his energy all the way back in the second row of the mezzanine of the Wilbur Theatre.

For him, blues is like an ice cream parlor filled with equally delicious but different flavors. Classic songs by iconic Robert Johnson, or country blues (Kentucky Blues) or gospel infused blues (Yield Not) are from the same parlor but have their own distinct musical flavor. Bromberg loves them all.  

Over the years Bromberg has played it all - Americana, Appalachian folk, bluegrass, jazz, pop, funk, gospel, and a ton of blues. All of it seeps into the band’s set tonight. If you detect an occasional nod to New Orleans style playing amongst the brass and clarinet and saxophone, you’d be right. The trumpet has plenty of lip, the slide trombone plenty of invention, the saxophone/clarinet flashes of Pete fountain. The French horn never had a chance to solo but softened the edges of everything the band played.

David Bromberg is clearly in command. Lots of eye contact with us in the audience and that big smile on his face is because he’s doing what he was born to do, play with feeling, mastery of his instrument, and deep knowledge of the origins of every song he sings.

In the business of live shows, attitude, engagement with the audience, pacing of the show, song selection, and a perceptive ability to read the audience to synchronize what you feel like playing with what your audience might want to hear requires confidence, not a small amount of ego, and abundant ESP.

Set list?  

A moment after the first song, a fan in the audience shouts out a request. 

“Thanks, you but you don’t know shit about how to construct a set list.” Can you think of any other top tier musician who’d have the chutzpah for that riposte to a die-hard fan? Most chuckle. They know the man.

The set is a totally organic version of the child’s game of Telephone. A moment after each song finishes, Bromberg turns to his right, says something to the bass player who passes it along to the rest of the quintet. Bromberg turns left, says a title to lead guitar who passes it on to violin/fiddle player.

The trumpet player riffs through his charts. Everyone else knows it cold. Bromberg plays a flawless intro, the ensemble gets in gear. He strides toward a musician, nods, and a spontaneous fresh solo floats, careens off or caresses the walls of the theater. Bromberg smiles like a proud papa after they play the daylights out of their solo. He’s a genius with the guitar, dobro, and mandolin resting on stands behind him. Endlessly inventive, he appears lost in the moment. I’ll bet he never plays a song the same way twice.

Bromberg sings “Walking Blues,” “Kaatskill Serenade,” “Why Are People Like That,” “This Month,” and "The Blues The Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues"from his 2016 “The Blues and Nothing But The Blues” album. He uses the stops (the rests) in his singing and playing as effectively and demonstratively as any musician I’ve ever heard.

In the middle of “Kaatskill Serenade,” a lyrical song that begins with “Where are the men that I used to sport with, what has become of my beautiful town…”Bromberg pauses, says, “This isn’t the same country I was raised in.” He gets pretty specific about his dim view about current politics. He’s not concerned whether you agree or not, but needs to say what’s on his mind. The applause shows that a bunch of his fans know what he’s talking about. 

His rendition of “The Tennessee Waltz”, sung solo, is the purest, most affecting version I’ve ever heard.  By the time I thought Bromberg had delivered as many surprises as he had up his sleeve, along came a slightly rumba-ish version of Sam Cooke’s “What A Wonderful World.” Awesome, dude!
 
I might have been the only first timer in the house. The crowd often applauded when they figured out what Bromberg was about to play. Favorites like the encore “Send Me To The ‘Lectric Chair” have fans singing the choruses.  Showman and musical shaman, Bromberg is the best musician I’ve barely heard of.

Tonight is living proof that he’s earned the title of godfather of Americana music.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Video and links about Bromberg

https://store.compassrecords.com/products/the-blues-the-whole-blues-and-nothing-but-the-blues

includes audio clips of each song

https://www.pbs.org/video/-canvas-david-bromberg/

Wonderful World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jgk_p3kMmw

Kaatskill Serenade

David Bromberg concept album "Use Me"

Biography, Discography from AllMusic

 

 

 

The Bottlecap Cafe - The Cheers of Key West

The Bottlecap Cafe
1128 Simonton Street
Key West, FL
October 26, 2018
http://bottlecapkeywest.com

An off-the-beaten-path cozy, utterly unpretentious Key West neighborhood bar that a tourist like me would never find without being invited by locals who hang out here.

The inviting warm glow of the Bottlecap Cafe isn’t coming from the lights. It’s coming from the other folks at the bar, like Samantha Tarracino Gonzalez and her husband Tony who invited us to join them as the Masquerade March ended around 7:30 PM.

This is an honest-to-goodness Cheers type bar where everybody, including Erin the bartender, knows not just each other's names, but their stories. Erin pours Samantha a glass of Prosecco and pineapple juice as soon as she walks in the door, no words necessary.

Any friend of Samantha and Tony’s is bestowed an informal membership to the Bottlecap Society. Within minutes, we’re yakking it up with Samantha, her friends, Tony and Tony’s cousin.

There are a dozen bars on Duval and Green Streets smack in the middle of the tourist zone. They’ve earned their stars, have good wait staffs, good food and what the heck, places like the Hog’s Breath Saloon, Fogarty’s, Captain Tony’s Saloon, and of course, Jimmy Buffett’s Margarittaville are part of Key West lore. They’re all worth visiting as long as you don’t figure that your bar crawl ends there.

Google 'bars in Key West'. NINE PAGES of them! Ask around. You just might find one like The Bottlecap Cafe that will wrap itself around you like a warm hug from a long lost friend.

The Bottlecap Cafe - where everybody knows your name

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Samantha points to a photo of Captain Tony (above).

OF NOTE
One of Key West’s less recognized features it its strong sense of community.

In early 2007, when the owner of The Bottlecap Café began working the Friday Happy Hour (5 PM-8 PM) shift, she was not comfortable taking tips from her customers. Check this heart warming story to see how she solved the situation by donating her tips to local charities - and giving her staff a cut of the proceeds from the Happy Hour sales. "Non-Profit Fridays" recipients are booked for about one year out! http://bottlecapkeywest.com/non-profit-fridays.htm

Several events during Fantasy Fest donate proceeds to area non-profits. Money raised by men and women vying to be named King and Queen of the annual Fantasy Fest is donated to A.H. Monroe that provides case managed healthcare; food programs; counseling; housing; clinical, and other supportive and volunteer services; increases affordable housing by acquiring, developing, and maintaining low income housing for persons in need; and conducting health education and linkage to care. This year's total raised by aspiring candidates - $275,000!

http://www.ahmonroe.org/about-aids-help/

Fantasy Fest 2018: The Masquerade March - Conchs On Parade 2

Fantasy Fest, Key West, Florida, Friday, October 26, 2018

March route: Key West Cemetery on Frances Street winding through Old Town

 

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Let there be no mistake about it...the Masquerade March is an all-in  Key West experience with a focus on  local color. Conchs from Key West and the up islands march and make up a huge percentage of spectators, surprisingly an all ages crowd. They get the spirit of the event, enjoy how the marchers dream up ways to create costumes to match the year's theme, this  year "The Games People Play." Clearly, you don't have to  have a costume to have a grand time.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Fantasy Fest 2018: The Masquerade March - Conchs On Parade

Fantasy Fest, Key West, Florida, Friday, October 26, 2018

March route: Key West Cemetery on Frances Street winding through Old Town

What's a parade without music? Members of Fantasy Fest  King and Queen's court disembark for some rummy refreshments.https://fantasyfest.com/ah-monroe/

A star spangled promenade on Duval Street way before the  Masquerade March

Measuring up to the competition...rolling along in style

Messages and messengers...
 

Her top was abandoned a few blocks ago, her smile and tan lines are joyous beacons

Just for today, Key West has the market on Barbies...




Tatas galore...

Oh the games people play...

and when she's not chilling in Key West, Niki Relon, aspiring para-Olympic athlete, motivational speaker, chef, boxer... is enjoying the vibe.

Refreshment stop at Eden House, Fleming Street

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Kyle Vest @#Kyle paints me up in style!

Avi at work...

Parading down Fleming Street till dusk

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Masquerade March is the Rose Bowl Parade in Key West. Residents along Frances, Fleming and Simonton Streets and hundreds from Key West and others from the keys to the north drive down, set themselves up along the streets and cheer their spirited friends. For the previous eight days,tourists and veteran Fantasy Fest fans have been cavorting up and down Duval and Green Street. This is their turn. Trust me, they're making  the most of it. This is a pretty over the top festival. I cannot think of anywhere else on the planet Fantasy Fest could or would succeed. I mean, look at this. Grown adults playing like mischievous children when the adults aren't watching.

 

 

Spectators are loving this...some of their neighbors are showing off!

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Masquerade March Spills onto Duval Street

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Duval Street is closed to traffic except for celebrants in costume (or lack thereof) or just chillin'. Food and gift vendors are doing brisk business. Body paint artists still busy with customers...the night is young.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Fantasy Fest 2018: My Blue Heaven

 Fantasy Fest 2018: Wednesday, October 24, 2018

My Blue Heaven

729 Thomas St. Key West, Florida 33040

 

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Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Text to follow

 

Fantasy Fest 2018: Togas, Paint, and Do It Yourself Costumerie

Fantasy Fest 2018: Thursday, October 25, 2018

Just another day at Fantasy Fest: A Naughty Bike Ride (you figure it out) down Duval Street; Karaoke at Two Friends Bar; Dante’s 12th annual Halos & Horns Pool Party; local musicians playing at the Customs House; The History, Culture, and Politics of Bondage/Domination/Sadomasochism at the Customs House; Annual Headdress Ball at the new Key West Amphitheater at Truman Waterfront Park; Rockabily “Shake, Rattle & Roll Party at Sunset Pier; 3rd Annual White Party; Sandbar Sports Grill Annual Body Paint Competition; Sloppy Joe’s Annual Toga Party; Fat Tuesday Pink Party; Cowboy Bill’s annual wet T shirt contest; Pajama and Lingerie Party at the Bottle Cap Lounge; Irish Kevin’s 80s Party; plus all the fun you can have strolling up and down Duval Street. 

These goings on began on and around Duval Street after 8 PM, but trust me, dahling, the fun has been going on since Friday October 19. The grand finale will be the Grand Parade on Saturday October 27, attended by tens of thousands of your BFFs.

Oh, and Sunday October 28, for those who want to squeeze the very last drop out of this juicy piece of low hanging fruit, an 8 AM tailgate party to watch the Philadelphia Eagles play Jacksonville Jaguars in England (yes), dress in your best team pajamas, and a Children's Day at Bayview Park from 12 Noon to 5 PM and then.... TA DAAAA... "The Fat Lady Sings" Tea Dance at La Te Da Hotel,Restaurant, Cabaret and Bars way out on 1125 Duval Street from Noon to 5 PM.

Then start planning for next year. But I digress.

Three of a kind?

 
Poker? A pair of queens? A Royal flush? All kinds of costumes and participants of every inclination... spectators, revelers, plus a whole bunch of people who just got off the cruise ship in the harbor ("We aren't in Kansas anymore!). You are about to see the most incongruous collection of people you'll see until this time next year. People in t shirts and flip flops mingle with people in body paint, sequins, pasties and elaborate and inspired "Games People Play" costumes. Honest to goodness, it's sort of like a zoo without bars, spectators and participants checking each other out with curiously and a smile. Cameras and iPhones click and flash away, including mine.

Counter-intuitive? You betcha. What would be your normal reaction when a perfect stranger takes a picture of you in your birthday suit. Toss that out the window. Here, you flash a smile to go along with an acre of your exposed flesh - and pose. You got someone's attention! You certainly didn't come here to hide your light under a basket. You came ready for kleig lights. Flash away! Everybody is clicking photos of everybody else. The chances that someone back home in the plumbing, education, dentistry etc businesses back home will see you playing like a kid in a sandbox before you were taught that being nearly naked in public is inappropriate are slim to none.

Time to promenade...this couple packed real light for this stroll.

Silent slow rolling by golf cart on part of Duval Street above Caroline where the street is still open to vehicles...

  
where you can pose with Beetle...or Amazon Prime....

Here's the theme...the grand theme is to have a good time whether in costume or not.

And the TWAT Team is on patrol...dispensing verification stickers.

Kings, queens, clowns, emperors...

 
Rock n rollers, onlookers...

Way cool body paint and paraphernalia...

 

Indian Princesses and Key West Muff Divers!

Pretty much captures the jovial vibe on Duval Street.

Around Sloppy Joe's

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Duval Street between Caroline and Front Street is one moveable fantastical feast. The stretch of Duval from Caroline Street to Front Street is closed to vehicular traffic.

Caroline's

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Got the idea for Masquerade March from this guy.

 

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Caroline's on Duval Street, great place to join the party, fellow celebrants, good service, good food, good prices. How often can you dine while sitting with body painted, festively dressed and undressed other diners.

 

Duval Street jammed with celebrants and spectators

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Deep "C" Diving

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A much photographed pair of divers, probably hauled the equipment from their boat or rented from the local dive shop...big points for creativity!

 

Smile for the camera...

 

Around Captain Tony's

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Two Cousins: Accidental Tourists!

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  Two cousins visit Key West, had NO IDEA Fantasy Fest was going on. It didn't take long for them to get with the program!

Elsewhere on Duval Street

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• Getting into the spirit...and her blouse!
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Finish the night with a shot at Kelly's and a scoop from Mattheessen's
 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.