I like musicians. They remind me of the kids who wouldn’t come in the house at night until their mother called them for the tenth time. They live in a world of their own, somewhat connected to a less kind universe, and it has its own satisfactions. They’ll ride for 16 hours in a third row seat in somebody’s ratty van to get to an event where somebody pays them twelve dollars, then sit around after the show for three hours happily comparing instruments.
There’s an old musician joke that goes, “What do you call a guitar player who just broke up with his girlfriend?” The answer is “homeless.” For every musician who manages to show a profit there are forty eating one meal a day and living in their twenty-year-old cars. Still, they play on. Nineteen-year-old Janis Joplin once asked her bandmates in the Waller Creek Boys if they thought they’d ever “make it,” meaning succeed individually in the music business. Lannie Wiggins just laughed; Powell St. John said “If you mean sitting on a bucket on a street corner at 70, singing a sad song and playing my instrument with one guy listening, of course I’ll make it. I have no choice, really.” True to his word, Powell played on (though with plenty of listeners) until he met his maker in 2021 at age 80. Nobody knows what ever happened to Janis, but she was once heard to say, “I live for those few hours when I’m on stage and the unconditional love is flowing. The rest of the time is just waiting.” The waiting was the hardest part.
Austin East?
Some old hangabouts like to think of Gainesville as Austin East, but there’s really no comparison. The capital of Texas is much bigger, it has better hills and you can get a flight in or out for less than ten thousand dollars. True, skeletons of drivers trying to get from one side of town to the other in a timely manner have been discovered on the roadways now and then, but you can’t have everything.
As for equivalency in music, Gainesville has Tom Petty and half the original Eagles, but Austin has Willy Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Kinky Friedman, Lucinda Williams and Jerry Jeff Walker. Oh, and Townes Van Zandt, don’t forget about him. Austin has a better appreciation of jazz, blues and country than Gainesville, where the citizens think bluegrass is that poa pratensis stuff they have in Kentucky. They also have tons of places to listen to their music and they’re not all bars and open fields. Big-time performers grace the stages there, they don’t know Gainesville exists.
In the early days of Hogtown Opry planning, I met Albert Teebagy, legendary agent for the fabled Great Southern Music Hall in its salad days. Albert brought in major acts, rock ‘n’ roll all-stars, week after week, month after month and together with the highfalutin’ acts paid for by a free-spending UF student government, Gainesville soon became a destination city for big-time entertainers. Alas, over the years the GSMH fell into extreme disrepair and the UF kids tightened their pocketbooks, so there’s hardly an affordable inside venue remaining worthy of a major entertainer. The Phillips Center, the area’s largest facility by far, is owned by the University and almost exclusively used for cultural events.
“Believe me, nobody wants to play Gainesville any more,” says Teebagy. “It’s not just the facilities, the people just won’t come out, won’t pay for major acts.” At first, we didn’t believe him. Our town? The Gainesville famous for its musical history? We told Albert we’d like to try anyway. “Proceed at your own risk,” he warned. So we found a beautiful building with fine acoustics, comfortable seating and decent parking. We hired the best sound and light company in five counties. We had a couple of trial runs to learn the ropes. Then we called Albert back. A few months later, he signed Rhonda Vincent & The Rage to play the Opry on August 3, 2024. This is one of the best and most successful traveling bands on the country or bluegrass circuits and they don’t come cheap. How well we do will be apparent to other touring bands who pay attention to attendance figures.
Maybe Albert is right. There’s plenty to do around here and most of the options are cheaper than buying Hogtown Opry tickets. Maybe Albert is wrong and Rhonda Vincent will wake up the echoes and open a door to a regular stream of major shows. We’ve laid the foundation, taken the risks and set the table. The rest, as always, is up to you.
Tripping
Back when Timeshares were in vogue, my thoroughbred horse trainer Buddy Edwards jumped in with both feet, buying one near the Devil’s Playground in Orlando. “Buddy,” we reminded, “that means you’re committed to spending one week a year in that same place forever.” He smiled his big Buddy smile and said, “I know. I like Disney. I’m happy as a clam.”
As time went by, Buddy got our point. Within five years, he was trading his week in Happyland for seven days in San Francisco or Dubuque. Disney eventually got old, the scheduling got tougher and Edwards finally dropped out. When you’re a kid, two weeks at grandma’s farm is great. As a teenager, you can’t get enough of the beach. Adults get all het up about the neon lights of Las Vegas; the city is stunning to any first-time visitor. There are people who can experience the same places year after year and can’t wait to get there. Those people are not us.
Oh, we tried. We went back to Yosemite a few years after climbing the cable route to the top of Half Dome. We returned to Zion long after we made the glorious hike through the fabulous Narrows. We revisited Yellowstone years after watching Old Faithful explode for the first time. We doubled up on Grand Teton after exploring the Cascade Canyon trail and returned to Glacier long after driving the length of the Going To The Sun Road. It wasn’t the same. Earlier, we had skimmed the cream off the top, seen the best these wonders had to offer, hiked the most scenic trails, taken the greatest challenges. As wonderful as the scenery still was, we couldn’t recapture the same magic. Don’t cry for us, Argentina, we’re not whining, just stating that for us newer is better. Not to mention, most of our western visits were in jolly days of yore when the crowds were much smaller and you didn’t need reservations to drive on a whim through lovely Rocky Mountain N.P. up to Bear Lake. What do you do when you run out of new?
I guess there’s always Paris. Or Rabat.
Those Funeral Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine
What the hell? You get up in the morning, slice your melon, pour your OJ and v-e-e-e-ry slowly open your laptop, hoping you won’t find any more dead friends and neighbors in there. As often as not, you’re unlucky. They’re dropping like iguanas on a cold night in Boca, boyhood pals, amigos of decades, sexy girlfriends, your great aunt Millicent, even that young whippersnapper David Fritz. What’s going on here? Makes a body, if you’ll pardon the expression, feel old. What to do?
Siobhan says find younger friends, but they don’t know one whit about Ray Charles or Ted Williams or Buffalo Bob. Hell, they don’t even know The Lone Ranger’s theme song. I started telling one youngster about the ancient times before television and he ran over to his mother in alarm to tell her about the crazy man. Used to be you could drive over to Charley LeMasters’ house before that tree fell across his road or go visit Danny Levine at the Kawasaki shop before he got the consumption, but now that’s all over.
When’s the last time anyone went over to Charlene’s place for a quickie during lunch hour? Or hitchhiked across the country with eight dollars in his pocket? Or barked at the moon? Or fell in love with a crazy woman who might shoot him the next day? Weeks, at least. Zippy the Pinhead used to ask us, “Are we having fun yet?” Now he asks about bowel movements.
You can’t even pick up women in a bar any more. They’re all too young and they carry mace. A perfectly solvent friend of ours went to Lillian’s the other night, sat down next to a matronly sort at the bar and introduced himself. “I don’t go out with great grandpas,” she said. “The pre-sex shenanigans take so long I’m out of the mood.” Speaking of Lillian’s, even that old curmudgeon George Swinford is on the shelf, taking up a bedroom at his kid’s house in Oregon. He swears he’s coming back soon to open an establishment for geezers over 65. “We’ll have disco music and senior citizen go-go dancers” he promises. “I was thinking about a wet t-shirt contest but my advisers talked me out of it. There will be an adrenaline tent, of course, and bottles of oxygen spray at the bar. Everyone will come! There’ll be a conga line of people at the door waiting to get in. Monday will be Charades Night and on Tuesdays we’ll re-air old Jack Benny radio shows. It will be to die for!”
Dang. There’s that word again.
That’s almost all folks. As you well know.
