Parrotheads

Well, I finally finished doing the spiffing of the museum grounds Wednesday afternoon about 1:00, and since I hadn't spent much time with the girls in the last week due to my 14 hour day work schedule, I decided that the rest of the day yesterday and today I would spend time with them. So yesterday Natalie and I (Meredith was still out of town at her Granny and Granddaddy's) went to Newport on the Levee and went through the Newport Aquarium and walked on the Purple People Bridge and had a scoop of ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. Today she and I went to pick up Meredith, and then we all came home to Vent Haven.

Lisa is hard at work being the face of the museum. This afternoon she gave a tour of the museum to America's Got Talent winner Terry Fator and tonight she is at Fator's show. The girls and I, though, decided that--rather than watch Fator perform--we'd rather go to Coney Island to swim.

This SEEMED like a great idea. Until we got about 2 miles from the exit. All around Cincinnati's interstates are these big electronic signs that sometimes give traffic information but most often entertain drivers with groaningly bad seat belt puns (things like "Lucky for us, there are plenty of seat belts to GO AROUND"). Today, though, the sign said, "Concert--next two exits."

Oh great, I thought. There's a concert at Riverbend tonight. Riverbend is an outdoor concert hall that shares the parking lot with Coney Island. If I'd known there was a concert tonight, I told myself--but then I tried to calm myself down a little. It's not that big a deal, I told myself. We shouldn't have any real trouble. We've been to Coney Island before when there have been concerts at Riverbend. As long as the concert isn't...

..."Jimmy Buffet tickets for sale" was the first sign (literally) that this wasn't going to go the way I wanted. Scalpers were standing along the interstate selling tickets (and leis and Hawaiian shirts). Great, I thought. It's Buffet night.

Now, if you're not familiar with Cincinnati culture, you may not understand the import of this statement. To most of the world, Jimmy Buffet is a has been recording artist who had modest success in the 1970's with pleasant but forgettable songs like "Margaritaville" and "Fins" and "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude." Most of his songs had a Caribbean flare to them and included subjects such as alcohol, sex, and the beach.

To Cincinnati, though, Jimmy Buffet is a figure one notch below Jesus in importance. His concerts every year aren't just concerts--they're events! Thousands of people show up for his concert, most wearing grass skirts and the aforementioned leis and Hawaiian shirts. Most people show up drunk, and the rest leave that way. It's a Bacchanalian experience.

And here we were, a 40 year old father with his tweener daughters, stuck in the middle of it. We saw everything but the inside of the concert. We saw the many boats anchored in the river beside the concert hall (You can't see from the boats but you can hear fine). We saw the news choppers whizzing by overhead. We saw the drunken "Parrotheads" and their Hawaiian shirts and limos and general rowdiness. We could even hear the music (Buffet began the night with a cover of the song "Hot! Hot! Hot!"). All for free.

It really wasn't that bad, though. I got to have a conversation with the girls on the way home. It went something like this.

Natalie: So Dad, you said this man sings songs about alcohol, right?
Me: Yeah.
Natalie: So, is he singing about how alcohol is bad?
Me: No, not really. He sings about how much fun it is to drink alcohol.
Natalie: But that's bad, isn't it?
Me: Uh, drinking a lot of alcohol is bad, but it seems like fun at the time, so a lot of people do it a lot, and he sings about that feeling of fun. He also sings about the beach a lot. It's what most of his songs are about.
Natalie: But you said most of his songs were about alcohol.
Me: Alcohol AND the beach.
Natalie: They go together.
Me: They do to him.
Natalie: And to everyone cheering right now? (The band was in between songs.)
Me: Yes.

It went on and on like that.

It was a teaching experience.