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PARROT PRESS

Metro Parrot Head Newsletter August 2010 NY, NJ, CT Vol. 18 No. 8

TALES FROM MY BANK OF BAD HABITS

Well, the last couple of weeks were pretty busy for us Metros. Maybe busy isn’t the correct word, fun may be a better word. It was a pleasure sitting under the trees in the Fresh Pond Park at the family picnic, trying to stay cool in 95 degree weather. Many spent the afternoon in the water, a sure fire way to cool down. Lon didn’t. He spent that hot day cooking on two charcoal fires, and we certainly thank him for that. Joe coordinated the Metros manning the water stop for the Wounded Warrior riders in Amagansett. It wasn’t much fun in the heat, but very rewarding for those that helped. Then for several Metros, off to “Rock the Farm”, the fundraiser that ended the day for the Wounded Warrior Ride. Great music, food, booze and most important, great friends. And, Joe kept going, selling raffle tickets there for the event. Did anyone win a raffle prize there, I didn’t. Then, a week later, the first Metro sunset booze cruise, sold out, and from what I heard, a great night. I wish I was there. A great job done by Ray, Ralph and Fred. I think this may just become another Metro tradition. What’s next? Buffett at Jones Beach, Tuesday August 31 st . We will set up a tailgate to the left of the bathhouse, on the side closer to the venue gates. This area was requested by Coral Reefer management since we are hosting the Coral Reefer Meet and Greet, and they have new guidelines to follow this year. The Meet and Greet should be around 5PM. I will do my best to get as many Coral Reefers there as possible. The Wantagh Fire Department, a bunch of great guys, is hosting Jimmy and the Parrots at their tailgate which we hope to locate next to ours. I understand that Ed Travers and are expected to also set up and play in the area. We will try to get there as early as possible to set up, please join us. We will send out email updates on Jones Beach over the next few weeks. I’ve spent a lot of time in the East End this year, both on my boat and on land. It’s my favorite place to be in the summer. My time there brought back the memory of an article I read years ago about another fan of the East End. The article appeared in the June 2000 edition of Offshore Magazine, since renamed Northeast Boating Magazine. We are reprinting this article without their permission, please don’t tell. I think you will enjoy it even though the type face is a little funny. It was optically read electronically from a photocopy of the article. You’ll find it right inside.

Have a great August, Dave Pohorylo

Just one more candle & a ……. Robert Davis 1 One Particular Harbor August Stephen Frey 1 Thomas Vogel 1 2010 Maria Flick 2 Changes in Latitude Donna von Kroge 2 Volcano Scott Willett Jr 2 Peanut Butter Conspiracy Richard Ries 3 Cuban Crime of Passion “Wild Bill” Marion 5 Sending the Old Man Home Richie Bautista 7 Traci Donaldson 7 Robert Chase 8 12 Volt Man George Pagnotta 11 Boat Drinks Welcome Bill Rudge 13 Migration Jerry FoleyFoley!!!! Marianne Straaik 13 A Pirate Looks at 40 Julie Davenport 14 One Particular Harbor Craig Steuber 17 Trying to Reason… The Dustin comic Dennis Ench 17 Fins strip recently had a Jim Totino 18 One Particular harbor JB theme. Find the Pat Monnia 18 Shawn Byrne 18 comics from that Scott Lubliner 22 Trauma week throughout this Scott Willett 22 Death of an Unpopular Poet issue of the Parrot Jean Keyes 23 Floridays Press Saul Alter 24 Barometer Soup Georgie Mantovani 26 Sue Terry 27 Desperation Samba Marty McAteer 29 The Wino & I Know Jim Hill 30 One Particular Harbor Dustin By Steve Kelley and Jeff Park

GET THERE EARLY & SET UP WITH PHELLOW METRO PHRIENDS! Tuesday, August 31 ststst Jones Beach, Wantagh NY Look for entertainment by Ed Travers Barometer Soup Jimmy & the Parrots! Be on hand for the Metro Meet & Greet with

the Coral Reefers!

Dustin By Steve Kelley and Jeff Park

ROAD CLEAN -UP/ SAG HARBOR CRUISE The fall road clean-up of Highway 114/ Boat Cruise is on for October 2 nd . Because of various conflicts, the date was changed, so mark your calendars. The boat ride will be a 2 hour sunset cruise around Sag Harbor and Shelter Island. It will pass close to ’s house and beach and neighbor, Richard Gere’s house. We can bring our own coolers with food and drinks and Parrot Head tunes will be playing. We can also make stops at Murph’s Pub for drinks & darts and The Corner Bar for snacks. The boat only takes 25 people so the first 25 people who volunteer for the road clean-up and send in a check will be on the boat. Clean-up volunteers that do not want the boat ride are welcome to help too. The boat will leave about 5pm so the road clean-up can start around noon. Please e-mail me at [email protected] if attending and send your check (payable to MPHC) for $28pp as soon as possible so that you will not miss the boat.

Peter Bosshard

Dustin By Steve Kelley and Jeff Park

METRO PARROT HEAD BOOZE CRUISE The First Metro Parrot Head Club Booze Cruise was a complete success. Perfect weather, a great band and 94 Metro friends combined together to create one fantastic evening and fundraising benefit in the memory of our dear friend, John Baldwin. A donation for $1,500 was sent to the American Heart Association today in memory of John. Peter Bosshard

I Can’t See the Future, But I Know It’s Coming Fast

Three years is not nece ssarily a long period of time. H owever it is a whole diff erent world in the Willett househ old. In 2007, we had 2 junior h igh school boys and were high school hunting. Now, we have 2 teenage boys (that are growing an average of 2 inches per night), one of whom is now driving (a whole story in itself) and we are deep into the 8 lb college directories. Time is very precious within our f amily especially as the boys turn very quickly into young men. Through this metamorphic phase that slowly crept into our lives, one thing had remained constant & that was the publication of the Parrot Press. Every month, a movie was chosen and the assembly line began: fold, tape closed, stamp, and attach the address label. By the time the movie was over, hundreds of Parrot Presses were ready for the post office. Then technology kicked in and the first edition of the eParrot Press was sent via the Internet in January 2010. Although I will miss those movie nights, we are thoroughly enjoying these new adventures and eagerly anticipating the journey ahead. Beca use of this, I would like to pass the Parrot Press to Lorraine & Eric Rosen. I know they will take the Parrot Press to a whole new dimension and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for all of us. It’s been a great experience for me and I loved ev ery minute of having such an important part in the MPHC . H owever, the time has come to move on. I would never have been able to pull this off without the help of some very special people…. Joe Lombardi……who passed all of his Parrot Press knowledge to me Al Straaik….what can I say Al? You were the guiding light that first year & the 2 nd …… Peter Bosshard…..I will miss the monthly roster updates, but still expect the Spring Countdown Dave Pohor ylo…..It was a pleasure & experience….one that we can reminisce over those Patrons Scott & Brian….I was always at how quick those little hands could put those newsletters together! Scott….who was the voice/creator of MANY Banana Winds and my partner in life as well as with this endeavor we took on many issues a go. Other people also deserve a big thank you for helping in many different ways in the production of the monthly newsletter and I thank you all very much.

It is bittersweet, but I am happy to be the first to welcome the Rosens on board! You’ll do great! “Thank you with a infactatude, it's a brand new day”

Kerry-Anne

Dustin By Steve Kelley and Jeff Park

LI August Happy Hour hosted by the Rosens~ 8/21 @ 7PM RSVP [email protected]

Jimmy playing the Gulf Shore Concert

ONE PARTICULAR MORNING

When a die-hard fan met Offshore readers’ favorite singer in Long Island waters, she was surprised and almost speechless. By Katie M. Yeomans He waved first. We were speeding across flat waters along the eastern shore of Shelter Island toward Sag Harbor, New York, when I noticed a small yellow skiff slapping fast across the water. The 16-or-so-foot skiff caught my eye because it looked out of place. A long-and-skinny flats skiff painted a tropical, Florida yellow, it looked better suited for stalking tarpon and bonefish than plowing through choppy Northeast waters in search of striped bass. Spray shot out from under its hull as it sped our way and set up to pass to starboard."The one man aboard sat at a console, forward and to the right, like a kid speeding down an empty back road in his parents' convertible. He hunched over the wheel and held onto the bill of his blue baseball cap with one hand. He lifted his hand for a second to wave. Then, he again held on to his hat as the boat crossed our wake. I waved as he sped past. "That was Jimmy Buffett," Joe, my host for the day, said. "You ’re kidding," I answered. "No, that's Jimmy," Joe replied. "Let's see if he stops in front of his house." We watched as the yellow skiff slowed down a few hundred yards behind us and approached a long, wooden pier extending in front of a large, white house nestled behind the trees. "Let's go say hi," Joe said, as he turned the wheel and set a course toward the yellow boat. I gulped. What was Jimmy Buffett doing here in Long Island? He could be anywhere—. St. Barts, Palm Beach, Bimini, Georgia, Aspen, Costa Rica or maybe even Grand Cayman. Not New York State. And, if it really was Buffett, how was it that he could manage to sneak off on a Friday morning in a skiff unnoticed and unaccompanied? Wouldn't he be barraged with goo-goo- eyed fans? Surely, if they knew he was nearby, they'd be all over him. Or maybe Northeast boaters are a little more tactful than that. As we approached, I convinced myself that it couldn't be Jimmy Buffett since the boat was on its way back from Sag Harbor, I astutely decided it was some hired hand who'd been told to run the boat over and fuel it up so that it'd be ready when Jimmy wanted to go fishing. Jimmy Buffett is not someone who would have to worry about fueling up his own boat. At 53 years old, he has recorded 32 during a music career that started the day he discovered that his roommate got a lot of attention from women because he knew how to play three chords on a guitar. "Teach me those chords," Buffett, a young kid from Mobile, Alabama, said. His roommate did. After graduating with a degree in history and journalism, Buffett traveled to Nashville and set out to be a star in the early , By 1977, he had moved to Key West and released his eighth —Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, which was the first to go platinum. It included "Margaritaville," perhaps his best-known . Even today, he's asked, "Where is Margaritaville?" It's more a state of mind, he'll say, than a place. He has spent his life searching for "that perfect laid-back town by the ocean, the kind of place where the locals are all legendary characters who spend their days mixing up margaritas, where the air is always warm, and where the sea is crystal clear—a real Margaritaville of the mind," he told writer Tim Cahill. This search led him through an early career filled with success, drugs, plenty of boat drinks, a failed first marriage, a sometimes rocky second one and many adventures at sea along the East Coast and in the . Eventually, be worked out things at home, and he remains married to his second wife, Jane. He has three kids. Buffett has written three books, including the 1998 bestseller, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. He's also collaborated with on a musical, Don': Stop the Carnival, and last year, he announced he'll only work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays— the title of his newest album. He spreads his wealth by giving $1 from every concert ticket sold to his charitable foundation, singing for Change, which, since 1995, has funded grassroots organizations across the country. Last year, the foundation donated $757,518 to 79 organizations (21 in the Northeast) that address social and environmental problems, particularly those that affect kids and disenfranchised groups.

Success has not altered Buffett's adventuresome lifestyle, sparked to some degree by his childhood fascination with stories about the pirate, Jean Lafitte, stories that fueled much of his songwriting. He sings and ballads about boats, beaches and bars, songs that tell stories that strike chords in mariners' hearts, songs with lyrics that spring to mind on foggy days and blue-sky afternoons. He sings about being the "" and about "The Captain and the Kid." His grandfather was a schooner captain from Nova Scotia who traveled over many oceans and filled the young Buffett's mind with wild tales of the adventure and romance of a life spent at sea.

He sings about "Boat Drinks," a song inspired one snowy February night at a bar in Boston owned by Bruins' player Derek Sanderson. In it, Buffett proclaims, "I gotta go fly to St. Somewhere, I gotta go where it's warm!" He wrote "Cheeseburger in Paradise" after a long, slow trip aboard his sailboat, Euphoria, when the bowsprit broke while he and his crew were trying to sail from Hispaniola to Puerto Rico. As they limped along on a diet of canned food and peanut butter, Buffett couldn't stop thinking of a hot cheeseburger, and he found one when they put into Tortola. And there's more, hundreds and hundreds of stories and songs that make up a career that has turned him into a legend. Buffett says he simply strives to create songs that last by trying to "somehow, for. a moment, get your thumb on the pulse of the way people think or feel." When a nine-year-old boy asked him, "What do I have to do to be like you?" he replied, "Start reading as early as you can. Not about presidents but about pirates, painters, singers and sailors, and if you're meant to, you'll get the picture," Still, he is baffled by his huge number of fans—self- described Parrot Heads—who show up at his concerts dressed in Hawaiian shirts and tropical regalia. Many are members of Parrot Head clubs or follow the Church of Buffett, an "orthodox" religion that regards Jimmy Buffett as its chief poet, "insofar as he has best espoused a philosophy of cheerful hedonism." According to its website ( www.cobo . org), "It's the easiest church to join: Just say a couple of Hail Bloody Marys, and you're in." I was wondering, as we inched closer to the long, wooden pier, what made Joe so sure this was Jimmy Buffett? Joe Frohnhoefer, my guide that day, is president of SeaTow services, an international towing service headquartered in Southold, Long Island. He told me that Buffett is a SeaTow member, and had called for assistance a few times. Buffett has some favorite comers of Peconic Bay and Shelter Island where he likes to fly-fish for striped bass, Joe said. Sometimes, the singer heads out and breaks down. So he calls up Joe and says, "Hey, it's Jimmy, can you come and get me?" And Joe says, "Same place?" And Buffett says "Yeah, same place,"

Buffett, I discovered, is a true Northeast aficionado. "There were countless trips back and forth over successive summers between Sag Harbor, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, the Connecticut River, and up the coast of Maine," he writes in A Pirate Looks at Fifty. "The skies and waters of the East Coast provided me with some of the finest hours of my life, and eventually almost took it." On August 25,1994, he'd spent the day fishing off Nantucket with friends. At day's end, he packed the first keeper bass he'd caught in Nantucket into a cooler and prepared to fly himself home to Long Island aboard his seaplane, Lady of the Waters. As he took off, one wing caught a lingering boat wake and his plane rolled to the right, flipped over, and crashed into the water. Upside down, he managed to swim out from underneath her. Today he says that day in Nantucket changed his life and made him realize that his life is not a performance—as he'd lived it for many years—but that performance is just one part of his life. Now, he takes a little more time to enjoy the fruits of his hard work—on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

On this Long Island Friday morning, Buffett had indeed been out enjoying a serene Northeast morning fishing by himself. I didn't believe it until the bare-chested, barefoot man before us, standing in the flats skiff and wearing just a pair of shorts, looked up. "How are you this morning?" Joe yelled. "Great! How are you doin'?" he asked. My doubts disappeared. It was definitely Jimmy Buffett. His unmistakable voice, the one I'd heard rouse a crowd of Parrot Heads at a sold-out concert in Mansfield, Massachusetts, was loud, clear and 35 friendly and unpretentious as his fans would suspect—especially considering we barging in on his quiet Friday morning. He moved around the boat, putting things away. Joe noticed the brand-new, big outboard on her transom. "Bet she sucks up the gas," Joe said. "She sure does," he replied. "I'll probably be calling you again one of these days." Joe said he noticed that Buffett hadn't yet renewed his membership. He suggested that his secretary would call Buffett's assistant that week to take care of it. "That'd be great," Buffett said, stepping onto the dock. I, meanwhile, watched wide-eyed. Joe turned and introduced me.

Buffett stopped tying the bow line and looked up and smiled. I told him I'd been working on a story about a man who built one of his former sailboats. "Oh yeah?" he laughed "Well, did he tell you it sunk? Ask him about that" He then nodded towards a beautiful wooden sloop moored just yards away. "She's a Joel "White design," he said. "She's beautiful," I said. "We'll probably take her out this afternoon," he said. "If the wind allows" "Great day for it," I replied. "Yes," he said, "it sure is." By now, a couple of tanned teenage boys had joined him. He handed some gear 10 them and started walking up the pier toward the house. He turned and waved, and then he disappeared behind the trees as if he were walking off stage. Former Offshore associate editor, Katie M. Yeomans, a senior editor at National Fisherman, already has tickets for the next Boston-area Buffett Concert Surprise Show at the Margaritaville @ Niagara Falls August 3rd

Dustin By Steve Kelley and Jeff Park

Upcoming Phun Dates….. Margaritaville in Sayville- Aug 13th Rosen LI Happy Hour- Aug 21st Buffett @ the Beach- Aug 31 st Road Clean-Up/Sag Harbor Cruise-Oct 2nd Meeting of the Minds- Nov 4-7th

Metro Parrot Head Directory President: Executive Vice President: Treasurer: David Pohorylo Lorraine Bosshard Peter Bosshard 35 Boot Shop Lane 6 Mountainview Court 6 Mountainview Court Monroe, CT 06468 Fort Salonga, NY 11768 Fort Salonga, NY 11768 (203)261-1381 (631) 757-4043 (631) 757-4043 [email protected] Secretary: Parrot Press/Banana Wind Ticket Liaison Marianne Straaik Kerry-Anne Willett Tom Dalton 25 Rhode Island Ave [email protected] (631)979-8337 Massapequa, NY 11758 [email protected] (516)795-4126 LI Coordinator NJ Coordinator Upstate & Ct Coordinators Ray Leudesdorff Tracey McGowan Carol Pohorylo [email protected] [email protected] (203)261-1381 Ralph Wotruba 732-668-1620 [email protected] . [email protected]

Eastern LI NYC Coordinator Western Coordinators Joe Lombardi Terri Amundsen Linda Peter/Larry DeGennaro (631)324-9354 (718)956-5658 [email protected] [email protected]