Feb. 21  Miami to Ft. Myers

This is the first of three concerts in Fla for me this time. It came immediately on the heels of 3 days in the frigid north of Vermont, cross country skiing and snowshoeing on what's left of their snow. It's been quite a contrast going from hours in the subzero windchill to the 80s in South Florida.

I flew in this morning from Newark to Miami (the cheapest available when I made the reservation). I spent the flight putting pix into a new album. This one was really designed for my high school reunion, which takes place in St. Pete around the time the Moodies are playing the neighborhood. This is a sort of "best of" not only Moodies, but also Macca and my landscapes. After changing out of the parka etc. into sleeveless top and shorts, I picked up a car just after noon. I drove it around Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, where I grew up before the age of 11. Touring around I remembered so many unique names - Tigertail, Alhambra, Coral Way, Bird Road, Douglas Road, The Miracle Mile, and of course, Le Jeune and the Dixie Highway (US 1) over which now runs a monorail. I found my old house, looking pretty small and shabby with fewer plantings, and almost every other house on the court and in the neighborhood has been torn down (or blown down?) and made into McMansions! And the sleepy crossroads of Coconut Grove has a flashy multistory mall, Starbucks and all the rest with more tall condos and such being built. Rather shocking. Took pix.. Mom won't believe it. Couldn't find my old school. No trace. Such is how it is in southern Florida. Things are ephemeral. Had some smoosh-ins on a marble slab (homemade ice cream). Neat thing about this was they had a good rock station on and this station was giving away tix to the Hollywood Moodies concert for calling in. But they didn't play Moodies music when they announced it. Hmmm..

 Headed out on 41, aka SW 8th St, aka the Tamiami Trail (Tamiami being a contraction of Tampa to Miami). This was the first road connecting the two, cutting right through the Everglades to the west coast. The interstate is much faster, but I figured now that I'm starting a job in wetlands, I should take a closer look at the one I grew up near. I was pleased to see all the Miccosuki villages still there but all the real chickees were gone (sawgrass-thatched homes). With my National Parks pass that I procured at the Grand Canyon I got in free, and snapped pix of innumerable water birds, gators in the water and gators several feet away on the edge of the path. It was an amazing amount of diversity in a very small area that I walked through before I had to dash to Ft. Myers. I'll see if I can go back and rent a bike tomorrow.

 Leaving the Everglades I should have taken a peek at my notes regarding the exit for the Ramada in Ft. Myers. Ended up getting on the interstate after hitting Naples and two long slow traffic jams. I overshot and decided to just change for the show at a Cracker Barrel and check in after the show.  Unfortunately didn't have time for dinner.  It was deja vu since the Ski Club of New York Always stops at the Cracker Barrel in Holyoke, MA, and did so just last night... and they're all identical. Seems so long ago now.

The Concert

I got to the venue with just a few minutes to spare and as I walked in from the parking lot a fire truck came in, this after a cop car had passed siren screaming, into the venue as I was queued to turn into the property. Then an ambulance came. Such drama!

It was very nice to run into a few of the regulars at this venue. It's a rather new one, as is typical for Florida, on a college campus. Hal's grown his hair into a Beatle cut and it looks good on him. It was nice to see the Band again too. They were in their usual fine form. You've already heard what they played. John's frilly white and black shirts are attractive, but can't compare to the ones he had the last couple of tours but his jeans are well fitting. Justin definitely does look quite natty in a suit. I didn't see a single glowstick for The Other Side of Life.

The drum toss was perfect! Graeme puts on the very pleased smile showing all teeth for Norda when he does it well. Graeme lost his place during the H&H spiel going on about Armstrong, but got it back quickly. He's thrown in a couple of new moves and this night he was breathing hard and not looking too good afterwards.

John's wearing some additional pendant to his gold cross. Zoomed in on it but still can't figure what it is or why he's wearing it. One more time to live was a bit smoother than in the last set of shows. They still use a backing track -- I can't figure why they don't have the 3 voices sing 3 different things with John. Justin's barely singing. I can't figure why they've decided to do it this way.  But I am glad to hear it.

 I can see what folks mean about the slide show not being in sync with what's being performed. I think it was during Singer that they played the same loop two or three times. Graeme is playing like a crazed person in it and looks the part (but Oh So 70s).  The rest of the light show wasn't that special.

 The audience wasn't the most enthusiastic that I've seen (beyond the first row and a half).  This sometimes happens in out of the way places where the audience hasn't seen the band at all or for a while.  Say what you will about standing during songs, and I did sometimes, but didn't if no one behind was, but this is one of the measures the band uses to assess how much the audience is into the show and they respond or don't. I dunno... the audience did clap resoundingly when John told them to during Slide Zone. It wasn't till towards the end that folks further back were standing. I just didn't see a special spark from the Jays tonight. I did notice that Justin was angry with himself I think it was during Never Comes the Day, Justin was angry at some missing of a note or somesuch - I didn't notice, and I usually do.  It's tough work to be a perfectionist!  It's good no one seemed to be sick. 

 Florida weather is perfect for nursing colds right now - highs in the 80s lows in the high 60s.

I was glad that security chose to ignore those who took pix. I took a bunch; there were a few good ones. There was no rush to the stage since the one pit row was guarded by a high metal bar, which obscured the front members of the band roughly from the knees down.

 Went out back for a while after the show, and saw Justin get into the bus without looking or stopping. But to be fair, they had the bus arranged so that he would have had to be looking hard to see the fans through a small space. I decided to walk back to the car before everyone came out. I ended up following the bus back towards 41. I realized there was no use in following them to Hollywood... You know, it occurred to me that John had said that they do see the American countryside from the bus, but I think most of their trips are at night, so I wonder how much they can see.

I always wonder if I'll remember much of the concert. How did I do? I'm having hard time keeping eyes open and straight, and to stop yawning at this point... only got 3 hours in the bed last night after a few hours of dozing on the bus back from VT. On to Hollywood tomorrow. Since I'll be staying with my half-sister who has no computer, I'll probably not be able to post anything more soon. Signing off: 2:32am.

Feb 22.  Hollywood

I started off the day late, as you might expect since I was up till 3 the night before, in part writing my notes on my adventures / the Ft. Myers concert.  Since I hadn't had dinner the night before, just a small muffin that I'd saved from the plane, I was starving when I got up and had a migraine.  Not an auspicious beginning, but food (the dependable Cobb salad and hot fudge sundae at McDonalds) and 2 trusty Excedrin nipped it in fairly short order.  It was going to be in the 80s again today.

 Having not had much time to explore the Everglades the first day, and leery of the trafficky coastal route, I took the inland route on a 2-lane road (29) through Immokalee (accent on the second syllable, short consonant), practicing the almost lost art (on my part) of passing trucks on 2 lane roads.  I knew that the endangered Florida panther lives in those parts and was pleased to see signs warning to look out for them.  After the first sign the following one was "Only 30 left".  Boy, that one leaves an impact.  But I started to think, gee, this is like Russian roulette for them, with cars crossing their habitat at 55 mph, hoping that a just sign would save them from being hit and killed.  I was thinking they should have erected fences to keep them off the highway and bridges or underpasses for them since there was a canal running alongside the road.  No sooner than I'd started thinking of writing someone, there were fences on both sides, and an underpass where a river cut across.  That should save some of them... They really need more miles of it (and I'm told they climb fences...).

 The soundtrack in the car for the last couple of days was the Beatles at the BBC.  This was a great double CD of covers mainly… some really neat stuff.  George and Paul sang duets on several; they rarely did that on studio albums.  Over the years I’ve bought a number of CDs, and then didn’t have the time to sit and listen to them (and with no car, less opportunity).  I was musing how nice it would be to assemble all the Moodies BBC tracks, and now we see they are, to a degree.  The interesting thing about this was that I’d never heard any of these tracks, nor some of the songs, so it was at the same time familiar and strange.  This feeling was a distinct parallel to my trip to South Florida… after all, I grew up here, so it should be familiar, but with all the changes and increased development, it was at the same time, strange. 

I decided to make 3 stops at 3 different types of habitat.  First was Everglades City and Chokoloksee to the south, where I finished my Cobb salad overlooking the harbor and took some pix of mangroves, a few species of large bush, which are in some kind of threatened status thanks to development of the shoreline, having waxy leaves and prominent roots that live right along the water’s edge.  Next stop was the Kirby Storter trail, a wooden catwalk really, through the Big Cypress National Preserve.  This short, mile walk or so, gave me a new appreciation for the rather distinct cypress habitat.  Unlike the Everglades which are predominantly sawgrass (thin bladed, sharp grasses, a few feet tall) which allow one to view the horizon, when one is in a Cypress swamp, you’re sheltered by relatively tall trees with trunks wide at the base.  Finally, I stopped back at the Shark Valley, did the Bobcat Boardwalk (didn’t see any), but did start taking pix of the alligators on the roadside, even from the car window immediately upon entering.  What with all the water birds, alligators and fish (heard, but not seen from above by their constant nipping at the bugs on the surface of the water), I wondered to the ranger whether they fed the fish!  The answer was interesting.  In a way, man’s actions have forced the water that used to wash southward across half of the Florida peninsula into a few sluiceways, of which this is one.  A quote from the National Park literature:  “Freshwater flowing into the park is engineered.  With the help of pumps, floodgates, and retention ponds along the park’s boundary, the Everglades is presently on life support, alive but diminished”.  The ranger said when the government undoes the effect of the extensive and expensive canalization done in the 1940s and restores the water flow, the concentration of wildlife at Shark Valley may disperse.

 It never ceases to amaze me how geographically challenged some can be… even those in the tourist industry.  The guy at the National Park thought it would take me two and a half hours to get to Hollywood.  I knew it couldn’t possibly.  If it would, I wouldn’t have any time to visit his park!  It was only an hour to Hollywood taking the outer ring, picked up my Amtrak tix for the return, then off to the Hard Rock.  It looks like a new casino, and waiting in the queue of cars to get in, I saw lights on palm trees surrounding a lake start to flash.  I thought… tacky.. trying to imitate Las Vegas?  But in a short while, the dancing water and light show began.  They didn’t have spotlights on the dancing waters most of the time… looked like they could use a bit more imagination, but it was a start. 

The Concert

On the way into the venue I saw a frame on the wall with the title Moody Blues, and in it were a tambourine and piece of paper, signed by all of them, as well as two photos of Ray - Medium vintage. This casino venue has a bit more class than some of those out west , as there were proper seats and a balcony, not a flat square floor with folding chairs.  The sound was better tonight and I delighted in hearing John's and Justin's voices in all their fullness.  Graeme threw in some derisive comment about the U of FL gators -- are they in some sort of playoff at this point?  Was he trying to garner support from Hurricanes fans?  This was after saying that he has been a Florida resident.  He didn't say that last night even though Ft. Myers is closer... 

John stepped in front of Norda for the trio sing and she elbowed him out of the way, eliciting a smile from both John and Bernie (caught on SD chip for posterity).  I'd made friends with a few in my row on either side before the show started, showing albums around.  I'd brought a new one with some of my best Moodies pix of various vintage along with Macca pix from this past fall and my Moodies tour landscapes. 

From the start were a few louts constantly yelling and chatting behind us.  I turned around and asked them to shut up (for which I was congratulated by those on either side) but it was for naught in the end.  I told the guy next to me, it’s your turn next.  From what I can tell, he took this a little too seriously, and at one point got into some sort of argument and called security.  A couple of cops came.  Not only did one of the louts get taken out, so did the couple who complained.  They never got to see the rest of the show.  Imagine!  I’m glad I kept my nose out of it after the beginning.  It sure did mess up the concert for us though.

Forgot to say I'd met Jenn from the fan club last night.  She wanted to know if I was having a good time.  Both seats I got for the four tier (Ft. Myers and Hollywood) were good.  These were second row center and fourth row center.  There were others in my rows that had bought them at face value, but there's a lot of luck involved in that.  Since there was no intermission, as is the norm for casinos, Justin wore the suit the whole time and John his white frilly.  I waved at John at beginning of IKYOTS and he smiled and waved back.  The two on either side gave me a rib elbow as they saw that.  He waved again at the end.  I always like that when it happens.  Going through the pix after the show I saw that Justin had looked in the lens a few times, even smiling leaning forward towards me with his guitar once.  Very neat!  There were fewer of the regulars at this show for some reason.  The crowd response was similar to the night before.  It wasn’t as much as I’ve sometimes seen.

Again security had no interest in busting people with cameras.  One guard did, however, tell me “you can’t stand there” when I moved to the center aisle behind the “pit” After The Show Was Over!!!  Imagine!  That’s ok.  I prefer that to overzealousness with nabbing camera people.  He later came over and said that he hoped that I would have good luck at the casino…  Nobody searched bags again tonight.

One of the things I’d started to do was sample key lime pies.  I had one or two slices per day most of the days I was there.  I used to bake this back in the day…  It’s still a major favorite… the only dessert I crave other than chocolate ones.  Up north or out west you ask the server one question:  What color is it?  If the answer green, I don’t order it.  If they say yellow it’s 9 in 10 that it’s good.  Key limes are named after the citrus tree native to the Florida keys, which produces smaller, yellow, more tart limes.   The other secret ingredient is sweetened condensed milk.  Gotta have it for the rich smooth (not chiffon or gelatinous) texture.  So I got a slice at the casino… not bad.

Got to my half sister’s place around midnight and we talked until 4.  I don’t get to see her much. Her dogs were all over me constantly, uncharacteristic for one of them.  She's a retired gym teacher / massage therapist so went to work on my aching foot as we watched the Olympics, talked of the Moodies, looked at the pix I took (there are a few really special ones), and about my grand niece who would be missing school the next day so that we could do an educational field trip, yet to be planned.  Signing off at 4:30.  Gotta get some shuteye.