bonghitsforgeezers.com

Barry Cuda, Kenney Fradley and Richard Crooks do Sunday "soundcheck at The Green Parrot

Locos por Juana presents xperimento at The Green Parrot bar in Key West

Locos por Juana presents Xperimento at The Green Parrot Bar Friday "soundcheck"

Papa Mali at The Green Parrot in Key West

Papa Mali covers Neil Young's "After The Goldrush" and the traditional "When I Lay My Burden Down"

Birding on Olivia Street

Spotted this morning on my neigbor's fence.

Papa Mali at The Green Parrot

Papa Mali's Homage to John Lee Hooker

Joey Gilmore at The Green Parrot in Key West Part 2

Joey Gilmore works the room at a Friday "soundcheck"

Joey Gilmore at The Green Parrot Bar in Key West

KTUU 2008 Sarah Palin turkey interview

The most surreal of all the Palin interviews.

Buco Says Guess Who?

Buco gets closer to home

Rest In Peace, Pat Ramsey:

Here's a note I got from Graham Drout of IKO IKO just a few minutes ago. I'm sure he'd like to share his thoughts.
Rest In Peace, Pat Ramsey:
Pat Ramsey passed away November 17, 2008, at 3:11 pm, ET. Considered by many to be the greatest of the Rock ‘n’ Roll harp players, Ramsey fought a long hard battle with Hepatitis C.

Since his work with Johnny Winter in the late 1970s, on Winter’s White Hot & Blue CD Pat Ramsey had been playing and touring for the last 20 some years. His hot harmonica was matched only by his powerhouse vocals. Not too many could sing the Blues without trying to sound like someone else. Pat Ramsey was one of those few.

Next week BluesWax will be holding our own tribute to the master harp player Pat Ramsey. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends, and fans.

I met Pat Ramsey one Tuesday night at Sloppy Joes in Key West Back in 1980. We had heard that his band, Cross Cut Saw from Tallahassee, Florida was one kick ass group and well worth the drive from Miami. John Wenzel, Bob Hemphill and I drove four hours to see them. Pat had this very young guitar player named Julien Kasper ( who joined IKO IKO in 1989 for a two year run.) And we have been friends ever since.

The next time we saw Pat was up in Tallahassee two years later when we all played a show at the Leon County Auditirium with B.B. King and Bobby Bland. Pat planned a pic-nic in our honor.

Larry Williams told a story about a very young teen ager knocking on his hotel room door in Denver, Colorado back in 1972 looking to meet James Harman and learn some harmonica moves. James and larry invited him in and spent the afternoon playing and hanging out with Pat Ramsey. Pat wasn't old enough to get in the bar but he could hang out side and hear the band.

Pat played at Tobacco Road a number of times over the years and we would cross paths all across Florida from Pensicola to Key West. He was a great artist, performer, singer, friend and human being.

We will all miss him very much.

Graham

A Few Things I Didn't Know About Wisconsin Liquor Laws

Being long-time members of a Responsible Vendors Program here in Florida we are always interested in what goes on in other states.


It sseems that in Wisconsin when a 15-year-old comes into a bar looking for a cold beer, the bartender is happy to serve it up — as long as a parent is there to give permission.
If they’re 15 or older, it’s fine if they want to sit down and have a few beers, Technically speaking, the sale is between the bartender and the parent or legal guardian, who then gives the drink to the minor. The bartender has the discretion to decide whether the minor can drink in the establishment.

Drunken drivers in Wisconsin are not charged with a felony until they have been arrested a fifth time.

Wisconsin law prohibits sobriety checks by the police, a common practice in other states.

Wisconsin has led the nation in binge drinking in every year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began its surveys on the problem more than a decade ago. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a sitting for a man, four for a woman.

People in Wisconsin are more likely than anywhere else to drive drunk, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The state has among the highest incidence of drunken driving deaths in the United States.

Read the New York Times article here.

Although I guess we do have our own standards concerning who can belly up to the bar

"I Got Your Cannolis Right Here"

Some of The family from Mazzaro's Italian Market of St. Pete and Pittsburgh dropped in the parrot to shoot a little stick on Saturday night.
I believe that's a Mazzaro in the photo below way in the background getting ready to sink a ball..
The shirt is what caught my eye first.
Make sure you check out the link to their website. Man, it looks like a great place.

Some High Contrast Stuff

the spam allstars
cabaret diosa
the red elvises
candye kane
fantasy fest parade night
vince welnick

Ax-Mangler Pistol Pete Brings The Canon of Jimi Hendrix to The Green Parrot

Chicago blues-rocker Pistol Pete returns to Tthe Green Parrot with
shows at 5:30 and 10 PM on Friday, November 14th, 10 P.M. Saturday,
November 15th and a 5:30 to 8:30 P.M. "supersoundcheck" on
Sunday,November 16th.
Besting thousands of other ax-manglers, Pete was the winner of the Jimi
Hendrix Electric Guitar Competition Midwestern Division and runner-up
in Seattle for the finals.
Pete is a long-time player in the Chicago music scene, with regular
gigs at The House of Blues, B.L.U.E.S, and Buddy Guy's Legends where
he was recently featured at Jimi Hendrix 51st Anniversary Birthday
Party and Band of Gypsys reunion.
Flown down specifically for fellow-Chicogoans
Dick and Robin to celebrate their anniversary Pete promises to blow
the roof off the joint with his take-no-prisoners approach to Chicago
blues,classic rock 'n roll, and the canon of Jimi Hendrix.


.
The Green Parrot Bar is your Southernmost Center for Culture at the
corner of Whitehead and Southard Streets.
For additional information call The Green Parrot at 294-6133.

And Then There Were None: Mitch Mitchell Dies at 62; Drummer for Jimi Hendrix

Noel Redding, far left, Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell in 1967.


Mitch Mitchell, the jazzy and versatile British drummer in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, died on Wednesday in a hotel in Portland, Ore. He was 62 and had recently finished a national tribute tour, Experience Hendrix.

The cause was unknown, said Bob Merlis, publicist for the tour.

Mr. Mitchell was one of two Englishmen in the Experience, the group that catapulted Hendrix to fame in the late 1960s. Along with the bassist Noel Redding, who died in 2003, Mr. Mitchell was recruited in a rush in the fall of 1966, after the journeyman Hendrix had been discovered in a New York club and whisked to London by Chas Chandler of the Animals.Hendrix’s guitar pyrotechnics caused an immediate sensation among the British rock elite — the audience at one early gig included John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Brian Jones — and a backup band was needed for a last-minute French tour. Mr. Redding was hired first, followed a few days later by Mr. Mitchell, who was barely out of his teens but already an established session player with the Pretty Things and Georgie Fame.

Mr. Mitchell did not expect much from the job. “I’ll give it a crack,” he later remembered telling Mr. Chandler, who became one of Hendrix’s managers. “I’ll have a go for two weeks.”

But led by Hendrix’s explosive and rhapsodic style, the group revolutionized rock music and became an archetypal power trio. Its style was built around Hendrix’s improvisations, with Mr. Redding’s steady bass lines acting as an anchor and Mr. Mitchell — who was influenced by jazz players like Elvin Jones — playing a lighter, looser counterpoint to the guitar.

The group also developed a signature look that embodied the dandyish flamboyance of the British psychedelic era. The members sought out bell-bottoms and vintage clothes in British shops and teased out their hair. “For Noel, the curly Afro came naturally,” wrote Charles R. Cross in his 2005 Hendrix biography, “Room Full of Mirrors.” “Mitch had to get a permanent to achieve the same result.”
Read the rest of Ben Sisario's New York Times obituary here

Jay and the Boy's Dolphins' Road Trip

wookie pounds a hot dog
who stole my camera
seahawks td pass
jay at jacks
in the pocket
goon with herbie
dolphin stadium
cheerleaders
cast of characyers
a seahawk wookie
a necesssary pit stop

A Holga Image of The Green Parrot

found on flickr

just an amazing photo

jason ricci soundcheck

jason ricci

Buco says, "the cheapest so far!"

just north of Galveston

Jimmy Carl Black, Rocker, Dies at 70

Jimmy Carl Black in Hollywood, Ca., in 1975

The morning paper brought news of the death of Jimmy Carl Black, who along with other former members of the Mothers of Invention Don Preston and Bunk Gardner, appearing as the Grandmothers graced the Parrot stage several years back and gave our patrons two nights of Vintage Zappa that will not be soon forgotten.
I remember people lined up in the wings next to the stage, waiting for the music to start, clutching sharpies and decades-old vinyl hoping to be signed.
A more specific and lasting memory of mine, perhaps more telling of their ouvre, is seeing two of those three former Mothers, I can't recall which two, sitting in a Cuban coffee shop just off Duval very, very early the next morning after their first nights' performance, with two locals, Parrot regulars, a mother and daughter pair who I recalled being front and center for the entire show night before.
Crowded into a tiny corner table that morning, smoking cigarettes, drinking cuban coffee and laughing this foursome looked like they were having absolutely no trouble keeping their party going. One can only guess what their evening had been like, and, now, all looking quite simpatico, upon seeing me they all looked up and smiled broadly as we agreed, yes, what a great night it had been.



As a kind of a post script, on Saturday night I ran into bassist wayne hammond at the bar and his first comment to me was about the death of Jimmy Carl Black. He said that their perfromances here represented perhaps the best music he had ever heard at the Parrot. " A night of straight Zappa at the parrot with a hundred people singing along" was how he phrased it I believe.



The New York Tomes obit follows:

By BEN SISARIO
Published: November 6, 2008

Jimmy Carl Black, the acerbic drummer of Frank Zappa’s mischievous and innovative rock band the Mothers of Invention, died on Saturday in Siegsdorf, Germany. He was 70.
The cause was cancer, according to a spokeswoman for Rykodisc, the company that releases Zappa’s music.
Mr. Black was a steady and serviceable drummer, but he is best known for two pranks on the Mothers of Invention’s 1968 album, “We’re Only in It for the Money.” He is the bearded, long-haired figure on the cover wearing a white dress and a Mona Lisa grin, and on the album’s first song, “Are You Hung Up?,” he delivered his half-mocking signature line: “Hi, boys and girls, I’m Jimmy Carl Black — I’m the Indian of the group.”

Born James Inkanish Jr. of Cheyenne ancestry in El Paso, he adopted his stepfather’s name. After playing in country and rock bands, he moved to Los Angeles in 1964 and formed the Soul Giants. Zappa joined that group as a guitarist and quickly persuaded the members to play his own songs. As the Mothers of Invention, the band was remade in Zappa’s eclectic vision, and it became a leading light of underground rock as much for its music as for its caustic satires of the earnestness and indulgence of the hippie era.

“He joined the band, and three days later he took it over,” Mr. Black once said of Zappa, who died in 1993.

That lineup was abruptly disbanded by Zappa in 1969, though Mr. Black took part in Zappa’s 1971 film “200 Motels,” prominently singing the song “Lonesome Cowboy Burt.”

Thereafter Mr. Black had an intermittent musical career, briefly performing with Captain Beefheart, another member of the Zappa circle. He performed and ran a house-painting business with the British singer Arthur Brown, another veteran of 1960s rock, and since the early 1980s Mr. Black also played with Don Preston, Bunk Gardner and other former members of the Mothers of Invention, appearing as the Grandmothers.

His survivors include his wife, Monika, and six children.

The Morning After

From The Party's Over by Zina Saunders

Aiphanes aculeata

Suenalo Dec 12-13

WTF

EricBalloon.AVI

EricBalloon.AVI

Buco Goes Higher and Higher

Buco's Roadtrip gains altitude

"Is This Heaven?"

Not unlike Shoeless Joe stepping through The Cornfield, one would be prompted to ask the same question at The 30th Anniversary of the World's Largest Sale of Palms at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden
The annual show is sponsored in part by The South Florida Palm Society.
The man in the picture below is our friend and palm guru Jeff Searle, pictured here in the wild with a specimen of liquala peltata var. sumawongii. Searle Brothers Nursery in Ft. Lauderdale has become known worldwide as a source for rare palms and Jeff was the most sought after man at the palm sale by way of his eagerness to share his knowledge of palms and the excellence of those palms he grows. For more about what makes Jeff's family-run nursery special see this article.
Claude Roatta of Action Theory Landscape and Nursery





Bearing in mind that all palms for sale are priced extremely reasonably, take a look at the seedlings on this table, some like the Licuala mapu are priced at nearly four or five hundred dollars due to their scarcity, their slowness of growth and their desirabilityy among collectors








Balls Rare