The Music Festival Experience With 460,000 of My Closest Friends

After recently completing my sixth trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (aka Jazzfest), I thought I would relate my experiences for those of you who don’t do such ridiculous things.  It will perhaps reinforce your more sane decision to get your music the old-fashioned way, on your smartphone or car radio, as God intended.  Yes, music festivals are not for the faint of heart.  These bacchanalian assaults on human sensory perception require a particular mindset bordering on the unstable.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

  

My wife Sue and I once went to an outdoor Steppenwolf concert.  We spread out our blanket, sat down and prepared for our Magic Carpet Ride.  We were surrounded by the typical rogue’s gallery of Steppenwolf aficionados, many of whom had last bathed during the Nixon administration.  I think we made it through one song before a nearby spectator, who was ardently enjoying the Skoal chaw he had tucked between his cheek and gums, decided to test his spitting accuracy.  He managed to mostly hit the grassy area near our blanket but not without some of his discharge splatting on the back of Sue’s outstretched hand.  I heard a squeal that sounded like “Hey Lawdy Mama,” turned, and saw only the back of Sue’s head as she made a beeline for the exit.  She has never expressed any desire to go to another such event.

For those of you who have attended outdoor concerts and think that you have some perception of the day’s long pursuit of music from 7 outdoor stages and 4 tents, spread over 145 acres, think again.  The New Orleans Jazzfest has some form of musical entertainment being cranked out simultaneously on11 stages and through the streets eight hours a day, for seven days, spread over two weekends.  Only the strong survive.

Festival Fairgrounds Map

In order to attend Jazzfest, you have to decide how much you want to spend on your tickets.  You can buy daily general admission tickets for $60 plus service fees or any of a vast array of premium tickets for as little as $325 to $400 per day.  These premium ducats with titles such as Brass Pass, Big Chief, and Grand Marshall, entitle the holder to wear a ribbon around their necks that tells everyone that this person is special.  At Jazzfest, these passes allow various forms of access to covered seating in the rear bleachers or standing room near the main stages.  Some passes include the best seat in the house, which is, drum roll here, a clean toilet.

Crowd View of Acura Stage

  

All tickets are “rain or shine” which translates to, “if it rains and we cancel, you lose.” Additionally, you have to pay for parking or for some form of transportation to the festival.  You will also suffer vastly inflated prices at any of the local hotels.  Actually, the Jazzfest ticket prices are quite reasonable when you consider the prices charged for just one of the many headlining acts at a separate concert.

Elton John 2015

Once you arrive at The Fair Grounds, you realize that you are standing on a famous racetrack.  Yes, horses have been standing, walking, and running on the dirt below your feet since 1872.  During this time, they have also been eating hay and pooping.  When it rains, you are immediately reminded of the pooping part.  The wonderful aroma of wet horse manure will forever hold a special place in your olfactory memory. The odoriferous assault on your senses begins.  It is here, at these fairgrounds, that Eddie Arcaro and Willie Shoemaker have ridden such steeds as Whirlaway, Black Gold, and Risen Star.  Yes, thousands of equestrian speedsters have graced this track with their partially processed oat and hay offerings for over 140 years.  Wine may get better with age but horse manure just gets more, well, horsey.  I found out at a gardening site that, "Since a horse only digests one-quarter of the grass and seeds it eats, its poop is high in weed seeds."  I believe that may account for the other occasional concert smell, burning weed.

New Orleans Racetrack May 4, 1872

Blend together all of the above and the assault on your senses takes on an Invasion of Normandy scale when you add in the various food stands spread throughout the grounds.  In New Orleans, they can fry or boil just about anything from bread dough (Beignets) to miniature lobster (crawfish.)  There are pecan brownies, coconut macaroons, oyster, duck, and chicken Po-boys, red beans and sausage, shrimp and duck pasta, creole stuffed crab, shrimp and grits, shrimp and okra gumbo, crawfish remoulade, shrimp etouffee, crawfish beignets, and catfish almandine.  These delights are being cooked, fried, and boiled to add to the atmosphere.  All of these gastronomic delicacies can be washed down with beer, wine, or soda.

Festival Eating

The plethora of food and drink offerings brings us to another sensory assault, the Port-A-Let.  The portable toilets at music festivals start out their day with reasonable functionality and then deteriorate until they reach a condition that would gag a maggot.  This progression from serviceable to fly larvae ralphing takes about twenty minutes.  At the various rows of toilets, you will find people standing in lines waiting for their turn to enter.  It is here that Einstein’s theory of relativity takes on a new meaning.  You see, time is relative to which side of the toilet door you happen to be.  Outside, time moves like a glacier before we screwed up the atmosphere.  Inside, things are moving faster than the speed of smell.  Nobody lingers in a Port-A-Let.

Portable Toilets Loaded With Political Promises

If you are a “people-watcher,” you are in for a treat at Jazzfest.  It seems that music festivals turn normal people just a little crazy and the fruitcakes just get nuttier.  Another observation at these events is that people are very friendly and polite.  My guess is that politeness is almost an imperative when you are forced into such close proximity.  You will regularly find yourself standing in front of stages packed like a New Delhi commuter train at rush hour or sitting in folding chairs that are half the measured width of Mick Jagger's ass.  In these close quarters, there is no room for rudeness.

Festival Goers Ready to Party

The declared purpose for all of your efforts to attend Jazzfest is to hear the music and see the performers.  The hearing part is done to excess in that giant speakers will allow you to hear the music even if you happen to be seated in coach on a jetliner flying overhead.  In fact, you will need earplugs if you ever want to hear your spouse again.  Read that as, earplugs optional.

Actually seeing your favorite performer requires a bit more effort.  For popular acts, you will need to arrive early and try to work your way close to the stage.  At 6’-2”, I have a slight advantage over some and I have been able to actually see many great acts.  Over the past six years, I have seen Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Chicago, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, John Fogerty, Kacey Musgraves, Lyle Lovett, Alabama Shakes, Arlo Guthrie, Alison Krauss, John Boutte, Dr. John, Pete Fountain, Keb Mo, Robert Cray, Taj Mahal, Dave Koz, The Beach Boys, Ramsey Lewis, and Fleetwood Mac.  I have also seen countless other acts, many of whom are just as talented but have not yet gotten the recognition that better luck and circumstance could have provided.

Paul Simon 2016

You have perhaps already ascertained from the list of performers above that the term JAZZ-fest is a bit of a misnomer.  While the term jazz incorporates many variations, the musical offerings at this event defy such a simple classification.  This being New Orleans you will also find music indigenous to the local culture.  In addition to jazz you will find blues, R&B, gospel, Cajun, country, bluegrass, zydeco, Afro-Caribbean, folk, rap, Latin, and rock.  I have tried each of them and, with the probable exception of rap; they all have their place here.  This year I couldn’t find a seat in the Blues Tent so I wandered over to the nearby Gospel Tent.  As you can see, I must have been very tired.  As I rested, I listened to the large gospel choir as they praised Jesus and called for the rapture.  I managed to escape just before I would have been saved.  Then came my miracle; I found a seat in the Blues Tent.

Festival Chairs Area Before the Rain

Festival Chairs Area After the Rain

My latest trip to Jazzfest was perhaps the most challenging.  I brought plenty of sunscreen but left my poncho at home.  I’ll give you one guess what happened.  We had rain of biblical proportions.  Stevie Wonder was cancelled and his piano was ruined.  Neil Young performed to an audience standing in puddles with rain coming down, electrical wires running across the ground, and the occasional lightning strike nearby.  Not having been to church in around 40 years (the Gospel Tent doesn’t count), I decided to not tempt fate.  I will have to enjoy Neil’s music the old-fashioned way, by listening to illegally downloaded MP3’s. I can only imagine that, with all of the water around the Neil Young performance, Wooden Ships and Down by the River took on a special significance.  I spent my final day of the 2016 Jazzfest hunkered down in the Blues Tent.

No article on Jazzfest would be complete without a shout-out to the Jazzfest Commanders.  The Commanders are a group of music lovers with whom I have had the pleasure of joining at Jazzfest for each of these past six years.  Rain or shine, we always have a good time.

L-R Hot Dog, Jazzman, Rainman, Maui-Falafal, Photoman, Chili Dog, and Jay Dee

Aging, A Look Back

There was an often-repeated saying during my youth that went, “Live fast, Die young, and Leave a good looking corpse.”  Well, I didn’t live fast enough, didn’t die while I was young, so it would seem that leaving a good-looking corpse won’t be on my agenda either.  Since aging is the alternative to dying, I’m kind of a big fan of the former.

The “Live fast” quote prompted some quick research and I found it traces back to a Humphry Bogart movie, Knock on Any Door.  The movie debuted in 1949, but it wasn’t Bogie’s line.  That was left to John Derek.  Yeah, the same guy who later married Bo Derek.  I’m guessing that, if John Derek knew he would later be marrying Bo, he might not have been so eager to die young.  Bo wouldn’t even be born for another seven years.

Bo Derek

Bo Derek would be made famous in the movie, 10, which also loosely involved aging.  In that movie, a middle-aged composer/playwright (Dudley Moore) falls for the much younger beautiful newlywed (Bo Derek).  Cue Maurice Ravel’s Bolero here.  You can find an undercurrent of aging in many movies.  The Ron Howard film Cocoon comes to mind.

Groucho Marx

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

Most of us don’t think about aging until it is too late.  Yes, it creeps up on you like a windshield on a bug.  There you are flying along through life and all of a sudden, splat, you are old.  As Will Rogers once said, “you know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.”

I knew I was getting old when I started making noises like my Espresso machine.  Little aches and pains creep in and you are forced to slow down a bit.  I find myself listening to my parent’s music and thinking that yes, there is something there.  Then I put on some Doors, Janice, or Stones and snap out of it.

Eat that garden salad.  Have that plate of fresh vegetables.  Then grab the phone and call Dominoes. Eat chicken and fish several times a week but, every once in a while, toss a steak on the fire.  All of life is a balancing act; just try keeping the scales tipped in your favor.  A man once went to a doctor to ask his chances of living to 100.  The doctor asked him, do you smoke, drink, or keep late hours with loose women?  When the man answered no to each of these the doctor then asked, why in the world do you want to live to be 100?

Throw a Steak on the Barbecue

You want to live a long life but not too long.  It is predicted that by 2100 the earth’s seas will rise about 6 feet.  That will put my hometown underwater.  I enjoy splashing around as much as the next person, but the traffic around here is bad enough without contending with people swimming while texting.

Texting While Swimming

When I walk, I sound like the advertised bowl of Rice Krispies after you add the milk.  I couldn’t creep up on a deaf blind man.  Muscles ache where I didn’t know I even had muscles.  If it doesn’t hurt, it’s broken.  I went through my entire life without needing glasses and now I need “cheaters” to know what’s on the menu.  I can step into an elevator and I know all the words to the music that’s playing.  

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

I now have a bit of arthritis in my hands and have to contend with childproof caps.  I would like to meet the idiot who invented these.  I’m guessing this is the same individual that decided to put the “lift while turning”, “push down while turning” or “align the arrows and push up here” instructions clearly written in small raised white letters against a white background.  Just make sure, when you make the introduction, that I am holding a Louisville Slugger.  I’ll bet I can still knock his butt up into the cheap seats.  I’ll also bet that a jury of my elderly peers would find me not guilty by reason of sanity at the trial.

Solution to Childproof Caps

One of the pleasures of aging is retirement.  They call these your golden years.  By that they mean, you better have saved enough gold or retirement is just another word for unemployed.  With cautious investment however, and a little help from Social Security, you can easily make ends meet.  This of course assumes you can still get your head down between your legs to get those ends together.

I’m joking of course.  Retirement is wonderful.  You can lie in bed in the morning and watch the traffic report knowing you aren’t doing 6 mph in a 60 mph zone.  You can get up, get out of bed, shower, and get dressed whenever you want.  Or, you can just put it all off until tomorrow.  Your choice.

Think back on the technological changes that have happened during your life.  If you are over 50, those changes have been immense.  We have seen the age of AM radio give way to television.  We watched small black and white picture tubes as they morphed into wide screen high resolution giants.  The kids today can’t appreciate what they have.  In my day, I had to walk across nine feet of shag carpet just to change the channel.  The card catalogue at the local library was my Google.  While sitting at a computer today feels natural,  I have to admit, having information coming to me from around the globe in an instant, feels a bit euphoric.  I will also admit, being required to scroll down and down and down to find my birth year, still upsets me.

Another advantage of aging is Senior Discounts.  I'm sure you remember getting into the movie at a discount when you were under 12.  In today’s world that might be nice but there aren’t any movies you can get into if you are that young.  It’s better to get the discount when you are old.  You can get senior discounts on meals, hotel rooms, and many different things, just ask.  You’ll find that, as you age, you just don’t get embarrassed as easily as when you were young.

Our views on aging change throughout our lives.  As children, we looked forward to being a year older and even counted half years as milestones.  We looked forward to being teenagers and, as teenagers; we really looked forward to turning 21.  You are now finally an adult.  Many of us eventually realize that turning 21 made us adults in a legal sense and had nothing to do with us having good sense.  Think back on your 20’s.  Did you do stupid things?  If you can honestly say you did nothing really stupid back then, I feel sorry for you.  You wasted a great opportunity.  My greatest stories come from that time in my life when I was too young and stupid to know the consequences of my actions.  I'm just lucky to have survived to be writing this today.

Do Something Stupid While You Are Young

If you survive the early years, life then happens in earnest.  You live through your 30’s and 40’s.  Aging is not part of your consciousness.  When 50 happens you start getting the “Over the Hill” cards and wonder, how can I be going over the hill when I never made it to the top?  You are now surrounded by “middle age.”  You start thinking about your future.  That magic number of 65 is no longer around the next bend; it is in sight just ahead.  Somewhere between 65 and 70 is when the windshield splat analogy takes you by surprise.

By now, you have gray hair or little or no hair left at all.  Your skin has wrinkles and begins to sag just a bit.  Weight loss is not as easy as it used to be.  You have lunch with friends and the conversation will generally involve health issues. 

Words also change their meaning as we age.  “Getting a little action,” means that the fiber is beginning to work.  “Getting lucky,” means you found your car in the mall parking lot.  "Happy hour," is now a nap.  An “all-nighter,” means you didn’t have to get up to pee.

Eskimos have many words for snow and the rest of us have a similar number of words for getting old.  Alphabetically we have ancient, antiquated, archaic, dated, decrepit, doddering, elderly, fossilized, geriatric, kaput, medieval, moribund, moth eaten, obsolete, outdated, over the hill, passe, prehistoric, quaint, rusty, senescent, senile, senior, tottery, and vintage.  Age, any age, is tempered by how you feel.  I happen to feel good at 70.  Youth is about how you feel, not when you were born.  You must also realize, the young cannot know how old age feels, but we have failed if we forget how it was to be young.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Sláinte

Trip to Marco Island

We (Sue and I) just made a trek to the “other coast.”  For you non-Floridians, we have an east coast, a west coast, and a south coast (panhandle view).  If you count the islands like Key West, we even have a north coast.  The west coast of Florida is accessible from Miami, by using I-75 with its non-de-plumes of Everglades Expressway and Alligator Alley.

----OR----

South Florida, Marco Island in Red at Left

Since we were headed to Marco Island, we decided to take the old Tamiami Trail, aka SW 8^th street, aka Calle Ocho, aka US 41.  All streets in Florida have at least three names just to confuse the tourists.  The Tamiami Trail got its name as a contraction of Tampa to Miami.  This is a bit misleading as the Tamiami Trail goes from Miami to Marco Island, then to Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Punta Gorda, Sarasota, and several other cities long before you get anywhere near Tampa.  Just trust the "good-ol-boys" in Tallahassee to have fun with the folks down south.  The Tamiami Trail is a bit more laid back than I-75, and is a two-lane highway with passing available only for those with a death wish.

Dotted along the way are several “Panther Crossing” signs featuring a black panther silhouette in a yellow diamond frame.  You will never see one of these animals.  You are more likely to find a Mexican-Muslim at a Trump rally than to spot a Florida Panther.

Panther Crossing Sign

We were visiting friends, Putty and Terry, who had rented a condominium on the beach on Marco Island.

View from the Condo

Same-state trips such as these are simple head clearing jaunts to give you a change of scenery and an excuse to over-eat and have that extra glass of wine or four.  As if we needed an excuse.  The average home sale on Marco Island is $540,000.  If you would like your home to have a view of the water, just add a two and a comma in front of that figure and you are almost there.

Sue, Terry and Putty (aka Kathy)

The town, as you might imagine, is immaculate, featuring manicured parkways, manicured lawns, manicured pedestrians, and manicured poodles.  There are wide bike-ways and not an ugly person within 50 miles.  The beach behind our visited condominium was large enough to fit a soccer stadium with plenty of parking.  Just don’t tell David Beckham.  He might want to spoil the place.

 

Our first day’s adventure took us back east on the Tamiami Trail to Everglades City for an airboat ride.  We were joined by Sue P, who lives in Naples when she is in Florida.  Everglades City is just south of the Tamiami Trail.  It has a population of around 402, give or take a few folks after any recent drug bust.

Everglades City Welcome Sign

We called the top three rated establishments in Everglades City only to learn that this was the peak of their tourist season and all trips were full.  We worked our way down the food chain of such establishments until we found one that said, “Sure, we have plenty of openings.”  We were a bit nervous but thought, “We’re old, we’ve lived full lives, what the heck.”  We drove past the tour facilities of billboard and Trip Advisor fame featuring shiny air-boats with large comfortable bench seating and headphones for informative commentary.  Such things are not for procrastinators. We got to the end of the street and found our Everglades Island Boat Tours.

Everglades Island Boat Tours

Our airboat was not shiny or new, at least not since the 1950’s.  It had nicks and dings that we attributed to minor collisions with Everglades mosquitoes or perhaps shotgun pellets from DEA agents. 

Airboat Selection

Our captain, I think his name was Nick, was a, shall we say, colorful character.  He talked fast with a nervous patter.  We would learn at our first stop that Nick had found God, but only after three different jail terms.  Nick was old enough to have been a participant in the 1983 "roundup."   The population of Everglades City in 1983 was around 600 and eventually, 300 of them were arrested on drug charges.

Sheriff Proclaims That At Least 300 People Were Not Drug Smugglers

Nick was now a preacher and we were about to hear about the tough life he had growing up in this sleepy little backwater town.  We learned of the town's penchant for marijuana and cocaine smuggling.   "There are two expressions that no one uses in this town anymore," the Miami News quoted an unidentified resident as saying. "One is that this town is going to pot. The second is that we are waiting for our ship to come in."

Nick mentioned during one of his stories an instance when he took a local girl home and his mother told him she was his cousin.  He asked how far he had to go to avoid the family tree and was told that he would need to pass the next two trailer parks to find a suitable mate.

Airboat Group, Picture by Sue P

After our initial briefing, we were thankful that our boat was not equipped with headphones to listen to the captain.  It did however, have ear protection devices to block out the noise from the airboat’s propeller and the captain.  What our tour lacked in informative commentary was more than made up for with a high-speed thrill ride through narrow mangrove tunnels.  We weaved back and forth down the corridors of tangled roots, branches, and canopy of leaves only to blast forth into the light of a small pond in the sun.  Nick seemed to know every twist and turn.  You can just imagine being chased by the DEA while zipping through the swamp.  Try to imagine this this while watching the video below.

 

Video Clip of Airboat Ride in Mangroves With Special Appearances of The Back of Sue P's Head

At one point, we stopped to see a small lone alligator that looked like he would like to be in any other section of the swamp but the one with the noisy airboats.  We also stopped to visit a family of raccoons who, we were informed, were tidal and not nocturnal, like their forest dwelling cousins.  One brave little guy, call him Rocky Raccoon, came right up to our boat and peered in as if he was expecting a handout.  I would imagine he has seen some food come his way from airboats before.

Rocky Looking for Some Food

We finished our airboat ride and made it back to the docks.  As rides go, I think we got lucky with our low-rent trip.  I don’t think other companies let their captain’s blast through the narrow channels the way our captain did.  We gave him a nice tip and he returned the favor by grabbing a small gator out of a glass cage with his four-fingered hand and presented it to one of the guests in our party.

Putty With Her New Handbag

Terry With His New Belt

We then drove back into Everglades City and visited the Camellia Street Grill where you can get a wide variety of seafood cooked any way you like it…, as long as you like it fried.  If you wash down that cholesterol with a little beer, you’ve been fed.

Camellia Street Grill

Fine Food Offering

Terry--Sue P--Putty--Jack (picture by Sue D)

We left Everglades City and headed further south to the town of Chokoloskee.  We visited the famous Ted Smallwood’s Store, established in 1906.  By Florida standards, this is ancient.  The Smallwood Store is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  It is a rustic building with an eclectic collection of junk from its days as a trading post.

Smallwood Store

We spent the rest of our three day visit enjoying the beach and the company of our friends  The beach there is all white sand save for a small mangrove rimmed pond where I stopped to take a few pictures.   

Marco Island Airlines Ready for Takeoff

We drove up to Sue P’s place in Naples and went out to dinner on the water.  We returned home on Thursday back down the Tamiami Trail.  The trip was uneventful except for the closing of the westbound lane of the Trail due to a large (10’ ?) alligator on the road.  He didn’t look like he wanted to move and due to his large size, the troopers were not too anxious to get near enough to change his mind.

Florida Speedbump

A Park Ranger once told me, "the only thing meaner and more dangerous in the Everglades than a large alligator is a "crocagator."  He explained that the crocagator has the head of a crocodile on one end and the head of an alligator on the other.  When I questioned his description by asking him how such an animal would poop, he merely said, "that's what makes him so mean."