Blessing of the Fleet

Coming up June 26th-29th is the Provincetown Portugese Festival.It isn't the rowdy event it was back in my day and that may be a good thing but it's still a lot of fun and ends up with the Blessing of the Fleet on Sunday.On Fri night the 27th you can catch the "Old Jugs"(Provincetown Jug Band) at the Surf Club from 10 to 1:00 and on Sunday from 4 to 7 is Ed Sheridan at the Surf Club a Jug Band Member.I'm really tempted to fly in and show up so I can shout"You Guys Suck!", or"Play Something you Know!" like we used to do for fun after a Jug Band song.Several frat brothers and myself did just that one fall night at The Barley Neck Inn not realising the crowd there was a whole lot different than the Surf Club crowd in those days.We were asked to leave after the first set.As we were walking out Geno said to the crowd "If they do this(middle finger raised)they're just showing you their IQ".When we showed up back at the Surf Club from Orleans after getting tossed Richard the Bartender laughed and said"You guys are still standing?" then "I'm not serving you" which led to a few more PTown Bars that night and eventually a room at the old Holiday Inn with another early morning eviction. Lets's see if this links http://www.Provincetownportugesefestival.com/

Dutra's Market

Last night while reading the Celtics stories on the Globe there was a heading for summer places or something like that and the heading was for Truro,MA. There were like 8 pics and one I clicked on was the center of Downtown North Truro.That intersection for me is the center of the universe.Head up "Puke Hill" on 6a and you come to Babes Restaurant and beyond that is Provincetown.Head the other way and you are bound for Truro and Wellfleet.Go left down Pond Rd. and you come to Cold Storage beach and it's small hilltop parking lot where we watched a lot of sunsets.Go right from the center of North Truro and you are on your way to Highland Light and a great town ocean beach plus our home in 78 The North Truro Camping Area.Off right center of the pic is Dutra's Market.Dutras was and is the place where it all happened.Meeting up out front with friends.picking up my N.Y. Times each day and the fact Dutras had a pagkage store also.In 1978 it was where we bought cases and cases of Pickwick Ale.Pickwick Ale came in big old hard cardboard cases each bottle 16oz. and real returnable bottles.Some had so many roller marks on the bottles they were like sandpaper.It also cost around 8 bucks a case which made it our beer of choice outside Bally Triple XXX Ale at the Surfclub.78 we had a tent trailer for Jimmy and Marty a 8 man tent for Tom and I and a living area in between with many lawn chairs from the Truro Dump.We also had a smaller tent we called the nab tent for dates and we were pretty much scattered over three sites at NTCA but at the edge of overflow and two thirds of our compound was actually into Seashore Land.Anyhoo halfway through that summer there was a strike at a Rhode Island Brewery and you could not find a Pickwick at Dutras.We had plenty of empty bottle cases on site used as end tables,to place shirts and pants on and as the famous shaving stand with the bottle of Jack Daniels used as aftershave holding up the shaving mirror.So we hadn't seen a Pickwick in like 18 days and one day after work we took a cruise into Provincetown from Babes with Pierre one of our Babes owners and he says to stop at this little store way up in the almost all house early part of Commercial Street way before the wharf and he comes out with whatever he needed and pulls a bottle of Pickwick from under his shirt.We all jump out of the car and inside the lady has 8 cases of 16oz Pickwick Ale.We bought them all and had our stash for a week or so and right after that the strike ended.I still have an empty Pickwick bottle somewhere in the apt which is a holy relic much like the Babes Beaver plate which I'll talk about later.

Drained

I'm still trying to recover my voice from last night.This finals has been draining.I can't think of things to post about because I'm chomping at the bit waiting for the next game on Sunday.My neighbors Laker Fans all are used to me yelling and screaming and whooping and hollering for the Red Sox but this is a first for them.I think the guy in the condo behind us was the one giving me a dirty look out front today and I might have to get security if the Celts win this thing.But Blessing of the Fleet is coming in Provincetown so my thoughts are there also.But all day I've been walking around breaking out in giggles that they actually won.Heck in 84 when the Celts played the Lakers my brother and I had 4 season tickets to the Lakers and I went to two finals games.I can't even afford to park at Staples Center now.

Parking lot across from Staples Center in L.A.!

Protection

So I'm waiting to cross a street at a light today on Westwood Blvd. when this lady pulls up in a Caddy, Blue Hair piled and teased high wearing shades and looking elegant.But then my gaze drifts onto her passenger seated right next to where I'm standing.I'm thinking no wonder the lady is driving her husband looks reall ill.The guys skin was really pasty,he's wearing a bad black hair piece and his mustache doesn't look much better and the captains yachting hat with the ascot or whatever around his neck I'm thinking instead maybe it's her gay old friend when I realise the guy isn't a guy but one of those lifesize dolls.Not the blowup kind but the life size solid doll.I start laughing which causes the older lady standing next to me to step away some feet but I don't think she understood what I was telling her about the doll while I'm giggling trying to explain it.I've seen these things advertised for this use before but have never seen one dressed like an aging lothario.The ads always show them looking like some tough biker guy grandma is tooling around with for protection.

New Music

Today I received an envelope from my brother in San Diego through the law firm he works at and while I was imagining it was two tickets for the Celtics-Lakers at Staples Center tues night it turned out to be a CD by a band called The Explorers Club.Looking at it right away they looked like a Brian Wilson worship band we are fond of finding.They are sort of and not to be confused with a prog rock band from the late 90's of the same name.These guys are from South Carolina and while there is a Strong Beach Boys vibe you also here the Beatles,Byrds,Turtles and other classic pop.I really like it though the sound is different than The Wondermints a real Brian Wilson hardcore worship group who have been his backup band on some tours.When I moved out here an early friend I made turned out to be Creative director for EMI America and later in N.Y. the same job for RCA so I got used to being backstage alot.Seeing guys like Bowie,Peter Wolf,Robert Palmer,Ziggy Marley.Red Hot Chili Peppers etc.I even became friends with some guys in some of the lesser bands especially the Wailers Bass player who we introduced to sushi and he introduced us to really really good herb.That and my appearance with my buddy Jimmy Manning on stage with the P-Town Jug Band memorial day 1981 singing the last encore of "When the Saints Come Marching In" gave me a rather jaded indifferent view of hanging out with these guys.So imagine my surprise when about seven years ago my buddy was out from N.Y. working with an artist when Henry and I went to this Italian place near me.As we sit down in the booth I'm talking to Henry when I realise in the next booth I'm looking right at Brian Wilson.All my jaded views of rock stars went out the window.I'm acting like Lucy in the Bill Holden Brown Derby episode pointing over Henrys shoulder whispering to him .Since I always see folks who I think are stars he laughs and gets up to use the boys room so he can see.At this point I'm like come on Hank turn around and tell him you did the artwork and photoshoots for his daughters in that awful Wilson-Phillips band.Henry won't do it and I don't want to bother Brian Wilson as he is talking to his wife about some music exec at his label who is on Brians sheet list so to say.So I have my idol right next to me an don't even get an autograph though he did give me a dirty look when they left.

Posterior Fun

I just saw this headline through the Boston Globe"Dutch man injures posterior in mooning accident"Seems he and some friends thought it would be fun to moon a few folks and he fell backwards through a window.It brought to mind a favorite headline from the old Weekly World News"I Mooned a Werewolf and it nearly cost me my life"That one came with illustrations and involved a Syracuse University student.In real life the oddest one I have seen was driving a dirt road in the hills above Naples N.Y. one late fall day during deer hunting season and a Chevy Blazer coming at us had a naked guy tied on the hood like they did with a deer, moon out whooping and waving a beer can as he looked in on his buddies in the front of the truck.Personal fun included a night early in the summer of 1979 when a few roomies and I played football on 6a in North Truro wearing sport coats and nothing else.We got down and hiked the ball whenever we saw a car approaching us from "behind" so to say and then scamper off the road when we felt the headlights getting close.I am sure some tourists from back then still tell stories about the strange sight they came upon headed for Provincetown where even stranger sights awaited them.