Ah,coffee and lemon cake at the Starbucks in Sunny Isles. A perfect and very atlantic morning for a scooter trip. There is a breeze off the ocean, the water is what they call "choppy". The good-looking women were what they call "absent" and the coffee is what I'd call "expensive". It's a good thing I'm not spending my own money.
I decided to price out a thermos and could not find one. If they don't sell them in Florida, it is because there are so few places to park for free. One such place is Greynold's Park, the section west of Dixie I found last week. Pictures may be a problem, as I cannot figure out how to email myself the photos I take with the phone. It goes through the motions, but no pictures arrive. Back to Radio Shack for instructions.Not a real fan of bluegrass music, I took in a few hours of the Greynold's Park show today. I know the reason I don't care for this music much is that it tends toward the repetitious. If anyone has written a new banjo lick in the past 50 years, I'd love to hear it, by golly. Today's groups are profoundly sterotyped and belong to "The [insert state name here] Bluegrass Association." The term "music preservation" is also bandied around, which does not explain the lack of local musicians on stage. Maybe "preservin'" gets easier the further you leave Tennessee?
All the groups were 4 or 5 piece with no drummers. It truly sounds better with no drummer. You got mandolin, banjo, standup bass, flat top, and optional fiddle. Standup bass, I find, lacks expression. There is really only one oom-pa way to play it in the long run. Also, standup contributes to the fallacy that the bass is a background instrument.
All music lends itself to variation but the standup bass does not make that easy. Since they took the liberty of electrifying an acoustic standup bass and calling it traditional, allow me to say I can play bluegrass music on an electric bass that would make their heads spin. Yes, real bluegrass, not speeded up guitar licks.
The grounds were set up for a crowd of around 1200 people. The paid attendance by three hours before quitting time was around 65. I say paid, because there is not only a $6 per vehicle fee to enter the park on weekends, there was an unadvertised $20 per person admission at the fenced off music site. That's $26 to listen to some of the fattest musicians on the planet (Sumo Bluegrass), no wonder they call it a "festival".
The new scooter stats are arriving. I like to reduce things to the simplest rule of thumb suggested by the numbers. Here goes. It costs $1 to travel each 25 miles. That is cheap and it is beginning to take effect in that no way would I have driven a car to Sunny Isles (40 miles) just for brunch.
The weather remained totally agreeable, so I lingered over the last few chapters of "Huckleberry Finn". Old Huck seemed to be a magnet for robbers, murderers, caves, and free river transportation. His knowledge of classical history is roughly equivalent to what you find in the same area today, as in "Chateau Deef". Twain's style is certainly more colorful than the best sellers of today.
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