Meeting of the Minds Special Wrap-Up Edition

Sandlapper ParrotHead Telegraph
Volume III, Number 8
November 2000
A Charter PHiP Club

Captains Log

Stardate November 2000 and sumpthin'…we're somewhere in the lower Keys of Florida. Can't quite get a grasp on the culture here. It seems to be a mixture of pure hedonistic pleasure along with a slight strain of insanity. The local inhabitants of this strange new world call themselves Conchs and they don't acknowledge the ruling bodies that govern the rest of the planet. They appear to be a peaceful people who wear smiles incessantly. The waters surrounding this paradise are crystal clear and beautiful and seem to be a suitable breeding ground for our own civilization. Wait…there's another faction of inhabitants that appear to be invading a local establishment. Yes…the Casa Marina Resort is under siege by a group of colorful origin. They're laughing, carousing, dancing, chanting strange anthems and drinking elixirs from odd shaped bottles. Could it be that we've located the long lost tribe of Parrot Heads? I believe we have. Our Supreme Galaxial Ruler will be pleased to know that the Duval Crawl is alive and well. Please read on for our comprehensive report on our findings of the bizarre events that are unfolding before our very visual apparati.

BobRob
Prez/Founder
Sandlapper PHC

"Well now she can eat her own weight up in crab meat, and there's plenty of that down there by the sea. We'll be sailing in those warm December breezes, and sendin' picture postcards back to Tennessee"


CoB,O Nuggets

· Peter Mayer released his Christmas CD, entitled "Stars and Promises," on November 20! This CD is produced by Peter and Jim Mayer. A portion of each CD sold through Little Flock Music will benefit several great causes. Details and sound clips are now available on Peter Mayer's website. Orders for "Stars and Promises" are now being accepted through Little Flock Music.

· On October 23, 2000 the Recording Industry Association of America certified Jimmy's most recent CD titled "Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays" as gold (over 500,000 copies sold). The CD was released a year ago on November 2nd, 1999 under Jimmy's Maiboat Records label. Check out all of Jimmy Buffett's Gold & Platinum certifications at RIAA.com.

· Margaritaville.com has released some information on the musical Don't Stop the Carnival that is planned to open in April 2001: Rehearsals begin in March 2001 and performances begin April 2001 for an open-ended run at the Atlantis Theatre, located in the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort and Casino. They will be doing casting/auditions for the all of the roles for the musical in December.

· It appears that JB will be doing the halftime show at this year's Orange Bowl.

· The Greenville (SC) News reports JB will play for NASCAR champ Bobby Labonte at the Winston Cup awards banquet December 8 in New York City in Labonte gets chance to meet an idol -- Jimmy Buffett.

· Jimmy Buffett came in third place in a poll of the Top Baby Boomers born in 1946 according to Del Webb Corporation. He was behind George W. Bush and Connie Chung.

· Capturing the breezy, escapist spirit embodied by Jimmy Buffett, Mott's is rolling out a Margaritaville Margarita Mix regionally for the holidays and will partner with Seagram's Margaritaville Tequila for a $10 million print, radio, outdoor and sampling campaign.

· How much does a cheeseburger in paradise cost? The answer, if you're Outback Steakhouse , is a cool $1-million. The Tampa restaurant company said that's what it paid in October to nail down an agreement with singer Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings, Inc. for development of a restaurant chain called Cheeseburger in Paradise.

· Greg "Fingers" Taylor has just finished recording sessions in November with Doug Deming and the Blue Suit band, which are just now being mixed in LA and should be available sometime in 2001 on a yet to be named label.

Mary Bradford Interview
by Chris Dixon, Margaritaville.com
This interview was conducted during the 2000 Meeting of the minds ParrotHead Convention

Mary Bradford of The Tropics Exotic Exotic Bird Refuge is on a mission, and her main messenger is a gorgeous white cockatoo whose breast is wrapped in shocking pink bandages. The bird's name is Todd.

Todd sits peacefully on Bradford's wrist. With an inquisitive and apparently happy demeanor, he gives no hints at the reason for the bandage. "He's been self mutilating for years," she says. "We've had him for two years, and he's been mutilating himself longer than that." Self-mutilation is a gruesome, but common syndrome that captive exotic birds inflict on themselves. In some cases, they may just damage their breast feathers, in others, they may remove all their feathers and bite off their own skin.

"We're trying to save the parrots that are in captivity that are neglected, abused, that mutilate themselves, that are cage bound or put all alone in closets or in basements when people can't or won't take care of them. All over the country, people buy exotic birds as pets. If they get a bad bite, they become scared of the bird, or maybe they have a baby and get scared that the baby is going to be bitten or maybe the owner dies and the family doesn't want them. And then people leave birds to families in their wills and the families don't want them. I mean, Todd is 12 right now and will probably live to be 80."

In the wild, parrots, like Parrotheads, are incredibly communicative, mobile and gregarious. Self-mutilation like Todd's results from denial of contact with other birds, cage confinement, or simply being ignored. "He's had eight surgeries since we've had him," says Bradford. "This most recent skin graft was a month ago. He finally seems to be growing new skin. The healing process is coming along. It's really slow, but if he wanted to mutilate himself, he could tear that off in five seconds."

She continues: "When you take a bird like this and put it in a home environment, it's OK for five, six, seven, maybe even ten years. And you can take them and breed them in captivity and make them tame. Although these birds are raised in captivity and are tame, they still retain their wild instincts. They need to use their wings to fly, they need to be able to socialize with their own kind. Success that we've had with birds like him has been because we've taken them out of a human environment and put them back into a bird environment. That's the key to it."

Located in Kannapolis, N.C., about 30 miles north of Charlotte, The Tropics currently has almost 300 birds spread over two aviaries. They have recently received one single donation of over $100,000. This will be enough to build a geodesic dome with a rainforest habitat where the birds will be able to fly freely. Ultimately, Bradford hopes to build five domes. While five of these huge domes may seem like a lot, Bradford says that the number of unwanted and abused birds is enormous: "More and more parrot owners are now realizing that if they had it to do over again, that they never would have bought a bird. There are about 60 million parrots in the US alone, when the market drops out of the pet trade where these birds are concerned then there are going to be millions upon millions of birds that have nowhere to go. They're going to be pets as well as birds that were breeders because once they be-come a liability to the breeder, the breeder will not keep the bird. So if they don't have a refuge, they're going to wind up being euthanized, like dogs and cats."

Right now, Mary and her husband, John run The Tropics on a shoestring budget that is financed almost entirely by donations. The need for these donations is continuous. Daily, the facility must feed and provide veterinary care, and attention to 300 birds. The facility is staffed by the Bradfords and by many volunteers, and it can use your help in terms of time and effort or a donation to sponsor a bird. You can even give a bird sponsorship as a Christmas present!

"Came to see friends, walk old streets again, grab a bite and a beer by the sea. It caught my attention, the old town has grown and that's why I came alone"

Club Dues

A while back, the SPHC Board Members decided to change our fiscal year from March/February to a standard calendar year. With that decision we also determined that, to avoid too much confusion, club dues for the year 2000 would be waived until January 1, 2001. That time is upon us and I'm here to announce that old familiar Dues-R-Due statement. Renewals are $35.00 per family and $20.00 per single membership and you can send your check/MO to the following addresses:

DeeAnna Brooks 102 Hampton Street Clover, SC 29710

or

Bob Robinson PO Box 37570 Rock Hill, SC 29732

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Children's Christmas Party

Saturday, December 9th at 11:00 AM, the Sandlapper PHC will hold its 2nd annual Christmas Party for the kids of the Children's Attention Home of Rock Hill. Our host will be the Mt. Holly Fish Camp on Mt. Holly Road in Rock Hill and they will provide hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone. Santa will be on hand to pass out presents to the kids and we'll sing a few Christmas songs to liven up the joint, so come on out and help us put a smile on a needy kids face.

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Happy Birthday Bubba!
December 25, 1946

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"A sailor spends his Christmas in a harbour on the hook. Cali, Calais no work today, let's shelve the old log book. The waterfront is reveling, the season has begun. A sailor spends his Christmas in a harbour having fun"


ParrotStock 2001

During the recent Meeting of the Minds in Key West, several Southern PH club leaders were invited by Dave Kendziora (Pleasure Island PHC, Wilmington, NC) to an informal meeting at the Cypress House to discuss the possibility of creating a Southeastern PH Convention. The PHC of Charlotte donated their copyrighted name to the cause and we are now making plans for ParrotStock 2001 to be held in Charleston in early May. We're looking at a whole weekend of phantastic music, games, door prizes, raffles and auctions. This will be an annual event that will probably rotate host cities from year to year. The reception has been very positive from the other clubs in the area and we will be meeting soon to hammer out the details.

Hands4Charity Auction

Jimmy Buffett recently donated a painting to Hands4Charity who posted the original drawing on the eBay auction site. The proceeds are to benefit the Rain Forest Alliance. The subject of the painting was a parrot and was personally autographed by Jimmy. The winning bid of $1525.00 came in during the waning moments of the auction.

2000 MOTM Review
by Charlotte Wright, PHC of Charlotte

The ninth annual Meeting of the Minds, the gathering of Parrot Heads representing clubs from all over the USA and Canada, was held in Key West, November 2-5. The event is a national convention as well as a celebration of the places and events written into the Jimmy Buffett saga. Life in Key West was the inspiration for Jimmy's career being launched as the Calypso Poet, the Island Troubadour, the King of Somewhere Hot.

This was the Conch Republic's third year hosting the Parrot Head convention. The first six MOTM's were held in New Orleans. This year's event was centered around a tropical resort, the Casa Marina, a luxury hotel in the grand old Key's tradition. The private beach was a prime spot for viewing the infamous sunsets.

A Saturday night concert featuring many well-known cover bands was held on the resort's lawn, reminding everyone of the summer amphitheater experience.

Friday featured a street party on Duval Street between Sloppy Joe's and Marga-ritaville with Reeferette Tina Gullickson and former Coral Reefer Mac McAnally entertaining the crowd.

The tenth annual MOTM, "Decade On Duval" will again be held in Key West, November 1-4, 2001. Make plans soon; the Casa is already one-third booked!

Photos from MOTM 2K and registration for MOTM 2K1 will soon be posted at www.phip.com. Finz Up to Alex Leist, Convention Director, for a well-organized and memorable event!

Key Lime Cheesecake

The following recipe was taken from the Tropical Temptations cookbook written by our friend Gail Johnson, President and co-Founder of the Western NC ParrotHead Club in Asheville. This beautifully written and illustrated book can be bought at her web site: http://www.primeline.com/~pud/book.html

Cheesecake Filling

3 (8 oz.) Packages cream cheese, softened
¾ cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
3 eggs
3 TBS all purpose flour
1 cup Key Lime Juice
2 TS vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat cream cheese until soft. Continue beating and mix in sugar and sour cream. Add eggs, one at a time. Slowly fold in flour. Add key lime juice and beat until smooth. Blend in vanilla. Pour batter into a springform pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower temp to 300 degrees and bake an additional 55 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

Crust

1 cup Graham cracker crumbs
2 TBS butter, softened
½ cup sugar

Mix all ingredients and pack into the bottom of a springform pan to make the crust.

Topping

1 cup sour cream
½ cup sugar
2 TS vanilla

Mix all ingredients. Spread over cooled cheesecake. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

Note: Remember, all deserts made with real Key Lime juice will be yellow in color, not green. Locally, Harris Teeter carries real Key Lime juice.

More MOTM Memories

My first trip to Key West last year was a very memorable one. The only thing missing was actually seeing the Keys as we drove down as we soared down Hwy. 1 in the wee hours of the morning. This year I flew into West Palm Beach, rented a ragtop and enjoyed my first daylight trip through the Keys. My first stop along the way was the infamous Alabama Jack's, located next to the Card Sound Bridge across from the north end of Key Largo. AJ's sits on a manatee laden canal and gives you a real feel of the tropics with an open atmosphere about it. A true tropical heaven. After meeting up with several friends, we caravaned down Hwy. 1 making our next stop at Lorelei's on Islamorado for rum runners, live music and a gorgeous sunset over a tropical lagoon. From there, our next stop was Key West and the Hogsbreath Saloon on Duval Street where I spent every evening listening to my new friend Hugo Duarte and his Full Sail Band. The music offered to us in KW was phenominal… "Sunny Jim" White, Jim Morris, Jimmy Maraventano, Living Soul & The Pearl Divers, Fingers Taylor, St. Some-where, Jim Hoehn, Kevin Mulvena, Calypso Nuts, Jonathan Birchfield, Koko Loco, A1A, Bill "The Sauce Boss" Wharton and Scott Kirby all made several appearances through out the week. The only glaring omission from the music scene this year was the Caribbean Cowboys, one of last year's main stage performers at the StreetFest on Duval. Oh well, maybe next year guys. On Halloween night, the Palmetto PHC of Columbia, SC held a costume party at the Conch Republic Seafood Company. With Sunny Jim serenading us, their members arrived in the most outlandish costumes I've ever seen. These pholks definitely go all out when throwing a party (thanks PPHC). I was originally scheduled to leave the island on Sunday, but decided to stay an extra day to cool down. Besides, Fingers was playing that afternoon at the Conch Republic with Living Soul and I couldn't necessarily pass that up now could I? ;-) In all it truly was a phabulous week.

"'Tis the season to remember and to count up all the ports of call I've known and to thank his mercies tender for I'm never far from home"

Hugo Duarte Review From Meeting of the Minds
by Cindy Kekevian, Frozen Fins PHC of Vermont

The pleasure was all mine experiencing the music of Hugo Duarte and the Full Sail Band on six different occasions in Key West during MOTM 2000. Hugo played at the Hog's Breath Saloon during the prime-time 10pm-2am slot the entire week. I was forewarned by a friend from Boston about Hugo, & told I wasn't "allowed home" if I didn't hear him at least once. I was unprepared for the experience of listening to Hugo's music. Especially at the Hog's Breath every night with a whole phlock of my newest and closest parrothead friends enjoying the same show!

I was lucky enough to meet Hugo as he walked into the Hog's Breath that Wednesday night, and from then on he was kind enough to remember me AND my favorite songs every night. He became a friend just by sharing his stories and his music with all of us nightly.

The music…hmmm. Every night was magically, musically perfect. I wish I could tell you which show was better, which was more incredible…but each got better and none was better than the last! Hugo shared his life through his lyrics, and his heart and soul through his voice and guitar…it was an unbelievable week of music. I will never be able to hear "Key West Heart" or "Cutie" without being immediately transported to the Hog's Breath & any one of those nights Hugo sang them.

Hugo has a really sweet & fun side too. A slightly inebriated woman wanted to take some pictures of his ass. Well, Hugo came out into the audience, the whole time singing "Cutie" (I'm sure just to me J ), and did some posed for this lady, much to her delight, and the rest of us too! His attitude was truly delightful, and it showed every night in Key West.

I can't describe the band to my own satisfaction, let alone their potential, but a few highlights for me were listening to Woody work his magic on the guitar and Big G slapping the congas. Experiencing the incredibly talented Chris Clifton for the first time blew me away…the man can play! Matt Hall from St. Somewhere stepped in for a few, and Jonathan Birchfield too (a New England favorite). Unreal! But Hugo & his music were the main attraction for me. Look for his new release (Another Day In Paradise) in January. Click the previous link to learn how to pre-order the CD so you get it as soon as it's ready to ship. What I have heard so far is awesome, and I think you will enjoy it as well.

Trivia
Key West was originally called Cayo Hueso. What is the translation of this term?
Answer

Calendar of Phlockings

December 9th Christmas Party for the Children's Attention Home, Mt. Holly Fish Camp, Rock Hill, 11AM
December 9th Sandlapper PHC Christmas Party, Summit Restaurant, Chester With the Caribbean Cowboys & ex-Coral Reefer Jay Spell, 6PM
January 9th Sandlapper PHC Monthly Meeting, Curley's Restaurant, Rock Hill, 7PM, Music provided by ???
January 26th - 28th Key West to Charleston Road Show, Captain Harry's, Charleston (tentative)
February 13th Sandlapper PHC Monthly Meeting, Location TBA
February 21st Jimmy Buffett Plays Charlotte Coliseum (??? Still A Rumour)
February 23rd Fingers Taylor Plays the Double Door Inn, Charlotte, 10PM
March 12th Sandlapper PHC Monthly Meeting, the Summit, Chester, 7PM
March 24th Sandlapper PHC's 3rd Anniversary Party, Details TBA
April 10th Sandlapper PHC Monthly Meeting, Location TBA
May 8th Sandlapper PHC Monthly Meeting, Location TBA
Early May ParrotStock 2001 Southeastern ParrotHead Convention, TBA


Who Are We???

The Sandlapper ParrotHead Club is a non-profit organization whose members enjoy the tropical spirit of the music of Jimmy Buffett. We also conduct community service projects and raise money for various environmental, local and national charities. We are one of 145 charter members of the national organization known as Parrot Heads in Paradise, Incorporated (PHiP). Our mission is to have PHun, party with a purpose and leave the world in a little better shape than we found it. To learn more about the phine pheathered phriends of the Sandlapper PHC, please visit our web site at www.SandlapperPHC.com or call our toll free information hotline at 1-877-BUFFETT.