Episode 75: The Missing Episode
Transcript
(Originally recorded Wednesday, July 9 2008)

The Players
Schmoe
Mickey
DJ
Greg
Scott
And Mike, phoning in from Houston TX

We begin as the phone call is made…

Mickey:  Mike, Mike!

Mike:  Gentlemen. What is happening?

Mickey:  How’s it going?

Mike:  It’s going well.

Schmoe:  Is it still hot and humid in Houston?

Mike:  It’s very hot and humid.

Schmoe:  It was hot and humid here yesterday.

Mike:  I don’t think it can compete with this.

[pause]

Scott:  So… Today is…

Schmoe:  The year is 2008, it’s the ninth of July, and you’re Wastin’ Away on the North Coast. Happy Independence Day everybody.

Greg:  With our sponsor, Landshark.

Schmoe:  That’s right. Landsharks. [Clinks, all around; including Greg’s glass of water.] You do have a Landshark with you, Mike?

Mike:  I wish I did, that sounds so good.

Scott:  So…what do we have for Buffett news this week?

Mickey:  Can you hear us Mike?

[long pause]

Mike:  …Uhhh, yes.

[laughter]

Schmoe:  “I’ll just say ‘yeah’ even though I can’t.” That’s what it sounded like.

Mike:  Some of this I can hear. I hear Schmoe really good but Scott’s kind of cutting out.

Mickey:  Yeah, Scott’s way off in the distance.

Schmoe [murmuring]:  Everyone can always hear me.

Scott:  I usually don’t have a problem with my voice carrying. Some say I have a “theatrical voice”. Some say I have a big-ass mouth.

[laughter]

Mickey:  Well…I don’t know if you saw this, but a couple weekends ago – Saturday, June 28 – Jimmy was the cover story of the USA Weekend supplement. Did you see the article?

Schmoe:  I didn’t notice it!

Mike:  Yes I did and in fact I saved it. I still have a copy.

Mickey:  I recall the interview being quite good, but unfortunately my copy got tossed out.
A couple days later Jimmy was guest DJ on Sirius’s Grateful Dead channel, channel 32, which is right next to Radio Margaritaville, channel 31. Jimmy didn’t have all that much to say. He introduced a couple songs, and the Grateful Dead songs are so fricking long that that pretty much filled up an hour and fifteen minutes as is.
After that – Wednesday, July 2 – Jimmy showed up in Hyde Park, London. Accompanied by Philly’s own G-Love, Jimmy joined singer Jack Johnson to guest in his encore performance of “A Pirate Looks at Forty”. Meanwhile, Kenny Chesney, midway through his Poets & Pirates tour, was seen sitting in a corner in Nashville, crying quietly to himself and muttering “Why doesn’t Daddy love me?”
A second Paris show was announced, at New Morning jazz club. Along with the Friday, September 29 concert Jimmy will also perform Saturday, September 30th. And tickets for that might still be available at ticketnet.fr.
And speaking of concerts, the Year of Still Here tour resumes on July 17th in Cincinnati. After that Jimmy goes to the beloved Alpine Valley on Saturday, July 19; then Tuesday, July 22nd he goes over to Pittsburgh; then two shows in Chicago, Thursday July 24 and Saturday July 26; and then Tuesday July 29 he goes to Indianapolis, and that wraps up the third leg of the tour. But there’s a slight postscript because Jimmy and Mac will also perform at the Newport Folk Festival on Sunday August 3.
And, Jimmy was interviewed in Hampton Style magazine last week about surfing off Montauk. The article was also reprinted in the New York Daily News. His assistant, Mike Ramos, was interviewed in the August 2008 issue of Men’s Journal. And there’s an audio interview floating around the Internet about Jimmy talking about his Rock Band songs. It’s actually a pretty good interview; it’s going to be tough picking out highlights to include.
And there’s the new Little Feat album that we talked about in the last episode. It’s finally available, exclusively on iTunes.

Scott:  I give it a thumbs up, actually. I’m not really that familiar with Little Feat; I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to a Little Feat song — I actually had a boss one time at Sears who was all about Little Feat. “Little Feat, Little Feat, blah blah blah.” Anyway, to make a long story short, for some reason I downloaded it and I enjoyed it. Jimmy partakes in two songs. Mac McAnally performs two songs. There’s really only two songs that I could do without totally, like I will delete them shortly from my mix. But other than that, it’s a solid album. I think the two songs that Jimmy’s on are very good songs and will make a regular rotation on the iPod circuit. And I think it’s definitely worth the money spent. I’m happy with my purchase.

Schmoe:  Cool. I’m going to have to give it a listen.

Scott:  I gave a copy to my dad, who’s usually a little more fussy, and he said the same thing, you know? That it was definitely listenable.

Mickey:  And there’s some breaking news right off the BuffettNews.com front page. Jimmy cannot claim ownership of the phrase “Coconut Telegraph”.

Scott:  Yeah, I saw that.

Mickey:  Yeah, it was kind of interesting. It’s a story on the Key West Citizen; and you have to register to read it but I didn’t feel like registering, so this is a quote right off the front page of Buffett News. “Buffett attorney Jeffrey Smith wrote a letter to [the] Conch Republic Coconut Telegraph, [saying] ‘We sent you a letter on April 30th 2008 regarding your company’s violation of Margaritaville trademark rights. In that letter we stated that Jimmy Buffett had coined the phrase “coconut telegraph” in 1981. Based on your feedback and our further investigation, this information appears to be incorrect. We are therefore retracting that statement.’”
So, I thought that was quite interesting. And good on the Conch Republic for standing up for truth, justice, and the American way, and fighting those shyster lawyers. And it must be difficult too because – I mean, to defend Jimmy Buffett’s intellectual property, because he’s self-professed as getting most of his stuff from t-shirts and bumper stickers and graffiti and—

Scott:  Right.

Mickey: —and hearing phrases in conversation. So it must be tough to actually say he created this, instead of he just popularized this.

Scott:  Right. “He made all the money off this.”

[long pause]

Schmoe:  And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen.

Mickey:  [laugh] Okay, emcee.

Schmoe:  Well, you mentioned – we were talking about friends of Buffett’s – Little Feat – and I said this last time, but I still have in heavy rotation this Sonny Landreth CD. I really like some of the songs a lot.
I just said that to bug Scott.

Scott:  I haven’t heard anything other than what he’s done at the Buffett concert. And I was pissing so maybe the pissing distracted me; but I could do without it. …And I don’t like that “USS Zydecoldsmobile”.

Schmoe:  If Scott ever comes to a music sharing party…

Scott:  And, you know, I just picked up the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus new single, which I’m sure —

Mickey:  Oh Jesus, you have to come to the next music sharing party!

Scott:  Actually – listen – ’cause you guys already, you know, question my sexuality as it is, but I’m—

Schmoe:  There’s no question.

Greg:  Wait, wait, did you go see Aly & AJ for free this Saturday?

Scott:  —but I’m going to be really honest with you. Molly Sirius [sic] – Cirrus’s [sic] – latest song, “7 Things I Hate About You”, it’s called like “7 Things”, is actually a very very very good pop song. It’s almost a la Alanis Morissette. It’s, you know, her first big break-up with Nick Jonas. She was dating a Jonas Brother, okay.

Mickey:  This sounds incestuous.

Greg:  Everybody likes Nick.

Scott:  They broke up. But, it’s a good song. It’s like, it lists like all these things she hates – but then like the other reasons that she hates him is ’cause she loves him, blah blah blah. It’s a really good, mature, well-written song. And I believe she wrote it.

Greg:  Did you go see the Jonas Brothers this Sunday?

Scott:  I tried to get tickets.

Schmoe:  Kate went, sixth row. And I will say this: my estranged and strange wife took my daughter to Jonas Brothers, sixth row, and then left before the encores. And my daughter is really having a tough time getting over this.

Mickey:  Wow.

Schmoe:  Because the YouTubes are out there already, right away, because it was one of the first shows of the tour I think. And they’re out there and she saw the songs she missed, and she just doesn’t understand. And she’s like cut from my cloth, like “Why would you leave early? Why? So you can save a half-hour of your life?”
Well, as soon my wife was there she texted me. She goes “I’ll get the tickets, you take her from now on. This is not my thing.” And then that’s when I knew she just wasn’t going to last.

[pause]

Mickey:  Okay, place your bets on whether this whole segment is going to make it into the show.

[laughter]

Schmoe:  We can start a new feed. The “Jonas Brothers / Disney Forced-Down-Our-Throats Music” podcast.

Scott:  We’re expanding.

Mickey:  “Schmoe & Scott Gay Out”

Scott:  “Schmoe & Scott Get Father of the fucking Year”

[huge and sudden rumble]

Mickey:  Wow.

Schmoe:  What was that?

Mickey:  I think that was a car engine. I don’t think that was thunder.

DJ:  A train backing up?

Schmoe:  That was weird. We had like an earthquake.

Mickey:  Now that might make the show.

Scott:  That wasn’t thunder.

Schmoe:  No.

Scott:  But I literally felt vi— like the chair was vibrating.

Schmoe:  Yeah!

Mickey:  Nah, that was just you talking about Miley Cyrus again.

Schmoe:  [laugh] Yeah. The earth moved.

Scott:  That was fucking bizarre.

Schmoe:  Yeah, that was weird. Something happened.

Scott:  Did you hang up, Mike?

Mickey:  You still there, Mike?

[pause]

Mike:  Yo, yes.

Scott:  Did you fall asleep?

Mike:  Yeah, I was kind of dozing off during the Miley Cyrus / Jonas Brothers podcast.

[laughter]

Schmoe:  All right, so, hey. Back to…who do we talk about again? Buffett news is done, and we had homework.
Let’s see. Who did their homework?

Mickey:  I did mine.

Scott:  I didn’t really quite understand it. So somebody else explain it to me.

Mickey:  “It didn’t have any Miley Cyrus in it. Who cares.”

Scott:  Hard to believe Disney doesn’t sponsor us, with all this talk—

Mickey:  It gets edited out.

Schmoe:  Nobody sponsors us.

Scott:  Yes. We are. Commonwealth Displays. Did I happen to mention—

Schmoe:  All right, so, hey, it’s time for another North Coast Fourcast. I always say it differently.

Scott:  Commonwealth Displays still has fireworks available.

Schmoe:  Oh, do they? Any half-off or anything like that?

Scott:  No, we’re open all year round. We just offer fair prices.

Mickey:  How was the Fourth for you guys?

DJ:  Average.

Mickey:  Oh, really? You didn’t get the North Coast ’cast bump?

Schmoe:  Yeah, Fourth of July has come and gone, a lot of people have gone on vacation or going on vacation, it’s kind of the middle of the Summer even though it’s a few weeks old, so what’s your four favorite things about Summer here on the North Coast? Keep Buffett in mind, I guess.

Greg:  Or the Gulf Coast.

Schmoe:  Yeah, if you’re on the Gulf Coast what do you miss about the North Coast?

Mickey:  Hey, Mike. When did you go to Houston, or when did you get to Houston?

Mike:  Ah, just this week. Came down Monday, it was the first day.

Mickey:  Oh, okay. So you did spend the Fourth up here?

Mike:  Yep, I was there all through the weekend.

Schmoe:  Yeah. In fact we did not see Chad Heckler, the custom guitar maker, on the Fourth. He was playing somewhere with his Deuce Amigos little two-man group. I was free. I was looking for something to do. But Mike couldn’t.
But then, Mike sat by his campfire and I was drinking at home alone, and we texted each other all night.

Mickey:  Aw, you should’ve let me know, Schmoe, ’cause my Fourth sucked. The drink of the day for the Fourth was lemonade. Not even hard lemonade. Just lemonade.

Scott:  Why?

Mickey:  ’Cause I was at my aunt’s house.

Scott:  Was it a dry house or what.

Mickey:  [sigh] Pretty much. Pretty much. It blew.

Mike:  No, I had a few frugal margaritas that evening.

Schmoe:  Yes, and then Mike texted me with stuff like “Put on ‘Mekong’ from Wheelie. Now.”

Mickey:  Oh, God! Now that’s gay! Now THAT is gay!

Scott:  I worked! From 10 [AM] to 10:45 [PM], at Commonwealth Displays in Southgate, Michigan. Providing the local Downriver area with family-friendly fireworks, Michigan-legal.

DJ:  It’s amazing how people show up when it’s already dark, with kids, to buy fireworks for July 4th.

Mickey:  They ran out.

Scott:  I mean between 9:00 and 10:45 we probably had $600, $700 in sales.

Greg:  I was waterskiing. Actually I was in the boat and my wife was waterskiing.

Schmoe:  At 10:00?

Greg:  Not at night. As Mick was enjoying his lemonade, I was out on Houghton Lake.

Scott:  So what was the homework?

Schmoe:  Back to our four favorite things about Summer on the North Coast.

Mickey:  —that Scott has to come up with on the fly.

Scott:  You picked a bad week to ask me.

Schmoe:  Who has four?

Mickey:  I got four.

Schmoe:  Go ahead, Mick.

Mickey:  My first one’s pretty obvious. It’s the Buffett concert, it’s our local Buffett concert “when in season”. Which leads into number two: if there is no Buffett concert, then it’s listening to the concerts on Radio Margaritaville. Number three is cookouts and gatherings with Buffett music and spicy foods. And number four is our Joe’s Prime Time podcasts, which, despite the loud jukebox and the biker pre-emptions, just seem to have a looser vibe than at Zodiac. No offense to Zodiac but there’s just something about this back room and being in a bar that’s just different from being in that isolated room at Zodiac.
Those are my four things and I really had to struggle to come up with those ’cause otherwise Summer sucks. I hate it. It’s full of bugs, it’s full of people outside playing fricking crappy music out of their cars, it’s full of humidity that makes my head want to explode. But… so, otherwise, I hate Summer. So this Fourcast was stupid.

Schmoe:  We first heard from Mickey and then we heard from Bitter Old Man.

Mike:  That was pretty bitter. Wow.

Scott:  Mike, can you loosen and liven this up and lighten this up a little bit? Go ahead, you’re next.

Mike:  Well, I can’t be anywhere near that bitter. That’s, uh, that was pretty wild.

Scott:  We don’t call him Bitter Old Man for nothing.

Mike:  That’s it. He earned it. My list? I said, first of all, I like the hot weather. So Mickey’s over there being very bitter about it, but I enjoy it. I look forward to it. In fact it’s number one on my list.
Um, I also enjoy camping. Good times. Um, grilling? Good chance to get out in the backyard and use the barbecue again. And of course all the possible Buffett shows. And if Buffett’s not there, we at least have the Sirius Buffett concerts to listen to.
Those are mine.
I have another alternate though that we won’t be partaking in this year is, uh, Silver Lake. I’ve really come to look forward to Silver Lake in the Summer. And it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it in this year, and that’s a bummer.

Schmoe:  Yeah. I’ll go into my four, ’cause that’s on my four. Silver Lake vacation. So – I don’t know, maybe we can get there this Summer.

Greg:  So your Summer is going to suck then.

Schmoe:  [laugh] Yeah, my Summer is going to suck ’cause one of my favorite things about Summer I’m not going to do! No, maybe we will. I’ve still not given up. It’s on my Fourcast.

Scott:  Okay, so that’s one thing…

Schmoe:  And I had Buffett shows, every other year, as a favorite thing about Summer, I put. Um… And I just love my Saturdays of yard work and then a good shower, barbecue, relax, now frugal margaritas or Schmoeonades, whatever, and, uh, watch a movie or listen to music. That’s my day.

Greg:  And now you can watch them in Blu-ray.

Mickey:  And you really should shower outside of Summer as well.

Schmoe:  Yeah, I like it so much I might try it outside of Summer.
And one other thing, it’s just a personal thing, but sitting on the deck on a Saturday or Sunday morning, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

Greg:  All right.

Schmoe:  Any way. That was a boring one, but the other three – I wish I’d put “doing our podcast” and things like that, but I didn’t think of that.
Okay. Greg.

Greg:  Well, a lot of them revolve around vacation: Houghton Lake. Lying by the lake in a hammock with Buffett playing. In the background Stefan has got his Sirius satellite radio and it’s on Radio Margaritaville 24/7 while we’re up there.
I really enjoy watching storms come across the lake, and watching the havoc that’s created. I just enjoy storms that we get here in Michigan in the Summertime.
Um, riding the WaveRunners and, uh, jumping over the back of the speedboats in their wakes and things like that. Stefan’s got the little Republic of Margaritaville flag flying in the background.
And then, uh, at night, drinking, uh… I went and got some rum and Coke this year for the campfires, and we usually build like five-foot flame campfires, get ’em going really high, into the night, knowing the bar is never going to close. Stay up till 2 or 3:00 in the morning; get up at 8, 9, maybe.

Mickey:  You’ve got me thirsty.

Greg:  That next week of work is horrible.

Schmoe:  These are you four, right?

Greg:  Yeah, these are my four.

Schmoe:  And you just got back from up there, so your Summer is just going to suck from now on!

Greg:  My Summer’s shot now.

Schmoe:  It’s all downhill here!

Greg:  It’s downhill. Mickey hates Summer, Joe’s Summer’s shot, my Summer is…

Mickey:  Well, our Summers are over, right? I mean, our Summers always peak when Jimmy comes to town. That’s always been the motto. So, I mean… Summer’s over.

Schmoe:  Yeah.

Scott:  See, I always think that Buffett’s the kickoff for my Summer.

Schmoe:  Except two years ago when he was in the Fall.

Mickey:  So then your Summer lasted forever.

Schmoe:  [laugh] Scott was out, you know, mowing his lawn in his shorts in deep November.

Scott:  I do mow my lawn in shorts in November. I can wear shorts all year.
But, uh, okay. My top four… I’m going to have to go with the Buffett concert. Ah, Camp Dearborn in Milford, Michigan, which I am not attending this year.

Schmoe:  – so your Summer sucks –

Scott:  So, there’s a big suck, in my Summer.
Um, I really haven’t had a Summer yet. You’d think, being an educator, I would have a Summer.

Schmoe:  That’s right.

Scott:  But as yet I haven’t had one. I worked for two weeks at the fireworks store – which I actually enjoy, for the most part. It’s amazing, you see some of the same families…

Mickey:  And what store is that…?

Scott:  Commonwealth Displays in Southgate, Michigan. But I actually, seriously, enjoy that – like you see some of the same old lady customers who look forward to seeing you, like these one – what – five, six drunk women who come in, they’re all in their 50s, they’re raunchy, they’re rowdy, they’re hilarious, they have a good time with me, they abuse me. I mean—

DJ:  I’ll jump in here. This is Heartbreaker. They came in this year especially drunk. Their quote was “We’re so late because we were so drunk. We could not drive till one of us sobered up.”
And Scott had to ask them, very plainly, “Do you have room for a big one?” And the roar that came out of those five ladies was priceless.

Scott:  And I kept digging my foot in it deeper, no matter what I said.

Mickey:  He sets off that alarm quite often.

DJ:  Yeah. We have big fountain fireworks and his take was “Do you have room for a large finale fountain?” But he said “Do you have room for a big one” and the roar was quite interesting.

Schmoe:  I heard this from my boys, who worked the fireworks store as well.

Scott:  So actually I would say the Fourth is a highlight, working at the fireworks store. Camp Dearborn. Buffett. And then I actually enjoy the end of my Summer, ’cause usually the week after I start going back to school a couple days, is the annual St Francis Cabrini parish festival. Which, I work the beer tent, Friday and Saturday. Just hang up there, serving beer for like six hours a day. See a lot of people, hear a lot of great music, and have a blast. Usually go in to play blackjack one night. Then on Sunday – I do that Friday / Saturday, then, on Sunday, take the kids, let ’em ride rides all day and hang out. It’s kind of, you know, within walking distance of my house. We just have a blast. And that’s kind of the close of my Summer. I know my Summer’s coming to the end at that point and I’m prepared to go back to work. So, those are my four.

Schmoe:  Working the beer tent’s fun, isn’t it? It’s fun. Even if you know the people coming or you don’t. Working the beer tent at a church festival is awesome.
I thought about, when I was doing my four, I thought about Dearborn Homecoming. Greg and I both live in Dearborn, home of Henry Ford. And they have a festival the first weekend in August. And it’s a good fireworks show.

Greg:  Two days.

Schmoe:  And sometimes they have good musical acts.

Scott:  That’s the whole reason I put the bocce court in my backyard. Which just cost me $500 to get taken out. That was eight years ago, nine years ago. My wife told me when I put it in, she’s like “Do not put that thing in there” and I had to put it in, and now it cost me like $500 to take it out.

Schmoe:  Jeez.

Scott:  So, as long as we have our Heartbreaker guest, do you want to toss in your four favorite things?

Schmoe:  Yeah, that’s right.

DJ:  Top Four. Well, obviously, I own Commonwealth Displays, Michigan’s only rocketry and fireworks store. So pretty much June is prep, July is show time. It’s nice because I do make a few extra dollars – usually goes to my Allen Park house taxes.
Vacation — every year we go on vacation somewhere. This year we’re going to Gatlinburg and Atlanta. Should be fun. What else?
Three and four.
I actually enjoy Sundays, although it’s get up early, cut the grass. But it’s kind of like Sunday from about 9 AM until about noon is “my time”. You know, cut the grass, edge the grass, just mindless work, but it kind of gets you away from your daily grind. So, yard work is somewhat entertaining ’cause it’s kind of my time to be…it’s my getaway time.
And, uh… Besides that, it’s just the weather. I mean… You know, I don’t do any Winter activities, I don’t snowmobile, I don’t ski. So, to me, Winter is a big hassle. So I like the Summer time, being Summer.

Scott:  That’s a good point.

Schmoe:  Yeah, you might as well enjoy the three months you get…

DJ:  Come September, you know… Just remember, come October / November you gotta get up an extra ten minutes early to go out and scrape your windows and get your car heated up and all that stuff. You gotta shovel your driveway some days ’cause the plow plowed you in. That’s…
I don’t know why I live in Michigan, to be honest with you.

[laughter]

Scott:  We appreciate what we have then.

Schmoe:  We appreciate the Summer more.

Sounds like someone’s quoting our theme song. Cue the music…