Show Notes:
Recorded Wednesday, July 7 2006, (9:00 PM – 10:30 PM) at Big Al’s in Gibraltar MI
“Just Mike and Mickey and Schmoe tonight discussing the last two concerts, with another ticket hunt story and an audio flashback to 1995.”
The show begins with a bit of remote field production, recorded Sunday night, June 24, at the Woodhaven softball fields. We finally got the oft-mentioned Hud to make a cameo appearance. Hopefully it’s the first of many. The wrapper which threatens to drown him out is a package of Oreos and the show we’re talking about is of course Episode 2.
Mike hosted a listening party at his house, Saturday (July 1), for the Jones Beach show. As usual we were too busy eating and drinking and, in Schmoe’s case, napping, and never got around to recording anything. And it didn’t help that after the concert the Buffett party quickly became another impromptu meeting of our unofficial Jenna Fischer fan club. Some video footage of the day was shot too, which we hope to include here soon.
Visit Bill Payne’s own website.
Mickey meant to say “one song more” not “one show more”; as well as “lord it over” not “laud it over”. And he drank less than usual that night.
Yes, we recorded at Big Al’s, as usual, despite the sound of children in the background. For some reason there were a lot of kids there. Bikers too, again, but they cleared out in time for weekly podcast session.
The Homecoming Mickey mentions has nothing to do with high school or college football. It’s the name of Dearborn’s city festival.
Still looking for a chart for Buffett’s album sales. Here’s one for peak chart position at least. Buffett has sold 22.5 million albums, total, which ties him with The Police, Vince Gill, and Sade.
Let’s put the boys out of their misery. The year they’re thinking of is 1995. Monday, August 14 1995, in fact, back during the Domino College tour. A drive from Dearborn to Birmingham is around twenty miles, with another twenty-five miles northeast to get to Pine Knob. As far as our ticket adventure goes, the boys forgot a few details. A rare peek into Mickey’s private diary might fill in some blanks…
[After a half-day of work, I arrived at Mike’s to find him “leashed to the phone”, waiting to hear from his mother-in-law. But she happened to call soon afterward.] She said the tickets were being held for us at the Pine Knob box office. They were under the name of Ray Harris, to be given to Rhonda Doran [given to her by her father, a bigwig at Ford], and they belonged to a group of tickets from Steve Smith who apparently is Buffett’s manager. […] Mike was rather dubious but I suggested he should at least call up the box office first. He got the number through information. […] Finally he was told that the tickets had already been picked up by a John French, who’d had a copy of Ray Harris’s ID. Mike didn’t know what to think. Had the tickets which had been intended for us been lifted? He called up his mother-in-law, muttering that if he were ever to write a spy novel the villain’s name would be John French. His mother-in-law, unfortunately, was not in now, so he left a message explaining the most recent developments. We were running out of time, it was probably around three or three:thirty, so we decided to go out and run our errands [for tailgating supplies].
[…] When we got back Sarah had a message for us. John French had picked up the tickets and dropped them off at the Birmingham theater. Apparently John French had done our ‘dirty work’ for us, but why he’d chosen the Birmingham theater as a drop-off point is anybody’s guess. It certainly wasn’t convenient and certainly was out-of-the-way. We were to go to the Birmingham theater, go to office number 231, and the tickets would be waiting for us there; we could pick them up around five or six, and they’d be under the name Doran or Joe’s name. We weren’t sure why Joe was suddenly a part of it, but in the end this meant he had to claim the tickets himself.
I think we left around four or four:thirty [to meet up with Joe & Jackie]. I sat in the rear of their van, sweltering in the faintness of the air conditioning back there — and also getting more and more tense and aggravated. This was all due to Jackie, who was a bundle of nerves riding next to her husband: she would jump, shriek, yell, stamp, and bitch at Joe’s every move. “Joe!” she’d squawk, “Joe! Brake lights! What are you doing! Look out! Joe, he’s stopping! You’re driving too fast! Joe, stop it! You’re going to get in an accident!” I suppose it would’ve been laughable if it hadn’t been so maddening.
I had predicted I-696 would be a huge jam-up but actually traffic moved fluidly and quickly. We were soon driving past the Detroit Zoo and onward to Birmingham. And soon we were approaching the theater. Joe parked by it, a few doors down, and got out. We kept an eye on him from the van as he walked back and forth outside the theater’s façade. The marquee announced it was closed, and the windows were all soaped over. Things did not look good. Joe looked pretty lost so I hopped out to help him. Just then he asked someone passing by and was directed to an old looking wood and glass door set off to the side of the theater entrance; its window bore the addresses of offices. This looked promising so he went in and I returned to the van; but unfortunately Joe was right back on the sidewalk again. Sarah got out and then Jackie. […] Jackie seemed to set Joe straight: they found a second door on the other side of the theater entrance, on the left. This corresponded with the office address he’d been given. We waited for him in the van, watching for his reappearance. The van was still running so we were able to keep cool. Things actually were pretty tense; it might sound silly to say it but we were pretty anxious to find out what was going to happen. It would all be decided in just a few seconds: either Joe came out with tickets or we were the victims of some senseless and pointless wild goose chase.
“Here he comes,” we said; “he’s got nothing!” Mike shouted. But in fact he did have an envelope in his hand. He got into the van and we moved off. By this time Jackie, by mutual consent, had switched seats with me so I was riding shotgun. For the heck of it I bitched at Joe about his driving too, but mainly encouraged him to go faster. As we progressed he told us what had happened. The stairway had been pretty warm so he’d been sweating bullets as he’d walked up to the second floor. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, he added. He proceeded onward and found the 231 office easily (joking that it helped to have the office number actually correspond with the number he’d been given — he had to hand it to Jackie for remembering that). It was an office for the Nederlander family [who own several Detroit theaters]. It was very quiet and the few people inside looked up as he entered. He felt very self-conscious until he spotted an envelope on the counter. It was tucked under a computer, and he could just make out “Doran” on it. He could also see part of his own name. Inside were four tickets for row J, a small cover-piece looking just like a ticket but with strange large abbreviations printed on it, and a hand-printed note. Joe didn’t want to read the note but I did anyway. It was pretty basic, just a hope that Rhonda would enjoy the concert; I assumed it came from Ray Harris. It also mentioned that the tickets were fifty bucks each. [Yes, we had to pay for these. And we got to Pine Knob at five:thirty, with plenty of time to tailgate and unload our extra tickets.]
The James Bond movie out then was Goldeneye.
> Download Episode 8
