Mumbo Jumbo March 2020
I guess Clint Bullard’s lyric “You can roll a bowling bowl, all the way down Duval” has never been more true. The cruise ships stopped coming to Key West a week ago, bars and restaurants closed Tuesday, and all the hotels will shutter their doors on Sunday. This normally noisy and tourist-filled island will be transported back in time to Hemingway’s days and descend into a peaceful bliss that hasn’t been seen in a century. A quiet little island in the stream.
Of course Key West has been briefly closed a number of times over the years because of hurricanes, but this will be different. No flooding, downed trees, damaged buildings and the constant racket of chain saws, nail guns and heavy equipment cleaning up the mess, and no noisy jets landing at the airport. What won’t be different is that thousands of people here will be temporarily out of work, as well as millions of people around the globe, all with no real idea of when this virus will recede.
I must admit I have suffered a couple brief episodes of sheer terror where I sit upright in the dead of the night thinking about all my cancelled shows, but after a few minutes I do the manly thing, go back to sleep and wait until morning to figure it out. Once the sun shines through the window and I see the pages of unfinished songs and unread books on the table and think of the paint peeling off the boathouse in Maine and realize I certainly won’t starve and have plenty to do. I’m also well aware others are not as fortunate.
It’s been suggested to us that perhaps the Smokin’ Tuna could still stream some concerts from our stage. So beginning tonight at 8:00 pm ET, we’ll be bringing you a 60- to 90-minute show each evening on the Tunacam. We installing some new cameras and audio gear for this series of shows today to improve the quality. This plan was just hatched at a meeting last night, so bear with us while we come up with a schedule of performers and other details but we hope to have a musical act each night until we reopen.
Caffeine Carl and I will be kicking things off tonight at 8:00 pm. Until we meet again, be safe and cautious and, as my mother once said when I was suffering with a kidney stone, this too shall pass
Thanks for listening.
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