Cayamo Cruise: Day 4

So many pictures, so many illegible notes, it's overwhelming. And if I don't even want to write it, why would you want to read it?

Okay, because there is no need to share more than the most interesting bits and I can round out the entry with very brief descriptions. Just calm down, Debbie, and let's go!

Sarah and Christian Dugas

A nice, early morning show (10 am) with these guys:



I think we just saw the end of it. We heard a song written about a friend, "You don't seem happy," about how hard it is to help your friends when they are in trouble.

St. Maarten

And we got to visit another island. We landed on the Dutch side, Sint Maartin, Netherlands Antilles. The other side of the island is French: Saint Martin, French West Indies. (I was curious about which countries we were visiting, but it was not at all easy for me to discover this!)

This is the one place that we were tempted to do an excursion: a Segway tour, but it was just up and down the boardwalk which is 1/2 mile long. There's also a Front Street, very touristy and expensive, and a Back Street, less so. And so the plan was to do all those things.

But before you can get to any of them, there is a mile-long non-scenic walkway or you could take a water taxi.



You know, the walkway wasn't so bad.



Check out these license plates.



They are so tiny and cute: V 93, M 254. I think the first letters stand for the type of vehicle (I also saw "BUS" for example). V for van and M for motorcar?

Oh, what to show you? Here's a nice place:



And here's a close up on the cut-outs:



This is just to let you know that yes, there was a beautiful beach available:



This is for my brother:



This has kind of a fun paint job:



And check out these roof windows:



So, at the end of the boardwalk, we went one street in, to what I thought was Back Street but which was really Front Street. (By the time we figured it out, we were both hot and tired and in no mood to check out another street--we had paced ourselves improperly. So sad.) Check out the dancing snails on the side of L'Escargot, French Cuisine:



But the building is so full of interesting things, you might not even notice those for a while:



Here's a guy working--you can just see the tool he's using in his right hand, just past his left shoulder:



This evil bunny mold is for Sally:



Here's a menu with a very interesting take on geography.



The Paris Baguette: lettuce-tomato-ham-cheese. The Nordique: lettuce-tomato-salmon-cheese-herbs. The Caribbean: lettuce-tomato-tuna-mayo. The Alaska: lettuce-tomato-crab imitation-mayo. The Texas Panini: bacon-cheese-onion. The Mediterranean: tuna-cheese-tomato-pesto.

Back near the dock, here's a view of Atlas you don't normally get to see:



Back by the boats, these oddly shaped pieces break the breakers before they break you:



Buddy Miller

Today's ticketed concert was Buddy Miller's. He started with one of my favorite songs of his: "Did My Ring Burn Your Finger?" Here's his band:



You can't tell, but that is a very shiny powder blue blazer he's wearing.

He played a fun one I hadn't noticed before, "Gasoline and Matches."

Then he invited Joe Lauderdale to come out. Joe managed to make Buddy's jacket look staid and boring.



I was not expecting that from the tai chi guy.

Buddy talked about how the other performers on the ship were professionals, but said they can't really do that. Buddy said that he, for example, only ever does six concerts a year. They played "Let it Be Me," and Joe explained that it's easy to remember the chord you play at the end of the line "What would life be" because it's B. Very handy to have the lyric remind you like that.

"Tell Me Why, Sally"(?)
Three George Jones songs including "She Thinks I Still Care"

Buddy told a story about this bass player he met who could play the maracas at the same time as he was playing the bass. He explained this to his own bass player, saying "I felt you should know that."

He's also tickled by the line "Oh your poison love has stained my heart and soul, dear." Because of the word "dear" on the end.

Joe wrote a song based on Gram Parson's quote that George Jones was "the king of broken hearts."

Then they played "Halfway Down"(?), a song Joe and Buddy wrote together. Buddy said he doesn't think it's all that good, but it's fun to play. And now the Dixie Chicks have done it.

They played Buddy's song "Hole in My Head."

Buddy said one thing we might like to know about the Grammy Award is that you can unscrew part of it and use it for a funnel.

They sang "Someone Trouble Don't Know." So catchy. I kept singing the chorus to myself later:
Take me, take me, somewhere trouble don't go.
Make me, make me, someone trouble don't know.

They said they were writing a new song together (not yet finished--they did not play it), and said that only we Cayamo cruisers would know what it means. It's going to be called "Washy, Washy, Happy, Happy."

But I will explain it to you. Some of the regular cruise workers play, repeatedly at every breakfast, a song we've dubbed "The Washy Washy Song" about what a nice morning it is and don't you want to wash your hands now? Thank goodness I've forgotten how it goes. And at the entrance to the buffet, plus every time you re-board the ship, there are staff members with squirt bottles of, I assume, an alcohol solution, that they would like to spray on your hands, and they tell you this by asking "Washy, washy?" or, worse, admonishing "Washy, washy!" I felt bad for them. What a terrible job. I guess you get to people-watch, though.

During this performance, it was quite clear which of the songs were written by Buddy Miller, and so it became clear to me that, yes, I am a big fan of Buddy Miller.

John Prine

We got to see John Prine again. I quite enjoyed hearing "Blow Up Your TV" again. He also sang "I Paid Her to Listen and Sing"(?).

My favorite song of this set, though, was definitely "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore." It was quite a funny song, though also tragic, about a guy who collected a lot of flag decals and stuck them everywhere. John said "This song is so old I don't remember which war I wrote it about." And that's where the "Anymore" part comes in. "They're [Heaven's] already overcrowded / From your dirty little war."

He told a story about when he "was at the buffet in the ice cream line." (I also have been in that line. Especially for the macadamia nut ice cream. Mmm.) "The lady from England in a full body brace" told him that she sang his song "Sam Stone" to the doctors who had told her they were going to give her morphine. She sang the entire song. They did not insist on the morphine after that.

A lyric I enjoyed was "Fifty million Elvis fans can't be all wrong."

Then Iris Dement joined him.



They did a song that he wrote for a movie with Billy Bob Thornton in it. When he heard they wanted him to do a song to play while the credits are rolling, he thought, "Yeah that's where I want my songs to end up." (But I learned a really fun new (to me) song by hearing it in the credits at the end of the movie "The Zero Effect," so I think you should definitely take that opportunity if you get it.)

Bobby Long

Both of my Bobby Long pictures are blurry; I'm showing you the one with the more typical facial expression, not the one with the boring, ordinary facial expression:



He played some songs that may have had these titles:

"She Wears Green" (pretty)
"Two Years Old" (pretty)
"In Your Way"
"My Sweet Suffragette"

He said he has a thing about sharks. He's always looking up if there are any in the area. He once swore at a guy feeding sharks. The next song he sang was dedicated to him.

He said, "I wish the world was more like this. Big boat. Nice people. A buffet."

Later he said, "Except from behind, everyone thinks I'm Rhett Miller." Then he turned around, to show us. But then he had to actually tell us that the difference is that Rhett "has a nice ass."

Another nice quote: "This song's about dying and stuff, but don't think about. Just follow the melody and you'll be alright."

Later he asked, "Why can't they invent a guitar that stays in tune? They can put a man on the moon." An audience member answered, "Music is harder."

Sarah Lee and Johnny

So here are Sarah Lee and Johnny:



They sang a song that may have been called "You're Not Here, But You're Never Too Far From My Heart" written by a lady in 1972--"She's freakin' Leonard Cohen!"

This limbo-like move is risky on a moving ship, but he always pulled it off:



Other possible song titles:
"Tonight When I Come Home From Work" (promising, couldn't hear it very well)
"Seven Sisters" (repetitive)
"Hurricane Window"
"There's a Target on Your Heart"
"Butterflies in the Road"

Oh, this is all coming back to me now. Sarah Lee wrote that after seeing a million butterflies one day when she was driving the back roads where she's from. It's nothing like the movie, "The Birds." Much happier.

At this point, Lyle, the awesome guitar player, joined them.



"Hardworking People" ... keep us going.

An interesting lyric: "I've been studying this for hours. I've come up with this for you instead of flowers."

Living near the Appalachian trail, you get lots of unshaven people with backpacks in July. "If they get to our house, they're lost." A song about one of those guys is "Bright Examples."

Then there was a song about "Cabin Fever," a nice, rocking song, but I'm not sure what the solution to cabin fever was. I think it was sex, but I'm not sure.

Bedtime

There was another performance I really wanted to see called "Edwin, Rhett, Angie, Joe, and Jim," which I got to learn somewhere stood for Edwin McCain, Rhett Miller, Angie Aparo, Joe Purdy, and Jim Lauderdale. Even when Robin said he wasn't going to make it that late, I decided I would see it by myself. But by the time it was midnight, I just couldn't do it. So sleepy.