Back from the islands

I’m baaack! Well, not quite, but, assuming the COVID test brings good news, I am headed back to Baghdad tomorrow. I won’t get there til Sunday, but I should be en route 24 hours from now.

 

This vacation has been utterly amazing. Logistically, it’s been a nightmare but the payoff has been worth it. After connections in Amman (where I had to get a second COVID test because the airline changed the requirement *that day*) Frankfurt and Houston, I arrived in Cancun on my way to Isla Mujeres. It was my first foray to Mexico, and what a way to go! I went to an event put on by Sam and Gina Densler, who organize music events. They’re nice as can be and have been doing this for years, but this one was a bit different than their norm. See their site: http://www.songwritersisland.com/may-19-island-showcase.html.

 

This show came about when Paul Overstreet, one of my favorite songwriters, had been stuck in the Caymans during the initial COVID lockdown and started doing what became  a Facebook “Sunsets and Songs” little low-key performance, with Julie Overstreet videoing him as he told stories about songs as the sun went down on the island. At some point, either he or his wife asked if people would be interested in attending a little beach show, or series of, and I thought why the heck not? In the end, it got switched from Cayman to Mexico and timed during a time where I could take off, so why not, right?

 

I went and had a blast. There were about 100 people there, and several of the couples were just so awesome to hang out with. I’ve never spent half a day in a pool, but I did there. It was just so relaxing. The people were so nice and the music and stories were just so fun to hear. I mean, I love the guy’s music so I was in hog heaven. The funny thing was, it seems everyone else had attended the little music events there before or knew the Overstreet family personally, whereas I was this random lone chick who showed up from Baghdad, of all places. As host gifts, I’d brought both the Denslers and the Overstreets flags that had been flown over the embassy in Baghdad and both sets were extremely grateful. I was glad because it’s kind of a weird gift, but my options were limited.

 

One afternoon, we had a pool party that was hosted by one of the daughters, Summer, who is in a band called the Chattahoochies. She was phenomenal, too – I told the dad she made some new fans. Her stuff is a bit edgier than his – he’s got “She Only Likes Me for My Willie” but she has “I Take the ‘O’ Out of ‘Country’.” I need to track down some of her singles, because I really enjoyed them. (See if you can find “Itchin’ for a Bitchin’, “I Dodged a Mullet” and “Talledaga 10” to see what I mean.) Another daughter, Sky (there are six kids total, but AFAIK there were only two there), also joined her sister in singing. It was fun to watch the proud parents during the kids’ performances.

 

When the event was over, I headed to Cancun for two nights and had gum surgery (for a mere $800) and went to Chichen Itza. Cancun wasn’t the destination for me – too Vegas-like -- but I liked the ruins. Living in Istanbul does that to you. I’d totally do the same event again, though if I did, I’d aim for Cozumel as a side trip next time, plus coordinate the dentist a bit better.

 

Next up, after a short visit to Tallahassee to see Mackenzie graduate from FSU (but not Jameis Winston, because we left a little early), Leila joined me for a bucket list item of the Key West Songwriters’ festival. I say bucket list item, but at this point, it’s a must-do annually – I had that great of a time. Now, I’m not a Key West partier, but I enjoyed the heck out of the music and atmosphere. I popped in on the free shows here and there – Jeffrey Steele was great – and bought tickets for one show. I’d bought them for Chuck Cannon, barely even realizing it’s set up as having three sets of performers doing an hour show each.

 

We’d found a store that was going out of business or something and had everything for $5, so we dawdled there and arrived halfway through the first show, Trent Tomlinson and Clint Daniels. We’d looked up everyone before hitting the show, but I pretty much forgot what all they had written because there were so many. Each set of performers played so amazingly well off each other. It was fantastic.

 

Chuck Cannon, who had the middle set with Tommy Simms, did a hits medley with most of his ones with Toby Keith plus “The Way You Love Me” and then went to some of his “I wrote this for me, not for others to record” stuff, including something about the fox watching the henhouse. It was great – quite a sing-a-long.

 

And did I mention the seats? I had bought them about an hour into the sale, and somehow I landed a table literally at the stage. At one point, I dropped my phone and was scared that, in trying to pull it back to me, I was going to unplug something necessary. We were so close that I could see a hole in the crotch of someone’s jeans. Leila managed to make eye contact with the middle performer of the third set and motion him for an autograph afterwards. I could see fingernails. It was just that close.

 

The third set of performers – Chris Tompkins, ERNEST (yes, that’s how he writes it) and Craig Wiseman – totally played off each other. ERNEST was freestyling off Tompkins’ stuff and Wiseman dusted them all. He was the “old man” of the group and had so many people record his stuff that he wouldn’t even let the announcer list them all – we would have run out of time before they even started! He did “The Cowboy in Me” (which Jeff Steele had also done) and “Live Like You Were Dying,” which had us all singing along. Tompkins had written (or co-written) Carrie Underwood’s hit “Before He Cheats” and it was pretty amusing to hear that from a guy who had a completely different range than Underwood. It was fantastic.

 

Since I have no idea what is on country music radio now, I hadn’t heard “Flower Shop,” which ERNEST had written (or co-written). Leila – or at least RJ – definitely knew this one, so Leila FaceTimed RJ during it. Then, after ERNEST came right over to sign an autograph for her, Leila FT’d her again and he was nice enough to say hi to her, which totally made her evening, as well as her mom’s.

 

Leila also embarrassed the heck out of me. I couldn’t get tickets to the Scotty Emerick/Dean Dillon paid show and hadn’t noticed there was a free show when I bought the Cannon tickets, so I missed my chance at seeing my No. 1 favorite songwriter perform. We went to the venue before it started, hoping to score a ticket, but at that point there weren’t any available. After venturing to hear some music at other venues, we circled back (Dillon and Emerick were on stage last that evening) and were appalled that people were LEAVING before those two performed. I mean, it was like, hello, this is DEAN DILLON. Yeah, Emerick is my favorite, but Dean Dillon is a flippin’ legend. Anyone leaving before that set should turn in their country music lover card.

 

But we still had no tickets, even though others had left. The security guards were really nice and at one point did this “hint hint” thing that the last performance was running a little late because the performers were having a drink in the parking lot before. Wink wink. I’m dumb, so I didn’t get it but Leila essentially drug me to the back – the guards had previously told us that when the show started we could probably hear it from there anyway, so I was for that. But I hadn’t caught on that Leila was dragging me for a photo op with Emerick. I was utterly mortified she did that and don’t even think I looked at him or said thank you (which haunts me). She just basically drug me over there, said could we have a photo and he took the camera in a failed attempt at a selfie before one of the nice people from BMI took it for us. (It’s hard to get three people of varying heights without a selfie stick, and I would shoot myself before buying a selfie stick.) I have no memory of anything else, other than making a comment about Emerick only having one beer or something like that. It really bothers me that I don’t think I had the presence of mind to say thank you – I didn’t even register that he’d walked away.

 

I did, however, park my butt on the stairs and listen to the show, which he opened with “Conchsucker,” a song Paul Overstreet, who had co-written it, had performed on Isla Mujeres.  Emerick told the ticketed crowd they were the "first to hear it" and I was thinking, "nope." I sat there the whole show, while Leila stood, star-struck, three feet from Rodney Crowell, who, for some reason, was also standing outside the venue. (She'd had no issue throwing me in front of my favorite writer but couldn't say hello to another who was in her personal space for the better part of an hour. Go figure.) What I could hear was a lot of fun, although some was overshadowed by the previous set performers spoken conversation going on right outside the doors. I wanted to tell them to keep it down because I was trying to filch a free concert, but it didn’t sound right.

So now that bucket list item is really on the “wanna do again and again” list. It was so fantastic.