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(Yet Another) Pirate Looks At Forty
“Mother, Mother Ocean ... I have heard you call.
I wanted to sail on your blue waters ... Since I was three
feet tall.
You’ve seen it all ... You’ve seen it all ...
-Jimmy Buffet
I’ve always loved that song ... “A Pirate Looks At Forty”.
Of course when I first heard it, I was rolling-skating my
teen heart out, my sweaty palm nervously holding the hand of
some girl for a “couples-only skate”, stumbling through the
words so that I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. I
probably looked pretty silly singing about turning forty
when I had only recently got my restricted drivers license.
I’ve since forgotten that girl ... but I have rarely
forgotten about that song. I guess I was a romantic, even in
those days ... Even if I was still shy around girls.
My romanticism has blossomed into the full-blown hopeless
type ... and my shyness has become almost legendary
gregariousness (o.k. at least locally, anyhow!)
But in these last few days ... The last days of my thirties
... I’ve seen that song in a slightly different light. I
always did understand, in a way, what he was singing about.
From the first day my Grandpa took out into the Gulf of
Mexico when I was six years old and (Ironically) about three
feet tall, I’ve been fascinated with the ocean. I’ve always
loved pirate movies and any and all things adventurous. If
you’ve read anything in my non-fiction catalogue, or know
anything about me, you know I am quite thee adventurer. I’ve
never climbed Mount Everest, or swam the English Channel ...
But I have had a very interesting life so far. I have seen
and done things that many people will never have the chance
to do. I have been to places and met people that would
fascinate even the most jaded jet-setter.
I have shaken the hand of some very influential people ...
Let’s see, How ‘bout Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey ...
They were campaigning for the oval office in the late
sixties, my Grandma was a reporter for the local paper in
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania when she brought me to the shopping
center where they made a speech on their campaign trail. I
think I was five or so, maybe younger.
I also met Colin Powell; he was speaking at some big
corporate motivational show being held at the Orlando arena.
I was working the show as a stage hand and while we waited
out back for the show to be over so that we could tear it
down and load it out, he came out to his awaiting motorcade.
We were just outside the door and he smiled at us as he
realized who we all were. (Probably a little disconcerting
... Hell, rattling even, to be a man in his position and
exit a building into a crowd of ruff looking long-hair
types, all dressed in black and staring at HIM!)
Well, let me tell you ... His eyes went across us once and
with a grin, he immediately accessed us for who we were. Now
you’d think a man who has ran armies, consulted presidents
and helped to change or at least write, history ... A man
who just got paid some ungodly sum of money to give a speech
to a bunch of conventioneers who were probably more
interested in the after-meeting events in the hotel bar than
his speech, a man who had his own police escort for crying
out loud ... Would nod and wisk himself into waiting limo
and the non-confrontation bliss afforded the man of his
stature ...
Not on your life!
He stopped, calm as any moment I’d ever seen him on T.V. and
he asked us how we were all doing. He waived off one of his
body guard-types (probably secret service) and shook some of
our hands. He made eye contact with all of us and seemed
strangely eager to talk to us. While he did, he politely
asked us how our day was! Can you just imagine?
He was as personable as any true gentleman I’d ever met.
(Benny Hinn, Rod Stewart and a few others I’ve worked for as
a stage hand, don’t even want to see the local crews when
they come and go, let alone seem to want to have a chat with
any or all of them!)
Mr. Powell didn’t look down at us, he smiled with us!
He shook a few of our hands and I am proud to say mine was
one of them.
It was raining, his “People” told him they’d have to hurry
if they were going to make the airport in time with the wet
roads and all. I am a great judge of character (most of the
time), I swear, he was disappointed that he couldn’t finish
shaking all our hands ... you could see it in his face. He
reluctantly, almost frustratingly, agreed with the men in
black and bid us a good day. We all wished him well too, and
then headed in out of the rain to start our load out.
The disappointed look on his face never left my mind that
day ... Or, for that matter, to this day ...
I wondered if he was somehow lonely in his world ... Missing
the camaraderie of old “chums”.
A world constantly choking in protocols and being
“politically correct”.
A world where your eminence front is surely carving a shape
of it’s own into the face you were born with. A uniformed
world so full of rules that you grow weary of worrying if
you’ve said or done the wrong thing ... and to whom,
constantly watching your step, as well as your words ...
Always having to second guess yourself as well as most of
the cutthroat types you often deal with in a world like his.
A place where you wake up in the morning and get handed a
schedule of what you are going to do today ... and worse
still, where you are going to go today.
Not a life … An itinerary.
Just imagine being a man of his stature ... Yet, some one
else told you when and where you were going to eat! Everyone
in your world ... there to do a job. No one there to be a
real friend ... It makes my free spirit shudder ... A very
lonely world.
I wondered if chatting with “the guys” was a much needed
respite from his prison.
After all, this was a man who had spent many decades in the
camaraderie of the Army.
In a war zone, you exist with real friends. Those
friendships are as real as they come.
A prison I doubt he saw coming … We rarely see the walls we
build until the morning we wake up and discover that we
can’t see over them.
A lonely place indeed, for a man as real as he seemed to be
to me. Funny, we Americans often chide and make jokes about
how fake our presidents and other politicians are and have
been ...
Makes you wonder why he refused to run for that oval office
... doesn’t it?
I haven’t voted in all my life, my view on politics and
politicians is bleak at best ...
If that man ever runs for president, I will register to vote
and I will vote for him.
He was “real”. Not only important these days ... but rare as
well.
Of course, working in the production industry, I’ve also met
and worked with a lot of stars. I’ve been a spotlight
operator for many famous artists ... from Mel Torme′ to Tina
Turner ... During Super Bowl 35 at Tampa’s new Raymond James
Stadium, I was the spotlight trained on Steven Tyler and
Brittany Spears as they sang “Walk This Way” during the
halftime show. So, if you watched it, you’ve seen me work
...
Small world, huh?
As a lighting director, I’ve met countless stars; my fingers
have been the board operator or moving light programmer for
countless more. Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Fugee’s, Snap!,
Bone, Thugs and Harmony, Method Man and Red man, Onyx, Etta
James, Eryca Badu, The Lords of Acid, Digital Underground
(with Humpty), Ms. Rita Marley (A sweetheart), her son Ziggy
and the Melody makers as well as several other members of
their family, not to mention almost every other Reggae
artist you could think of (and a few you probably haven’t
heard of yet). I was the Lighting Director for “Sting ‘96”;
a Reggae festival held every year on Boxing Day, in
Kingston, Jamaica. At this particular show there was a
special guest, Biggie Smalls ... Sadly, it was to be one of
his last shows. I remember he was in a wheel chair.
On a lighter note, there’s a Funny story behind that show
... I had been the L.D. for the Def Jam 10th Anniversary
tour. One of the main DJs for the show, (He spun for Meth &
Red) was a very cool guy called “DJ Enuff”. He and I got to
be good friends as the tour progressed, because I too, had
been a DJ for more than a decade before that. (More on that,
some other time). Before the tour ended, he had given me one
of his shirts, it had his personal logo on it and I wore it
proudly. (My hand to God, I’m wearing it RIGHT NOW!) Well,
as I stood on that stage in Kingston ... Christmas day, 1996
...
Wearing this shirt, tweaking some moving lights that I had
positioned on the stage ...
I heard a familiar voice call out: “Nice shirt.”
I looked up ... And there he was, I hadn’t seen him in over
a year ... Not since I’d left Manhattan.
Neither of us knew that the other would be here ...
And lo’ and behold, I was wearing his shirt!
Small world, funny story.
One more?
If you insist ...
How ‘bout this one? I never dreamed while I was roller
skating, that one day I’d actually be onstage with Jimmy
Buffet ... But it happened! On his “Carnival” Tour, they
needed four different looking stagehands to dress up in
colorful costumes and dance around during the opening of the
show and then collect the curtain when it fell ... I was one
of those guys at the Ice Palace show in Tampa ... Onstage
with Jimmy Buffet! (There are Parrot Heads out there that
would drown you in a keg of spiced rum for a chance to do
that gig!) Where you there? If so, then once again, you’ve
seen me work ... Small world.
My life is full of those kinds of stories. I usually write
in sadness because it’s therapeutic, instead of about all
these wild and crazy things that have blessed me. (I gotta
work on that one!) Where I’m going here is that even though
I’ve had some unbelievable moments ... I’ve always been
restless ...
“O.k., I’ve done this ... What’s next?”
I know it makes me sound ungrateful ... Believe me, I’m not.
It’s just that I’m always trying to see and do and learn ...
I am hopelessly in love with experience ... And inner
expression.
“Yes I am a Pirate, two-hundred years too late ...
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder ...
I’m an over-forty victim of fate ...
Arriving too late ...
Arriving too late.”
I think you are getting the picture though ... I’ve been
living a sometimes-amazing life. I wouldn’t trade what I’ve
experienced for anything. But if you think these things I’ve
done so far are lofty, you should try and picture some of my
earlier goals in life ...
I wanted to be a fighter pilot ...
A Test Pilot ...
An Airline Pilot ...
Hell ... any kind of pilot ... And still loftier than that,
I had designs on becoming an astronaut!
When that all went the way of the winds, I was singing in a
band, (For all that was worth ... I was terrible!) So I
wanted to be a rock star! If you ask, you’ll find, most DJs
are disgruntled musicians ... I was no exception. But by
doing that, first in radio, then in nightclubs, began a
journey that took me all over the world as I got into doing
concert lighting by learning moving lights in the
nightclubs. I was in the proverbial right place at the right
time. The band brought me something else though that I
didn’t realize until almost two decades later ... Writing!
Back then, I only wrote song lyrics and poems, but once I
started to write stories, a floodgate opened and out came
all this STUFF!
Fiction ... Short Stories and a whole novel!
My own, albeit different, brand of Philosophy ...
More Poetry ...
And the ideas for many more stories ...
Why Me?
Who knows ... ?
I don’t fight it, I learned a long time ago to just go along
with things ... (O.K., most of the time, anyway!)
And so this searcher now has yet another, seemingly
impossible, aspiration ... Being a writer. I say “seemingly
impossible” because I have no schooling at this whatsoever
... I graduated from High School (Go Cobras!), barely
squeaking through English. I did and always have though,
love to read. I think between my love of a good story and my
fascination with studying and understanding people, I have
found something new that I could be good at. I’ve always had
an artistic side ... and, without really seeing it, I’ve
always done some form of work that let my creativity vent.
Herein the philosophy ...
Everything happens for a reason, whether you understand it,
or not.
Learning to recognize it may never come ... but trust me ...
Learning to accept it will always make things easier ...
Well, I’m too old to be a nightclub jock any more. You
eventually get to dislike the new music ... A sign from God
that it’s time to quit.
I’m too beat up to keep doing the grueling and sometimes
dangerous concert production work. This comes in the signs
of limping, memory loss and shear dislike of teaching
someone else your gig so that they can later steal it from
you ...
The Army wouldn’t take me as a helicopter pilot at 18, I
doubt they’ll have me now ...
And I still can’t sing ...
“Mother, Mother Ocean ...
After all the years I’ve found ...
My occupational hazard is ...
My occupation’s just not around ...
Feel like I’ve drowned ...
But I won’t wear a frown.
Yes, I feel like I’ve drowned ...
Gonna head up town.”
Ol’ Jimmy ends this song in a satirical, kind of joking,
up-beat note. An acceptance of his life that can only come
with the wisdom of age. On a later live album, he says he
wrote this for “a friend”, but I wonder if it was actually
about him. ( Did I say album? God, now I am showing my age!)
I like to end most of my philosophical essays in a similar
way. That’s the therapy of writing. You not only divulge
your innermost thoughts ... You get to come to terms with
them as well.
Do you think I got this from him?
Do you think that he’d think I stole it?
Nah ... Pirates always shared their plunders!
-Jeff Gaines
One day after my @$#*ing Fortieth Birthday!
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