If ya got it, flaunt it!

Normally I wouldn't post a picture of someone getting their breasts autographed, but this one just seemed a little different from most such autographing sessions. I'm not sure why. I took it during the Summer Side Show on Saturday where 50-something bands played in 175-degree heat, which set a high temperature record for Columbus.

It's not really my kind of music. For my kind of music, I went to the Jimmy Buffett concert in Atlanta two days earlier. (See next post.) We kinda swayed and hula danced Thursday as one big happy tacky tipsy family. On Saturday, they slam danced and slung their fists around like they were on "Jerry Springer." And it was an alcohol-free event. I felt old. OK, I am old, but at least at the Buffett show there were old and young alike. At Summer Side Show, there were hundreds of teenagers ... and me. I was there to see Dirty Dirty (pictured below), whose bass player Cody Peaster is a young friend I was corrupting, er, I mean mentoring during his last bit of high school.

Parrothead pilgrimage 2008

Just returned from the holiest day on my calendar, Jimmy Buffett's annual appearance in Atlanta. Here are a few of the pics from the tailgating area where my wife, my friend Bass (now known by his street name "G-Dawg" given to him by a thug on the street, though we just call him "Truck" ... long story) and I parked the truck Thursday. Unfortunately, not a lot of photos from the area are fit to be published here, but it was an awful lot of fun and everyone was just one big, happy, tacky family as usual. For a video and slideshow from the much tamer official Lakewood Amphitheatre parking lot, click here. We preferred the more untamed tailgating area.

Me and Bass, a couple of nuts. Mmm, coconut milk.

Alternative mode of transportation

Multiply this scene by 100 and you get the idea.

Parrotheads finally phlock into the amphitheatre.

The lawn people, of which I was one.

My wife with some Columbusites.

I think this guy likes Jimmy Buffett.

Multiply this by 4,000, and you get the idea.

I think my wife took this picture. I hope my wife took this picture.

More Buffett gals.

One more week

Exactly one week from this very moment, I'll be on the Lakewood Amphitheatre lawn with thousands of other Parrotheads for the Jimmy Buffett concert. So, expect me to be in a pretty good mood for a few weeks after that. Nobody's more excited about my going to the Buffett show than my boss, Pork Chop, because she knows it's my religious holiday and I come back from Buffett shows a changed man ... at least for a little while. That's exactly what this Sunday's column will be about.

Every now and then you need to escape to paradise, even if that paradise is a parking lot in metro Atlanta. See this slideshow from The Gulch, where my friend Bass and I tailgated last year. If you've never been to a Buffett show, well, I consider you a heathen. And here's an idea of what you're missing:

A transportation alternative

Are you sick of high gas prices? Of course you are, unless your name is Fred Mobil or Sam Citgo. I've got a local solution to at least cut down on using motorized vehicles in Columbus ... a lazy river. All we've got to do is build a 20-or-so-miles-long lazy river that winds its way through Columbus. Everyone grabs an inner tube and cruises to their destination at a leisurely 3 or 4 miles an hour. I'm sure the city will seize upon this idea, and when they do, since it was my idea, I'd really appreciate it if they'd have the lazy river run down the median of Broadway, so I can hop out right by the paper at 12th Street.

Granted, I'm not sure this plan will go over quite as well in winter. Then again, we can heat the water. And the lazy river may get a little rough as it tumbles over the Fall Line from the north side of Columbus where I live. And we may have to ban extremely unattractive people in skimpy swimsuits. But no transportation system is perfect. I also wouldn't mind a larger-scale lazy river that round-trips between Columbus and Atlanta -- we just might have to speed the river up a little. Then again, who's ever in a hurry to get to Atlanta?

It's just a thought. I'm sure you might have other ideas, but I'm sort of partial to lazy rivers, as you can read about in this coming Sunday's column.

Parrotheads in The Gulch

With the help of a hitchhiker we picked up in the bowels of downtown Atlanta, my friend Gregg and I finally found the tailgating spot for Parrotheads known as "The Gulch" before Wednesday's Jimmy Buffett concert at Philips Arena. From makeshift beaches to hula skirts and tiki huts, Parrotheads managed to turn the parking lot into a bit of paradise in the urban jungle. Everybody talks to everybody else, and there are no strangers in Margaritaville.

But I got in trouble with the police in the parking lot. OK, it was the "Margaritaville Police," and they issued me a written warning citation for not wearing a lei. The citation noted that it wouldn't go on my "permenant record." When I pointed out they misspelled permanent, they issued me a second citation for being a nerd. I did purchase a $3 lei and the police later struck my first offense. As punishment, they also ordered me to go to wicked Wanda's trailer and have an upside-down tequila shot, which I passed on. I'm still upset that they didn't check the "too sexy" box on the citation, but then again it was two guys patrolling the parking lot, so that's OK.

Parrotheads are fairly normal people most days of the year (perhaps I'm the exception to that rule). But when Buffett comes to town, let's just say they let it all hang out, figuratively and literally as you can see in this slideshow from WSB TV. If you're offended by folks drinking mass quantities of alcohol, you may not want to view it.

Oh, a bonus during the show: Jazz great Earl Klugh played guitar during "A Pirate Looks At Forty."

I survived the mayhem and am fully functioning today, despite the tailgating, the show, a friend's cell phone beeping every 10 minutes all night long, and getting up at 7 a.m. in downtown Atlanta and getting to work by 10:15 a.m.

It was the third Buffett concert experience I've had, and I can say that Wednesday will go down as one of the most fun days of my life.