Last Sunday, Anitra and I went on the annual Old Seminole Heights tour, which gave us the chance to see the insides of some of the houses in our neighborhood. One of the houses on this year’s tour belonged to Susan, our neighbor across the street, whose house turns 100 this year. She and her tour assistants dressed up in 1920s clothing and a local antique car enthusiast brought his 1916 Ford Model T to display in her driveway.
I was chatting with the car’s owner for a little while when he asked if Anitra and I would like to sit in the car. We’ve seen Model Ts before, but we’ve never been in one, so of course we said “yes!”
You can find out more about the Old Seminole Heights Home Tour here:
Wednesday is “open mic night” at Bayou Bistro, where anyone can hop onstage and play for the patrons. Since there’s no guarantee that anyone will bring an instrument, most open mic nights feature a “house band,” which in Bayou Bistro’s case is the Tropical Sons.
While Bayou Bistro is a short drive away for most of the other band members, it’s a fifty- to eighty-minute drive for Yours Truly, depending on the traffic. I can’t do it every Wednesday, but I try to play when I can.
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Bayou Bistro is a charming down-home bar. If you drive past it, you might not even realize that it’s a bar — it’s hidden away by the water, and you could easily mistake it for a fishing shack. But it is indeed a bar, with friendly staff, and sandwiches that don’t disappoint (I’m fond of their mahi mahi, shrimp, and banh mi sandwiches).
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As you might expect, a band called the “Tropical Sons” has a sort of uniform, and in our case, it’s aloha shirt and shorts with optional hat. For last night’s gig, I went with my “Disney Polynesian” shirt, which is one of my favorites. It’s a gift from my friends Natalie and Eldon, who somehow found it at a market in Ottawa:
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We played from about 5:15 until 8:30, with a break to get a bite in the middle. Here’s what my view looked like at the start of the gig…
A short while after, we started our second set, also known as the “Sunset Set.”
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And we played on into the night, wrapping up around 8:30 (Bayou Bistro closes at 9).
Once again, a fun gig! I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks, so it may be a little while before I get a chance to play at Bayou Bistro again.
The fun starts at 5:30 and wraps up around 8:30. If you’re in the area and like seafood, beer, and great live music, come on over! It’s an open mic night, so if you feel like playing with us, bring your instrument!
Here are some scenes from the last time I played there, a few weeks ago:
When I first saw this hoodie, my first thought was that its design was a little too bright and bubbly.
An almost periwinkle background? Pink, yellow, and light green lettering in a font better suited to selling cotton candy? Did whoever designed it even listen to the album? Even just once?
Maybe I spent too much time picking out rock t-shirts in head shops on Toronto’s Yonge Street during my misspent youth, but it’s my opinion that prog-rock t-shirts should be black. I think that Wish You Were Here, with its themes of loss and disillusionment with the music industry, is better paired with graphics like those from the video for Welcome to the Machine.
And then it occurred to me: if you were 17 years old in 1975 (when the North American tour featured on the hoodie took place), you’d be 65 years old today. Those bright colors might work better with a retirement wardrobe of golf clothes, cruisewear, and senior chic in general.
