Margaritaville | Pete’s Bar | Hard Knocks ‘23 Finale
Alright @YouTheReader,
Jimmy Buffett was born on Christmas Day of 1946 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He spent much of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama. He was the son of Mary Lorraine and James Delaney Buffett, who worked as a marine engineer for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. His father and grandfather took him sailing a ton, which makes sense as it must’ve influenced his music. Buffett played the trombone in the school band but didn’t pick up a guitar until he was in the Kappa Sigma frat at Auburn. The main reason he picked up a guitar was to get the attention of ladies at Auburn.
After getting too good with the guitar and women of sororities, Jimmy Buffett flunked out of Auburn in 1966. He continued his college studies at Pearl River Community College before transferring to Southern Mississippi where he got a degree in history. As a way to get by, Jimmy Buffett worked on a shipyard as an electrician and welder. With the money he earned from the labor on the shipyard, he started a band where in 1969 they would travel to New Orleans to play for drunken crowds on the street. Buffett and his band attracted enough drunken crowds that he would eventually play 6 nights a week at Bourbon Street clubs.
After graduating in 1970, Jimmy moved to Nashville to work as a journalist for Billboard Magazine and hoped to become a folk-country singer. He released his first country album called Down to Earth on August 11, 1970. The debut album sold 324 copies and after struggling on the Nashville scene, Jimmy decided to move to Key West, Florida. Key West at the time wasn’t what it is today, it was described as a last outpost of smugglers, con men, artists, and free spirits. It was thanks to Key West, that Jimmy was able to create his island escapism persona as a song-writer.
After finding a bit more success with his new style, Buffett signed with ABC/Dunhill Records and made his first Billboard 100 hit with “Come Monday.” He officially formed the band Coral Reefer Band in 1975. They were the opening acts for the Eagles that summer (Source: Jimmy Buffett.com)
Jimmy wrote “Margaritaville” in Key West after touring Texas with the Coral Reefer Band. The inspiration behind the song comes from the bar he was at drinking a bunch of margaritas called Old Anchor Inn. The bar had a nickname “The Snake Pit.”
Unlike most of his other recordings mostly done in Nashville, his producer Norbert Putnam, suggested Jimmy record down in Miami to have even more of a beach easygoing feel. Putnam told Sound On Sound, "One day in the studio, he comes in and starts telling me about a day he had in Key West. He was coming home from a bar and he lost one of his flip-flops and he stepped on a beer can top and he couldn't find the salt for his Margarita. He says he's writing lyrics to it and I say 'That's a terrible idea for a song.' He comes back in a few days later with 'Wasted Away Again In Margaritaville' and plays it and right then everyone knows it's a hit song. Hell, it wasn't a song — it was a movie."
Margaritas are indeed a real Mexican cutie.
Margaritaville peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977 and he even made it on the Hot Country Songs Chart with this record. I’m kind of shocked it didn’t get to #1 but then again timeless tunes get their due over time. Margaritaville was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in ‘16 and The US National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress selected the song to be preserved for its "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significance."
Jimmy Buffett wrote this songfor Elvis Presley. Unfortunately, the King of Rock & Roll would pass away later that year before he could record it. (Source: Cheat Sheet)
This tune catapulted Jimmy Buffett into national fame. Jimmy Buffett always wanted his own boat and was able to buy one as well as much more thanks to this song. It was the inspiration behind his Margaritaville Resorts & Restaurants, which can be found in locations all over the place from Jacksonville, Florida to Times Square in New York. While Margaritaville is his most famous song, I’m sure Parrotheads have their own favorite as well.
Great tune, RIP Jimmy Buffett.
Guinness Challenge Season #1
@Kids don’t try this at home. Not just because you’re underage and will have plenty of pints to drink if that ends up being your thing when you’re older but also because Guinness is actually best served in a pint glass from a tap. A pint of Guinness varies depending on the drinking establishment. If the keg it sits in is rarely poured, it can lead to some underwhelming taste. Rather than stealing gimmicks, I’d like to start taking Notes while drinking Guinness. My grandfather from Connemara, who I never got the chance to meet, Thomas Davis, used to drink pints and by all accounts was a self-taught thinker. The one rule I’ve imposed on myself is that I will only have 1 pint per sitting from each establishment I review, so @AnyoneWorrying, don’t worry about my drinking habits. The Guinness Challenge is to “cut the G” on your first sip (more like a gulp and a half). If this is your first time hearing about it, I didn’t come up with the fun challenge @YouTheReader can try the next time you have a Guinness. The 0.0 to 10.0 scale will be extraordinarily nuanced but as a reference point, the only perfect 10.0 I plan ever to give out is at the Guinness Factory in Dublin one day.
Song On In The Background: 6 Foot 7 Foot by Lil Wayne
Notes if you can’t read my sloppy scribble: Hannah is the bartender. Pete’s Bar was established in 1933. It is the oldest bar in Duval County. It is almost the exact same interior setup except they have made some modern amenities of course and added an outdoor patio out back. Hannah moved to Jacksonville “to be by the beach, why not?” Pete’s Bar is a bar’s bar, no food served only drinks. “It is such a staple in Jacksonville that people already know what they are walking into. Dive bar.” The Guinness head top is nearly about the size of a quarter coin, solid pour. They have a ton of pool tables as well as ping-pong tables. Over the entrance is an awesome picture of Budweiser Clydesdales. Behind the bar is an old rifle gun that looks like Davy Crockett would use. This bar has a ton of history.
Pete’s Bar was the first bar to legally open in Duval County after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Pete Jenson is who it was named after and in the 1920s it was known as Jensen’s Market.
The author by the name of John Grisham wrote about the bar in his book The Brethren. The mention in the book is, “He had a room at the Sea Turtle Inn, on the beach, and at night he hit the bars along Atlantic Boulevard. He'd found two excellent restaurants, crowded little places with lots of young pretty girls and boys. He'd discovered Pete's Bar and Grill a block away, and for the last two nights, he'd staggered from the place, drunk on cold drafts. The Sea Turtle was just around the corner." Grisham isn’t the only writer to hang out here. They also have a sign that reads “The Hemingway Years Spent Here 1933 to 1937.” They even have a picture of Ernest Hemingway with beach girls to prove it. The last writer who hung out in Pete’s Bar is The Catcher in The Rye’s J.D. Salinger, who was known to hang out in dive bars out of the limelight.
Lastly, the Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence has hung out at Pete’s Bar, and if Sunshine approves it, then you gotta check it out if you’re ever in the area!
Notes Nobody Asked For
Hard Knocks: Jets Finale ‘23
- Eerie intro music. It’s cut day at One Jets Drive.
- From the voiceover of Liev Schreiber, “There’s no place to hide here, but this team doesn’t think they’ll need to. They’ve spent the last 4 weeks proving who they are. A team on the rise. On the wall, there are 4 letters that now mean something new, J-E-T-S.”
- Jets defensive coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich tells the defense that “this is the hardest defensive line in the NFL to make right now.”
- “On cut day, everyone has to walk alone.” HBO is really playing up cut day only to not show any cuts, which I think is the humane thing to do.
- Undrafted rookie WRs Jason Brownlee and Xavier Gipson getting told he made the team was awesome. NFL teams rarely keep 2 undrafted players in any one position group, so you know these two kids might be pretty special and those two have a good bond - they can relate to one another. Both of them had the biggest smiles on their face when GM Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh told them they made the team. This WR duo storyline is such a cool underlying story for the Jets this year.
- Sidenote, Joe Douglas having a chess board with the pieces always ready set up on his office coffee table is big-time alpha energy.
- DT Tanzel Smart being one of the last to get cut is tough but was sort of expected. “At the end of the day, I put everything I could into this shit and it is what it is.”
- RB Dalvin Cook is rocking #33. Rodgers calls him “Cookie” so I will now refer to him as Cookie as well.
- Rookie RB Izzy A is back from his thigh injury. He grew up in Brooklyn and HBO featuring his parents is cool. They immigrated to the United States from Nigeria.
- QB Aaron Rodgers saw a UFO in Jersey in ‘05 while he was preparing for the NFL Draft. If my QB says he saw a UFO, you’re damn right he saw a UFO, no questions asked, aliens are real.
- J. Cole’s “New York Times” on in the background as they show The City skyline from both Brooklyn and Hoboken is great. Sauce Gardner wearing a Buffalo Wild Wings varsity jacket, the new face of the American wings chain franchise?
- DT Tanzel Smart has been brought back to the team on their practice squad. Good for him.
- A bunch of the team hit Broadway for MJ: The Musical and was taught how to moonwalk behind the scenes after the show.
- WR coach, Zach Azzanni, says Xavier Gipson has a “high give a shit factor” meaning he shows up every day putting in full effort and cares about his craft.
- Coach Saleh used to despise how after games he would shake opponent coaches’ hands and they would tell him “You guys play really hard” after losses. “Now they don’t do that. Now they’re just hating which is exactly what you want.”
- The One Jets Drive facility in Florham Park has a very long hallway where they will document every Week to Week of their ‘23 season on the walls. Pretty cool.
- Week to Week Notes’ Rotten Tomatoes IMBD Score for this season of Hard Knocks is 98%.