Coffeehouse Chronicles ...and Where WIll You be Sitting When the Music Starts?

Happy Tuesday, Chroniclers!

The HB & I are always amused when we’re at home and the caller on the phone or via text asks, “So where are you anyway?” 

Look, people, we do come home on occasion… not right this moment, but we do. 

No. That is not Nanook from the North. That's Mrs. Scrubbles dressed as if we're visiting Greenland.

We happen to be in Monterey this weekend for the Jazz Festival. A few of the usual suspects decided last year that, “Hey! Road trip? Jazz? Good people to hang with? SIGN ME UP!”

The big draws this weekend were Gregory Porter and Ledisi, and they did not disappoint.

Attending the MJF requires a bit of prep. Especially when you have to adjust to the weather differences between the LA Basin and the Central Coast. When we left LA, even though the weather folks were raving about the Autumnal Equinox, in SoCal, we were dealing with weather in the mid-90s. Here at the Monterey Fairgrounds, the highs reached the upper 60s. BRRRRRR! 

For those of us, like Mrs. Scrubbles and me, who relish sun and warm weather, it’s no picnic. Therein lies the challenge: when we first arrived at the Fairgrounds, we had to carry extra layers of clothing for when it gets frigid as soon as the sun goes down.

No problem, you say? Well, I’m just gonna need you to imagine that you get the opportunity to park for “free” at the college and get shuttled to the Monterey Fairgrounds by the friendly staff of the Monterey-Salinas Transit District on a city bus. 

This all sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, if you’ll review the above paragraph, you’ll notice that the word “FREE” is accented by quotation marks. That is because nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, is free at MJF. 

Yoko Uno, The Professor & Cmdr McCroc after they'd laid flowers at the Memorial of Last Year's Chair(s)

To park at the college for the “free” shuttle to the Fairgrounds, we pre-paid online $30/day for the privilege to hike the ¼ to ½ mile through the parking lot with our extra layers of clothing, to prevent frostbite, over our arm and all of the other necessities we thought that we might need (which we have found is never enough, BTW) in a transparent bag to the table, where some very nice ladies sitting waited patiently as we caught our breath, wiped the sweat from our foreheads, and thumbed through the set of several pages of paper that we'd printed up at home on our printer of our e-tickets and had stapled together, one each for the HB & me for each day, AND our parking passes, again one for each day. All of which looked confusingly, completely identical to one another. 

Now, if you’ve been counting, that’s nine sheets of paper per couple, and in our case, folded neatly into fourths, tucked deep inside that pretty little transparent bag that was purchased solely for entry into NFL games and the yearly MJF.

By the time we arrived at that table, with our crew of five couples, each with nine sheets in hand or in a bag, these poor ladies had to have perused thousands of these e-tix. After they've verified that we've paid our parking/shuttle ransom, they dutifully used their unreadable circular rubber stamp to substantiate said payment by “stamping” the inside wrist of all the concertgoers before and after us, which the smiling bus drivers paid no attention to as those thousands of patrons filed past them onto the city-provided transport.

Entry into the Faigrounds was totally trouble-free. No line. No muss. No fuss. The yellow-jacketed security guards smiled broadly, because everyone is happy that we're there, as one squeezed the bag I carried with my blanket in it, and the other one waved a metal detecting wand in the general area of one side of my body, “You're good. Enjoy the music.” And then there was, of course, more walking.

The walk to the arena with a stop at the Con-CHAIR-To tent to pick up a chair each for The HB and me. That only means more stuff to slog toward the arena, which was another ½ mile walk across the Fairgrounds. 

It was at this point that I began to question my sanity and wonder how I had allowed my former partner, Dot, to talk us into attending this Crucible Hike. 

“It’s so much fun,” she mused, “you’d be surprised who you see there.” 

“And the music is great!” she exclaimed.

Are ya getting the picture? If you go to the Jazz Festival, there’s no real need to hit the gym for three days. You’re gonna get your steps in with the added bonus: muscle spasms in your arms and legs!

Yes, the Professor made the trip and over the three-day event, I’m happy to report that no concert chair was injured. Last year, you may remember that the Professor decimated two chairs in an estimated 17 seconds. Cue the SVU “du-dum” sound effect. The coroner ruled it chair-icide. There was still a chalk outline and memorial flowers in the area of the crime scene from the previous year.

We did some sightseeing this year! We popped by Clint Eastwood’s spot for Sunday morning brunch and then went on a self-guided tour of 17 Mile Drive. Can you say stunning? Not just the gorgeous views of the ocean and the $29M estates, but the fact that a round of golf at Pebble Beach or Spyglass will run you in the neighborhood of about eleven hundred dollars! Yikes! But I guess if I could play like Warren Fairbanks or had Tony Ward’s pocketbook, I might just do it.

McCroc is here, but I’m gonna save him for the next time. His antics usually require a full Chronicling.

Now we’re off to Paso for a little whine and some cheese. 

Yes, folks. That is spelled correctly. Whine, with an "H". The Right Reverend Doctor is with us, and he’s already whining about a possible mention in the Chronicles! 

“Oh, rub some dirt in it, Rev! Suck it up!”

You know what to do! Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechronicles