Scott Fagan's Mem.wa?

The Point Of Points
It’s August 19th but I’m not finished with all I had to say on the 17th or the 18th so with your permission I will finish up some of that before getting to this (the 19th). Oops It’s now August 21 and I’m not finished with the 19th yet..hmm..It’s Wednesday night, ok,.now it’s actually Friday morning but I’m trying to catch up with the date and days and it’s getting tricky) , I’ll have to figger this out..Ok Mowedsday, “Wednsfrieday” “Motuewedthurfrisatsundoneday” Hmmm.
I thunked it through and I’m dumping the dates.in favor of the data, I’m quitting, quashing and kaboshing the calendar, in favor of quality and content. Yep!

Ok, lets see, I’ve just come from playing my friend Nicky’s open mike night at Tickles, a popular open air bar in the Crown Bay Marina
Six weeks ago I had a meeting at Tickles with David Edgecombe (the director attached to “The Virgin Islands Songs”). While we were meeting, my friend Nicky (AKA The Mighty Whitey) and a sweet but very juiced slide guitar player named Jack, (a fixture at the Tickles open mike,) thought that I was there to sing..

I was there very specifically to talk business with David, but I promised Nicky and Jack that I would come back as soon as I was free on a Wednesday night. Since then I’d been in the states for four weeks with my little one Holiday, tonight I showed up to keep my promise.
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Walking down the dock I can hear a sweet soul serenading the bar with his most sincere rendition of “Leaving On A Jet Plane” now I see his girlfriend dabbing her eyes with a coaster/napkin. and empathcize with all, in the most sung and wept over song in the history of the West Indies, since Brown Skin Girl)

At the entrance I’m greeted by a rolling eyed stateside crazy boy, who looks at me and my guitar and wants to know if I know how to play “bonk a bonk a bonk a” ‘cause he’s “The baddest bongo man in the world” and he’s gonna play with me. I ask him where Nicky is..”Nicky?” He says “Nicky? I don’t deal with names man, I’m gonna play with you!”

I start scanning the room, frankly hoping that someone would pop up with a Day-Glo sign saying “ Hey Scottie, Nicky’s not here and open mike has been canceled forever” so I can turn around and split.
However, in escaping the lad with the roiling reality, I dove deeper into the throng and there my fate was sealed..
An imposingly tall lady shot up from somewhere below and with her lovely face inches from mine said “what a cute fellow you are” she towered over me like “The Christ of the Andes” I felt an almost irresistible urge to fall face first upon her mercies, and confess my sins over and over again.. Then it dawned on me that this goddess was Mighty Whitey’s, Mighty Wifey, Janet Reiter, a wonderful screechest and guitar strangleist in her own right.. I asked if she were here to screech and yowl she said “yes and was I?”
I allowed as I’d be screeching and a yowling too and we agreed there was some screechy yowlin’ just around the bend. She then pulled me to her tender mercies delivering what surely has to be among the kindest and most charitable hugs ever. Changed my whole attitude about open mike night and left me feeling downright up-spired..

Waiting to go on, I began to suss out the patrons. We’re in an open air bar in the islands and most of the types are very familiar to me. It’s like “Ghosts of Barrooms Past meet Ghosts of Gigs Gone By” hard luck drinkers living in the melting hulls of old fiberglass schooners, (very much like an “upside down in the water” version of “Trails End Trailer Park”) deluding themselves that their “lives of high adventure” are something more than the predictable symptoms of mid to end stage alcohol addiction. College age crews of the mega “stink pots” that fill the marina, along side their (sweatered and Bermuda shorted) privileged bosses. A few taxi drivers (their wives and children at home) “yanking” and posing as they squire the perennial goofy stateside chicks who come all the way to the islands to get banged by a married taxi driver. A few bright-eyed seekers with their beautiful true-believer girlfriends, discovering that “traveling broke don’t make it” and your standard interchangeable loud and tipsy groups of flowered shirted tourists. I’m hoping that somewhere among them beats a heart still seeking a song well sung, while thinking “Scott, what the hell are you doing back in this situation? You rode this pony to ground thirty-one years ago,” and answering, I promised my friend.

I hear my name, I jump up on the bandstand and I’m on. There to my right is Morgan Rael steel pan at the ready, there to my left is the REAL best Bongo man in the world, Richard Spencly. To the front the best piano man in the Islands Danny Siber, and behind, a bass (Matt) and drum (Perry) rythem section that is ready! Fortunately some of my songs are fairly well-known in the Islands, so with Nicky, Janet and classy flute Lady Dawn Dobson standing by, we were able to launch right in to LaBiega Carosuel/Tutsie and Cherrigo altogether, we did six including SOON Where My Lover Has Gone The Virgin Islands Song and Captain Creole

The long and short of it is.. that after all was said and done, playing and singing together with these folks for those folks, was simply, the greatest fun. We had an absolute blast, ya shouldda been there…. Another reminder that Music is most certainly transformational in the most wonderful ways, and that is the point of points.. tonight.

Saturday. 6:59 AM Today is one week back. It’s a bit confusing. I’ve been awake on and off since 1:30 dreaming about a “Star Wars prequel Episode” titled “Someday, A Better Way” The story is about a generation of idealists who are gently but cynically persuaded that using a harmless mind/spirit stimulant will help them to further their agenda for a world filled with peace and love. Yes indeed it is the story of the sixties, only in the rocket world costumes of the galaxy far far away rather than the blue denim glory of the galaxy far far out.