Key West Florida Weekly

Meeting of the Minds 2019: LICENSE TO CHILL




 

The last couple of weeks were a tad overwhelming. We doused ourselves in fake blood and pedaled to Duval Street zombie-style, starving for brains. We danced with tens of thousands of our new best friends until the wee hours (which totally counts as cardio, by the way). We donned tutus and togas and tighty-whiteys as we bounced from party to party. We had more fun than a two-year-old on a trampoline, but ten straight days of partying can really take it out of you.

Post-Fantasy Fest, most of us would love nothing more than to kick back by the pool with a frozen drink (paper umbrella included) with nothing more than mellow tunes in the background. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that the week after Fantasy Fest is dedicated to Jimmy Buffett, the poster child of laidback island living.

This year, the annual Meeting of the Minds — a three-day, Americana, Alt- Country, Rock, Coral Reefer Band, Gulf and Western, Trop Rock-fueled festival that brings together Parrot Heads near and far — will take place from Thursday to Saturday, Oct. 31 – Nov. 2. For those of you who are looking a little confused: If you’ve never been to Key West before and only know that Jimmy Buffett is some dude who really loves margaritas and blew out a flip-flop that one time, Parrot Heads is the official label for lovers of all things Jimmy Buffett, including (and maybe especially) the island that inspired much of his music and probably – more than a fair amount of his life philosophy.

Thousands of Parrot Heads gather at the Casa Marina to party with a purpose during the annual Meeting of the Minds. COURTESY PHOTOS

Thousands of Parrot Heads gather at the Casa Marina to party with a purpose during the annual Meeting of the Minds. COURTESY PHOTOS

If you dig deeper than the whole Jimmy Buffett thing, the Parrot Heads actually hold themselves out as an organization whose purpose is to “promote the international network of Parrot Head Clubs as a humanitarian group sharing information and social activities for mutual benefit.” They may love to wear Hawaiian shirts and drink the island dry of Jimmy’s Land Shark Lager, but the Parrot Heads also raise money and volunteer hundreds of thousands of hours toward community and environmental causes across the country. In fact, over the past 17 years, the group has raised $53.5 million and volunteered a staggering 4,224,000 hours for local and national charities. It’s hard to believe that a group of rum-swilling Trop Rockers could be so motivated to do so much, but the Parrot Heads’ Key West-worthy dedication to having a great time is only matched by their fervor for competitive fundraising.

Above: Parrot Heads present a check to Sister Season Fund.

Above: Parrot Heads present a check to Sister Season Fund.

If you’re scratching your head wondering why avian enthusiasts are so philanthropic, take note: Parrot Heads are fans of Jimmy Buffett, a musician/ restaurateur/author/songwriter/actor/ philanthropist/businessman/pilot best known for his Key West-steeped brand of folksy, confessional “gulf and western” Caribbean surf-rock music, whose lyrics conjure images of a life spent sailing the open sea and making port just to replenish his stash of rum, ice and limes. The official Parrot Head canon quotes Buffett himself explaining the origin of his fan club’s name: “Timothy B. Schmit was in the band, and we were playing a venue outside of Cincinnati called King’s Island. People had already started wearing Hawaiian shirts to our shows, but we looked out at this Cincinnati crowd, and they were glaringly brilliant to the point where it got our attention immediately. I said, ‘Look at that!’ Then Schmit says to me, ‘They look like Deadheads in tropical suits. They’re like PARROT HEADS,’ he yelled to me in the middle of a song. So, I immediately took the term and threw it over the microphone — people (have) identified themselves with the term from the get-go.”

Right: Howard Livingston blends a margarita onstage during his set.

Right: Howard Livingston blends a margarita onstage during his set.

Like Deadheads, Parrot Heads are famous for their willingness to follow their leader from concert to concert, setting up elaborate tropical tailgating parties in the parking lots of whichever venue Buffett is playing that night. Heck, these fans are so organized and so dedicated that there’s even a documentary about their commitment to the man and the lifestyle. (Incidentally, “The Parrot Heads Documentary” had its very first national screening at 2016’s Meeting of the Minds, with two sold-out showings at the Key West Theater.)

Above: Howard Livingston is living on Key West time.

Above: Howard Livingston is living on Key West time.

That a group best known for unloading dump trucks of sand outside concert arenas to create a beach in the middle of, say, Mobile, Alabama, are in actuality some of the most prolific charitable fundraisers to ever grace the beer-soaked shores of Key West may come as a shock to some. Outside the Parrot Head community, the group has acquired a wild, party-centric reputation, one that assumes they are simply a colorful bunch of working-for-the-weekend types who live vicariously through Buffett’s Caribbean-styled songs, which detail a life spent eating cheeseburgers in paradise, drinking margaritas and generally enjoying the kind of relaxed, beach-based life usually reserved for actors in Malibu rum commercials.

In the (very misguided) opinion of many people outside the community, Parrot Heads are dissatisfied people trapped in fluorescent-lighted cubicle office jobs who use Buffett’s music as a kind of escapism from the daily grind of their otherwise deeply un-tropical lives. And yet, while there is certainly an element of organized reverie to the Parrot Head community, the group — official nonprofit title Parrot Heads in Paradise Inc. — exists to serve a much larger, more ambitious purpose: to advance the social issues of its international network of local Parrot Head chapters, membership to which requires participation in various charitable and educational activities meant to better each club’s respective community. In addition, the group’s Lone Palm Foundation awards grants to any Parrot Head members who have themselves experienced loss due to natural disasters.

Left: Donations to the annual Parrot Head toy drive.

Left: Donations to the annual Parrot Head toy drive.

Local chapters might choose a different charity or two to fundraise for each year, but the group’s true pièce de résistance is its annual meeting in Key West — the storied Meeting of the Minds. To attend, Parrot Heads must first be independently verified to be in good standing with their local club, which usually means a member has completed a certain amount of community service and charitable work annually. For their 2019 meet-up, this year’s Meeting of the Minds will take over the Casa Marina, which will serve as the host hotel for the weekend’s activities.

Parrot Heads raise a toast to their inspiration, Jimmy Buffett.

Parrot Heads raise a toast to their inspiration, Jimmy Buffett.

The event promises to be as raucous as it will be humanitarian. Attendees will strive to continue the program’s fourteen-year reign as the largest blood drive in the Keys (last year, they collectively donated over 150 pints of blood), as well as participate in the annual Zonta Breast Cancer 5K run/ walk (last year they raised $6,500 for the organization) and maintain a decade’s worth of support for the Salvation Army of Monroe County by holding a children’s toy and school supply drive.

On the revelry side of things, they’ll attend Buffett memorabilia auctions, raffles and beach parties. Of course, the event is really about music appreciation and this year’s thirty-band lineup will perform concerts that stretch from sunrise to late night at the Casa Marina, featuring big names like ten-time CMA Musician of the Year Mac McAnally, rising stars Brendan Mayer and Aaron Scherz and members of Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, as well as a few yet-to-be-announced surprise performances.

When people hear “surprise performance,” they can’t help but hope that one performer in particular might casually swing by, though there’s no word on whether the man himself will be making an appearance this year (not that there ever is — that man is as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster). Buffett has been known to gift his fans with last-minute performances (most recently in 2011 and 2015) though, of course, his extreme fame means event organizers must work around the clock to insure ample security is in place before his arrival. This year’s staff of 132 security volunteers will work in tandem with local police to control crowds in case Buffett decides to stop by for a song or two. The whole thing takes thousands of hours to put together, a labor of love for Parrot Heads in Paradise Director of Conventions Andrew Talbert, who maintains the work is well worth it. “I get excited watching people get excited, surprising people, making people happy,” he explains. “I just love it.”

Talbert, who balances a full-time job at Procter and Gamble alongside the time-consuming demands of planning such a massive event, doesn’t mince words. “I can’t tell you how many hours a year I spend on this event, but I can tell you that if I’m not thinking about it, I’m working on it, and that includes holidays — Christmas, Thanksgiving, you name it.” Talbert is a lifetime music aficionado and a true Buffett fan, first discovering his music as a teenager in rural Mississippi while Buffett was attending college nearby. “We thought he was just a local boy done good,” he jokes, estimating that since then, he’s seen Buffett in concert over 125 times across the country.

This year’s event is shaping up to be the largest Meeting of the Minds yet, with over 2,500 registered attendees, not including extensive sound crews and support staff, plus thousands more who will simply show up and hang out in Key West. And although the Casa Marina is already fully booked, the event itself hasn’t yet sold out — registration will be open at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 31, and Friday, Nov. 1, in the Casa Marina Ballroom. (FYI to those of you looking for freebies: Unlike in past years, where many of the event’s concerts were performed in public spaces like the corner of Duval and Fleming Streets, this year’s lineup is exclusive to the confines of the Casa Marina Resort.)

Although this year’s Meeting of the Minds has barely even started yet, Talbert admits that he’s already working on 2020’s Meeting of the Minds, registration for which opens in January 2020. “I’ve already been thinking about what we’re going to do for the next two years,” he laughs, as the discussion turns toward the longevity of the Parrot Head clan as a whole. After all, Buffett will turn seventy-three this Christmas, raising the question of just how long he will continue to tour extensively, and what will happen to the Parrot Heads when he stops.

“We’ve still got a lot of new members coming in,” Talbert says, “I keep getting emails from people who are brand new and that makes me really happy. We even have a large contingent coming from Europe and Canada.” Apparently, though Buffett’s tour schedule has slowed considerably over the years, his fan base continues to grow. The lure of his music — and the charitable movement it has inspired — is fated to carry on long after Buffett’s ascension to that paradisiacal Margaritaville in the sky … though Talbert isn’t too worried about the group losing its leader to retirement any time soon. “Jimmy loves the limelight. He won’t go away until he just can’t do it anymore because he loves performing.” It’s late, and after a half-hour long drive home from the office Talbert still hasn’t started packing for Key West. He’s got hundreds of emails to finish, secret performances to arrange, endless calls to make, a million tiny worries before his fellow “phlock” descends upon Key West in their full colorful glory. He sounds exhausted, with a forty five-hour workweek ahead of him and no end in sight. But when he stops to explain why he chooses to devote so much of his time to ensuring that each Meeting of the Minds be as successful as possible, he could just as easily be describing the plight of every Parrot Head in every cubicle, working toward the biggest weekend of their whole year:

“When you’re working your ass off in the middle of the night and you can’t hardly see straight, and your computers blitzing on you or some spreadsheet’s giving you a headache, you’re sitting there going, ‘Why do I do this?’ … and then you go down (to Key West) and you watch all this stuff happening, and you remember why you do it: because you walk away and go, ‘That was incredible.’”

And the most incredible part of it all is that, underneath those Hawaiian shirts and despite their hard-partying reputation, the Parrot Heads are so much more than just music lovers who dream of an escape from the daily grind (honestly, don’t we all need an outlet sometimes?). They’re the definition of passion with a purpose (or, as they call it, “party with a purpose”), and if that’s not the best way to live then I challenge you to tell me what is.

For more information about the 2019 Meeting of the Minds or Parrot Heads in Paradise, visit their website at www.phip.com. ¦

2 responses to “Meeting of the Minds 2019: LICENSE TO CHILL”

  1. Buutt Wyper says:

    Is there a Parro thead under 70 years old? Seriously I saw a video of a recent Buffett concert and the youngest was maybe 68.
    Half the crowd was over 80. Do they have special medical care or a mini-hospital at the events?

  2. Jim Ryder says:

    I am with you brother. For us 90 year olds its the best place in the
    world to pick up hot 85 year old drunk blondes. Much better than the park.

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