Good Times

Even before we got to Florida, libertarian and musician Chris Maden invited me out for some Irish music and a beer. Unfortunately, things kept coming up, and it wasn't until last night that Tamara and I were able to take him up on the invite -- the last opportunity, as it turns out, since he's moving to Illinois later this week.

The venue was Satchel's Pizza, and I can already tell that it's going to be one of our favorite eating spots. I only had a single slice but was favorably impressed with their style of pie (it reminds me of Shakespeare's in Columbia, Missouri or McSalty's in Springfield, Missouri). Nice selection of beers as well. Tamara had a Kaliber, the Guiness Brewery's non-alcoholic offering. I went with (and enjoyed) the IPA they had on draft, an apparently quite popular Florida beer called Jai Alai.

So anyway, Wednesday nights at Satchel's there's a sort of "open Irish music jam." A bunch of the musicians who usually play were out of town for some kind of festival, but Chris was there playing concertina with three other talented musicians -- a fiddler, a flautist and a mandolin player who also had a guitar and drum on hand. Sorry to not be able to relay their names -- I'm bad with that kind of stuff. The mandolin player had to leave pretty early. But the music was wonderful.

OK, so it was wonderful right up to the minute they let me come up and ... vocalize ... my way through "Foggy Dew." I may have cleared the room there. Here's what it was supposed to sound like:


Anyway, good times and I wish I'd been able to hook up with Chris earlier. Best of luck to him and his wife in Urbana!