Friday, May 24, 2013

Cultural Center Shock - the Peasants of Port Charlotte!

Move over Pirates of Penzance, here come the Peasants of Port Charlotte! Haven't met them yet? Well, you haven't attended any live concerts here in Charlotte County where everyone in the audience gets up and leaves at the first curtain. Imagine the look of surprise on Roy Clark's face when the curtains opened for his first encore a couple of years ago in Punta Gorda and all he saw were white-haired patrons all scurrying for the exits! The few of us who were applauding and cheering for more got to hear one more, truncated piece before Roy and his band packed it in and headed for the exits along with the Peasants of Port Charlotte. Amazing!

Where did all these people live before they moved here? Mars? I can't believe so many people have never been to a live concert! Instead of waiting for the house lights to come up -- indicating the show is officially over -- they actually pushed each other out of the way to get to the exits first as soon as the curtain closed.

I was sure many them must have been aware of some of the basics of modern civilization, but, after listening to them at recent County Commission meetings, I'm not sure after all. Why do they want Charlotte County to work and look like what they had up north? Have you ever seen up north? No wonder they moved here. Now they want to screw it up here as well.

At my first business show here, I was told by other Chamber of Commerce members to only put a few "freebies" on my display table at any time. I soon found out why as an elderly, rather unfriendly lady took her arm and brushed everything on my table into her huge plastic bag, then looked around to see what see might have missed. I'm sure she was just really interested in Business Impact Analysis and needed as many pens as she took. Probably still writing with them these many years later.

My wife and I recently attended a free seminar on the use of her new smart phone given by the cell phone company, Verizon. Most of the attendees were definitely in the retired age group. There were no youngsters in the crowd, except perhaps the instructors, and that is probably why they were playing Frank Sinatra on the store music system. They just don't realize the Rolling Stone's Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will both be 70 this year, Charlie Watts will be 72 and Bill Wyman will be 77!

But then, maybe they have met the Peasants of Port Charlotte before, and 'Ol Blue Eyes is considered standard fare.

I hope they don't see my playlist, they'll think I stole my iPod from my granddaughter.

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