As you may know, I have recently revived my sax-playing thanks to a friend at work. His band CD and the Things is a group of musicians, some of which come and go, but whose core consists of Charlie, his wife Brandy, his brother Artie, Enrique, and myself. Our illustrious trajectory so far has taken us from a bowling alley bar to the UCF Football Game Fan Fair all all the way up to the Cypress Cove Nudist Colony where we’ll be playing this New Year’s Eve and Day.

Our first gig there was the Saturday before Halloween where we sat in with Charlie’s buddy Jimmy’s band. As we were all encouraged to dress up in costume but forbidden from showing up in our birthday suit (by Charlie, not the management), I decided to go with a costume that Patrick had made several years before – a Scottsman. With only slight modification involving some blue hair gel and a Blues Brother t-shirt, I was set.

For those of you who’ve never been to a nudist colony, a little explanation is in order. The majority of nudists do not regard their naked excursions at a resort to be all sexual, but rather are an attempt to be as comfortable as possible. In Florida, this often involves the removal of clothing, as you can imagine it can get rather hot at times. Still, as I was one who had never been to a nudist colony before that performance, there was a period of adjustment before I felt entirely comfortable looking down into the crowd.

The people at the Cove were all very friendly and receptive to our music, which for an upstart band is all you can hope. If any of you locals are interested in attending the New Year’s Day performance, just let me know.

Tags: band, Patrick, UCF

Categories: Public

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