Anthony Lee Head's Blog, page 3
October 19, 2020
Don’t Miss My Virtual Book Launch Party on Tuesday 10/20/20!
Tomorrow my debut novel Driftwood: Stories from the Margarita Road will finally go on sale! I would be lying if I said I haven’t dreamed about this day for a long time. Well, it’s finally here.[image error]
There was supposed to be a big gathering at a local bookstore with wine, cheese, and special guests…but COVID put a stop to that plan. Instead, Cheri and I are hosting a virtual launch party from our home via Facebook Live tomorrow (Tuesday, October 20, 2020) at 6 pm Pacific (9 pm eastern). To RSVP and for more info, click here.
The party will be held on my Facebook author page, The Margarita Road.
I’ll talk about the book and our time in Mexico, read some excerpts, and answer questions.
AND I will be giving away a FREE signed copy of the book to someone on my email list during the party, so if you aren’t already signed up, go get on that list now!
And, I must mention, the party is BYOM…Bring Your Own Margaritas! Here’s the one I’ll be making for me and Cheri, Poppa’s Perfect Margarita. If you don’t already have a favorite recipe, I promise this one won’t fail you.
Hasta mañana! (That’s “see you tomorrow” for all you gringos!)
The post Don’t Miss My Virtual Book Launch Party on Tuesday 10/20/20! appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
October 15, 2020
Win a Free Signed Copy of Driftwood
Join my email list. Everyone on my list is eligible to win.
Contest 2Enter my Goodreads Giveaway by clicking below.
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0...Want to Win a Free Signed Copy of Driftwood?
Contest 1
– Join my email list. Everyone on my list is eligible to win.
Contest 2
– Enter my Goodreads Giveaway by clicking below.
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: inline-block; color: #181818; background-color: #F6F6EE; border: 1px solid #9D8A78; border-radius: 3px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-size: 13px; padding: 8px 12px; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { color: #181818; background-color: #F7F2ED; border: 1px solid #AFAFAF; text-decoration: none; }
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Driftwood: Stories from the Margarita Road
by Anthony Lee Head
Giveaway ends November 01, 2020.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter one or both contests. Winners will be chosen and notified on November 1.
If you can’t wait to get your hands on the book, order now. Good luck!!
The post Want to Win a Free Signed Copy of Driftwood? appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
August 5, 2020
Movies and the Margarita Road to Paradise
It is frustrating to have a Caribbean soul yearning for time on the beach while being stuck at home during this pandemic. And while I can’t make the virus go away, a Margarita Road Film Festival in your own home might help ease the pain.
The Margarita Road is what I call the highway of heart and mind that lets us dream about running away to a new life in the tropics. And since we can’t follow that dream right now, why not sit back and watch pretty people pretend to do that exact thing in the movies?
Here are ten of the films I love for their ability to transport the viewer to paradise, plus a fun bonus. So fill a bowl with popcorn and a glass with rum and settle in for some virtual adventures.
Captain Ron – One of my favorite “escape the rat-race” movies. Martin Short plays an overachieving, over-stressed businessman who inherits a broken-down sailboat in the Caribbean. Kurt Russell plays the one-eyed, incompetent, oversexed, and totally charming Captain Ron who agrees to take Short, his family, and the boat back to Miami (despite having no clue in what direction it lies.) Along the way they get lost and meet pirates, the kids get tattoos, Ron seduces the local women, and hilarity ensues. Short initially despises the irresponsible, freedom-loving Ron then accepts him and eventually sees the beauty of life traveling the world. Just like Captain Ron.
Running Scared -This is a cop-buddy movie set in Chicago during the winter. So why is it on a list of films about running away to the tropics? Because midway through the film, our heroes (played by a very young Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines) are ordered out of town by the police chief after they are targeted for death by the bad guys. The boys end up in Key West where beautiful women roller skating in bikinis, the blue-green water, and those spectacular sunsets almost seduce them into giving up their old lives. Almost. If you don’t want to watch the whole movie, check out the Michael McDonald music video Sweet Freedom on YouTube. It has the whole Key West sequence.
The Deep – A Hollywood-style adventure movie with big-name stars of the day. Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset play a couple on a scuba diving vacation in the Bahamas when they discover sunken treasure that will change their lives. It’s not just gold they find, but bottles of liquid morphine. Robert Shaw is the local tough guy who helps out when drug dealer Louis Gossett Jr. wants the dope for his own. Aside from beautiful shots under the water and around the island, the movie is also famous for scenes of the lovely Ms. Bisset diving in a tight, white t-shirt instead of a bikini top. That sold a lot of tickets.
To Have and Have Not – A book about smugglers in the Caribbean by Hemingway becomes a movie script by Faulkner, which is directed by Howard Hawks and stars Humphrey Bogart. What more can you ask for? How about Hoagy Carmichael (of “Stardust” fame) as the local island saloon’s piano player and a 19-year-old Lauren Bacall as the wandering soiled dove? Forget the nonsensical plot about Nazis and free French. Instead, stay focused on Bogie and Bacall as they fall in love with each other both on-screen and off. And don’t forget to whistle.
The Big Easy – No less an authority than Jimmy Buffett has declared New Orleans to be the northernmost part of the Caribbean, and this movie gives you an idea why. Dennis Quaid is a young, carefree New Orleans police detective (with the worst Cajun accent you have ever heard) trying to romance the newly arrived pretty district attorney Investigator played by Ellen Barkin. The only problem is that while Quaid is showing her the sights of New Orleans, she is investigating him for being on the take! The back and forth repartee is reminiscent of Hepburn-Tracy films, and the unique and exotic nature of the Big Easy (which I love) is on full display.
Havana – Not many critics or moviegoers liked this Casablanca-inspired film very much. Personally, I think it is great. There is a love triangle, of course. The tough American gambler looking for a big score is played by Robert Redford. Raul Julia is the brave intellectual fighting against a corrupt government. Lena Olin is the woman who loves them both. A cliché plot is made more interesting by setting it in Cuba during the days leading up to New Years Eve 1959 when Castro and Che finally won their revolution. Politics are underplayed while the movie focuses on the moral dilemmas of the three main characters. Beautifully filmed in the Dominican Republic.
Romancing the Stone – This one is just plain fun. Michael Douglas is an expat hustler living on the coast of Columbia who agrees to help a traveling New York novelist (Kathleen Turner) when she gets lost in the jungle while running from some nasty people. The plot about treasure maps and giant emeralds takes a back seat to the romance and the laughs (did I mention Danny DeVito?). Turner is the real star as she breaks out of her frightened shell to become a badass woman fighting crooked cops and vicious crocodiles.
Captain Blood – You can’t dream about the Caribbean without having an adventure with pirates! Forget that Disney, overly-produced, overly-marketed CGI crap. Go back to the Errol Flynn sword and sailing ship classic flicks of the 30s and 40s. Captain Blood is his first and best swashbuckling role. Flynn plays the innocent man forced into the life of a pirate with a grin and a wink who still keeps a child-like enthusiasm for the role. The recently deceased Olivia de Havilland is his love interest. Shiver me timbers!
Night of the Iguana – A depressing movie about a drunk ex-priest (a brilliant Richard Burton) leading tours in 1960’s Puerto Vallarta. He ends up collapsing at a jungle hotel where he becomes the object of desire for a teenage seductress; an English spinster; and a booze-swilling, bawdy, take no prisoners dame—the latter played by the irrepressible Ava Gardner. It’s a Tennessee Williams piece, so there is a lot of sexual tension and nobody really ever finds happiness…but it is a great realistic portrayal of life as an expat. (It ain’t all margaritas and beaches, you know.)
The Shawshank Redemption – Yes, it is a prison movie set in New England. But for me it is the penultimate “escape to the tropics” movie. Ninety percent of the film takes place within the gray, oppressive walls of a prison. Andy Dufresne is serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. We hope for his release and identify with his plight because we all have prisons of our own we would like to run away from. In the last few minutes on the screen, we watch and cheer as we finally see our hero find the freedom to live on a white sand beach near a calm, blue ocean. If he can do it, maybe we can too.
Binge viewing bonus…
Miami Vice – The colors are pink and turquoise. The cars are fast. The suits are linen. And the de rigueur accessory for everyone is a sliver coke spoon hung about the neck. This must be Miami in the 1980’s. For five seasons, Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rico Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) work as the coolest undercover narcotics cops in Miami. Pretending to be bad boys while actually being good guys lets them work both sides of the street. Add in Edward James Olmos as the mysterious ex-CIA assassin who is now a police captain (!?) and you have some great television. And, of course, it was one of the first TV shows to use contemporary rock/pop/R&B as theme music. They also get credit for loving Caribbean Soul. In the very first show, Crockett’s tape collection is revealed to include…Jimmy Buffett!
That’s it. I hope these shows and movies help stoke the fires of everyone still dreaming about tropical climates and distant beaches, even now in the middle of a pandemic. Hang in there. It won’t last forever.
For more adventures about traveling south to find paradise,
check out my-soon-to be-released novel,
Driftwood: Stories From the Margarita Road.
Click here to sign up for announcements and info.
__________
This article contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking on a link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
The post Movies and the Margarita Road to Paradise appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
July 27, 2016
There are Places I Remember…
When my wife Cheri and I first began to travel, we went warm: Mexico, the Caribbean, and the Southern United States. We wanted sun and blue water, laid back attitudes, and rum drinks. We were on the Margarita Road. Later, as we grew older, we heard the call of other great cities and places, but we never tired of packing the swimsuits and following the jet stream to hotter climates.
In the garden of the little hotel we used to own in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, we built a signpost showing five of our favorite destinations and one we hoped to visit soon. It always served as a reminder of our years of traveling pleasures. We always hoped it would be an inspiration to our visitors and guests for their own journeys.
These are the places we remember.
New Orleans The final northern outpost of the Caribbean. N’awlins is music, food, witchcraft, ghosts, and love simmering together under a blanket of humidity and history. Walking the French Quarter is a step back in time. You are surrounded by romantic sights and sounds better suited for a gentler age with candlelit bars, mule-drawn carriages, and cobblestone streets. The guy blowing sax in Jackson Square for tips might be the best musician you have ever heard. The white-haired lady behind the counter in some greasy spoon might be cooking the best meal you ever had. New Orleans is all about pleasure—for all the senses. Indulge.
Key West The southernmost city of the continental U.S. is a strange but wonderful mixture of expatriated Cubans; cruise ship day trippers; pirate wannabees; tourists running from the cold; and rogues, rascals and ne’er-do-wells of all kinds running from spouses, jobs or themselves. Yes, Key West is Mecca for Jimmy Buffett fans, but it is also Hemingway, treasure hunters, smugglers, Fantasy Fest, sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico, and the type of party that can only be found at the end of the road. And it is home to one of the world’s great bars: the Schooner Wharf.
Tortola, BVI The British Virgin Islands have always offered shelter: to exhausted European sailors who traversed the Atlantic in wooden ships; to harried pirates and privateers hiding from the law; and to pale, stressed-out tourists fleeing the freezing north. Tortola is a classic tropical isle with jungle-covered volcanic peaks running down to awe-inspiring beaches on blue water. Start out in Road Town where travelers have quenched their thirst on Pusser’s Rum (the official rum of the British Navy) for hundreds of years. Then head up and over the highest peak to Cane Garden Bay, a delightful beach and body of water where you can find sun; water; a great little restaurant run by a sweet fellow named Pouie; the Callwood family rum distillery set back in the jungle; and peace.
Ambergris Caye, Belize is a coral island with no beaches. Instead, there are long wooden docks leading out into the Caribbean where you can sun, lunch or jump into the clear blue water. It has one town (San Pedro) with three streets. Ambergris Caye is the old Caribbean before condos and all inclusive packages took over. Swim or dive the reefs during the day, then settle in with the locals at a dance hall at night. The island is quiet, calm and unbelievably friendly. Everyone you meet—in the hotel, the restaurants and bars, or just walking through the streets of town—will smile and say hello. Ambergris Caye is how the Caribbean once was and still should be.
San Francisco “The City.” Our home for 30 years. Hidden in the shadows of its modern exterior, it is still the Barbary Coast. Eat good pasta and drink cheap red wine in North Beach. Party all night long in the after-hours clubs south of Market. Take a cable car up Nob Hill to hear the Grace Cathedral Choir before stumbling back down the hill to the mysterious alleys of Chinatown for dim sum. Every one of San Francisco’s famous hills and the valleys in between has its own neighborhood with its own culture, food, music, and fun. The City By The Bay sits on a fault line while hanging over the rim of the continent. Perched on the crumbling edge of the world, San Francisco does the only thing it can. It keeps on dancing.
Havana America has no greater love/hate relationship than the one it has with Cuba. From Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill, to Meyer Lansky and the Mob running the rackets from Havana, to Fidel and Che thumbing their noses at the US government, Cuba has been part of America’s consciousness. Havana draws us for its history, its island beauty, its music, and mostly for its people who have showed the world that poverty and politics cannot diminish the pounding rhythm of the carnival of life. Deep in our Caribbean souls we long to see Cuba. We will go there.
The post There are Places I Remember… appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
Stories of Adventure and Escape
From Conrad’s Lord Jim to Stevenson’s Treasure Island, there has long been a great tradition in literature about taking off to travel the world–usually to someplace hot and tropical. Whether it is about expatriates, travelers, or people just on the run, stories of finding happiness on a deserted beach have long fascinated me.
The books listed here are some of my personal favorites. They encouraged my own travels and eventually inspired me to write about those journeys. I advise some caution when reading them, though. You may find yourself packing a bag and boarding a flight before you know it.
Tales from Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett (1989) Buffett, the Caribbean troubadour and barefoot CEO of an entertainment and restaurant empire, has written a number of best-selling books. This one is his first and my favorite. It is a volume of semi-related stories where the main characters all have a yearning to run away to the tropics, whether it be Key West, the Caribbean islands, New Orleans, Mexico, or Mississippi. Reading these stories will make you want to quit your job and head south.
Don’t Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk (1965) When Cheri and I first told our friends about moving to Mexico to run a small hotel many responded by asking “Have you read “Don’t Stop the Carnival?” We had, and we still wanted to go. Wouk is famous for his novels The Caine Mutiny and Winds of War. However, in the mid-1950s he decided to leave it all behind and buy a hotel in the Caribbean. His adventures, or rather his misadventures, formed the basis for this novel. Funny, sad, and puzzling, it shows the difficulties for an American to adapt to life in the third world where the pain of living is countered with a never-ending party.
On Mexican Time by Tony Cohan (2000) Tony Cohan and his wife abandoned life in the fast lane of Los Angeles to set up housekeeping in the expat artist retreat of San Miguel de Allende, México. He relates with great humor that difficult task that each gringo experiences in adjusting to a country that seems to stand still a great part of the time. He appreciates the beauty of a culture that puts family and friendship above earning money but suffers the aggravation of a society that puts little emphasis on speed or efficiency. The duality of Mexico is wonderfully portrayed in this book.
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost (2004) When his wife is given a job working on a tiny island in the South Pacific, Troost thinks he is moving to paradise. However, once there he is woefully out of his element: scornful of a way of life which dresses men in sarongs, considers an old recording of the Macarena as the best music ever and dissolves in panic when the weekly beer boat delivery is late. He is also bothered by the fact that the beautiful tropical beach near his house doubles as the public latrine. However, eventually, he comes to understand the locals, then to love them and finally to join them by “going native.” This memoir is an entertaining and absorbing meeting of cultures story.
In Search of Captain Zero by Alan Weisbacker (2002) Weisbacker has lived enough lives for several people: surf bum, big-time drug smuggler, television and movie scriptwriter, creator of “Miami Vice” and best selling author. At the age of fifty, he decided to go looking for his long lost surf buddy and smuggling partner, Captain Zero. In a camper with only his dog for company, Weisbacker starts south through Mexico and beyond heading for the tropical jungle where Captain Zero was last seen. Along the way, he ponders the zen of surfing, the differences between tourists and travelers, life in the Third World, and ultimately issues of age, friendship, and the meaning of life.
A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett (1999) This nonfiction work is a combination autobiography and a journal of Jimmy’s trip around the edges of the Caribbean in a seaplane to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Navigating through Central and South America, Jimmy heads from Florida to the Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Colombia, and the Amazon River. He talks about a life which led him not only to become a successful author and performer but also took him on an endless adventure through the tropics. Jimmy’s love for life and the places it can take you is infectious and fun.
Dirty Blonde and Half Cuban by Lisa Wixon (2005) A novel about an upper-class American girl who discovers in her early twenties that her real father is a Cuban man her mother loved long ago. Determined to meet him, she travels to Cuba where she becomes entranced by the heritage she never knew she had. As she searches Havana for her father, knowing only his first name, she ends up embracing the street life of young Cubans and, like many of her new friends, becomes a prostitute for rich Europeans visiting the island. The paradox of a country proud of its revolutionary leader and despising of its own corrupt and inefficient government is an eye-opener for the main character and the reader alike.
The Fire Never Dies: One Man’s Raucous Romp Down the Road of Food, Passion and Adventure by Richard Sterling (2001) Travel can be about many things: cooking, eating, sex, adventure, love, sailing, flying, and discovery not only of new places but of ourselves. These stories by travel writer and food connoisseur Sterling touch on all of these things and more as he journeys from the tiny pueblo of Mulege in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula (one of our favorite “secret” places), to southeast Asia, Africa, India, and Europe. The author dines on exotic meals and romances even more exotic women. The stories sometimes border on the fantastic and are presented in a Hemingway-esque style of machismo, but always with tongue in cheek and obvious enthusiasm for the next strange place or person the world might put in his path.
Please Write for Details by John D. MacDonald (1959) The late John MacDonald was known as the creator of the Travis McGee mystery series and one of the giants of the mystery genre. However, in the late 1950’s he wrote this little novel (long out of print and available only in used editions) about a summer art school in Mexico. The plot takes a back seat to the character studies of the local Mexicans, the expats who run the school and the visiting American students who react to Mexico in many different ways. The interplay of personalities and cultures makes for great reading and the portrayal of the different types of people drawn to visit or live in Mexico is right on target.
Driftwood: Stories From the Margarita Road by Anthony Lee Head (2020) My own novel will be available soon. One review describes it as “Joseph Conrad collides with Jimmy Buffett…” In Driftwood, American runaways come to a small Mexican beach town searching for a home and a second chance. Their adventures in the unpredictable, hedonistic, and sometimes frightening land south of the border are narrated by Poppa, the owner of a local beach bar, who is trying to make sense of his own vagabond life. This novel explores how we respond to basic needs for love, friendship, and emotional survival when the heart is cast adrift and alone in a new, unfamiliar place.
If you would like to know when Driftwood: Stories From the Margarita Road is available for purchase
(online or in your local bookstore), join my email list here.
__________
This article contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking on a link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
The post Stories of Adventure and Escape appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
July 27, 2015
Saying Goodbye to a Mistress
There are places that are as much anchors of our life as any person or event. Their mythology becomes ours…Their history is our history.
San Francisco’s North Beach is like that for me.
North Beach is a strange misty place, part yesterday and part today. Born out of the Gold Rush’s Barbary Coast, it became the rough and tumble center for San Francisco’s Italian immigrants. It was made of churches, bars, and restaurants with cheap pasta and homemade red wine.
After WWII, it was a place for the new sounds of Jazz and the sweet smell of good grass. The Beats settled in…Kerouac, Ginsberg & City Lights. Rod McKuen recited poetry at the Hungry I and Lenny Bruce shot up in the rooms of cheap Broadway hotels. Strip clubs and Blues clubs. Carol Doda and Mike Bloomfield.
By the Seventies, North Beach was almost acceptably hip…politicians and media types filled the bar stools. The new San Francisco Renaissance. Ed Moose ran the Washington Square Bar & Grill dead center in the middle of it all, hosting Willie Brown and Herb Caen and any celebrity worth their status with style and his own SF type of class.
The kids behind the bars and in the back rooms paid attention and eventually as the years passed they got their turn to run North Beach. New bars, new clubs, new restaurants…but all with the same old spirit holding firm to a magical place in a golden City. Out of that time came Amante. (It means “Mistress”).
“The Boys”…Wizz and Mike… put it all together many years ago. They brought along the good ones (Eric, Fredo, Pat, Nicole and so many more) and filled the bar with that perfect mix of the Bridge and Bart babies and the old Chartreuse drinking characters from the nearby streets. Out of work bartenders, strippers between shifts, hustlers from nearby Chinatown, and millennial tech boomers with more money than sense…they all lined the bar at Amante. The boys welcomed old friends and made new ones. They poured an honest drink and hosted legendary parties. For over a decade Amante was part of the heart of North Beach.
Now…the world turns again.
Tomorrow night Cheri and I will join a few invited friends gathering to say goodbye as Amante prepares to close. Hugs and drinks and kisses and laughs and tears will follow. Then Mike and Wizz will each move on in his own chosen direction (nothing lasts forever) and Amante will cease to be.
Still, the Boys have in their own way added to the mythology, honored the past, and renewed the spirit that is and will always be North Beach.
For that…Thank you Wizz. Thank You Michael.
Salute.
The post Saying Goodbye to a Mistress appeared first on Anthony Lee Head.
