Heaven Is a Beach Bar
There’s a version of heaven that resides at a beach bar.
It’s mid-afternoon and the warmest part of the day has passed. Wood and bamboo come together to face the ocean to the west, and above the crashing waves a sun slowly slides to a distant part of the world. It’s a place where the sand and bar floor are one. Shirts and shoes are not required. Shoobies beware.
Along with sun kissed skin and sand from head to toe, you’re blanketed with the feeling of satisfaction from a fulfilling morning. Now, you face no obligations or worries for the remainder of the day. You’re next few hours require watching people pass and drinking just fast enough to beat the cold’s escape, but slow enough to enjoy every sip and delay any need to get up from your seat. You time it perfectly so tipsy joins you for golden hour. It’s that subtle inebriation that has you thinking about faith, purpose, and the beauty of the world in a new light.
Crashing waves and chirping birds make up the background noise, but there’s also music. There’s sticky bass riffs, guitar chops on the off beat, complementary horns, bongos, steel drums, and other auxiliary percussion that can be mistaken for the clicks and clanks from behind the bar.
When the temperature stayed below my age and snow piled to my line of sight this past winter, I would longingly envision the oasis above. I tried to create a passageway with this mix of reggae and samba, knowing that soon enough I’d get to taste this flavor of heaven again.
The Starting 5
Album of the Month: Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. by Harry Styles
There’s a few male pop stars who successfully lure me into fan boying, including Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, and Harry Styles, to name a few.
There’s a lot going against Harry Styles in my simple mind. He’s a reality show contestant turned boy-bander. He drove a wedge in my guy Jason Sudeikis’s marriage. And he comes up with dumb album names like Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
But he also crushes on SNL and can act in movies like Dunkirk. He runs marathons and has Pink Floyd-inspired tattoos. He continues to create hits that make me want to dance even though they tell me to “Dance No More” and the lyrics are provocative (“One time is alright / Two times is one too many”). His albums surprisingly rip, particularly Harry’s House and KATTDO (damn it, am I becoming a Stylist? Er, Styler? Sty Guy?).