Paul Menta, co-founder of Just a Few Friends, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the upcoming four-day celebration to honor Jimmy Buffet in Key West.
Just a Few Friends will be the second annual favorite son celebration coming up this weekend.
Menta is also the founder of the First Legal Rum Distillery in Key West.
He said, “We’re on our 12th year. It’s really weird saying that. I’m still working every day, but it’s fun. I love it. We have a lot of fun. It’s nice to have something that’s made here in the Keys that has a flavor of the Keys. We’re even now cultivating yeast down here from the Keys. So it’s homegrown. You’re not going to find it anywhere else. It’s good, it’s unique, it’s different. It’s something to represent the Keys.”
Just a Few Friends is an event about remembering and celebrating a lifestyle that’s uniquely Key West.
Menta said, “I love that there’s celebrations all over the United States. I mean, I also love that the state of Florida, I don’t know of any other states, but the state of Florida made every Friday of Labor Day weekend Jimmy Buffett Day in the state of Florida. I see that spread out throughout other states, but hasn’t been declared. So maybe that’ll be something that’ll happen a little bit more in the future. But I love that the whole state’s involved with it. There’s things going on. And then you have Key West. I happened to be here as a as a young man, in the 80s, when Jimmy was still living down here and it’s just interesting to see somebody take all the aspects of Key West, because people always say to me, like, oh, Jimmy Buffett made Key West. I like to think that Key West had a part in making Jimmy Buffett. I mean, it’s been like this for 200 years down here, the lifestyle, the fun, the sense of humor. Then he lived it enough that he wrote about it and just maybe a couple billion people heard what he was talking about, and made it very popular. But it’s good to do the event here, because we wanted it to be different. Because here is kind of the, I guess you would call it the Mecca, for Jimmy Buffett and everything. So we involve local musicians. Because at one point, Jimmy Buffett was the local musician down here, and Jimmy Buffett played cover tunes, a lot of them, very cheaply. So we involved in local musicians. We even have a surprise, it’ll be coming in on Sunday, at the party in the park for everybody. So that’s going to be really cool. It’s just about celebration. It’s hard to talk about somebody passing without having a bit of sorrow. But when you look at all the things and the lifestyle, and I dare you to go find a picture that guy not smiling. I was a little bit upset, I will admit when the amphitheater tickets went up to, like, $1,000 when he was playing this soon to be last show here, and kind of ran my mouth on social media, and then all of a sudden, get a phone call, asking if I’m trying to steal his thunder because he was planning on doing two shows at the Key West Theater, just for locals only. You had to have a Key West ID. You got a paper ticket. It was so old school. So I spent seven hours that day, while people waited in line and just handed out Rum Cakes and water and did public apologies on the internet and stuff. But what really impressed me was that show seemed like he was levitating. I feel like me and my wife and everybody else got to see some history. But how amazing can a person be? So he’s he leaves this legacy behind. He leaves all these things. I know there’s things for the future. There’s more songs out there for the younger guys. So the next generation comes out, but then also the worst everywhere else in the world, Labor Day weekend is like so busy. Down here, it’s horrible. So even in his death, he contributes by making Key West busy, where people can pay their rent, they can come down here and celebrate, and helps out the island still. That really just sums up him. So that’s why we want to give thanks. And we have three charities down here that receive 100% of the money from the ticket badges that everybody wears. We never even see it. It goes to the Community Foundation, and then probably in September, after everything’s all set up and over, they just disperse that out to Bahama Village music program for kids and Reef Relief and this year we added the Key West High School Marching Band. We hope to continue on and do these things because it’s things he was very into.”
There will also be a Second Line Memorial Parade.
Menta said, “After doing that and just seeing the reaction and I did look back and there was some video and when the point came and I said okay, we’re going to stop and I said, Howard, can you play Margaritaville and we’re gonna get everybody to sing. There was a point where everybody was singing. You’ve got, like, 7,000 people singing, belting out Margaritaville. I looked on the video, and I’m like, oh my God. Who is that guy? I was jumping up and down and just dancing. I got caught up in the moment, like everybody did. And when you can do that, there’s just a massive amount of energy that gets put off by that. And I was like, oh my god, we’ve got to do this again, but we need to have more music. There’s a cheeseburger cook off on Friday night that I can tell you was an amazing success, and probably will be sold out soon. I think there’s maybe a few tickets. They just released for more. It’s just fun. And we want activities for people. There’s tours, there’s history walks. People that were here in the beginning, like that helped open up the coconut telegraph for the first Margaritaville and know the stories behind the stories. Thank God he drove down the keys and started writing a song and got here and the rest, as you say, would be history.”
Family members will also be in attendance.
Menta said, “We’re really excited to have Lucy Buffett accepting that and leading the parade. That, for me, just even shows more because my theory is death is easy on the person who’s died, but the people that are left behind in the family and everybody else is living, it’s the hardest on. So when you can see this kind of outpouring and this kind of appreciation, that’s the goal behind this. For the Sunday party in the park as well, there is a VIP section up front and everything. But for locals, you just want to come down there and listen to some music, there’s no charge. Those badges are a donation, and it’s been a rough summer, just come and listen to some music, and enjoy yourself.”
Last year there were more than 8,000 people in attendance.
Menta predicted, “I think we’re going to see about the same. I think we’re going to see a lot of Floridians as well that I’ve heard from driving in, because you can make a long weekend if you’re in Florida and I heard from some guy from Australia. I love that the parade is led by three trash cans with Reef Relief, and they’re in the middle and at the end, and that we are the cleanest parade in the world. When you get done looking at Duval Street after 8,000 people go through there, there’s not a piece of trash anywhere. We’re the only parade in the world I think that everybody is in the parade. The only people that might be on the sidewalk might be some European people that have no idea what’s going on. And they’re like, what’s happening? And they just get pulled into the parade anyway. They’re like, come on, we’re celebrating. Why are you standing on the sidewalk? Nobody’s supposed to be watching this. This is a participation sport. Just bring a big smile, bring your brightest and loudest t shirt, bring a lei, and just get ready to have one hell of a good time.”
For more information, click here: https://www.justafewfriendskeywest.com/