Monkees Peter Tork Passes Away... Memories of Music and Miami and Hurricane History and the Beatles

It's ironic as I heard a Monkees song on the radio channel my husband loves to listen to and usually it's more hard rock from a time when I lived in LA and was listening to Urban Cowboy and doing Disco. I'm not much into "Oldie Goldies" as I'd rather listen to a mix of music, but somewhere old love songs are always playing in the forest whether anyone hears them or not.

I was a kid when the Monkees were doing a weekly show on TV and they seemed more real than the Beatles (don't have a heart attack...) but the Monkees were for the most part American looking kids and many guys in my high school class looked like Peter Tork even though a decade had gone by but long hair was still in style for guys. The Monkees songs played on well into the 70s until Disco finally stole everyone's imagination. Being a Miami kid the Beatles seemed a part of Miami History and the Bee Gees lived up the road on Miami Beach by the bay. Peter was the Monkee that most ignored as girls argued over who was cuter Davy Jones or Mickey Dolenz; Mike seemed older and Peter looked like the boy down the block who went fishing and boating on the weekend. Miami was a fun place to grow up back in the years when Flipper was filmed on a nearby beach and Jackie Gleason showed up in town in search of the Greatest Audience in the world.

But this song.......years after it was first popular stuck in my memory the most. I had a boyfriend (I know every story I have starts like that) and he would sing this song to me often. I won't say his name as he's famous in his way and some love him and some don't but we had good times and secrets and magical mystical arguments while driving at night. Was he the Daydream Believer and I was the Homecoming Queen on the run? Kind of... at least at that point in my life. He sang lots of Monkees songs to me over time with long diatribes on what the song meant to him, to us and to my best friend who graduated the year before. Some relationships are complicated.



What's amazing is that we were sure we lived in complicated times. There were revolutions going on somewhere every day on college campuses and political conventions got messy in Chicago but in Miami they were fun in the sun and another excuse to feel Miami was the center of the world. The Beatles were complicated and political and there was drama over this wife or that. I'm pretty sure today they'd just marry Kardashians or Jenners and make a fortune on make up and fashion but the Monkees were just "fun" and whimsical and not heavy like trying to figure out the song American Pie.

Looking back it was such a simplistic time.... and we believed like believers and accepted silly musical videos years before MTV came out with a daily playlist that showed music videos 24/7 and we didn't care if the Monkees were a put together band they were fun. Seems we needed fun and I've read it said that the Beatles became the Beatles because collectively after JFK was shot and a country was in morning they were ready to live again and laugh and scream over 4 young men from England arriving at JFK to conquer America's teens. My father liked the Beatles. First time I saw them I thought they were a bit boring... yeah, yeah, yeah...   Their songs got better and more complicated and we couldn't "Imagine" that then when they first hit the scene so clean cut they'd become deeply involved in trends, philosophies and more drama like whether Paul was alive or not.



I was raised in the South and I liked other songs.... I still do.



Such a classic song.... how well I remember the look that was in his eyes...

And then after Disco and Urban Cowboy.... fast forward Billy Ray came back and sang his achy breaky heart out and women screamed all over again.



You can't make this up.............

My daughter lip synched to his daughter's songs in high school ...and yeah there's youtube videos somewhere at her and her best friends singing at what we like to call "Camp Academy" in between classes.



We lived in similar times back when we waited for the Monkees to come on with a new show and we were believers in the last train from some place in Clarksville.

Then there's my youngest and Bruno Mars ... we've become so complicated and fancy.



Maybe their charm was their simplicity and their smiles. Who knows. I was a kid. Life was simple. We had football seasons (Go FINS) and Hurricane Season (praying for a hurricane so we got off school and could go to the ocean to watch the waves) and hanging out at the pool all year because we lived in Miami where the world vacationed and we lived life.

So yeah........ a bit of hurricane whimsy.

The Beatles were scheduled to play in Florida but a hurricane came and messed up their schedule so their managers decided on doing some promos and pics of the Beatles in the surf having fun in Florida.

Can't make this up... Hurricane Dora and the Beatles

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1964/09/10/day-off-key-west-florida/

Historian Paul George often has told me that February 1964 was a landmark time for Miami. The Sonny Liston fight was scheduled, the Beatles hit town and Jackie Gleason moved his show to Miami. I was a kid... probably had a mini crush on some cute boy and was praying a hurricane would hit Miami ... and one did! Gotta love Hurricane Cleo... see wishing does make things happen.

Much love..
......Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Instagram and Twitter



Dedicated to my best friend Linda and all my old boyfriends and the city of Miami (including Paul George whose incredible)

Sorry music today ... more weather tomorrow