Yep, it was nice while it lasted!

But all good things must come to an eventual end.

I originally bought “Low Key!” port of Gallatin, Tn. around 1995, and lived aboard the 48’ Gibson style (actually it was a CARLSCRAFT, Carl Gibson’s nom de boat-building, during I believe a bankruptcy period) houseboat until this year.

It had a sport keel as you can see, so it could handle a three or 4 foot chop if you needed to.

It had twin “Crusader” (marine adapted Chevy short-block V-8 bored out to 327’s) engines that could pull six water-skiers.

The cuddy-cabin down below sported a king size bed.

My galley had a dishwasher, stainless steel fridge, microwave oven with a hot-air toaster thing.

The galley was amidships on the middle deck, there was a rear master state room with a draw-able vinyl curtain on a track on the ceiling, the state room was about 12’ x 14’.

The pilot house was up a curved stair, and was also about 12’ by 14’.

Completely glassed-in with a patio style door for entrance, the 8’ wide wet-bar delineated the upper deck from the galley deck.

To the right of the bar was my combo washer and dryer.

The interior was completely paneled in teak. 

The best  place to steer was from the flybridge.

The wheel-house looked like this, when I looked like that, and this sometimes:

 The staged shot was taken when I was trying to self-produce a shlock-horror film entitled

“Urban-Catfish!"

an obvious take-off on  “Urban Cowboy!” (i.e. Monster catfish inhabits a lake outside Nashville (which was huge at the time, Nashville not the lake) eating nude swimmers, with lots of country music, and houseboats (at least every one at my dock was game).

I had a great original score lined up, and the most monstrous thing about it was going to be stupid cat-fish whiskers that whisked people off of boats, banks, and docks.

It was also going to feature an overhead shot ala Esther Williams of nude butts doing routines to a song of mine entitled “Moon-tannin’ “!

We actually got into casting and pre- production when the pooch got screwed by
(you just can’t make this shit up), Elvis’s actual stepbrother, the (I didn’t pick her) leading lady who apparently was extremely fundamentalist and objected to the theater group who we were relying on to shoot this thing who’d been making side money at Halloween with a “Haunted woods!” venture (said lady’s phone number I remember actually started with the area code or exchange “666”).

Anyway, this was at a time of the proliferation of what were called “Z” grade movies.

Mom and pop VHS rental stores were everywhere, and everyone had seen all of the movies that were available at the time already.

So it just so happened that anything you could put on video for a couple of years was worth a million bucks.

Now the only person who put any money into any of this was me.

I got a great picture, poster, and some very eager, hot, gorgeous p___-___g out of the deal before it was over.

And, oh yeah.

I wrote it originally while on some kind of narcotic pain pills while recovering from knee surgery and during a waking dream, which if you’ve read my blogs before then you already know that sometimes on awakening I have.

In a half-conscious state I saw this entire film in that dream, and was able to actually direct it as I went.

I then spent the next few weeks of recovery typing it out on a word processor (thank’s Nancy) and went from there.

But now it was costing me about $16,000 a year (insurance and slippage) for it to float at the dock and rot for want of maintenance.

The Saint Johns river where I had it docked, rises and falls as much as 10 feet with the tide.

So in order to enter or exit the boat, I first had to climb down a 10 foot ladder vertically strung dockside, and while holding on with one hand to the ladder, over 30 feet deep river water I would grab a ride rope with a boat hook.

Then pulling the boat within reach of my right foot, I would have to grab the rail with my right foot and pull it all over dockside until I could stand with my right foot on the deck, then sling my left foot over the railing and stand up.

Then I could let go of the dock.

And right now I’m still learning how to walk again.

So since there’s not much of a market right now for houseboats that would need some TLC, and only get 2 miles to the gallon of gas, I sold it last week for a dollar.

But what the hell, I gave away  a Jaguar when I left Nashville.