Fantasy Fest Parade 2003
Oct 27, 2003
The 25th Anniversary of America's favorite Halloween Party has set all kinds of new records, good and bad.
The candidates for King and Queen turned up the fund-raising heat this year and collected a total of $428,000.00. The previous record was $186,000.00, which everybody thought was pretty remarkable. This donation will help to cover budget shortfalls in many outreach programs, and is just an astonishing amount of charitable contribution.
Another record was set by the sheer number of bare boobies on display. In previous years, city fathers have either cracked down hard on nudity, or looked the other way. This year, pasties were supposed to be required. This was completely ignored. There were even topless women on floats, which makes it pretty difficult to avoid law enforcement personnel. I had to wonder if photographers were taking pictures, or collecting evidence for prosecution.
The down side of all the bare boobies was the sheer number of idiots who felt it was their duty to fondle them. For the first time, fist fights were breaking out all over. The thing about bare boobies is that they may be attached to a woman, but they belong to the gorilla that is squiring the woman around. If anyone so much as looks at them too long, the gorilla goes ape. It's hard to avoid looking at them, so you can see the problem right there. So, while more bare boobies may be a good thing, it's also a bad thing. There were way too many fights over bare boobies.
Another dishonorable mention goes to nudity in general. In a country where a substantial proportion of the people are overweight, clothing is a very good idea. Seeing men who were 40-60 pounds over anything resembling an ideal weight walking around in g-strings and nothing else will make ones eyes water. Of course, these are the guys with greasy comb-overs, grey chest hair and gold chains. Is your appetite gone yet?
Parking is always a nightmare, but this year it was fisticuffs over the parking spaces. I don't know if we got a grumpy crowd, or if the moon was trined with Uranus, or what, but I saw people physically pounding the hell out of each other over parking. Key West doesn't really do road rage, since the island is only two miles wide and four miles long. It sure was interesting to watch these mainlanders show their asses.
Enough negatives. The parade this year featured some new things that were incredible. A group of Mummers from Philadelphia came down, and they covered almost an entire city block in the parade with their colorful and feathery costumes. Our newly re-elected mayor surrounded his float with people in chicken costumes, taking a funny swipe at the folks who have issues with feral roosters and hens in their yards.
Keys Kayak Company built a float around the theme "Galactic News Television", and beamed pictures of the crowd lining the parade route up to jumbo monitors on the float. Really cool interactive stuff. The winners of the Pretenders in Paradise Costume Contest on Thursday night displayed some incredible costumes, and a couple of them were twenty feet wide with huge headdresses. Fantasea Weddings had an ephemeral underwater chariot drawn by seahorses. Really beautiful.
There were 65 different entries in the parade, and it took almost two hours to pass my location. It was a great way to celebrate twenty-five years of Fantasy Fest, and a great way to cap off a week long celebration full of fun and foolishness.
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Honorarily Conched
Sep 23, 2003
One rite of passage for those who move to Key West, as opposed to those who were lucky enough to be born here, is the bestowing of the Honorary Conch Certificate. Basically, it means the people who live here have decided you can stay. God help you if they decide that you shouldn't.
The criteria are simple: you have to live here for seven years before you are eligible. Now, anywhere else on Earth that might not seem so hard, but with the here-today-gone-tomorrow mentality on this island, seven years is a loooong time.
In seven years, I have had three different apartments sold out from under me, and two of the new owners doubled the rent overnight. We're talking maybe 250 square feet costing $1500 a month. Just like Manhattan. Only, the wages here are nothing like the wages in the real world.
The great company that I worked for got sold, and five years of my time, committment, and soul resulted in a layoff note.
Hurricane Georges was my 40th birthday present. We haven't had a real one since, but we gear up every September for the big one that is going to blow us all to Kingdom Come.
And while we get some of the most fantastic visitors in the world here, there are more than a fair share of the biggest jerks in the world here every year, too. The balance seems to be tipping, but maybe that's just me.
So seven years is a lot longer than you would think. When my friend called and told me that he had arranged for my Honorary Conch certificate to be presented on my birthday, I had to do a stock-taking and figure out whether I thought I had earned it or not.
When I got there Sunday, and saw all of the friends who had showed up, and the 90 year old Mayor Emeritus of the Florida Keys, Wilhemina Harvey herself, there to present the award to me, I realized that every blessed minute of it has been worthwhile. These are some of the best friends I have ever had, and I have learned to appreciate the true meaning of the words "best friends."
That lesson was worth a little hardship. So say hello to the latest Honorary Conch in Key West!
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The Poker Run
Sep 23, 2003
Each year in Key West, as our short summer season puts us all to sleep for two months, we awake with a jolt as the Poker Run comes to town.
Motorcycle enthusiasts from across America convene on the Florida Keys for an annual meet&greet focused on raising money for a number of worthy charities. The meeting is called a Poker Run because members and participants stop at a number of bars and other locations in the Keys and select playing cards. The people with the best poker hands win chances at a Harley and $20,000.00 in prize money.
That's the simple description. What really happens is that 12-15,000 motorcycles end up in Key West on Saturday and Sunday. Duval Street is closed from Sloppy Joe's to Southard Street, and the bikes are lined up on both sides of the street. This year was the largest and most successful Poker Run ever, with more participants than any year before.
Before you think that this many bikers in one place is a dangerous thing, bear in mind that a substatial portion of bikers in America are doctors, lawyers, accountants and business professionals with large discretionary incomes. They bring a lot of revenue to businesses in the Keys during a very slow period. So, by and large, most of us are happy to see them.
Some are not, of course. The sound of motorcycles revving engines and burping pipes at all hours of the night and day does become wearing after a day or two. Law enforcement professionals can issue noise citations at $100 per violation, but most of the bikers just take the ticket and roar off down the street anyway.
The Poker Run is just one more fun thing to see and experience in Key West. It also means that Fantasy Fest is only a month away!
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Summertime....zzzzz
Sep 10, 2003
Every year we pretend like it will never get here, and every year it does. Come Labor Day, on the first weekend in September, we have one giant party and everybody in South Florida heads to Key West for the weekend. After that, it's dullsville until Fantasy Fest at Halloween.
Now, one would think that two whole placid, peaceful months without visitors in a tourist town would be heaven. And in many ways, it is. There's no walking backward while slow moving tourists move in waves of four or more across the sidewalk you have to use to get to work, and there are far fewer silly questions like, "Does the sun set only once a day?"
But the truth is, it's a tourist town, and most people work in bars, restaurants, and guest houses. So come September, we laminate four twenty dollar bills, and pass them back and forth depending on the hours we work. Early workers get them first as tips in room service, and they start us off with early rounds (it's dark under the house, you know)and the early bartenders use them for a shifty after work, then they are passed to the princess happy hour bartenders, who then turn them over to the dancers late, and the dancers show up with them for early/late breakfast, and the cycle starts again.
Key Westers refer to this as "Sister Season", since you know every one in town, and the possibility of having sex is nil to incestuous.
Of course, with no party-going visitors, we have to take up the party slack. The pressures of Lee Press-on Smiles relax a little, and some of the folks who never cut loose, cut loose. Gossip abounds. And right in the middle of the boredom come the tropical storms.
Ah, Summertime in Key West. The visitors who know come now, and find out what it's really like to live on a beautiful tropical island in a small town where everyone knows your name. It's either Hell, or Heaven, depending on how badly you behaved last night. The important thing is to take turns being the town drunk!
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Villa Vizcaya
Aug 9, 2003
Okay, technically Vizcaya is not in Key West, but after only seven years, I thought a trip to Miami might be appropriate. My friend Mike and I loaded up the land yacht, and set out for the city of light last Sunday afternoon to spend some time with a friend who lives in Coconut Grove.
Back when Miami was primarily a mangrove swamp on the edge of the Everglades, a lady named Mrs. Brickell owned a very large quantity of the land that downtown Miami now rests on. In 1909, she sold about 175 acres of the land to a man named John Deering, heir to the International Harvester Company fortune. He built a 16th century style Italian villa on the shore of Biscayne Bay, complete with gardens, fountains, and everything else you could possibly want in a palatial residence, and used the remaining acreage as a farm to support the big house. Parcels of the land were sold off after his death, and those parcels became the current Coconut Grove. Nuff said.
The house itself is a fantasy work of art. Mr. Deering travelled extensively through Europe and brought back many mementos of his journey. Each room of the house is dedicated to a particular period or style of European history, and it has to be seen to be believed. From the entry foyer, with its statue of Bacchus/Dionysus from the ruins of Pompeii, to the hand-woven Flemish tapestries of the dining room, it is a wonder. I certainly believed the tour guide when she stated that the chairs in the house alone are valued at more than 14 million dollars.
Ceilings are not usually a strong decorative point for me, but at times, it felt as though we were in the Vatican or the Uffizi. Mr. Deering brought several complete ceilings home with him, and rooms were constructed around his acquisitions. The ceiling of the Versailles sitting room, while painted in Italy, fit quite comfortably with the Louis XV chairs and furnishings.
The gardens of the property form a perfect stage for the incredible house and its furnishings. Massive statuary from Rome, Greece and Egypt flank the main mall, and follies, grottoes and fountains complete the design. Strangely enough, the carefully manicured grounds run right up to mangroves on the shoreline of Biscayne Bay. It is hard to imagine how they manage to garden so beautifully right on the salt water. Canals representative of Venice criss-cross the gardens, and gondoliers once rowed the guests through the tree-lined property.
It is impossible to do justice in writing to this incredible piece of architecture, and to the imaginative use of design throughout. For some pictures that will give you a pale comparison to reality, check out Villa Vizcaya at www(.)VillaVizcaya(.)org. The site requires Flash.
Considering that this was my first trip to Miami, the next one is going to have to be a humdinger to compare with this one.
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- Latest reply: Aug 9, 2003
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