Key West

Continuing my travelogue of my Southeast road trip, I present to you dear readers my account of Key West:

If Florida is America’s Wang, then Key West is the fetid kidney stone. Part of the reason I say this is because I hate Jimmy Buffet and his “music.” I hate that moronic Island image of dissolution and anthropomorphic parrots clutching mixed drinks with novelty umbrellas. There is no way for me to approach Key West other than from a position of absolute disgust; there is very little if anything there that is of redeeming value, not even Ernest Hemingway’s home. In fact, one figure that looms much larger than Hemingway is Captain Tony Terracino, the boat captain/gun-runnner/hustler/former mayor of Key West. Only Key West would elect a mayor whose personal motto is: "All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego -- brains don't mean a shit."

The city appears to be inhabited by a sizable number of leather-skinned drifters. C. theorizes that since it never gets cold there and alcohol is in abundance, they are drawn to Key West like moths to a flame. Two of the street denizens of Key West are an old man who resembles an 1840s prospector (beard, three teeth, crazed look in eye) and a younger man of considerable height who looks like he’s down to his last thimble of brain cells. Both wander up and down the main street of Key West, perpetually shirtless and sunburned, rambling at each other and passersby. As I pass the prospector, he mumbles a half incoherent “what’s up, man?”

The beaches are filled with hobos. We stop at the AIDS memorial beach and find a shirtless homeless man with long, stringy hair throwing Frisbees against a brick wall. To what end we cannot tell. Covered picnic tables along the beach are covered in recumbent drifters, male and female. It begins to rain so hard that not even the picnic shelters will protect them, so they retreat to the men’s public restroom. C. notices that both male and female hobos take refuge there. There is no end to the skankyness.

We stop at Sloppy Joe’s for lunch. The place is packed with middle-aged white people and there’s a guy on stage doing solo versions of practically every song in the Allman Brothers catalog. This can’t be the bar Hemingway frequented. It is the same bar, but it’s not the same. It’s been honky-fied to the extreme. It’s the sort of place I could imagine Walker (Texas Ranger) putting down some gun runners in tight jeans. It’s almost the Double Deuce, but not quite. The prices at Sloppy Joes are ridiculous. I wind up paying somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 dollars for a hot dog, fries, and a drink.

We go to a sex shop; this is the first bona fide sex shop I’ve ever been in, but there is nothing here that I haven’t seen in a Spencer’s Gifts or similar establishment. It amazes me how places like Spencer’s are mainstreaming filth and marketing it to a younger generation than ever before; in Podunk, Spencer’s (a store that sells vibrators, mind you) is located next-door to a Kay-Bee Toys store. The shop in Key West is much larger, about the size of a stand-alone drug store. Every possible form of ribaldry is catered to. One of the notable products sold at the sex shop is an 18 inch long, 6 inch diameter dildo called “The Great American Challenge.” “Are you up for it?” the package asks.

A bird pooped on my head while we were out on the street. Probably the second time in my life that it’s happened. That it happened in Key West is no coincidence in my mind; it’s just a nasty place like that.

On our way out of town, C. decided that he just had to have coconuts to take home. We pulled over into a parking lot on Highway 1 and C. and K. walked across the road to procure them from the coconut trees that in all likelihood belonged to the municipality of Key West. I would have no part of this. I wasn’t going to climb a tree on the side of a major highway for a giant seed. C. was of course undeterred. With hundreds of people driving by, he scaled a tree and began throwing down the death pods. At one point a police officer drove by, but to my surprise he took no action.

So, with several coconuts aboard we made our way northward, back to what may be considered the U.S. proper.

Ten-Thirteen

Snapshots of today:

While on the bus another driver came over the two-way radio. There was a bit of hesitation in his voice, as if he was unsure of how to convey what he was seeing:

"Route 9 to base. I'm up here on East Market. You know the stop in front of Food Lion? Well, someone has done a ten-thirteen in there. You better bring someone up with a pressure washer to clean it out."

On campus while waiting for the bus, two black girls commenting on a parcel of men gathered around a low-rider car blaring "Crunk" music:

"Tell me he doesn't have a spoiler on that Chevrolet Cavalier."

In the class I TA for, the professor asks the students for the definition of "celibacy." There is a 15 second silence as he scans the room. Then, from behind me a nameless student answers in an effeminate Southern accent:

"It means not havin' say-ex."

Alamance County Fair

My mom, dad, grandfather, and sister visited the Alamance County fair over the weekend. My mom emailed me her account of the fair, which I found to be hilarious. If you grew up in Alamance County, I think you'll find this right on the money:

Well, we went to the county fair and rodeo Sat. nite - it was a real trip. I kept looking around wondering if we were in a Simpsons episode. Talk about a rinky-dink fair. We went in one "exhibit" building (complete with a display of award-winning produce that was starting to go bad), and there were plaques on the wall, for "Most Improved" county fair....

I honestly couldn't tell the people visiting the fair apart from the jaded-looking, road-weary carnies. We let Claire ride a bunch of rides, bought some fair food, visited the "petting zoo", visited the "gardens", listened to some "ol' timey" gospel music, looked at the 4-H Club exhibits, and just generally waited for the rodeo to start.

First off, the rodeo clown (his name is Roscoe), walks around trying to get the crowd pumped up, simultaneously while 2 guys in the chutes are prodding and goading the bulls to get them roiled and pumped up too (these were lethargic bulls...Poppy kept wondering if they were on drugs...). The emcee spent 30 minutes thanking and doing plugs for the sponsors, and finally starts introducing the bull-riders, who come running out onto the clay-dirt ring to stand in front of a lighter-fluid-lit line of flame, to the tune of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Each bull-rider is a Cody, or a Casey, or a Troy, or a Brandon, or a Jesse, or a J.B. And the teenagers behind us scream like rock-star groupies every time one is introduced. We have to put our fingers in our
ears. After they're all introduced, the emcee does an invocation, talkingabout"Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord of Lords", and I'm thinking, ok, this is good, I like this.

Then they do the national anthem (some recording of some female singing it, doing the whole soulful lingering of each note, making it go on forever), and each cowboy takes off his hat and holds it over his heart. Some are swaying. Then they jump right into AC/DC's "Back in Black", and the first rider gets ready to come out of the chute, as Roscoe walks around doing his
pitifully unfunny clown bit. About half-way into the rodeo, they decide to take a break and have a dance contest with audience participation. The 3 girls behind us goad one (more goading), a brunette, into going down to show off her stuff. She runs onto the clay ring, along with 4 other girls of similar age (16-19), and they proceed to dance to "Everybody Dance Now". She and another girl get down and dirty, much like the hos in the rapper videos. Roscoe the Clown presides over the contest, with the crowd applauding who they like best. It gets narrowed down to the 2 freakiest girls, and at one point, one of the cowboys comes running out to get his freak on with them. Determined to win the prize, a coveted T-shirt, spray-painted with something similar to "Bar-C Rodeo Dance Contest Winner, Alamance County Fair, September 1, 2007", the brunette vulgarly proceeds to rub her booty up against Roscoe.

I was embarrassed for Roscoe.

When she returned to her seat behind us, I tried to complain loudly with comments like "I thought this was a family show" to your dad, and "You're not going to dance like that when you get older, are you Claire?", she promptly and vigorously shook her head no. I loved the bull-riding though, even though there was precious little of it....