Immature Adult Content

Walgreens on Duval Street occupies the former Strand Movie theater which paradoxically enough showed pornographic movies before it went completely out of business. Nowadays it is a most respectable pharmacy and knick-knack store with lots of entirely suitable souvenirs including modest t-shirts of the family type. Others however sell nasty messages on stupid t-shirts for everyone to see and enjoy...

The City of Key West is pondering the first amendment, and the pondering isn't going anywhere in a hurry. T-shirt stores on Duval Street are presenting a poor image of the city which must come as something of surprise to many of the 3.3 million visitors to the Southernmost City, who come here to drink and do things they wouldn't dream of doing at home. The problem is simple enough, people buy t-shirts with unwholesome messages on them, so store keepers display the t-shirts in their windows and people who don't like the messages complain. The city tries to react and round the robin we go.

For some reason I cannot fathom your typical t-shirt shop owner in Key West is Israeli. Its as though there is someone apportioning t-shirt stores to Israeli immigrants and no one else. This must be an exaggeration but it doesn't seem that way. The other weird thing about this situation is that people must be buying these gruesome articles. I mean, shopkeepers wouldn't put them on sale unless people bought them. I have never seen anyone ever parading around in one of these nasty t-shirts. And yet someone must be buying them; it stands to reason.

So the City Commission has formed a committee to inspect the stores and check out the visuals and they say lots of stores have voluntarily cleaned up their displays and everyone is delighted. However things are still pretty raunchy. Granted Key West is reluctant to sell itself as a family destination at certain times of the year, Fantasy Fest springs to mind of course, but the Chamber of Commerce makes a strong pitch for Key West as a family destination. And then our eager shoppers get to stroll past these t-shirts.

Of course not everything is crude. I rather liked this display of underwear as Art.

Campy perhaps, but humor is the essence of camp. The other stuff is just puerile and stupid. However it seems rights to freedom of speech impede anyone from preventing a store owner from inflicting this important message on passersby:I mean really, the first amendment?

The other thing is that one member of the city commission owns Ricks complex that includes some sort of strip bar called the Red Garter. I've never been in so I'm not sure what goes on up there but this young lady was outside the front door touting for business, and her IQ was nowhere in evidence unlike the rest of her:What happens in Key West stays in key West, that ever adaptable phrase.

I have no idea who buys these t-shirts, nor why. One can only assume that the buyers are drunk out of their gourds and that there are drawers filled with this rubbish across the land, impulse purchases regretted in the fullness of time. I cannot bring myself to imagine the happy reveler getting home and stone cold sober going downtown to his coffee shop for a Saturday morning breakfast with his buds bringing them this cheery message on his chest:Is the city commission being silly to ask the merchants to stop displaying this stuff so prominently? For the stout of heart here is a selection I found while strolling Duval. Not for the squeamish, I fear.

Observing this happy couple getting a pedal down Duval I was forced to wonder if their pleasure in Duval was enhanced by the messages. It didn't seem likely and relying on voluntary compliance seems unlikely too.

In view of all this lurid action on Duval I have to wonder if its me and am I just a nerd, because when I think of what appeals to my inner fantasy my mind wanders from sex for sale to the true delights of life on the edge, as illustrated by this poster I saw at the Triumph dealer in Fort Lauderdale:

What could be more exciting than a Thruxton on a winding mountain road? Nothing I've seen printed on a t-shirt that's for sure.