tOPSY tURVY

Not what you expect to see when you stop off at Miami Subs for lunch during a long day of answering calls for service at the police department next door. The odd thing was the ghoul with poor dental hygiene was  in the restaurant for the same reason I was. Fantasy Fest requires fuel whether you are the sinner or the sinned against, or in my case a bystander helping tamp  down the excesses.

He was one of eight people including visitors from Miami who not only wore real costumes but together formed a barber's shop octet. At least that was what they sounded like when they burst into song.  

 The fantasy fest lunch started with me sliding into my table across from my wife who arrived before me and ordered lunch as she the teacher was off on Saturday and I the dispatcher was making money on overtime at work with a limited lunch break. I was not best pleased when the freaks ext door leaned over and asked my wife if they could sing her a song...and then the nightingales came forth full throated and as sweet as could be. Color me astonished and my wife delighted. The best moment of Fantasy Fest, hands down, totally unexpected and perfect.

2019  will not go down in my memory as the best year for the annual street carnival one way and another. I just did not gel with event and found myself spectating in the wrong places at the wrong time. The Locals March on Friday night started in a  downpour and I was not  in the mood to wait it out after twelve hours answering the police radio. The weather is hot and sticky and frankly I am ready for a proper cold front after an exceptionally long sticky summer. Climate change may be a fiction or not human caused or whatever the latest line of denial may be but it looks pretty real in a place where tides won't go  down and heat won't go away and hurricanes are ripping things apart everywhere they go. Rant Over; but it's hot enough at the moment to destroy the will to live.  

So as I wandered Duval Street looking for costumes I didn't come across much on Friday. Perhaps they were reserving their splendor for the Masquerade March as the locals' parade is known, now that it isn't populated solely by local residents having some non-tourist fun. On Duval I watched people walk up an down and it was not that interesting. I looked at feet for a while wondering about a thread online I'd seen asking for photographs of footwear on the street. Sounds weird but they had an interesting variety. I didn't.

 Do I sound like a tired old grouch if I say almost bare breasts in public this week are overrated?  I am not interested in getting into a costume myself but I always hope for fantasy, variety, wit and maybe a statement about local politics or issues delivered with humor and good cheer. Instead I get women of all ages who think wit is airing their chests. Perhaps it is in a society as repressed and fearful as this one on this subject, so check out the reaction to these two women embracing a stranger who wanted a different picture for his vacation album:

I can only imagine what a French tourist would think of it all. I saw women topless on French beaches forty years ago when I was in a better frame of mind to appreciate them. On viewing some of my past Fantasy Fest pictures my Italian nephews, farmers by trade, were quite interested in Key West suddenly. I had to give them a reality check about the other 51 weeks of the year. This town is not the Bohemian retreat it once was.

This crowd of costumed revelers were on break between runs cleaning up the streets, maintaining the trash cans and barricades and keeping Duval Street bearable. They were pretty cheerful considering the heat and their physical labor. Which is just as well as their work is indispensable on a crowded street with lots of trash generated.

For me the routine continued through the week. I had managed to snag a lot of overtime thanks to my colleagues' indifference so my routine proceeded mostly unaltered. Rusty is a wonder dog of course with a  few limitations. Heat and crowds don't do much for him so I usually take him for a walk around 4 in the morning before I gird my loins for work which starts at 6. It is always a relief to spend time with Rusty  away from the politics and stressors of work. 

I have been contemplating the fact that after this Fantasy Fest I will only have to work through two more if plans go according to ... plan. The idea is to leave town well before Fantasy Fest 2022 and with my luck that will probably be the best and coolest and most fun carnival of them all. 

Oh and among those delightfully fully dressed troubadours at the beginning of these pictures there was one who called out to me by name. Even looking at him I failed to recognize Joe (and his girlfriend Destiny). Some paint, a wig and a smile and you are someone completely different. One day I shall try it when I am tired of being myself.

Of all the people I saw in public these two cheered me up the most.  Proper costumes:

It's  all in the name of commerce in the end and one supposes the money changed hands and in the end one hopes everyone went home as happy as they could. At the police department the hundred or so officers from our department and support from around the state get a day of rest but the work goes on filing reports about lost stuff, stolen stuff and fractured relationships  and alcohol fueled misunderstandings and poor parking and all the social debris that gets left behind after a blow out party. 

Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

That old Fiddler on the roof got a few things right: swiftly fly the years indeed. Some years you want them to fly in a hurry, others not so much. Or if you are  a dog you wait on the couch for the boss to get home.

Watching, Walking, Painting, Dressing Up

By the time Duval Street gets busy and by the time the private parties are in full swing as it were I am safely tucked up at home resting between one day at work and the next. But with a few minutes to spare during my lunch hour I can get to wander Lower Duval this week of Fantasy Fest.

The Grand Parade is Saturday night and the Locals' Parade now known as the Masquerade March is on Friday but the campy dressing up is underway all week in the "Fantasy Zone" which is basically Duval Street and the side streets off it. The rules while clear do not necessarily mandate good taste or common sense. 

Mild nudity is permitted as displayed here with perfect Fantasy Zone propriety: 

And if body painting is what you want all you have to do is pay someone to paint you, but the painting must go on out of sight of the general public.

There are plenty of spectators at the bars and considering it is still quite hot, near 90 degrees and humid, being half undressed has its own logic.

Like I said taste and lawfulness do not go hand in hand but in the early afternoon Duval Street is mostly given over to costumes though covered nipples are occasionally on display.

I'm not sure what cultural reference is intended with giraffe heads but frequently I am baffled by costumes that refer to trends that have completely passed me by. Giraffe heads? No idea.

Kerb seating is not entirely sanitary in my opinion but the heat gets to people who aren't used to it. I was surprised by the number of people walking the sunny side of the street.

He was looking at Sloppy Joe's somewhat in the manner of a pilgrim and when I noticed his attire I figured he might do well as a sample of some of the public costumery this week brings out in visitors. 

I did see a t-shirt advertising Key West as the home of the bizarre and the non conformist but somehow this drive to be "non conformist"  for a week by  conforming to peculiar notions seems a bit forced. 

  But there is a lot of interest:

Originally Fantasy Fest was dreamed up as a way to bring life to a moribund  winter tourist economy. By the time September came around three decades ago Key West had run out of business and therefore money for the employees of the seasonal tourist trade. Nowadays tourism seems to be a ten month a year proposition with the hiatus all too short in the summer after schools open with a  few quiet weeks before this mayhem starts the winter. Happily some few people make an effort to dress up for the event:

 Some others ignore the whole mess and go fishing instead.

This picture below, struck me as a bizarre juxtaposition between the plastic monstrosity hanging off the front of the hot dog cart and the actual live woman the cart operator was talking to in the back. Perhaps I think too much.

 Sloppy Joe's, a refuge from the sun but not the naked flesh:

I accidentally over exposed this picture but I ended up liking the image of speed, speeding through Duval Street in the way to someplace more serene...?

And then as you stroll casually down Duval Street not only will you pass painted people in person and on the walls but in amongst your ranks you will find people in peculiar and apparently random stages of undress. Act as though it's absolutely normal because it is right now. 

I saw two cheerful people on the steps of Fat Tuesday and they posed happily when I asked. South Pacific anyone?

And among the crowd we  find the usual flow of humanity more or less dressed checking out the scene. 

She did a lot better than I did when I was in a wheelchair. She bopped along without getting stuck or nearly tipping over. I was impressed as I found Duval impossible when I wasn't able to walk.

 I'm not sure whether this electric bike guy was dressed up or was he dressed for business as usual:

This was the speed demon from before shown travelling at his actual, relaxed rate of speed cruising the other way:

 The obsevation deck at the Whistle overlooking Duval Street:

 And so back to the scooter and the end of my lunch break. Time to give my eyes a rest.

Zombie Bike Ride 2019

Over the years the Zombie Bike Ride has become one of the most popular events associated with Fantasy Fest. This is despite the fact the ride is organized as an independent advance event, similar to Goombay, before the main carnival party called Fantasy Fest really kicks off. 

To approach the route after work required me to trail groups of costumes pedalling toward the south side of Key West. Originally the ride originated at the Stock Island bike shop Recycle, which organized the event. That soon proved to be a bad idea  when thousands of riders showed up, 7500 last year according to people who count such things. Crossing the only bridge into and out of Key West with an immense slow moving line of bicycles proved impractical. Not to mention the pre-ride gathering at the side of the Overseas Highway...Something had to be done.

So they moved the kick off location to Pines Park next to the East Martello Tower on South Roosevelt Boulevard. The ride sets off shortly before sunset  with police closing the roads as they go and eventually, in the fullness of time the bicycles and their costumed riders have a street party on Lower Duval where the bars are centered.

This year  I took up a position where I could park my scooter easily as I came straight from work and road closures prevented easy access to the start line where I would usually hang around for a little while. As it was I caught bicycles going "the wrong way" toward South Roosevelt to join the crowd departing from the proper spot. 

As you can see from this long line of pictures the costumes are the thing and this is an entirely child friendly event.

Well let me rephrase that, I saw tons of kids  riding as well as spectating so people who actually have children seem to think this event is child friendly. Good enough for me what has no children or experience with them..

 Cars prohibited. Once can only imagine the driver's astonishment at being so ill informed about the wifdely publicized event that actually closed a main road for a while...