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.
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?
What happens in Key West stays in key West, that ever adaptable phrase.
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.
Tonight we set the clocks forward an hour, which will be delightful for those of us on the Bravo Night Shift at the Police Department. Up North, also delighted no doubt, the change presages the beginning of the possibility that motorcycle riding can once again become a daily activity. Down South the change of season is marked by Bike Week at Daytona Beach, an event big enough to spill over onto our modest little island. Haute couture is not de rigeur when riding, but even I try not to wear black socks when I'm cruising Duval:
At least he is wearing shoes, a counter culture statement in Key West this week:
The drag of it is that when motorcycles gather in Key west they are almost all of them Harley Davidsons or Japanese cruiser look alikes. Throw in a few BMWs of the hardcore traveling crowd (Key West is as far south as you can conveniently go!) and that is about all the variety you will see on our streets. The name of this store at 600 Duval makes a statement not heard by the bikers:
Its not really surprising to see only cruisers in Key West because the road down here has great views, sure, but its not a challenging motorcycle ride. Youngsters, many in the military, ride crotch rockets, and try to ride slowly: 
It remains rare to see people riding motorcycles around town that aren't aimed at the cruiser market. I did find one guy, a rather taciturn character from Tennessee who warmed the cockles of my heart with his (albeit cruiser) Bonneville:
But Steve wasn't much into conversation and my enthusiasm was not apparently infectious. This next one was wildly enthusiastic, but I knew Frank before he took his "retirement" job with the Sheriff. He was on the road with the Police Department years back and nowadays he commutes to the courthouse by Honda Goldwing, his pride and joy. He talked my ear off and to see one of these 900 pound machines up close was pretty remarkable: 
My 500 pound Bonneville seems heavy to me, but at least it doesn't need reverse gear! Frank is of Cuban descent and is heavily involved in the Latin American biking scene. He's taking his club on a vacation ride in...Venezuela. 
And they are always dropping their rental scooters and breaking their faces and feet. The other Darwin Award winners are the feet draggers and phone users:
And let's not forget the contributions of the late great Captain Outrageous, the investment banker turned artist whose contributions to mobile art are still occasionally visible on the streets of our gentrifying town.
Really, motorcycles are just too much fun even if they aren't Triumphs.
I never wanted to got to the Benihana Japanese Steak House on South Roosevelt but my wife did, in a half hearted way; a reminder she said of childhood. Now of course I regret my intransigence on the subject of dinner-as-theater, because all that's left is the sign and the shell of a building next to the former Martha's, a restaurant that captivated me for years. Martha's was an old fashioned steak house of the kind our parents used to treat themselves to, and they offered prime rib and baked potatoes and all that sort of robust fare that these days one treats oneself to with one eye on the food groups. 
The reason Martha's left a hole in my life wasn't just the occasional prime rib, it was the view I got as I rode by at night looking in the panoramic windows and seeing the diners warmly illuminated by the glow of the lamps on their tables, all set at different levels inside the restaurant, with a back drop of swirling fish tanks. It always looked warm and inviting. Now it too, like its erstwhile Japanese neighbor, is just a shell, not sold in time to capture a portion of the real estate bubble, yet as closed as closed can be, and useless. I'm told the numerous stray cats who hung out in back and were fed on table scraps have been kept nourished by anxious neighbors... spay program anyone?
Old timers in Key West can be desperately superior and annoying as they dredge up memories of a time that is so long gone it seems buried in the Pleistocene Era. Old memories have the value of currency in this town, so here is my contribution to my old timers crotchetiness. This cafe on Duval used to be "El Cacique" (Spanish for the chief) and it was my pleasure to eat breakfast here. It was so long ago I don't remember much about it, but it was where my circle of dock rats would break their daily fast. 
On a more modern note the Coppertone kid on top of this building, the old Dennis Pharmacy has gone. I was not a great fan of the place but I ate there now and again. The pharmacy has moved to New Town in the Professional Building and the cafe has I think found a home on Petronia Street, and now there is a crisp clean modern bank on the corner of United and Simonton. So be it, even though I liked the look of the old place better.
I'd stop all the time riding my bicycle or my scooter down to my job on the waterfront and my wife would order mango bread loaves which we would eat as dessert with butter. The bakery closed after the founder (Cole'z father as it was) sold the operation to people unable to sustain it. However the restaurant store up the street still sells some of the bakery's products so the logo (at the top of this page) is still hanging on in the city. This location became an art gallery for a while ironically (I thought) named Poison, and now? Now its just another in the myriad inconvenience stores that seem to thrive on every street corner in the city.
