It happened one day a few years ago that I was working in the shipping department at Fast Buck Freddie's and I'd just come in from the alley in the back of the store when one of my co-workers came up all in a lather and said; "Did you see Jimmy back there?" "Jimmy who?" said I, "Jimmy Buffett,of course, someone said he's out back." "No," said I, "but there was some bald dude back there." Which it turned out was the person I had exchanged pleasantries with while I was taking a break from humping stuff into the store. That's as much as I know about the mythical Jimmy Buffett, a singer who inspires a following, some people describe as
cultish:
Jimmy Buffett's public story is all American and it's tied tightly into Key West, where he washed up years ago with a guitar and a desire to sing and those modest beginnings turned into a worldwide following and fortune and all the trappings. Everyone wants a piece of him and now that the
Parrotheads are in town you can overhear guides telling and retelling the myth all around town, his first drink here, his first song there and so forth:
I am really vague about all this, but I believe it's called the meeting of the minds or some such and the acronym
MOTM can be seen all around downtown this weekend:
Buffett no longer lives in Key West but he has a music studio on the waterfront and he owns part of the building where Fast Buck's is located, so my meeting him in the back wasn't exactly an outrageous coincidence. That's the building wherein his restaurant is located:
Margaritaville is where Buffett fans show up year round. Frankly if all cults were like the
Parrotheads I'm thinking the world would be a better place. The music is easy to listen to, the theme of the gatherings as far as I can tell is a bunch of people hanging out drinking until they collapse whereupon they all go home and plan and scheme to do it all again. Mothers need not fear for their daughters when
Parrotheads are in town and the police department doesn't call for back up either. Perhaps they should:
The "nuns" who descended on
Officer Fernandez brought out all his latent shyness as
they crowded round and demanded their picture be taken with him.
"We're drinking to save
your soul !" they cackled at him as they shoved bystanders aside to get their pictures taken. I could well believe it, the bit about his soul; it was barely one o'clock and they were tanked. These cultists are all about being cheerful and they exuded happiness as they stood around in the 500 block of
Duval waiting for the music to start. The
street had
been blocked off since morning with a crew of workers feverishly assembling the band's platform:
Early in the day there were the unmistakable signs of a Buffet gathering on the streets of Key West:
And then
Duval got blocked off, always a sign something's about to happen:
And they wheeled out the food stands and the barbecue and the beer and the party began.
It seems you need never be too old to be a
Parrothead:
Or too young:
Michael the Palm Weaver was doing a land sale business in his usual spot:
And the evidence was there on the street:
They don't call them
Parrotheads for nothing:
There was one dude walking around looking sinister in a top hat. I don't know why but they do give a person a sinister air:
And pirates, who failed miserably in the sinister looking contest, appeared to have taken over La
Concha, the hotel whose balcony overlooked the proceedings:
And a final thought as winter closes in, from the bus of the band that played to the crowd:
Which would be, of course, Key West.
My memories of living in Italy as a young adult are colored by the paperwork required to function in a society governed by so-called Civil Law. There is a pale reflection of that bureaucratic nightmare in the way the state of Louisiana is governed, by laws that some people in the US call "Napoleonic law." Napoleon brought Civil Law to many of the countries he invaded in the course of his career as World Dictator, and in my opinion he did none of them any favors. I much prefer the Napoleon-free Anglo Saxon version of government. You may think the Department of Motor Vehicles is a bureaucratic imposition but you have absolutely no idea what hell is, not when compared to the stamp duties and countersignatures required by the notorious gyrations of Civil Law. Try transferring title to a vehicle in Mexico to see what I mean. Napoleon's reach was exceeding wide, and don't forget his brother Maximillian governed Mexico just long enough to impose his crazy bureaucratic values there.
My sister asked me to get a notarized signature on a piece of paper to clean up some pending land transfers that my family had failed to sort out decades ago - some of them extend back to the Kingdom of Italy when Mussolini was in charge and my grandfather was alive and selling property. She worried that if we waited too long these pieces of land might never get proper title for their owners in Italy and she wanted to have the power to sign off on them on my behalf. A notion that pleased me greatly as I have absolutely no desire to spend time in notary's offices when I am on vacation. However that did mean I had to make the effort to go and visit the Italian Consulate in Miami to get the job done. This was something I dreaded.
I had similar experiences in San Francisco when I lived in California, traipsing an hour and a half north to spend hours sitting around a Nob Hill mansion waiting for some extra-territorial clerk to languidly sign off on my identity and slip me a very expensive piece of paper that I could mail back to my sister for her ongoing battles over our inherited family lands. Every visit reaffirmed in my mind my decision to abandon farming, land ownership and dealing in any way whatsoever with the curse of Civil Law Notaries.
The notary in the Consolate was actually a very nice middle aged lady who smiled sympathetically when I told her I had emigrated almost thirty years ago and barely remembered the rules regarding franking, signing and stamping. She smiled wearily and read the document my sister's notary had prepared. "Let's hope for the best" she said. Speriamo bene...which is the approach one has to take with all Civil Law paperwork because none of the rules are linear and clear. Civil law takes the attitude that citizens are morons and not to be trusted and the State knows best; an attitude that would make any red blooded American boil with irritation. Getting irritated does no good; Civil Law government is not there to serve so patience is a requirement.
In the name of the Italian Republic, on this day, in Miami, etc...etc... Well, wasn't I surprised when Mrs Vilma had me signing the paper, had my signatures stamped and the fee paid, $55 dollars, cash only, and out of there in twenty five minutes, no muss, no fuss. Anglo-Saxon efficiency (!) and I had an hour and a half to go on the meter. I could hardly believe my luck. My head was spinning as I got in the car and tried to figure my way out of the maze of streets that is the Upper Class neighborhood of Coral Gables, wherein lies the Consulate.
My abiding memories of my sister are of a woman on the go, she carried a leather briefcase everywhere she went, a briefcase she still owns thirty years later, begging for interviews, pleading for consideration, signatures and patience. I compare that craziness with my recent ten minute trip to the DMV in Big Pine Key where my Florida driver's license was renewed for eight years, my photograph taken on the spot and my new document issued to me there and then. My wife has renewed by mail without even bothering to show up in the office, as she has plenty of lead time before her birthday in January. Such casualness with the Property of the State would be unthinkable in Italy. Happily I live in America.
It didn't take long for me to find my way through the extravagant suburbs of Coral Gables back to Florida's Turnpike and the road for home. Coral Gables is an exclusive place, the streets wind and twist in a most European way and street signs don't look like normal tinny signs seen elsewhere:
Italy is a great country to visit and I enjoy very much being a tourist, but daily living is just much more pleasant in the land of the free and home of the brave. I get annoyed sometimes when native born Americans assert the US is the best country in the world, because they really have no idea how good it is here. Sometimes I think the US is wasted on native born Americans, people who bitch and moan all the time about government interference and bureacuracy. I wouldn't wish Stamp Duties or Civil Law Notaries on my worst enemies. Hell will be an eternity of standing in line trying to line up the correct signatures on a piece of paper that has no relevance or meaning. I have come to deeply appreciate the value of customer service, and every time I leave this country I have to suck up all my reserves of patience as I remember what it takes to deal with surly clerks and disinterested public employees. Oh and there isn't much in the way of Mexican food in Italy either. But there is in Homestead:
I rewarded myself with lunch at Los Nopalitos on East Mowry Avenue; turn east at the Police Station on Krome Avenue in downtown Homestead. That's the yellow building barely visible in the photograph:
And for $6:80 I had lunch including a Coca Light, gracias, and a pile of steaming hot corn tortillas:
A quick stop at Lowe's to justify driving the car to Miami, and I shoved an outdoor fireplace in the trunk, on sale for just over a hundred bucks. My wife had admired our friends Lisa and Jacques fireplace and I figured she'd like one of her own.
"Have a nice day," the Lowe's clerk said cheerfully and yes, I thought to myself I really will. Nice of you to say it, I wanted to reply but she would have thought I was weird, because she's never lived in Italy and doesn't know how comforting the phrase "Have a nice day" is, especially when it comes from a stranger. 
I spent a couple of decades living in Northern California and the words South Beach conjured up a mental picture of the Italian quarter of San Francisco, hills, Italian stores Caffe Trieste and all the rest. I liked it too, but that doesn't mean I dislike the rather more modest South Beach in Key West. Unlike the San Francisco version South Beach in the Southernmost City is actually a beach, with a restaurant and everything:
South Beach is actually the southern end of Duval Street, more or less the last block intersected by, not unnaturally, South Street:
This is one of the spots in the city where southernmost everything is located, house, guest house, hotel, etc... etc...because this is after all pretty close to the southernmost tip of the continental United States. The Southernmost House has been owned since 1939 by a prominent family of Conchs and they are currently having a tiff with the city over the status of their building. They want more commerce, their neighbors want less and where previously locals were welcome on the premises now they (we) aren't for casual poolside drinks. Bummer because it is quite the structure:
It's quite the pile and people do like their picture taken here:
Though I quite like the details, like their brick driveway:
Across the street is the more modestly proportioned southernmost hotel, one of the southernmost's anyway:
The thing about this location though isn't the architecture though there's lots of it. It's the ocean, more precisely Hawk Channel which sets visitors to thinking. They look out from their perch on the South Beach pier and think about the clarity of the water:
And the fact the Forbidden Island lies just over the horizon, 90 miles away, making Havana closer to Key West than Miami, were there a road over there:
South Beach is one those pocket parks that a little town like Key West does so well, using and taking advantage of every speck of recreational space:
You come, you see, you contemplate a moment, then you leave headed back to the fleshpots of Duval Street:
It didn't strike me as much a dog park but a dog might well appreciate the modest pleasures of the little pier at the southernmost end of the island:
I find the southernmost thing gets a bit tedious, it's as though one has to make a virtue of an accident of geography that of itself imparts no virtue. I guess Duval Street had to end somewhere and it might as well be here.