Fantasy Fest Is Coming

I will, I promise get pictures of people getting drunk on Duval Street but I wanted just one more day of bucolic nothingness from a dog walk. I took these pictures last week when it was raining and Cheyenne and I ventured out far enough east that we got past the rain clouds inflicting storminess on Big Pine Key. We got to West Summerland and all the evidence of the storms was on the ground.

There are holidays in various communities around the world that effectively shut down the community where they take place, one thinks of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Bastille Day across France. In Key West Fantasy Fest is the local holiday that drives everyone a little crazy. This is a town that likes to gather in groups and drink riotously, fancy dress and costumes are much favored also and because this is almost Halloween ghouls and ghosts and leering pumpkins are already popping up all over town thanks to the national obsession with my birthday. Despite the fact, perhaps because of the fact I was born on the Thirty First I loathe dressing up, disguises and all the puerile panoply of the pagan holiday coopted into All Saints' Eve. Which doesn't mean I don't want anybody else to enjoy the holiday. Indeed I hope everyone has all the fun they want and deserve this Fantasy Fest. As city leaders estimate 80,000 visitors is year I am certain much fun will be had while I work...

My colleague Fred has all but convinced me that next year I should put some white paint on my face and ride the zombie bike ride from Stock Island to Higgs Beach and on to downtown. He did it this year, on a night when he wasn't working and loved it. He and his buddies towed a coffin filled with beer on ice and joined a couple of thousand cyclists parading all the way to the Green Parrot. Most years I stand on the sidelines of the so-called Locals Parade on Fleming or Southard and say "Hi!" to people I know who are either scantily dressed, and one struggles to not look at their speedos or their nipples, or they are dressed in outrageous costumes and one struggles not to burst out laughing. Cheyenne stays home as she doesn't do well in crowds.

The locals parade isn't really local anymore, it's been discovered as it has cachet as a local event so everyone shows up and the walk does tend to drag on a bit. But it is easier to escape when you get tired and it does tend to attract some of the local commentary that makes Fantasy Fest fun, local scandals and a few national scandals as well bring some star laughs for onlookers. This is also the week when public intoxication is a bit more tolerated in the fantasy zone of Lower Duval and nearly nude strollers are on display. There is a lot of rather unattractive tut-tutting when older and less buff people strip and walk around, the sort of criticism I find rather crass in a town that claims everyone belongs to one human family. Bad taste isn't a crime and it's not really suave to heap criticism on your neighbor for exhibiting bad taste this week, but snotty newcomers to the traditions of Fantasy Fest do like to pretend that only slim young people should be nude in public.

I have no desire to participate in these displays and were it up to me shopkeepers could find a better way to get visitors to come to town, but we are stuck with Fantasy Fest and we ought to make the best of it, and with good humor and tolerance. I once spoke with Tony Falcone, the founder of Fast Buck Freddie's with his partner years aback and he told me how in the 1970s Key West went dead in summer. The silence and lack of human contact literally drove some people over the edge and he told me stories of spectacular domestic disturbances taken public into the streets as a result of the lack of anything to do. So they created Fantasy Fest, a joke of a parade half a block long that quickly dissipated and repaired to a bar with drinks all round. The thing grew out of all proportion to the initial expectations into what it is today.

There are themed "balls" all week long which require participants to meet dress codes, usually color coded, and there is generally plenty of gathering in homes and bars and so forth. All this culminates with the locals parade Friday evening and the actual float parade down Duval Street Saturday evening and that's my big irritation. I don't care about people undressing like I said, even if they fail to meet aesthetic standards set by vociferous snobs, but what I do mind are the out of town floats that tag on to the Fantasy Fest parade. The local floats are handmade by local businesses and they reflect the theme or have some biting social commentary familiar to Key West residents. Then there are the floats that come from Up North and they have nothing to do with Key West, their crews throw beads languidly and they stretch the parade out for hours, creating endless tedium. Heaven help you if you are on the west side of Duval for you will doomed not to escape until well after midnight. I don't go to the parade anymore as I have to work at least part of the night and I am over the whole crowd crushing parade going thing.

That's my take on Fantasy Fest, a useful influx of money into town at a slow time of year that brings with it irritations aplenty as well. It also slows down the news at this time of year, so much so the headline in the newspaper referred to the contest between the Presidential Debate and Fantasy Fest events vying for locals' attention! And good luck getting anything done in Key West as the end of the week approaches. Office workers start to shuffle toward the door, their minds on their costumes and Key West gets a decidedly lackadaisical air to it, which I think is the best part of Fantasy Fest. It does actually get to feel like one lives In a Third World country on the cusp of Carnival. And next week it will be a citywide hangover with the cheerful souls of Buffett-world wending into town to meet their minds in a totally different mindset. The perfect antidote to the frenzied partying of Fantasy Fest.

 

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The Road To Shangri La

Call me naïve but I was astonished by the caravan on the road passing my street this afternoon on Highway One. It was an endless stream of cars trucks motorcycles and RVs heading toward the forbidden pleasures of the flesh lurking on Lower Duval. Painted nipples, g strings and bizarre costumes are the theme this week as Fantasy Fest, the last weekend of October, draws near.

I only managed to join the flow thanks to some improvident pleasure seeker who needed gas and pulled in to the Shell station at the end of my street. Getting home after Cheyenne's walk was equally fraught but we made it with patience and by paying attention. I had thought idly about going into town to see what's what but I have an appointment in Key West tomorrow for lunch so I'll be there in time to see these people strutting their intoxicated stuff, high on Key West freedom. I'm getting a raise this year so thank you all for showing up and spending money in town. May the power of your greenbacks never grow less.

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Digging Holes In Rock

The Florida Keys are unlike the mainland of Florida because they are made of limestone rock, not sand, like the rest of the peninsula. Geologically the islands more closely resemble the Bahamas and in neither place does agriculture flourish. In the Bahamas they grow some local products the way they used to in the Keys, using holes in the rock filled with humus that turned to soil and caught rain water. In the Keys digging holes is best left to machinery.

I called in Octopuses Garden of Big Pine and they showed up when they said they would and dug with a will while the three of them were there with their bobcat equipped with the vicious looking augur. I have yet to receive the bill but I expect it will be somewhere around $600 and that would be a bargain for a little more than an hour's work with that hydraulic loveliness.

I have heard that my neighbor to the south covets the lot that separates our homes. He lives Up North where he owns a lucrative restaurant and where his small children go to school. Nonetheless he wants the lot between our homes for a swimming pool which makes as much sense to me as wanting a space shuttle launch pad. But in ay event a little used pool would be a perfect neighbor as far as I'm concerned. So while the lot is empty I figured it would be a good time to get the holes dug.

We have lots of room around our little house on a regular sized lot simply because the house is so small. Most people build out with large homes and no offsets but I liked this place seven years ago exactly because of the mature coconuts, the leafy sea grapes and the privacy. The potted plants just accumulated without a proper plan.

It was a delight to watch Tod, Dan and Pablo dig holes, plop the trees in and fill in the dirt. It was luxurious, though I was not completely idle, as I had to cut back some branches and clear some palms and pack them up for the yard waste truck on Friday.

Augur up, then scoop out the dirt, put the tree in and push the dirt back in. I took pictures.

It was great paying by the hole, because every time I suggested a new location Tod was enthusiastic. He was also trying out a new hydraulic power take off for the augur and it went with a will into the rock. Great stuff.

It is a good time of year to get the work done as the snowbirds aren't here yet so we had no audience for our work and the the bobcat did the job with no passing traffic interruptions.

It was an hour well spent. My trees are planted and secure in the ground, not subject to tipping over when the wind blows, as it has been blowing lately. The fruits of my labor are in the cans and awaiting Friday's yard waste truck.

The pots are gone, the trees are planted in a long line, the mango, the avocados, the Key Lime, the pomegranate, the hibiscus, the fig tree and the blueberry, the bananas, and my favorite tree the jackfruit grown by me from a seed and now it's four feet tall and in the ground.

And there's room behind the new "hedge" if not for a tennis court at least for a picnic table if so desired.

Tod, the owner and the landscape enthusiast of the highest order. I want to hire him again to do something, anything.

Dan, from Pittsburgh, in awe of the camera shy Pablo from Guatemala who works like no one Dan has ever known.

And Cheyenne who slept through the whole business.

My hedge will be brilliant and already it's making huge changes in how I feel out in my own octopus's garden. Cleaner, tidier and still offering privacy with room for many branches to grow. This cyclist was out of sight:

Now I've got to figure out what to do with my iguana garden on the deck.

Bloody lizards are wrecking everything. A radical rethink is in order there too. The hole digging was a great afternoon's work and I'm glad that got done. My kind of gardening. I wonder if we can dig holes for them too?

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Mallory Deserted

Mallory Square, the waterfront destination in Key West for the sunset celebration street fair is usually seen as a place filled with people and turmoil. I was there the other day and snapped a few pictures just because... Perhaps because it wasn't packed with people and it was for a change a quiet spot, good for contemplation.

Stephen Mallory, whose bust is among those in the Pez Garden nearby, a shady square filled with bronze heads of important Key West people properly known as the Sculpture Garden, is best remembered as the Confederate Secretary of the Navy. That this square is named after him seems impenetrable when you consider Key West accidentally remained part of the Union throughout the unpleasantness between the States in the 19th century. At the start of hostilities the captain of the small detachment of artillery in town marched to Fort Zachary in the dead of night and would not be moved from the fort, declaring for the Union and taking the sometimes unwilling town with him.

 

When I first saw Mallory Square it was rather more tired and rundown than it is here. But in the truly ancient days past it was a working harbor with warehouses and wooden docks and bustling commerce. These days the most it gets is a smaller cruise ship tied up, which if it stays into the evening garners the ire of the vendors who crowd the square and buy permits by lottery to be there and make money.

The sign above welcomes people to turn their backs on Mallory Square, just past the Maine Monument, a Navy installation which remembers the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898. These wrought iron gates open up to the world of Mallory Square commerce, dust catchers sold by the ton.

Everyone is scratching around to see what they can find at Mallory Square.

Me? I sometimes remember that during the day this famous spot can be just the place to take a quiet reflective break. More than commerce there is history in Key West and that's what interests me. Hold the dust catchers, I'm going to daydream.

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Conch Fritters

They look like hush puppies, balls of corn meal scattered through with bits of green pepper and conch meat. Conch (pro: konk) is a mollusk and the meat is rubbery and white and flat when removed from the shell and pounded to give it some tenderness. Some people eat it raw, "cooked" in lime juice and they call it conch salad but I prefer conch fritters where the corn at least gives some flavor. Steaks are best because the conch is dipped in delicious batter mixture and deep fried. Well, anything tastes good when fried. Personally I'd rather let the conchs alone and leave them to wander the sea floor very slowly and deliberately minding their own business in their shells. If not you can buy Honduran conch in Key West, Honduran because local conch have been fished almost to extinction. Now we do the same to the Central American variety in the name of tradition involving some weird meat that tastes like a bicycle inner tube. Go figure.

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People On Duval Street

Some random shots taken as I strolled Duval Street. The Five Guys Burger and Fries downtown is doing well at Duval and Truman and now they are opening a second spot at Overseas Market where the old Key West Diner all-you-can-eat place used to be. They still see the need to advertise.

Flying by bicycle, the best way to see Old Town. Unless you like to walk. Or ride a scooter.

This guy, doing a valuable job in the heat of October, looked incongruous waiting at the light with his cart, negotiating the intersection as though he should have been making "Vroom! Vroom!" noises as he pushed.

Trader Joe's grocery chain is reaching critical mass I think. My wife loves the fact that they are as close as Naples, and expected to move into southeast Florida before too long. A chain one can like, I suppose. We lived and died by Trader Joe's in Capitola when we lived in California and you will still see all sorts of products from the chain around our home. Trips out of state have always netted a quick visit to Trader Joe's in Atlanta or Chapel Hill or Chicago... I had a friend suggest Trader Joe's should move into the old Waterfront Market!

Burly mountain man riding Flatistan looking around for..? Curves on women...men...or roads? Who knows.

The relief of shade. Even now in mid October temperatures are in the mid 80's and there is only a hint of a chill breeze after dark.

The body as canvas, if you like that sort of thing.

The body as cushion:

See those naked backs? I told you it was hot, even inside the Bull.

Hot enough to be wearing only shorts and no one bats an eye on this street. Pretty soon shorts will seem excessive for some fantastically minded exhibitionists.

Children and Fantasy Fest don't really mix but I bet I will get some pictures later this week of weird nudity and children all on the same street. Some parents haven't a clue.

I saw the black dude who dresses like a pirate in a leather tricorne like this one. He was cycling home on Stock Island so I'm thinking this is another pirate fantasist. Pirates never roamed Key West in history but they are all over the island these days.

This is one way to earn a living:

That pink bag would be a perfect match for my Crocs. I wanted to steal it but...middle class morality prevailed.

June Keith on her blog www.junekeith.com had a devastating critique of Hemingway the Man, which made for interesting reading and I couldn't get it out of my sad as I watched them crowd "his" bar which I don't think would've quite to his taste as it stands.

But that's what it's all about, the fantasy, the image, the escape. And here it all is, the famous street, the heart of Key West's escape, in glorious technicolor.

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