Other Street Views In Key West

It's not just nekkid people on the streets these days though they get the attention.

The MGB roadster parked variously on the streets was in motion yesterday. The curious, and pleasing thing, is that it appears to be in use, not as a parade ornament, but for the banal and very necessary reason that construction material needed to get home.

I see classic motorcycles held up as paragons because they are owned and never ridden. My 1979 Vespa is close to be restored for the road I am told by Green Tree Scooters. When it gets here it will be ridden, a lot. Frank loves his white 370Z and this summer he took his first long vacation in a long time and drove the Nissan to Nebraska and back. Sometimes you just have to get off the rock.

I rented a Piaggio MP3 250 in Rome two summers ago and I discovered it is an able tool to ride cobbles and street car tracks but it is a very complicated piece of engineering. Would you pay $9,000 for a three wheeler that rides like a two wheeled scooter? Lots of people in Paris and Rome do, I am told.

I liked the imitation Mario Sanchez illustration on the cowl of this Honda Metropolitan even though the sticker strikes a dissonant chord. I keep my motorcycle plain because I shouldn't like to spoil it.

This Cushman was a plain shade of green though no Cushman is plain to devotees of the defunct brand. I grew up with Vespas but whatever the brand I'd like to see more stylish scooters in Key West, just for some thing good to look at. The plastic fantastics are fine but dull.

Then there are the three-wheelers which you'd think would litter the streets of Key West, practical wheels in a town still filled with manly full sized trucks and SUVs. This one was rare enough the occupants asn't surprised I stopped to take pictures.

I think he might have been surprised to know I saw tons of three wheelers in Italy. We used to buy fruit and veg from a traveling nor who drove a 175cc Ape three wheeler built by the same people that build Vespas.

Funnily enough it has space for a motorcycle sized license plate but it was issued a car sized plate instead. One day Florida will get with he alternative transportation future that is rushing to meet us.

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Happy Naked Couples

I didn't start out by looking for nekkid Fantasy Fest couples but that was where Fate led me as I walked away from Duval Street up Caroline. I went where Fate led me, and my camera came with me.

One with the other, he said.

 

She seemed a lot happier than he to be in front of the camera.

 

So where do you put the wallet when wearing close to nothing?

 

Young, happy and loaded with...Bud Lite??

 

Who knew the Devil rode the bus? This one did, I saw them both descend.

 

One for the ladies I pleaded and they obliged.

 

I like Vespas but Cushmans have their place.

 

They want to see her not me he said, stepping back.

 

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Overheard on Duval

 

The street fair has come to downtown Key West, focused mostly on Duval Street but also to be found on the approaches to the city's main drag, named for the first territorial Governor of Florida, William Pope DuVal, originally from Mount Comfort, Virginia. He came to Florida in 1822, served a month as a judge in St Augustine and was thereafter appointed governor of the new US territory ceeded by Spain. That was then, this is now.

 

Santa Mommy stopped traffic momentarily, but not the crowds on the sidewalk who swept me along like a leaf down the drain of perdition. I overheard some odd off the cuff remarks from assorted people walking around me (not necessarily the people pictured please note!) most of them taking beer glasses for a walk on this fabled street. But let's not forget, for one moment that Fantasy Fest cannot interrupt the basic functions of life in the Southernmost City. Some of us have to work! Me to be exact, Friday Saturday and Sunday nights similar to this sweating fellow Teamster.

 

"See you later! - See a lot of you later!

"I can't help thinking this week that often, less is more."

"If we get lost all we have to do is find Sloppy Joe's and turn left and we'll be able to find the car, no matter how drunk we are."

"I saw this guy who was totally naked, except for..."

"I do loves me da wimmin," - announced a totally non ethnic middle aged white guy, high on life.

Body painting is a big part of Fantasy Fest, and paint counts for clothing on any part of the body that isn't the genitals which must be covered.

 

It's not just body paint that is part of the commercial aspect of Fantasy Fest. Buy a coaster save a turtle. If it was that easy you'd think the reptiles wouldn't be on the endangered list at all.

 

But Fantasy Fest is about alcohol and middle aged, middle class libertines loose on the street in the "Fantasy Zone" which is the temporary name for Duval Street.

The cruddy fake 'Krewes' from Tampa were already cluttering up Duval Street. They marched around led by a dude with a whistle like a scout leader, and as they duck marched they were busy showing off their uniforms. These people bring big anonymous plastic floats to the parade Saturday that is meant to be a display of local talent expressing local sentiments. They make the parade long, slow and ultimately boring.

 

"Hey! I just got a text offering two dollar Michelobs!"

There was a comment in a previous essay about the essential beauty of a woman cycling Key West.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. I spared you a picture of the dude behind the dude under the smiley face. He was a well tanned older white guy sporting chaps and a circumcised penis not properly veiled by a piece of gauze.

"Hey Conch!" A familiar voice called. Doug Bennett of This Week on the Island was sitting on his porch watching the world go by. He said he was reminded of me when a guy wandered by wearing odd colored Crocs, green and yellow. "Got to work a lot harder to stand out in this town," he chuckled looking at my well worn pink footwear. We lamented the expansion of the parade to include outsiders, but clearly when a city commissioner owns a Duval Street bar...commerce is king. "At least he doesn't accept a salary for sitting on the commission," was Doug's parting shot.

"Living the life others dream of..."

And there he is the Commish in question. Give Mark Rossi credit, he rides his Zuma everywhere, and I guess he must have worn out his yellow 125 and replaced it with this white one, laboring valiantly beneath his ample girth.

Off Duval life continues as normal which for Key West's wild chickens means strutting their stuff under the klieg lights and cameras.

Did I say "normal?" As close as it gets around here and that might mean meeting Zorro the Gay Blade down at the end of Caroline Street.

Or a devil in an extremely tight fitting blue dress, as in " the devil made me do it."

It's Fantasy Fest so it's your fantasy to do with as you will. Me? I went home and took Cheyenne for a walk on Little Torch Key and got rained on again.

I don't know how people live in the chaos of Old Town but perhaps one day I may have to find out, life is full of twists and turns. Meanwhile I prefer to enjoy the peace and serenity of the backwaters at Mile Marker 27.

Me, lightly disguised as a rather rain soaked off duty police dispatcher far from the madding crowds of Fantasy Fest, just where I wanted to be. Soon enough there will be lots of 911 calls from distraught happy people, alcohol soaked and confused by life. It will be my pleasure to show them the light at the end of the Fantasy Fest Tunnel, the start of the long road home back to safe and normal.

 

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Tropical Rain On The Parade

They tell us all will be dry by the time the big parade starts rolling Saturday evening, but Hurricane Sandy has been raining on pre-Fantasy Fest activities. Luckily most of them take place indoors, parties dances and drinking, but of the latter there is a fair bit outdoors on Duval Street and this afternoon rain was obviously in their.

I was fast walking back to the car by the time the first drops hit and pretty soon the raw as slashing down, just as it had this morning when I was walking Cheyenne and we got soaked the first time today. It was raining hard by the time I left town.

I was glad I had chosen to drive the car, not just for the weather but also for the distracted drivers this time of year in Key West, and there was much to distract them.

Not much clothing to ruin there even if it started raining cats and dogs. But that's Fantasy Fest for you. Underwear is daily wear this week, rain or shine.

 

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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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