Getting Ready For Fantasy Fest

I was wondering how to take a picture to incorporate the bundles of barriers currently lining Duval Street in anticipation of the Fantasy Fest crowds next week. Then I came across a pair of sandals abandoned apparently in some drunken stumble of forgetfulness. There was the picture, unretouched as I found it:

No one knows how many people will show up for the week of street revelry but the guesses vary between 40,000 and 70,000 but in the event all rooms will be booked and the city of 23,000 full timers will be packed to the gills. Traffic will slow, parking will suddenly become hard to find and everyone in the trade gets to make money. Hospitality suddenly overfloweth after weeks of not many people coming to town in the slowest time of the year (which I really enjoy!).

Fantasy Fest is preceeded by Goombay which is a street fair on Petronia Street featuring the by now usual suspects when it comes to vendors present at every Key West event. So even though it is a celebration of island culture in the vein of the Bahamas' Junkanoo it ends up being thoroughly pleasant yet unremarkable, anchored as it is in Key West's inimitable cultural niche of a tropical, exotic town that is not tropical and is much less exotic than the travel posters advertise. This morning I watched them get ready for two days of music food and sales and I have no doubt I will have pictures of the fun later. As much as it is a Caribbean festival most people like food they know sausages, chicken and barbecue, not real Caribbean food like the goat stew put on last year by Blue Heaven and which I thought excellent.

Fantasy Fest's big schtick is public nudity, pun intended. The city creates a fantasy zone between Simonton and Whitehead Streets where people can ignore the rules of polite public behavior for a while, portable alcohol mixed with no genitals, no female nipples no lewd behavior but body paint and frequently tasteless displays of puerile humor are encouraged. It's a week of parties and find raising for AIDS Help and even if not everything goes quite a lot does. Tonight at six they crown the King and Queen of Fantasy Fest, the biggest individual fundraisers who raised money at parties and auctions leading up to this week.

The fundraising aside Fantasy Fest is big business capitalizing on the Halloween theme of this time of year. It's one of those things that tends to bring out the worst in city residents who abhor the crudity of the flesh, making it a point to mock those deemed too elderly for such vulgar displays, those most likely spending the most money by the same token, but these same locals could take a week's vacation right now to avoid contact with noisome festival but we don't. We go downtown ogle and mock. Weird but true.

Fantasy Fest is one of two scheduled times of the years (New Year's Eve is the other, plus all hurricanes) when police don't get time off. Because I work nights in dispatch and because of mandatory overtime I don't get much of a chance to see the big parade Saturday night and the local floats are worth seeing. The problem is that the whole Fantasy Fest thing has outgrown itself and floats come from all over the state, generic plastic traveling floats and they make the parade excessively long and dare I say it, rather boring well before the end of the evening

I had one particular phone call last week from some guy Up North who wanted to get police sanction for sleeping in his camper truck during Fantasy Fest. What if I'm drunk? What if I can't find a hotel? Where can I camp? I was nice to him but the truth is you can't do Fantasy Fest on the cheap. Hotels are in demand this year especially as the city has lost 500 rooms to renovations along the partially renovated North Roosevelt Boulevard. Everybody wants to make a buck and sleeping in front of anyone's home is going to draw attention. Sleeping in your car in the nighttime city is illegal. If they are selling seats imagine the cost of a bed... And trying to sleep for free violates the principal tenet of Fantasy Fest. Make Money.

My Key West is a place of my own making, the outlines of which appear here on the electronic page but the details, those irritating inexplicable wrinkles of daily life happen frequently when my back is turned, away from my iPad. I like my Key West the way I've tried to live my life, and that is on my terms. Some of what I like coincides with the general appreciation of Key West, the weather the architecture and the somewhat looser societal strictures. Other parts are mine alone, I like my job a lot, my home life, the Tropic cinema, swimming, my dog walks my motorcycle rides and evenings at home with my wife. But then there are the bits of Key West that don't work for me, things that I feel I should appreciate but that I just don't like. Fishing, dressing up, parties and public drunkeness are high on my lists. Not liking fishing is a bit like living in a ski resort and resenting the annual snow fall. I feel a bit silly on that count.

I have no understanding what life after death might involve, and I rather suspect the usually humorless insistence on belief in the fairy tale by believers is prompted by fear of the dark. I attribute my lack of interest to my cold Aspergian brain where logic rules but unhappily its the same cold logic that makes me cringe when someone suggests I dress up and assume a character. Why? I ask. Because it's fun they reply and I try to let them down gently. Walking my dog is fun! Riding my motorbike is fun. Pretending to be a ghost or an astronaut is ludicrous (a word rooted in the Latin term for play, ironically enough).

So I have been studying the schedule and forcing myself to ignore the absurd nature of public nudity and seek out some quiet corner of myself that thinks masquerades are fun, not absurd. Even for pets. I'd rather cut off a testicle with a rusty blade than subject Cheyenne, my love, to parading around in a costume. But other people like that sort of thing. Their animals? Who knows...better a costume than a chain and regular beatings if it were a choice between the two.

The odd thing about my Aspergers is that I don't judge, I'm not very good at it when I try, and I learned to give up expecting much from people a long time ago. Aspergers makes it impossible for me to understand a lot of social cues and facial expressions tell me nothing, so its easy for me to not be judgmental, to take things at face value. However normal functioning people think that because I don't like something I disapprove and it's impossible to convince them otherwise. I don't much like Bike Week here or at Daytona Beach or most likely at Sturgis though I've never been to South Dakota. That doesn't mean I disapprove of bike week, and even though I don't like loud exhausts I know that they are part of the Harley culture and bike week is all about parading around making noise. Have at it I say, bring money to our tourist town and then go home. See? I'm logical.

 

If only beautiful people could enjoy the cheerful stupidity that is fleshy Fantasy Fest it would be a small gathering indeed, so come one come all I say but just don't mind me if I don't participate and stand back and take pictures. I won't judge you whether or not you judge me. I'll be the poof in pink Crocs...

Official Fantasy Fest Website

And after that mess is over join the Parrotheads and Bob from Montana in a little over a week. Drunk yes, but happy and easy going.

And I'd be as likely to be seen with a foam parrot on my head as with an iguana hat. My loss maybe but that's not my Key West. You Enjoy!!

Key West on Dwellable

 

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C2H5OH

To walk past Sloppy Joe's and see the famous bar looking like this requires that you be an early riser.

The same at Hog's Breath (which they say is better than no breath at all).

An entrepreneur came through town a few years ago and as I recall offered the bars a five thousand dollar machine that sat under the bar. You fed it a bottle and the machine crushed the bottle into reusable powder. It seemed an ideal solution to the problem of heaps of stinking bottles being thrown into the trash. It never happened.

Bearing in mind it is illegal to walk with alcohol except during the forthcoming Fantasy Fest party zone, one has to wonder why bars and Shorty's grocery sell ethanol to go.

The city is littered with evidence of perambulating alcohol. I photograph it all the time...

The odd thing for me is that I feel like a cad when I say it but this town really does glorify alcohol to a degree that seems to me to be excessive. I like non IPA beer, I enjoy wine preferably red and not too tannic if you are offering, and I enjoy rum and gin if it has to be liquor. That said I don't feel it is necessary to get blitzed to have fun. Yet if I suggest there can be too much of a good thing I feel like a party pooper. But really here's another one:

Sometimes though I feel like Key West wants to force me to take the pledge, almost as a contrarian move. If alcohol was banned the town would shrivel up. There again why would people want to vacation in a dry town? Besides I would become an alcoholic if they tried to deny me the right to buy the stuff... I am perverse.

It's all about the bottom line naturally and when I see people drinking themselves stupid in public I admit I see job security in their public inebriation. I took a 911 call early one morning from a frightened woman alone at home who had a man hammering on her door. Why would he be yelling to be let in at two in the morning the frightened woman asked me after I assured her cops were on the way. Well I replied usually when people behave in ways I cannot possibly understand I assume alcohol is involved. She laughed which was a good sign she was reassured and soon the cops arrived and explained to the befuddled drunk that he lived temporarlily next door to the house he was hammering on. Not mean, not stupid, just drunk, and having a great vacation.

I m always surprised to see just how many establishments one person or group of people will want to own in Key West. One is never enough, and several restaurants and bars will end up with one owner or group of partners. I suppose that's why I own none, pure lack of ambition. It takes work to run a bar or restaurant and I cannot imagine trying t hire workers for these places. People make pots of cash from selling alcohol but not the workers that keep the places clean and functioning.

We humans are irrational of course. We know alcohol kills body cells a d impairs functioning but the initial rush is lovely and by the we have lost the judgement that tells us now is a good time t stop and over the edge we go. Hang over? No problem. By the time the ext opportunity arises we start the process again. Irrational it may be but it's well understood by all.

I recently saw the biography of J D Salinger at the Tropic Cinema and I found I fascinating. Catcher in the Rye was not a story that had a huge impact on me, I lived in a different world. But the movie made the point that Salinger, a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth and thus never had to work, felt the world was populated by sell outs and phonies. The adult world he believed was based on falsehood, so if one accepts that broad generalization alcohol seems like a good answer...after all we can't all afford to live in ivory towers in New Hampshire.

Lives get ruined by alcohol we know that and accept it. Drinking to seek oblivion is a fine little joke. It saddens me, yet I am also saddened by the need of people to seek oblivion when faced with the repetitive monotony of their lives. I have no idea how to change that but I do know in my bones that something is seriously wrong in a world where we live in a  state of apparent freedom yet feel the need to "medicate" with drugs and alcohol and prescribed medications.  better I suppose to make a joke out of it than let it get you down. perhaps alcoholism is a poor man's way out of the phoniness perceived by the idle rich Salinger who had no need to medicate himself out of a way of life he had chosen and was free to abandon at any time. Easy for him to pontificate and yet even he couldn't get another word to a world uncaring of his inner voices if they weren't Holden Caulfield's. He got pretty shirty instead with the people around him. Another way to "self medicate" I suppose.

The side of life in the Keys I enjoy involves the physical beauty of life by the seaside.

This is the week of Fantasy Fest and alcohol takes center stage to celebrate the end of the summer doldrums and the impending winter season of revelry.

And yes, I like it with the odd drink too. I keep a liquor cabinet and I make a mean dark and stormy.

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Key West Guests

Here it is, a lovely beach scene in colorful Key West... a bandstand at Higgs Beach, the vacation dream of many a snowbound northerner, sand cool under the early morning sun which will bring October's daytime temperature close to ninety degrees.

The other bandstand at this county beach within the city is much more active.  The bandstand makes an alfresco area for the residentially challenged to gather and plan their busy days.



Fresh arrivals from the Temporary Overnight Shelter on Stock Island which closes in the morning, show up at Higgs beach after a pleasant ride along sunny Smathers Beach.

And you might ask, who wouldn't want to hang out at Higgs Beach on a lovely Fall morning. The problem is the city is in a bit of a ferment about what to do with a number of residents who prefer outdoor living. And many more will arrive as it gets cold Up North.

Housing in Key West is expensive, certainly by Florida standards, but that's hardly surprising on small islands discovered by people with money who like to own second homes down here for the same reason the homeless show up in winter. And things being the way they are foreclosed homes, disputed homes and homes otherwise not occupied enjoy the supreme irony of sitting useless in a  town desperately short of affordable housing stock. I think the street number on this one could be 730.

 

The homeless issue came to the forefront after the Mayor decided that after he sorted out the need for a new city hall to be built at Glynn Archer School, what the city needed was a half way house for the homeless to get them reinserted to society. The city hall plan was controversial but the homeless facility to be sited at the Easter Seals building on College Road, on Stock Island got backs up across the island. While Mayor Cates could be described as resilient, or stubborn, depending on your approval rating of the Glynn Archer project (I like it) it seems like the rehab center on College Road may be a dead duck. Fundamentally the homeless problem in Key West is about tourism. Who wants to spend 500 bucks a night just to sleep and trip over a snoring drunk on the sidewalk outside? It just isn't  on.

The homeless problem is going to get worse pretty soon. In order to settle a lawsuit with some severely offended high end apartment owners nearby, the temporary shelter will close down. The Sheriff, eyeing his next election, announced he wanted it gone from his backyard so that's that pretty much. What comes next is a  big question. The old timers who managed to create the shelter, Steve Braddock homeless rehab advocate, John  Jones gnarly former assistant city manager and former Sheriff Rick Roth all worked out a plan to comply with the law and clear homeless from city streets.

Well, that coalition of the motivated is gone and now an unknown number of homeless men and women, perhaps 200 or perhaps 2,000 depending on who you ask, will have nowhere to sleep unless the city commission comes up with a plan, and so far, in  a fair imitation of Congress the city commission has reached the squabbling stage with no sign of a plan ahead. Meanwhile the tourists keep coming because Key West, cruise ships and all, is a desirable destination. Look at those cabs lined up waiting for trade from Casa Marina Resort.

 The issue is complicated by a Court ruling that  requires local jurisdictions to make available "safe zones" where humans can sleep, before the jurisdictions can arrest people for vagrancy. In other words, when the temporary Shelter closes the  law is that  the homeless can't be moved along. Unless a new solution offering a safe place to sleep is found.

 People often ask if Key West is safe as though there are pockets of  evil doers lurking in  dark corners of  terrible places. Key West isn't completely immune to violence God knows, and  if you combine alcohol with a soured relationship (of any sort, romantic or not) the potential for people to get stupid and hit each other is there. However violence between strangers is rare, again, nit unheard of but very rare. If you want to stay safe in Key West stay sober and sensible, don't flash valuables and walk at your pleasure. Like this woman out exercising:

This dude may not be visually appealing in our youth and wrinkle free culture but he looked pretty harmless, even to Cheyenne. The homeless know they get no leeway from the cops and even the aggressive ones don't want to mess with people whose word will be believed over their own. So for the most part their dramas and disputes occur within their own street culture. Most of the irritation with the homeless comes down to appearances. 

 Indubitably it gets irritating to have a recreational space used as a dormitory, even by the self contained. However park use during daylight hours is open to all no matter how disheveled and smelly and that too creates irritation among the well heeled.

In an effort to move the homeless along from the picnic tables at Higgs beach they turned that area into a  playground requiring all adult users to be accompanied by a child. Brilliant move but now for some reason the playground is closed (the old Astro Park across the street is still open).

The homeless issue on the streets of key west gets irritating to people who rent or own expensive homes. I don't know how much of the theft and pilfering downtown is attributable to the homeless but they are an eyesore and panhandling got so bad the city created two begging zones to enable the outlawing of panhandling across Old Town and particularly Duval Street. But as you can see life this close to the street  requires a certain  level of awareness (despite the bad grammar):

And now we have the big crowds of tourists coming for Fantasy Fest and Goombay and a week of parties before the big parade and all the festivities to bring people to town. The  festivities will all undoubtedly go swimmingly but the underlying issue will still be here as winter closes in and the highly demanding high rent snowbirds show up and don't want to get used to oiks on the streets.

 Oh well, if Congress can bury their heads in the sand about big issues maybe the same will work with a little one. Party on!

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Colorful Bahama Village

The one hundred block is the only block of Geraldine Street in Key West's Bahama Village.

Murals are spreading like wildfire across the old brick wall facing the single row of homes.

The old transformer needs something to cover it and in the fullness of time I think the plants will do it. Maybe, but it's a start.

The chicken population seems to be exploding. The buggers are everywhere and in ever larger clumps. If you check early art made on the streets of Key West you'll see no chickens. I'm pretty sure they had eggs before they had chickens in the Southernmost City. But they do add the color craved by visitors.

The building on Emma Street in the picture below houses the Key West masjid, which is the Arabic word for mosque which is a word that comes to us from French. Masjid is a place of prostration and where Key West Muslims will prostrate themselves who knows. Me neither, but God is Great nd doubtless there will be a solution.

The VFW post nearby is in a parlous state and history looks set to be forgotten for want of money.

The other VFW in town was on Elizabeth Street and they were in the path of development so they sold and moved to nice new vast digs on the Boulevard. This lot, buried in the Village, well this is the South, no matter what Crackers tell you about South (liberal Jewish) Florida not being the Real South. Money talks.

I hope special tax funds from the village keep the lights on.

I may have taken half a dozen pictures of this crumbling house. It's still there so I keep taking the pictures! I love the color of the shutters against the fading white paint.

There are those who can't understand why I would wear pink Crocs (half price as no one wants men's in pink) but covering your truck in dried seaweed?

I am no predictor of trends and stuff so had you asked me a few years ago what were the chances of a $25,000 tricycle becoming popular I'd have said "Nil." Well, it's just as well Bombardier didn't ask me for an informed opinion. Like they say you can buy a Mazda Miata for less money, get better mileage and the car comes with a roof and air conditioning too. Plus the Can Am Spyder gets stuck in traffic just like a car, yet these weird machines sell well:

I have been to Fort Zachary a few times but I'd never previously noticed the beach warning flags.

This picture back a Truman Waterfront I rendered in black and white. I'm no Dorothea Lange but I liked the effect.

Laid back Key West is there, but only for the few; the very rich, the very poor or visitors.

Key West on Dwellable

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