Key West, The Freedom of Christmas Lights

It is said Cuba and Key West have strong historical ties, and it is true, yet over the past half century those ties have loosened somewhat, forced apart by the continuing embargo against free travel from the land of the free to the godless Communists, never mind vice versa. We are free to eat fast food drive large cars and have our phones tapped with less protest than Cubans struggle against their obvious indignities.

I think of that separation often, ironic as it is when we are forbidden to be free, and especially when I listen to Radio Rebelde (620am) and all their serious posturing at "round tables" when they talk about the issues of the day affecting Cuba. They tend to be as boring and unmemorable as the parrots of our free and soulless press. I went to see "Twelve Years a Slave" the true story, accurately told and rendered into a movie historians tell us, of a free black man tricked into slavery and who, able to read and write could tell in painful detail of his appalling captivity. The film highlighted for me the helplessness of one and all, everyone made less by slavery, slaves, owners, and above all the bystanders of good will, those we white people of the audience imagined ourselves to be. Watching Benedict Cumberbatch save Platt's life and then apologize for selling him to a brutal owner as no one else would pay the mortgage he owed on Platt's life, I knew that we all fall together under the wheels of brutality and inhumanity as society demands of us. Even today President Obama's many political shortcomings pale in the face of his unspoken shortcoming that affronts so many of his white opponents. I voted for him three times and though he has not delivered on his promises, which politician does? I am glad I was one among millions that put a black man in the white man's house for the first time. It annoys the shit out of his enemies who are without doubt less likely to do good by commission than President Obama will do ill by omission.

Cuba was deprived of Christmas for almost three decades on the spurious grounds that the holiday interfered with the sugar harvest. Our political friends in Saudi Arabia absolutely forbid any Christmas displays, but our enemy the godless Cubans now get to celebrate the almost universal holiday. Not as extravagantly as we do:

The home above in New Town was facing a portion of flooded street, giving it the appearance of being on a lake. Below a neighbor looked like an enchanted forest. After the movie my wife asked that I drive us up Staples Avenue to see what we might see.

Old Town wooden homes get the attention this time of year but I, like my wife, enjoy the quiet streets away from the bars, the family homes decorated in traditional style, as irrelevant as it may be to our lack of Nordic hardiness.

The decorations coming as they do for only one month out of the year, do actually serve that original purpose of lighting the darkest season of the year.

Things at 24 degrees North Latitude don't get terribly extreme. It is warmer than it might be thanks to the Gulf Stream nearby, and winters are correondingly mild but daylight and night time doesn't get terribly out of whack summer or winter thanks to the position of these islands relatively close to the Equator. Were it not for summer time which permits the sun to set close to 8:30pm, daylight year round would vary by perhaps an hour from six o'clock. As it is we are now getting dark at six on winter time.

In Alaska our compatriots get not much sun at all this week, and the ones at the top none at all. So Christmas lights for them might really represent a valuable Yule log burning brightly to keep the impenetrable darkness at bay. In Key West Christmas lights are a lovely burst of color.

I don't find many singularly religious representations in these lights that are symbols to actually celebrate a religious holiday. They are lovely but they don't seem terribly Christian to me, and I'm not religious, by any stretch. So this year I am working the night of the lighted boat parade so these lights will have to do.

We see stars and icicles and lots of lovely colors, there are a few manger scenes celebrating the historically inaccurate notion that Rome would have held a census in mid winter, but though I looked for them I didn't find them this time out. Festival of Lights is enough I suppose.

And in the end, next month we will be back to this. Which I like just fine the other eleven months of the year.

Simplicity: who will trumpet thy virtues?

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Clouds Over, Sewers Under, Cudjoe Key

It is no easy thing to determine what the weather is really like in the Keys when looking from afar. Temperatures vary wildly in how warm or cool the air actually is, despite what the numbers say...humidity changes markedly how hot it feels, and the breeze plays its part.

All of which is to say I never quite know how energetic my dog might be when we head out for a walk. When she feels cool she gets more energetic, finds more things to smell and suddenly I have a puppy leading me in the dance.

It's been a while since princess agreed to check out the back country of Cudjoe Key and I was delighted to make the acquaintance once again of the strange parking lot alongside the trail. This used to be a car from the 60s maybe. In half a century it has been reduced to a pile of rust. I am durprised we are still told that an abandoned soda can will blight the landscape for 500 years. Cheyenne seems likely yo blight the landscape for a year or two more:

It is very difficult to get away entirely from the sounds of traffic rushing on the Overseas Highway, especially if the wind is blowing towards you from the traffic.

But inside your mind, in these spaces you can find quietude, and as Cheyenne rooted around smelling stuff I listened to the wind rustle my ears and watched the clouds scudding overhead.

The ground is close to the tideline and salt water. In fifty years they tell us this will revert to the sea, but for now it is here, modest and scrubby lacking the majesty of mountains and the true void of the desert. But it is deserted as the tens of thousands who live nearby, or winter nearby, rarely penetrate these quiet places.

In winter I come across joggers sometimes busy improving themselves, but if I try to penetrate these scrubby woods in summer my only companions are mosquitoes.

It took us thirty short minutes to walk out and back, Cheyenne chose, at the fork in the trail to turn back and head toward civilization.

It is little wonder the trees are so small in the salt air, for there is no dirt.

People warn me with dire concern that rattlesnakes will be the death of me. None seen so far these past four years with Cheyenne. And it's hardly surprising as this land tends to flood in summer making it an unpleasant place for a snake that likes to live in dry sandy uplands.

There are alligators and crocodiles and poisonous snakes abundant in Florida. The Keys seem to me to be the least threatening environment, human or natural, you could take a walk in. The human predators, pathetic things, seek to bum a free drink or to sell you cocaine around Duval Street. Out here you are free of the constraints of fear and internalized oppression if you so choose.

And you can stand like an idiot and watch an aircraft carrier float silently overhead into the rising sun.

Back among the homes nearby the toil and trouble of centralized sewer installation is ongoing. Soon the street will be covered in dust and gravel and the air filled with noise and more dust. This work should have been fond twenty years ago when the Feds threw money at public works projects. Now it will be paid for in bonds and property taxes. And the reef has been literally eating shit for unnecessary decades.

Walt across the highway has won a victory in his quixotic drive to minimize technically unsound grinder pumps planned for installation across many streets. He fired up a lawsuit based on his own extensive engineering knowledge and forced scrutiny if the bidding process for the thousands of individual grinder pumps. Gravity fed vacuum sewers are getting a fresh look thanks to Walt and corruption noises swirl around now that the stupidity of burying pumps everywhere in wet mud has been exposed.

Cheyenne bore the mark of her wilderness walk through the suburbs.

Imagine the work of severing, every street, every home connected by pipes buried in rock.

Just thinking about it tires a girl out.

 

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Don't Stop The Carnival

Dawn smiles on Key West and South Roosevelt Boulevard is where I go to check it out.

It's an interesting headline in the newspaper, followed by a bunch of contradictory statements and very straightforward numbers. From what I read American and Delta are handing Southwest their lunch in terms of numbers flying to and from Key West. Southwest says their last flight is June 7th 2014 which gives everyone lots of time to talk, which is good because Southwest says the airport gives bad customer service to the airline with broken equipment and shabby facilities. Then they say their numbers are good and getting better but their profits are down. Sounds to me like they might reconsider for more favorable fees and judging by the knock kneed response from the Chamber of Commerce who are "shocked, shocked" that the airline is quitting Key West, they will fold like a cheap suit. And doubtless keep calling for cuts in wages.

However they are getting here they are here right now and the balmy Southernmost City is packed. That's what frigid winters Up North when it's a comfortable eighty degrees right here.

I guess this kind if behavior goes on in cities across America, otherwise they wouldn't do it here. What makes it so peculiar in Key West is that running in odd looking clothes is a seasonal affair only. In summer when it would take real sweat glands to go jogging there's only me and my panting dog. In winter the sidewalks are littered every morning with horribly active people.

I feel like an extra in Don't Stop the Carnival watching the Norman Papermans seeking a reconstructed reality on this little island yet like the hero of the novel unable to save themselves from their true natures. Everyone seeks the elusive Leprechaun of Laid Backland but like any self respecting leprechaun this one can't be found if the seeker searches too hard. You won't find it by running after it.

Pause for a moment. Two seriously uncomfortable cars on Whitehead Street. I am not a car fanatic, as much as I do like motorcycles...but these bath tubs looked real to me, they were driven, had touches of rust and did not look at all like trailer queens. I liked that. They had the swagger of use.

You know how car shops advertise check ups and "lube?" Well, once upon a time cars really find need lubrication. Oils needed changing every few thousand miles, spark plugs wore out and joints needed grease. Imagine that, every few thousand miles your car needed a work up. If you recognize the little grease nipples on the cross beams you are either an old timer or an old car freak. If not, you are used to cars that go a hundred thousand miles with nothing more than an occasional oil change. How d'you like your Yaris now?

Anyway when I see Norman Paperman jogging his cares away I wonder what Conchs think of all this carnival of money that comes surfing into town each winter. I guess if they made out when the money rolled into town they are okay with it. If not, probably less so. I was listening to a couple of lawyers outside the courthouse a couple of weeks ago as they stood sping coffee waiting for something or someone. They wore shapeless suits and one had extraordinarily bad teeth, which surprised me in the land of perfect dentistry.

For some reason I cam across the Southernmost Lump almost unattended. And the only woman there, attired in proper running gear, as far as I could see, had her back turned to the famous monument. Good job, not everyone has yo have their head turned by fame! I am proud to say Cheyenne also paid no attention to the buoy seeking more interesting sensations. Good dog.

Anyway those two lawyers started reminiscing about the good old days, fishing without regulations, crashing about in the mangroves (which are protected now) and Cuban coffee, a colada, and sharing it among a group of friends, not a care in the world. And yet, I wanted to point out to them as I overheard their longing, you had no lap tops, no instant view of The Game, no contact with the outside world except by newspaper, crackly telephone or very long drive. A flight out in those dark days was as expensive as a "long distance call" - and who now remembers phone calls cost by the mile... I remember when Atlantic Shores welcomed one and all at the spot shown below. I used to delight in describing it as "straight friendly" but more importantly they also took dogs. Even at the Thursday night open air movies when I would watch the film, eat popcorn, drink a beer and pet Emma lying on the lounge chair between my legs. Things have changed, and like the attorneys I too could go all rose tinted when I see this:

Cheyenne gave this kid a friendly sniff and he looked up from his intricate pencil drawing, quite lovely actually and I hope his parents recognize his talent incidentally, and it was only on my return trip up Whitehead I noticed him still there, waiting. I have no facility with kids and they are rather mysterious beings to me so talking with them is not easy, even when I know them. I wanted to ask how it was growing up but Cheyenne in any event walked the other way so the opportunity was lost. I've heard good and bad about growing up in Key West, the duality of freedom versus "nothing to do," and as hard as it would beyond convince them otherwise boredom is a constant for of youth everywhere. Adults too actually. Every young person I have crossed paths with has been very polite and respectful to me in Key West, despite the stories I hear to the contrary.

I tried to live in mainland Florida but Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers did nothing for me. I don't fit in very well in suburbia. Key West I like. It's a bit startling to find I am attached but here I am. I am as much an incomer as anyone though I have found it easy to set out not to disturb the natural order of things. At work I have no particular feelings about how the job gets done as long as it gets done the way we are told. Because of my peculiar attention to detail I get vexed if it isn't done as we are told, but as to an opinion how it should get done, that I leave to the bosses to devise. Key West rewards those that don't arrive in town ready to upset the apple cart. And lots of things upset local people, like toilet manners:

Just like anyplace across the planet we celebrate the pagan rituals of a Nordic midwinter, translated into the Bohemian story of Good King Wenceslas, and flipped into story of the Son of God bearer of the season of goodwill, born into a Roman census mysteriously carried out for once in mid winter in Palestine. So we put out evergreens and color them red and play German hymns and in honor of the gifts from the East for the newly born King we exchange presents we cannot afford at the urging of merchants whose goodwill only goes so far. Toilets and seats require specie.

I love reading the Citizens' Voice column with its daily dose of anonymous community whining. Then you get the odd protest from some sane citizen who whines about all the whining. The trouble with living in Paradise is that it isn't always sweet loving heaven. Sometimes it sucks. The trick is to keep a sense of perspective and don't bitch about people. In a small community one disparaging remark can set you up against a phalanx of opposing opinion. You just don't know who sleeps/slept with whom, who wished they had slept with whom, who is related, who went to school, who lives next door, etc... Key West is more Byzantine than Byzantium when it comes to causing offense.

In the picture above I was struck by the young bucks sitting on the porch looking down at the dude maneuvering his bike loaded with his life on the street below. Even the poor like warm winters, but it's not a life I envy on the streets. Lose your job and it's that or a move Up North, Key a West is quite reluctant to offer second chances to working people. There's nowhere else to commute for a different job.

My dog could use a cooler climate but there again she isn't stuck in a yard anymore on a chain. Like I always say if there wasn't a pound with abandoned dogs I'd not have one. But she does polarize people, just by virtue of being a dog. Everyone has opinions about dogs, landlords don't want them, passersby disagree with how one walks them, they bark at neighbors (not Cheyenne happily), and so on. In a world filled with aggression among humans dogs to the uninitiated represent our feral natures at their worst. Even Cheyenne.

Norm Paperman's laid back escape is starting to look not quite so easygoing at this point, still the carnival keeps going and binging money to Kinja. In some quiet corners of this little town one sometimes gets a hit of Kinja, the way it's described, as not all Key West is in tourist use. This complex has been abandoned as long as I remember and it's a block from the infamous Southernmost Point.

Which is sporting a Menorah from the Chabad temple in Key West. I also noticed a similar public display at the entrance to the city. Florida's oldest temple is the venerable synagogue on United Street but the Chabad crowd according to the literature are even more conservative than the Congregation B'nai Zion and apparently now they are advertising their way into the city. I don't understand religion really, perhaps as little as I understand children, but when religion acts like a business my ironic sense of the absurdity of life surfaces.

We are closing in on the end of the big Non Event of 2013 in the Flowery State, which was the celebration of five hundred years of white people living in the peninsula, principally the settlement of St Augustine where Spaniards settled long before the protesting English refugees landed in Massachusetts. In order to mark this auspicious occasion the great state of Florida led by our absentee Governor put out more flags like this rather misleading advertisement for a local branch of a multi national corporation:

As for recycling in Key West, I think I have said enough on that unhappy subject. They are recycling pay phones though and I have to say I am delighted about that. I used to feel sorry that those symbols of my youthful independence were disappearing and then I became a 911 operator. It pains me to say it but some people take pleasure in walking past a pay phone and taking it off the hook which prompts the phone to automatically seek help. We are required, because we know where the pay phones are located to send an officer to check the phone. Therefore the fewer of these nuisances are left, the better as far as I am concerned.

I acknowledge my status as a fly in the wall, and honestly I have spent most of my life observing, as a reporter and as a disinterested human being so there is no reason I should stop now. Simply by being in Key West it is reasonable to argue that I too am playing my part in keeping the Carnival going, keeping the influx of money coming in some very small measure, as an outsider negatively affecting the native population. It's a bit of a leap from observing Key West's evolution to quantum mechanics but I think of myself sometimes sitting here looking out and wondering whether to open the box on Schrödinger's cat to see if it is alive or dead. In the end it doesn't matter because the cat will be alive or dead no matter what I do. Thank you Niels Bohr. And the buggers will keep on jogging!

So whether or not I care how they spend their time in Kinja, they will keep coming and bringing their frantic habits with them from Up North. Still too, they will seek the illusion of laid back-ness which is illusory for us who live and work in the most expensive city in Florida, but the mirage of "island time" is made real for them by their efforts exerted far way from this island paradise. There they labor, here they recreate and bitch about how their island paradise is being ruined by the local pursuit of lucre. Like the peasant said to me years ago: "Anywhere is great to live when you have money," and he went back to his dogged tilling of the soil for very little financial gain. Some of us are just born to be peasants and live on the margins and lucky we are when the margins actually suit us.

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