Finnegan's Wake Is Closing

I am heartbroken.  June 19th will be Finnegan's Wake's last day of operations, confirmed by a confoundedly cheerful employee I spoke to on the phone. I am bereft. I was there just recently having a long lunch with George who kindly posed in his dapper sun hat outside the place.

In many respects Finnegan's Wake represents, or represented, the best type of pub from the British Isles, in my opinion. We in the Colonies have retained a largely fictionalized  version of the infamous British pub, once a place where people went to sip (warm) beer and chat with neighbors while their Labrador curled up at their feet. Nowadays pubs tend to be more like bars with entertainment, and less like country clubs. Finnegan's Wake did yield to the times inasmuch as a few television screens popped up on the walls but the atmosphere was how I liked it, quiet, dark and friendly. With an excellent, dare I say unrivaled, range of draught beers from Ireland and Britain.     

I have to say the food at Finnegan's Wake has been excellent too, notwithstanding the reputation, largely undeserved, of  modern food from that part of the world. Finnegan's Wake is not the only game in town so it seems I shall have to break the fondest habit of this lifetime and try -gasp- somewhere different when I want a quiet pint. Hmm. I have to say I was also delighted that my favorite, now also defunct  food blogger liked the place: Prissy In Paradise.

None of which means a thing when the decision has been made to close. Who knows why, but one has to accept it's time is up. Another thing I don't know is why the apostrophe. I hadn't actually noticed it but years ago reading Joy Williams' superb Guide To The Florida Keys she made some tart remark about the addition of the apostrophe to what might otherwise be taken as a reference to James  Joyce's seminal work. I really don't give a toss about that. I do give a toss about bangers and mash and proper draught beer that doesn't taste like the battery acid flavored modern craft IPA beers that young people love (and are also available at Finnegan's for the perverse). All that matters is that  after June 19th it's all over. Change sucks. 

Crack Of Dawn

It's been too long but I got downtown for a dog walk and a few other chores. We made the most of a cloudy morning and Cheyenne took full advantage of her reward. She's been patient these past weeks as our routine has been twisted out of recognition.

Stay away from the streets and when you come back things are trudging on as always. Your absence does not stop or change the stream of daily activities. I'm not sure if that is disturbing or reassuring. But it's a reminder that the world we see through our eyes, is not the reality of the world seen through other eyes.

Key West is real enough, but what that reality might be I doubt any one of us can say with any certainty. Or at least we can believe we are certainly right, but this ever so desirable island remains a different reality for every pair of eyes that views it and tries to understand and in the end, judge it. Check out the comment I got from Ralph Alan reproduced below. I think it's one, among several reasons why I keep blogging. Key West inspires a sense of ownership among people. You'll often hear people say they came for a vacation and never left, or came back as soon as they could or have kept Key West in their hearts ever since. Those memories never die. Check it out:

Mike, Boy have you got it all wrong, do you ever talk to any real locals? Even an “old timer” like me who used to live through the full on winter and then through the rest of the year we really enjoyed the good times when we were left alone over the summer. The only people who were not happy were outsiders who were not from here, we enjoyed the peace and quiet times for many, many generations. Long before Bill Conckle and Tony Falcone ever visited the island and rented the empty space in the Kress building, my other half worked at Swift’s, which later was renamed Photosonics after Paul Levy a Jamaican gentleman rented the place from Ed Swift with the help of funding from his brother Desmond Levy. At the time Swift’s was across the street from the LaConcha hotel. A few years later Ed Swift raised the rent and I built out a new store for Paul Levy right next to LaConcha which Paul rented from “Chet” (Len Chetkin) who owned Carpet & Casuals and was the Stepfather, of the Freebarry.

Over the years I have come to understand that I grew up in a place much like Key West, an isolated mountain community where everyone knew everyone and us kids grew up with "nothing to do" and in a state of total physical freedom. So when I came to Key West when I was a young adult I wanted something completely different. I wanted to be at the center of the known universe, so I settled in California surrounded by Art and Culture and political debate, where reality was freshly imagined by strangers every day. I wanted to get lost in a world where no one knew my name and everyone was so busy rearranging their own realities my past mattered not one jot. Californians are navel gazers par excellence and no one ever asked "where are you from?" which is the perennial opener in conversations on bar stools across the Southernmost City.

I wish I knew how to be a better blogger for these entrancing islands. They will mold themselves to whatever reality you choose to impose on them for however long you choose to impose on them. They can be a vast open air party zone all alcohol and fancy dress or gatherings of dinner guests, endless fishing, whatever your tropical dream is from wherever you sit and wonder. For my wife the islands have been a reprieve from endless arthritis. For me who hates the cold I freely admit I would not be here were these the Aleutian Islands. But there is more than just the weather to enjoy.

I am no great drinker, I loathe parties and social gatherings among strangers which makes it sound paradoxical that I like to here when you think you know Key West as just a party town. The side of life here that appeals to me is that there are no obligations, such that when I travel among people who feel they owe society a nod of respect, in their dress or maintenance of worldly possessions, I feel out of place. I am not very knowledgeable about fashion but I know when I am out of place among the well dressed.

I can sit on the steps of a bar on Duval, out of the rain my back to the shuttered doors, my dog resting at my side and I can watch the world go by for twenty minutes and I too can be a bum for those few minutes.

I used to wonder at people who view Key West as one giant drinking hole. Over the years I have come to accept that my reality is a good deal different. I love the history, the combination of small town ease and winter cultural events, the long hot summers in the water contrasted with the road trips in the US and abroad to different worlds. To me it seems like a horrible waste to come to Key West just to sit at a bar and drink. Road trips yes, but I like coming home to the diversity of my small town.

Cheyenne would I am sure rather live further North, but this is her reality too. If it were just a matter of staying warm we could be living on mainland Florida which would probably work better for a furry Labrador, but it's the way of life, as expensive as it is, that keeps us here. No malls, no freeways, and despite the encroaching chain stores, there is still a sense of place. It is eroding, no doubt, but erosion over time is universal. People who say Key West was different, better, thirty years ago could say the same about anyplace USA.

My reality is always going to be wrong, simply because it is my reality. But The Keys can still be a blank slate for those determined to make their own mark on it.

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From The Archives:

Some random Key West pictures from summer a few years ago. Seems suitable for a quiet, no word Sunday.

My Czech Friend, A Jawa 350 Hack

                                                                                   

Years ago when I was a youngster riding exotic Italian motorcycles in England there were quite a few cheap East European imports, MZ two strokes from East Germany and Jawa motorcycles from Czechoslovakia. The Berlin Wall came down and all the economic advantages of Communist imports evaporated with the countries they came from. Except...MZ came back as a German brand with modern machines and were even imported briefly to he US. Jawa on the other hand is still going strong with a niche market in England, much the way the Indian brand Royal Enfield is creating its own niche in the First World. Of course a two stroke 350cc twin is not going to set the US on fire  but when I saw this picture on Real Classics I was reminded once again how nostalgic I am getting about motorcycles in my old age. A Jawa 350 is good for 80 miles per hour flat out, but with a sidecar, I wonder if it will cruise at 60? Cheyenne and I aren't lightweights either...

If you desire three wheels on your wagon and are seeking traditional style, then F2 Motorcycles have just the job: their new Jawa Retro Sidecar Combination. This uses the current Jawa 350 Retro two-stroke motorcycle matched with a purpose-designed all-steel sidecar. The sidecar is mounted high and with very little axle lead, a set-up much loved back in the golden days of the sidecar. Back then bikes were relatively slow, so lightweight, low speed steering was more important than high speed straight line stability. Modern sidecars tend to be mounted lower and much further forward, but F2 wanted to recreate the feel as well as the look of yesteryear's outfits.

The outfit as pictured costs  6200 pounds in England, almost ten grand in the US, though I have noticed over the years that prices tend to be equal in each market so I'd like to think that in the US if this delight ever came here -not likely!- it might cost $6200. That would be interesting... And if you are in the tiny minority that might agree check this page out: Jawa UK

                                                       

My buddy Jiri, he who keeps my two wheelers  running at his shop on Stock Island grew up near Brno in Czechoslovakia under Soviet rule and he longed for the bikes I was able to see and ride in the West. Nowadays he likes to ride on the track at Homestead  and elsewhere and his engine of choice is a four cylinder Japanese classic style. He is not fond of two strokes, so while he thinks my preference for the twin cylinder Bonneville is eccentric, my desire for a two stroke Vespa fills him with horror. I call it my Trabant, the infamous two stroke East German car, the greatest wheels a Communist citizen could aspire to in the years before 1989. 

So, yes, my desire for Jawa 350 Retro is  nothing more than a fantasy. but for those too young to remember two stroke touring bikes, simplicity was their virtue, and the older I get the more simplicity seems desirable. Hence my desire for my two stroke Vespa, which I hope will become real in a  few short weeks.

Out With The Old, In With The New

Our home is empty, we have flown the nest, that housed us for the past decade. Good bye little tree house.

The interior one bears only the anonymous improvements my wife oversaw, new sheet rock on the walls properly painted, bamboo flooring properly scratched by Cheyenne.

A kitchen we never got round to modernizing and that towards the end showed signs of a lot of wear.

The exterior too needs attention, but we were loathe to spend money on a project the bank was unwilling to renegotiate with us.

It was a long hard slog, taking down the pictures, moving the detritus of twenty years of marriage and ten of occupancy.

We were lucky that the heavy lifting coincided with a two week period of cool breezes and low humidity.

Cheyenne throughout hung on to her habits, staying in her favorite spots while mournfully watching us dismantle our lives.

I suspect she was dumped at the SPCA as her military family packed for their move out of Key West and the prospect of jail loomed large in her mind, as the furniture and fittings disappeared...

She is adapting to her new home and as the days go by and she resumes her routine in a new place and she seems to be calming down. Mind you we humans are also learning to adapt to the monumental changes wrought upon us.

They say boats take maintenance but let me tell you fiberglass is indestructible in salt air. Wooden houses are not...termites, spalling, warping, you name it.

The realtor had a reputation which preceded her, so in proper local tradition she won a nickname in my head as I tried to vote with her. Cruella was as brusque as she was tart and not in a good way, so I suppose it's little wonder she works for the banks as buying a house from her would require a buyer with a hide as thick as an elephant's. We got the house empty and clean well before the eviction deadline.

My wife said the hardest part was saying good bye to the bits she had overseen herself. I remember the old Cuban tile layer was seriously puzzled when we asked him to put random fish tiles we had found into the new bath tub design...but he got into when we handed them to him and you'd him to stick them in at random. He got a laugh out of that.

750 square feet isn't a lot to empty but it was full of our life.

The new place is bigger and has a fantastic loft where we can store crap we aren't immediately using, winter clothes and motorcycle parts and the like. I live in hope that our drawers and shelves will be less crammed with stuff.

Indies Zroad had a lovely view across the salt ponds to the west on a Ramrod Key. That we shall miss.

My wife thought the realtor brought us here in 2004 at sunset to admire the view, and maybe she's right.

In the debris I found a picture of me with no gray hair and my cruising mentor Bob Unanski, who died not long after he stopped sailing. We met in Mexico in 1998 and sailed together on and off through Central Anerica to Panama from California. He helped us through the canal and we sailed together through the mosquito coast of the Western Caribbean. His widow has remarried and we last saw Barb happy in a new inland relationship in Arkansas. This picture taken before a sunset cruise in Key West brought back a flood of memories. We were so different in our backgrounds, and politics, and so similar in our sense of humor and curiosity.

Out with the old! Away with the barbecue from this deck...

To its new home on another deck:

Cheyenne is not a huge fan of stilt house living:

And unfortunately the new place us a bit higher off the ground with more steps. But she is still game, good girl:

The canal at our place was an absolute highway filled with yahoos playing loud music and kicking up wakes as they roared by all day in clouds of exhaust smoke.

Even on Memorial Day weekend our new canal is hardly rippled by the passage of any boats which means a quick swim before work is much more possible. The house on the corner is not occupied.

I will miss the wide open area under the house, our new place has less room but adequate. Indies Road was extravagant:

We were lucky to get the new place, a combination of factors were at play including my wife monitoring Craig's List all the time. She sent in our application 12 minutes after the ad appeared. Then we agreed to see the place that evening. A cop lives two doors down and he gave our landlord a recommendation. And we had five grand ready to move in. The rental market is brutally tight, even in the Lower Keys and we are very lucky as our landlord who lives in Miami is very pleasant and decent and Cheyenne is welcome.

The boxes are moved but the process of organizing will take several more days.

Slowly does it, as things find a home, then my wife ponders the choice, makes a change and tries again. My Asperger's is screaming but I keep reminding myself this state of confusion isn't permanent and we are working toward a goal.

Finally Cruella was satisfied and we got a check to vacate which my wife says can go in part toward the annual tune up of the Bonneville, on which subject of motorcycle riding, the new home means a shorter commute, by four miles and close to ten minutes for me.

It has taken time and energy but in the end we count ourselves lucky inasmuch as our new place will be comfortable and offers a serene and enjoyable place to live. You may remember I was musing about living in Key West itself months ago when it became apparent this change was in the offing, but I actually enjoy my commute with views over the water and a daily chance to take my motorcycle or my scooter out for a ride. Rents are cheaper out here, not by much but you get full sized homes on full sized lots with full modern conveniences.

Add to that the ambient silence, the access to saltwater, the ease of parking, the low crime rate and to me this is what Keys living is about. A beer on my deck is cheaper than a beer at Sloppy Joe's, and the view is better.

Well, it will be once we get organized!

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