Lost Fantasy Fest

Fantasy Fest in Key West is  a pain, from the perspective of one who has no interest in wearing a costume or bringing out his inner female by  cross dressing for a night.  On the other hand the ability of my neighbors and their friends to fill a town with people who revel in throwing off the restraints of moderation is in equal parts repulsive and fascinating. Fantasy Fest is, in short a like/hate relationship for me. I like getting the chance to walk Duval Street and check out the madness, partly because I don't have to deal with the crazies when I go home and partly because it is just one week out of 52. How often do you get to see a man strutting around main street wearing a three foot long palm penis? Hate because I'm not sure Michael Beaudet's display is something one can entirely  like...

Living as I do out of town most of the hassle of Fantasy Fest comes from seeing my main road clogged with people falling over themselves to get to a town where they figure anything goes for once in their lives (it doesn't  really). I don't have to live with the down side of loud parties at all hours in rental homes, drunks in the street passing out on sidewalks and porches. I don't have to listen to couples fighting or sliding to the ground in garbage strewn streets. I don't make enough money in overtime to make the pain of the intoxicated crowds worthwhile. But walking across the parking lot to work one gets  a break in the routine when meeting this apparition:

So when the opportunity arises, for an hour or two one can admire the effrontery and stupidity from the sidelines. Yes, it's tasteless, but sometimes in the middle of the dreck there is something that makes you laugh or tickles your imagination. Besides even if I were to decree an end to Fantasy Fest by powers not yet granted to me I doubt the bad taste money making would stop. Fantasy Fest was dreamed up as a way to encourage people to come to town, and it still is today no matter what they tell you about it's charity work or other good deeds. So between my shifts at work Cheyenne and I ventured forth from time to time in the dark after the bars had closed, long after the strutting in front of Rick's  was over for the night. A different world, and thus Labrador friendly:

This year my modest outings were curtailed, the Pet Parade which I stuck high on my calendar got washed out, as was my sole opportunity to wander downtown and just look at the madness on Duval.  And I forgot the Kids Party at Bayview Park on Sunday. Rats! The ambivalence of my feelings about Fantasy Fest stem in large part from the ambivalence in Key West. It's fashionable to hate the holiday as a tasteless intrusion into city life, a nasty but necessary financial boost in a tourist town slumped in ultra low tourist season; that yes, but a pleasant outing? Never ! Shudder! And yet I find amusement in it.

Snotty  locals like to mock the visitors who come and do here what they can't do at home: let their hair down, get drunk in public and be a little bit shameless. I feel bad for them inasmuch as they clearly live the kinds of lives of quiet desperation the poet wrote about, the life that doesn't gain any relief except far from home, far from neighbors and judgement and negativity. And then in Key West the demand is for only beautiful young people to reveal themselves, to take a chance (no chance at all really) and the judging and grimacing starts up again on the shapeless pasty middle aged white people from Up North. An acquaintance watching the crowds pressing against the barricades alongside the grand parade shook her head recalling all the "perverts" in town. She looked slightly concerned when I shrugged and said I thought they were just seeking out some fun. Despite her disapproval I do think the term pervert is a bit silly. Pervert? With a smile like that? Come on...

Wit and charm and youth and a sensible publicity agent are the tools the outside world, the  Up North world, uses to keep people in their place. Key West used to pride itself on creating a small space in what is actually a very conservative insular little town,a space for outsiders who needed relief from conformity. Fantasy Fest isn't the greatest representation of what Key West has to offer, not by a long shot, but it is  a representation of what a lot of people crave in their gray monotonous lives, and it's too bad they have to come here to be able to  feed that inner demon once a year in a glorious farcical display of general bad taste and titillation. Bacchanalia, Saturnalia, Fantasy Fest. Two made respectable by the passage of time; the third despised by those among us too fearful to do what the momentarily brave from elsewhere manage to do: mask and make themselves vulnerable on the streets. In almost perfect safety too.  Not bad for a small town filled with opinions, most of them negative.

Don's Place

It's the season for weirdness, Fantasy Fest, All Hallow's Eve  and the Day of the Dead all rolled into a week more or less. So finding a rather large peculiar cat on a porch shouldn't surprise anyone. I just can't imagine coming home to this thing on my porch.

For the matter of that I couldn't ever picture myself at Don's Place an infamous dive on Truman Avenue. Bars are not my scene and this place is way out of my league, a smoker's haven, loud and open 21 hours out of the day. I am a rank amateur. Conversation is complicated because of the noise but I suppose that at say 7am, when they open, the sounds might be muted. A colleague of mine used to come here after our night shift and drink beer before walking home. I would much rather sit on my couch at home and imitate a potato with  Yuengling. Not only would I not have to make conversation, I would also not smell like a bonfire.

I met Rick from Boston here and we met at Don's  Place at my suggestion so I am grateful to him for putting up with my inane desire to see new things. He was in town for Fantasy Fest (!) and the subsequent Meeting of the Minds though he had never seen the Masquerade March before so we went to check it out.

One thing I must say about Don's Place is that the bar tender was superhuman. Usually when I go to bars I get roundly ignored, my mellifluous mid-Atlantic tones fail to garner attention from the pourer of drinks.   This guy was a demon and even though I was merely drinking diet Coke (work: the curse of the drinking classes) he was on me like a fly on the proverbial. Indeed even in the picture he was moving faster than my camera shutter could capture him.

Just to increase my feeling of being at home I was showered by bits of plastic foam which gave my drinking an otherwise unexpected air of jollity. Time to go. On the way to the Local's Parade I spotted a reminder of the true meaning of Fantasy Fest; making money... 

Conversely Fantasy Fest is the time of year when meeting random zombies towing drinks is  a normal street scene. 

I'm not sure if Rick was as taken with the madness but I had fun. Even at Don's Place.

Fantasy Fest 2014, Local's Parade 2

Frances Street at the start of my favorite Fantasy Fest event (the kink fest at the Island House For Men is not on my radar).

A mobile bar complete with unbearably loud music all powered by a  a generator. Too bad they only dispensed gnats piss- Bud and Lite. Much appreciated nonetheless:

Hot cats:

 The effect was spoiled by the hairy legs. Just my opinion.

Fantasy Fest is all smoke and mirrors. I mean, who knew you  could buy a tattoo design top?

My mirror image when I'm out riding, chaps an old helmet and a big smile. Not forgetting the Yuengling...

Kids..? Not alone apparently. One would like to think they will grow up with a well balanced view of life. In all its variety. 

 Free range roosters or what:

I cannot imagine how this Monty Python character was planning to walk 12 blocks to Duval dressed like this:

This dude was  slugging a bottle of white wine, thank heavens for modern screw tops, but he advised his ex-wife, the head on the pole, was not partaking and did not approve. He was clearly working out some issues this Fantasy Fest.

 Really, who says Fantasy Fest is for adults only?

 Aside from the hat and the codpiece this dude, below was all paint and a smile.

 Couldn't not have an Ebola dude in all this chaos, now could we?

I tried to imagine Cheyenne a) wearing a  grass skirt and b) posing with me (also in  a grass skirt). My imagination failed me on all counts.

I saw this woman standing and  staring into the distance down Frances Street as I walked back to my Bonneville. She looked sad waiting for someone who had missed the parade and would never come. She told me she was actually holding the parking space for a friend and she laughed when I told her my thoughts. She liked my picture of her:

 I liked this lot, below, late to the party yet cheerful. Distracted possibly by their message.

I repaired to Sandys for a large con leche and some cheese bread. A funny thing happened an old Cuban dude was in line in front pf me and asked in Spanish if I wanted coffee, so I replied yes in Spanish, si for those of you language impaired, thinking he was asking about my intended purchase. Not at all. He whipped out a large plastic cup and a small plastic thimble and poured me a buchi from his colada. Serious caffeiene for a long night ahead. 

I got my con leche and sandwich and rode off to one more intense night in dispatch. I miss the long quiet nights of summer.

Fantasy Fest 2014 Local's Parade 1

My favorite part of Fantasy Fest didn't let me down and the Local's Parade, known to the business sponsors as the Masquerade March put on a display for more or less elaborate costumes and less overt nudity than in years past, by my estimation. The weather was perfect, sunny breezy and low humidity and it was all lovely under the trees on Frances Street.

Squeeze the nipples if you dare, apparently they beep. Sounds like fun.

"We are going to hell." Their theory included me, with a glint in their eyes. Eternity could be a very long time.

They call themselves bananimes:

Key West can be bad for you. Wears you down. The end.

The Japanese cartoons known as anime are outside my cultural scope. These are supposedly a representation of Hello Kitty. Enjoy.

My dominatrix. Her whip was a bit small actually for my taste.

Chaos on Frances Street. Controlled but chaotic. Some people tried to drive cars through this mess. Duh: find an alternative.

I'm not certain which speedo I liked best. Your choice: