Fantasy Fest 2011

Here are the Photos you’ve been waiting for!

October and November have come and gone, and now that Halloween, the Haunted Fort, the Vampire’s Ball, Fantasy Fest and Thanksgiving are finally behind us, things have settled down to the point that I can go through the mass of photos from this years Fantasy Fest and delete the blurry shots, the foot shots, the duplicate shots, and the just plain nasty ones. For the most part I didn’t get rid of anything you wouldn’t want to see, well.. let me rephrase that.. well.. let’s just drop that line of thought altogether.

Here are the photos for better or for worse. Once again I’ve broken them up into four separate sections; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and the infamous Dante’s Pool Party shots. As always, if you are offended by tits and such, DON’T LOOK. You might burn your eyes out.

I discovered just recently that Picasa Web Albums pretty heavily censored the shots from the Dante’s party, essentially deleting anything that most of you perverts would care to look at, so I think what I will do is post them up on Flikr where I can assign them an “Adult Content” tag. Google has no such feature, which is kind of a head scratcher to me, but what do I know. Anyways, stay tuned for that link to update soon.

Fewer House-guests This Year

And thank god for that. We only had Josh and Trevor this year, so things were relatively quiet around the apartment. The best part is we could actually get to the damned bathroom in some timely fashion. You haven’t lived until you share your apartment with 8 hungover dudes all vying for some face time with the porcelain phone.

Thursday Josh, Trev and I wandered on down to Dante’s for the Stripper Pole party. I must be getting old, because the crowd there really got on my nerves. It was so freakin crowded, you couldn’t get to the bar, you couldn’t get to the pool.. meh. I hung out for about 30 minutes or an hour sipping a dark and stormy while Josh and Trevor vied for a decent spot in the pool. I think I left before the actual stripper pole part started.. I just wasn’t feeling it, I walked back to the Porch of Destiny and chilled out with some Bob Marley on the Sirius and some of my own rum, which was considerably cheaper and less aggravating! Josh and Trevor got a shit-ton of really, really um.. interesting photos, which is obvious by how quickly Google took that shit down. The photos from last year’s pool party are still up if that gives you any idea.

After a while, Christina got home from work, my stunt photographers returned from their hazardous duty at Dante’s and we all wandered down to Duval to see what was up there. The crowds this year were twice the size that they were last year, it was amazing how many people were out and about. We walked up and down a time or two snapping photos and sipping rum drinks, eventually winding up back on the porch around midnight I think. I think Josh and Trev went back out after Christina and I went to bed.. crazy kids.

Friday is a fun day at Fantasy Fest, especially when you apartment is on the parade route for the “locals” parade that runs all through old town. In many ways, this parade is more fun for me than the big parade on Saturday. Maybe because it’s more intimate, there aren’t any barricades, and anyone can join in and walk. The costumes are fabulous, and it seems everyone is dragging along a cooler full of drinks with their group. Some even have rolling bars that pull up and hand out jello-shots or shooters.. We spent the morning fixing up a bunch of munchies and chilling out on the porch. The parade finally started, and it just went ON and ON and ON.. the cops finally tried to bust it up after a few hours because no traffic could move anywhere.. haha. It was spectacular. As a bonus, after the roads had cleared out a bit, we had a celebrity sighting as Kid Rock walked past the Porch of Destiny with a gaggle of hookers in tow. Trevor being the aspiring paparazzo that he is, was able to snap a photo. Way to go Trev!

Saturday finally came and instead of walking in the parade this year, we were able to visit the apartment of a friend of a friend who lives on Duval. It was a second floor affair with windows overlooking the parade route! Sweet! The only drawback was an ill-placed palm tree partially blocking one of the windows.. damn. Being the ever-fearless photographer, Trevor went down to the street and bellied up to the barricade to shoot some photos of the parade, while we sat in the comfort of the AC and drank. I say “some” photos.. but that’s kind of a misnomer. I think he shot like 600 plus of the parade.. good grief!

Watching the parade from up high is a pretty trippy experience, I can imagine it could only be made more awesome by an unobstructed view and an actual balcony to sit or stand on. It was awesome nonetheless though, and the floats were amazing. I think I may have had more fun last year when I walked in the parade, so next year I plan to build a float and put our whole crew in the parade.. we’ll see how that goes!

After the parade we all went down to Schooner Wharf and continued the festivities well into the night. I woke up sunday with a huge headache and went to WORK. GAH! Back to freakin’ reality.

Well, that’s the reader’s digest condensed and family-friendly version of Fantasy Fest at chez mike this year, nothing terribly insane happened, no one threw up or wound up in jail, so maybe we are all getting a little wiser. Oh wait.. Alex wasn’t there.. that explains everything.. haha. Anyways.. enjoy the photos, and next year come see it in person!

Cheers!
Mike

I Found Another Awesome Blog!

How come I’ve never seen this before!

I love, love, love this guys blog. It’s what any good leave-yer-damn-job-and-move-to-the-damn-tropics blog should be like. Very much worth a read, heck.. I may even buy his book!

Anyway, reading that blog makes me want to begin paying more attention to ConchTales again. I know I keep saying that, but it will happen.. and soon. I’ve just been supra-busy lately with getting Bone Island Graphics up and running. As soon as my secret cloning device is fully operational, you will begin seeing more activity here.

So ’till I post again.. read this.

Cheers!

Mike

Here We Go Again!

Well here I am posting again…

So I guess I’m not quite ready to pull the plug on this blog yet. I’ve been away from it for about 6 months, and I find that I miss it. There’s a certain solace in writing out your thoughts.. a chance to sort it all out on paper. Well, not paper exactly, but you get the idea.

I’ve been working night and day trying to maintain my day job while building up Bone Island Graphics (BIG) in the evenings and weekends, so I haven’t had much time for doing anything fun at all. Life has become one big blur of running from one project to another.

I remember when we moved to Key West hearing that the locals did nothing but work and had no time to enjoy the finer aspects of living here. That’s crazy, I thought.. how could you NOT enjoy all the things Key West has to offer? Well, it appears that I’ve fallen into that routine myself, and I can say with all honesty that it’s time for a break. Something has to give.

I think I’ll begin with a heavy dose of Fantasy Fest!

It’s hard to believe it’s time for all of this again. The Vampire’s Ball is this Saturday, and I’ve yet to really figure out how I’m decorating for that. I guess it’ll be seat-of-the-pants again, it seemed to work last year, so cross your fingers.

Also starting up this weekend is the Haunting of Fort Taylor. I didn’t have any time whatsoever this year to donate to that event, but from what I hear they are ramping up nicely for the first night Tomorrow Evening. I’m sure it will be fantastic as usual.

Next Wednesday or Thursday, we’ve got a few folks coming into town for the Fantasy Fest madness. It’s a smaller crew this year, which is fine by me considering last year we were crammed into the apartment like sardines. Josh, Alex, Trev, and one newbie friend of Josh’s will descend on the Porch of Destiny for 4 days and nights of excess. I’m really looking forward to just having a good time and not worrying about WORK for a few days.

I will of course post some photos so all of you who can’t be here to enjoy it can see what you’re missing (or not missing).

Speaking of photos, a few months ago I cleaned out all of my myriad google / picasa accounts. I don’t know how I managed to get so many of them, but there were too many for me to keep track of, so I consolidated them. When I did that all the links and galleries on this site went kablooey. I didn’t worry about it much at the time, because I was determined to shut this site down. Apparently that isn’t gonna happen though, so I went through and fixed all the links. Who loves ya?

Mike

Busier than a…..

Wow. Life gets away with you sometimes.

I have, over the last few months toyed with the idea of taking this site down because it seems I just don’t have the time to sit down and write in it any more, and it pains me to leave it sitting here unloved. This blog began it’s life as a way for me to vent and work through the slurry of emotions I was wading through after being laid off from what I like to call corporate slavery.

I wrote under the deluded intention of keeping my family and friends abreast of my whereabouts mentally and whatnot, but really it was (and I didn’t realize this at the time) more for my own sanity. I was trying to make sense of the world after getting kicked out of my middle-american, consumerist comfort zone.

Back then it was just called “Mike needs a life” because the only thing I really did know was that I woke up one day and found myself jobless, and that I had put so much energy into my job over the years that there wasn’t much else to my life but my job. I suppose that’s a typical story. I was so busy working I didn’t have time for the things I really wanted to do.. heck, I didn’t even know there was something else that I wanted to do.

When I moved to Key West I was still jobless (and remained so for 9 months) so I changed the name of the blog to Conch Tales and decided to write about my adventures in learning what it’s like to live here. That was great fun for quite a while, and it gave me a diversion from the boredom of unemployment. I envisioned an endless amount of things to babble on about. Eventually after becoming employed and settling into a routine, life picked up much as it always does when you have to go to work every day… and I felt myself slipping back into the old comfortable routine of just working. I stopped writing in my blog, I spent more time watching TV in the evenings because after coming home from working for the MAN, my brain was shut down, I spent less time working on my sculptures even though I had the money to buy materials finally.

It’s a funny thing. But it wasn’t long before I found myself pretty unhappy with life again. How could I be living in Key West and NOT be happy! I was living in paradise after all, right? I eventually came to the realization that working for someone else just was not the answer. I have too many of my own dreams and aspirations to be toiling away building someone else’s empire for a measly 15 bucks an hour and no benefits. I’ve always shunned the idea of being an entrepreneur, I just didn’t want to deal with the stresses of being self-employed. I guess maybe it’s because I’m getting up there in years, but these days I pretty much feel like there really isn’t any other avenue for me.

So you feel like you don’t have any free time?

What do you do? Start your own business? Yep. Brilliant. That’s what I did. I called it Bone Island Graphics. I partnered up with a co-worker who has supreme framing and gallery experience, we bought a huge printer, rented a shop, and now we’re in the graphic design, fine art printing and framing business. For the time being, we both still work our full-time jobs at the gallery so at least we didn’t take the hairy jump off the cliff into the great unknown. At the time of this posting, we’ve had our doors open for a month, and we have yet to make a penny for our troubles, but damn it feels good to go to work in my own shop on my ‘weekends’.

The walls are still bare, and it’s most definitely a work-in-progress, but we are functional. Now all we need is a little bit of business so I can stop paying rent out of pocket. When that happens, I will dance a little jig and probably drink a big bottle of rum… then sober up and pray for a little more business so maybe I can some day stop working for the MAN entirely.

Along with the Bone Island Graphics venture, I’m working hurriedly to finish a couple more sculpture pieces for a Steampunk art show in Connecticut that opens in October… and trying to write and illustrate a graphic novel… oh, and trying to spend as much time on the beach with Christina as I can.

So anyway

That’s my excuse. And I’m sticking with it. If you wake up one morning and suddenly Conch Tales is gone, at least you’ll know what happened

M

What To Do in Key West (As If You Have To Ask) Part 1

Hey Mike, what should I do when I come to Key West?

I think that the answer to that question is pretty obvious; get drunk and pass out half-naked in the gutter with some beads in your mouth, but I still get asked this question pretty frequently. So after a couple long drawn-out return emails back to people with all my recommendations, I started just copying and pasting it. Man, what a pain this is! I thought to myself. Then it hit me.. why not just post it here? I mean, I’m a relatively smart guy, why not make it easy on myself.. and you. So now you can just come here, read this post, and be an instant Key West Vacation Aficionado. Birds will sing, angels will sing, drag queens will.. well.. sing.. you get the picture. Mass hysteria and all that good shit.

Of course, I’m certain that there are a great many things I’ll leave out of this list simply because I don’t know about ‘em, or have no interest in ‘em.. like fishing.. if you want fishing charter advice you came to the wrong place. I don’t know jack-squat about fishing, or where to go to get a good captain. Heck, I don’t even like to eat fish.

So the end-all, be-all guide to your Key West Vacation, this is probably not, but eating, drinking, sight-seeing, and merry-making.. I’m your man. Or I could be for the right price.

So welcome to the first post in a series of what I think you should be doing with your drunk ass when you’re in Key West. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it helps you have a better vacation!

What to do with your car when you get here.

Lots of people actually drive down. I guess you have to do it a few times; it can be pretty interesting if you’ve never done it before. Personally, I’m done with that freakin’ drive.. it’s worth every bit of the pittance it costs to fly from Orlando on Airtran to not have to make that 7+ hour drive ever again. Alternately, you can take the Key West Express from Fort Myers for like 85 bucks each way. Driving really only makes sense if you have a carload of people; if you’re coming by yourself, it’s cheaper to fly.

But if you do have your car with you, and your hotel doesn’t have a parking lot (Many of the smaller ones don’t), you can either park it at one of the city lots or go native and park it on the streets in Old Town. All of the on-street parking north of Simonton is un-metered. The only caveat is that every other space is labeled “Residential”, and unless you have a Monroe county tag, you don’t want to park in one of those spaces. You will get a ticket. Any space not labeled is fine to park in.

The meters on the streets in old town south of Simonton are like 25 cents per 10 minutes, definitely NOT cheap, and the meter maids in this city have a sixth sense when it comes to meters running out.. don’t take a chance at the meters unless you have a pocket full of quarters you don’t want, and a lot of luck on your side. You don’t want to have a run-in with one of the meter-maids, they are VERY unfriendly folk – they are perhaps the only people in Key West who are not having a good time.

There’s a city park-n-ride garage near the ferry terminal on Grinnell, and this is where I usually tell people to park. It’s like 13 bucks a day, and it’s covered. Plus, you can park and then stop by Dante’s just next door for a cold one before settling in!

There’s also a surface lot downtown next to City Hall on the corner of Simonton and Angela, I think it’s a little more expensive, but it’s certainly closer to the Duval action. They have an automated kiosk there that spits out a ticket to put on your dash. I don’t know for sure if you can long-term park there or if it’s just a daily thing. I’ll check into that and update this post when I can.

Regardless of where you park, once you find a spot, leave your car there and get a bicycle. You do not want to be driving around Key West from place to place, it’s far easier to bike, or heck.. walk even! It’s a small city, and the more energy you expend, the more you can eat and drink while you’re here!

So you parked your car. Now rent a bicycle!

Don’t be a wank and rent a scooter, they’re annoying, and the only people who rent them are fat lazy people from new york and sexually-challenged frat boys looking to make as much nuisance of themselves as possible. Plus your chances of dying in an alcohol-related crash are greatly increased on a scooter. (No, I’m not advocating drinking and biking, but we’re all adults here) Seriously.. the island is like 2 miles wide.. if you can’t get there on a bike in under 10 minutes, it’s not worth going.

If you’re absolutely against any kind of physical exercise, rent a golf cart. At least they’re electric and don’t make any noise at 2 AM when I’m trying to sleep. Plus you can take your friends with you.

When we visited KW before moving here, we always rented bikes from The Moped Hospital on the corner of Truman and Simonton, simply because it was the closest place to where we stayed. There are lots of places to rent bikes and golf carts from, and I’m pretty sure they’re all about the same price, so pick one close to where you’re staying. Here are a few off the top of my head:

Island Bikes – Love these guys, they rent Electra Coasters, the perfect island bike, and they’re super nice
Pirate Scooter – They rent golf carts and scooters too
Eaton Bikes - They pick up and deliver bikes!
Re-Cycle – They’re up in New Town if you’re too cheap to stay in Old Town

One more word about biking. And I find myself loathe to even attempt to act grown-up enough to add this, but follow the damn normal rules of traffic engagement and you’ll be fine. Start blowing through stop lights, and passing cars lined up at the lights, and you will get yourself into trouble. Key west is a VERY bike-friendly city, and the folks who live here are used to sharing the road with bikes, pedestrians, and scooters. Don’t be afraid, and don’t ride on the freakin’ sidewalk if you can help it. Gah.. my fingers feel dirty just from typing that paragraph.

Well, that pretty much sums up part one of Mike’s guide to a successful Key West Vacation.. You’re here, your car is stashed away, and you have your trusty two-wheeled steed to take you adventuring wherever your little heart may chose to go. Next we’ll talk a little about bars and food, so stay tuned!

Peace
M