Haunted Fort Final Shots Before Opening

Well, it was a very long month in preparation of the Haunted Fort. I’m very glad it’s finished. Now it’s all up to the actors who will be working each night to try to scare the masses of people going through Key West’s only Haunted House.

The last week was a constant struggle to find those last few things you always need more of.. colored lights, extension cords, fog machines.. you know, halloween staples. We had about 6 fog machines, only one worked. I took them apart, cleaned them, spoke nice to them, but in the end none of them would come back from the dead. Luckily some nice last minute sponsors bought a few for us.. phew.. can’t have a haunted fort without fog.

Frank worked himself right into the ground on this project, I honestly don’t know how he did it, he’d work at the fort from noon to 7, hit Dante’s pool bar for a drink or two, then walk to the Magic Bar at Schooner Wharf for his magic show from nine to midnight. And he did this every day of the week. His mornings were spent rounding up sponsors and chasing down posters, tickets, and random building supplies. A Herculean effort by anyone’s standards, and still he pats me on the back introduces me as the guy who built the whole thing…. like I did even half of the work he did.

These shots are all with a flash, but you can get an idea of what it’s like. Someday I’ll be back into a camera that can take decent low-light shots. The place really comes to life when you have the 20 or so actors running around in there chasing you with meat cleavers and chainsaws and such.

It was a different kind of event for me than I’m used to, with my big halloween parties, I’d spend all my time and energy on decorations because they space was meant for mingling and drinking.. people would be looking at things closely so they had to be high quality.. with this event, people are cruising through in almost complete darkness with actors jumping out at them.. so things didn’t need to be super pretty, no one was going to have time to stop and inspect the craftsmanship. So it took some getting used to, but after I finally did get to go though it one night with Christina and her Brother, I saw how it works.. and work it did.. people were scared!

I wish I had some action shots of the actors at work, but the one night we did get to go out there with the camera was the night of the Vampires Ball, when there was a big costume party going on at the fort alongside the haunt. One of our party (who shall remain nameless) was too blind stinking drunk to be in public, so we had to leave almost as soon as we got there. Sigh.

Better luck next year! At any rate, enjoy the pix!

Fantasy Fest Officially Begins Tomorrow!

Well here it is.. the eve of my first Fantasy Fest. I’ve been busy for the last three weeks volunteering at the Haunted Fort Zach, helping set up, build, paint, scheme, and generally wear myself out every day, so I’m looking forward to a week of ridiculousness. Add to that the arrival (on the Key West Ferry from Ft Myers) at noon of my oldest friend Walter from way back in middle school, and we are sure to be in line for a wild weekend. He scoots out of town on Tuesday afternoon, and on the heels of his departure, Christina’s Brother and his friend arrive that evening to stay the rest of the week. Friday morning I’m driving to Orlando for a wedding on Saturday, so I’m going to miss the big FF finale parade, but Christina will sub as photographer for me, so rest assured.. there will be photos of that.

Phew.. strap yourselves in folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

A Few More Haunted Fort Photos for Your Viewing Pleasure

Here’s a few more photos of the Haunted Fort construction progress.

The View from the Parade Grounds	The “Staging Area”

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The Entrance Tunnel	The King of the Conchs Room

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Headless Skeletons! RUN!	Nothing Creepier than a Baby Coffin…

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The Graveyard is Taking Shape	Ladders are Very Scary!

I’ll add more as time goes on, there’s still a lot of dressing up to do… 2 weeks and counting!!!

Internet Over-Exposure!

Goodbye Twitter

Yesterday I deleted my Twitter account for this blog. I’m thinking about deleting the Facebook page for it as well. It’s just too much to keep up with! I mean, no one really reads all this anyways, and I feel an increasing amount of pressure to constantly be posting, and tweeting, and updating. It’s just too much.

Trying to keep up with three blogs is time consuming. I’ve already pretty much shut down my personal blog, and flirted with the idea of mixing this one with that one, but decided my personal rants were out of place here, it just felt discordant, and if you’ve read all the posts here in the last few weeks, you’ll notice a couple of them have been removed. They were just ruining my buzz, I’m sure they had the same effect on my readers.

The MAN is out to get you!

Another reason for the step back in exposure is simply that I’m in the middle of looking for a job, and I know from my own experience in vetting prospective employees that google can be your enemy if you’re job hunting. These days employers are becoming increasingly fascist about the opinions and personalities of people they hire. It’s a frustrating trend to say the least, but if you want to play the game, you gotta know the rules so you can skirt them.

It seems silly that I should have to worry about prospective employers finding this blog, but these days you can’t be too careful. My twitter account had my full name on it, and when I googled myself it was right there near the top of the list, my whole twitter history and a link to this site. A blog dedicated to drinking your way through Key West probably isn’t exactly what employers might like to see, even if it is mostly bravado.

So I’m removing all traces of my actual name from this and my other blogs, I’m still undecided as to whether I should remove ‘mike’ from my posts or not.. am I being too paranoid? You tell me.

Haunted Key West Fort

The Construction Begins!

A couple months ago I called up and volunteered for the Haunted key West Fort out at Fort Zachary Taylor. I’ve always had a huge halloween party every year, and now that I’d moved to Key West and knew virtually no one, a party was of the question so I needed an outlet for my Halloween fun!

Frank Everhart Jr. is the master of ceremonies for this haunt, and this is the 8th year for the event which is open during the week of Fantasy Fest leading up to Halloween night. When he’s not building Haunted Houses, Frank runs the Magic Bar at Schooner Wharf Bar on the Key West Marina. Frank is a very interesting guy, a real showman, and he has more energy than the energizer bunny. He never stops.

First Day – Unloading	Lots of Coffins!

I used to think our Halloween Parties in Orlando were a big production, but that was until Frank took me to the warehouse in the old Navy Galley building near the fort where he stores all of his props and materials for the Haunted Fort. Woah. You could fill 5 two-car garages with this stuff, maybe more.

The first 3 days were spent hauling pre-made black visquine walls and lumber from storage to the fort. Once that was finished, the wall construction began. The staging area at one end of the fort where the tools and saw horses and such were set up was also walled in. This area becomes the prop, makeup and costume area after construction is finished.

Frank and His Phone.. a Love Affair	Walls waiting to be Erected

Yesterday the navy sent over a group of volunteers to help for the day and and they helped to wrap up the 5-day wall construction phase, and today we’re moving on to hauling props from storage and setting up all of the rooms.

In true KW fashion, all of this project is done with donations and barter, there’s no real budget to speak of, so most of the props and materials have seen many years of service, and are in a state of serious disrepair. All of this only adds to the grunge factor though, and makes everything a little more creepy than if it was all new.

The volunteers are all good old KW locals, and they are all rich characters, and they all have nicknames.. like Flash, and Moose. There are those who work really hard, and some who like to stand around and watch, but then I found that to be true even in Orlando when I was setting up for my parties; people want to be involved in the spectacle even if it is just watching, and thats cool, moral support is important too.

A Past Patron	Frank Never Stops

I’ll drop another post with more pictures in a week or so when things are a bit more fleshed out, until then… I’m OUT!

8 Cuban refugees – one dinghy

Last night at 3:00 AM a dinghy loaded with 8 Cuban refugees landed on fort zach beach.. that’s crazy. Don’t they know there’s no jobs here??? 90 miles is a long way to go in a boat this small, it must suck in Cuba.

Yes, I know.. my photos suck

It wasn’t always like this…

I’ve been without a decent camera ever since I got laid off and had to leave behind the nice Nikon D70 that belonged to my office. I miss that camera. I’m sure it misses me as well. I’d liked that camera so much that when my own personal camera went tits up, I didn’t bother to replace it, I just used the office camera for everything.

Now, sadly it’s too late for me.. my current state of income won’t allow such an extravagance, and that office Nikon is probably sitting in that locked cabinet back in the IT department collecting dust because no one ever uses it anymore. Poor camera.

I’ve been using my iPhone and sometimes Christina’s little point and shoot jobbie to get pix for my blog. Both do fine if there is alot of light, but fail miserably as soon as it gets a little dark, as is evident in the example to the left.

If you can’t make it out, that’s because it’s total unadulterated CRAP! It’s a photo of a really interesting combination of ass-less chaps, and leather boy shorts worn by a young lady at the Poker Run festivities this past weekend on Duval street.

Unfortunately I can’t share the memory of that ass with my ardent readers because I couldn’t get a good photo of it. And for this I apologize. You deserve better from me.

Maybe I should try the Red Paperclip Trade-up idea

Have you heard about the guy in Canada who traded up to a house from a red paperclip? It’s a really interesting read.

And locally, one of the owners of the Coffee Plantation down here in KW has a blog about trading up from a red paperclip to a motorcycle.

Maybe I can trade up to a Nikon from say.. I don’t know… this old pair of  B&L Ray Ban Wayfarers? It would be fun to try. Anyone got anything they wanna trade?

Of course I suspect it would be easier if anyone at all ever read this blog. This could take a while…

Poker Run Key West 2009 Photos

Lots of really, really cool motorcycles, and lots of really, really strange people!

We wandered around both Friday and Saturday nights checking out the craziness that was Poker Run 2009. We saw lots of really drunk bikers, lots of exposed breasts, lots of serious machinery, and a lot of people having a really great time.

It’s unfortunate that the couple of people we know that ride bikes couldn’t make it down for this, I know they would have loved it. I think we got a very, very small taste of what Fantasy Fest will be like. What a blast!

Living a block from Duval, we definitely had a hard time sleeping this past weekend due to the constant motorcycle traffic, but you know what.. who cares. It’s exciting to see so many people out having a good time.

PokerRunPix (40 photos)
18 September 2009

Note: To see the pictures in the original Picasa album, click here