It’s A Tough Job,But Someone Has to Look At All Those BOOBS..

I mean really.. if it wasn’t going to be me, who would have stood up and taken the reins to appreciate a week of the saggiest, scariest naked people from all over the world, all collected in one place and covered in paint, stale beer, and beads? I sacrificed myself on the altar of freedom of expression and the fundamental concept of the right to bear boobies so that I could bring you a few blurry, rum-soaked photos of this seminal event.

Last year if you recall, I missed the last couple nights of Fantasy Fest because I had to be in Orlando for a wedding that weekend. Well I decided nothing was gonna keep me from it this year. In fact, I even got in the parade so I could get the view from the other side of the fences.

We had quite a house full of guests on top of everything else.

Thursday My friends Alex and his brother Omar came in on the ferry from Fort Myers. I met them at the dock and we walked past Dante’s where the stripper-in-the-pool contest was just beginning to ramp up. It took everything we had to not go in right then, but we managed to skate out with just a roadie for the long 4 or 5 block walk to my apartment to drop off their bags. Shortly after we got back Christina’s brother Josh and 3 of his friends showed up from Central Florida with all of their bags and other impedimenta. All right!! So far 6 house guests! It’s gonna be a party!

Omar	Josh gets a lap dance	Moose and the Float Crew

We all mixed a couple of cocktails and walked back down to Dante’s where we met up with some other friends from Orlando (who were thankfully not staying with us). The place was already wall to wall half-nekkid people – in and out of the pool. Geeks with cameras skulked in the corners furiously snapping with their digital cameras to get every last nipple they could. I took a few photos myself, but my lens is pretty wide angle (12mm) so my photos are more of the grand spectacle variety. I did however, have a bunch of horned-up guys with me armed with cameras, and they weren’t afraid to actually get IN the pool to get photos, so if you really want to have your hair blown back, check out the pictures on Picasa here.

After Dante’s it’s all one large blur of street parties, drag shows, and parades. Friday my friend Kris and his then-fiance (now wife) showed up for the weekend, and stayed with us that night bringing the total of house-guests to 8! (They got a hotel for the rest of their stay).

I’d give a blow-by-blow of the entire madness, but it would be unnecessarily byzantine, and really.. who cares. You’re just here to look at the boobs right? I will say that actually being IN the parade was an amazingly surreal experience. It took probably 4 hours to walk the entire route, and my feet were killing me! But it’s an experience I wouldn’t trade. I missed out on getting lots of photos of the individual floats, but I think in return I got lots of great photos of the people, and that’s really the better part of the trip.

I’ve broken the photos up into 4 albums:

Dante’s Pool Party (Thursday)
Thursday Night (Out on the streets, and the drag show)
Friday (Local’s Parade, a bit out and about at night)
Saturday (In the parade)

I’ve pared the massive amount of images down to about a third of what I have for these albums. These are photos from my camera as well as my friends cameras, so invariably there was a lot of duplication. I hope I got all the blurry, boring, or duplicate photos out of there, but if not.. eh.. life goes on. Be warned however, there is a lot of nudity in there, if you are in any way easily offended by nipples, don’t look.

All in all a fantastic week-long event. Everyone gets along, there are people dancing in the streets, and lots of good drinks and food. I’ve never been to Mardi Gras, but I’m pretty sure Key West gives New Orleans a run for their money with this one…

Cheers!
M

Our first Minimal Regatta!

We’d missed it last year as it’d happened just before we moved to Key West from Orlando. That brings me to an off-topic topic.. this weekend marks the anniversary of Christina’s arrival in Key West! Next weekend will by mine. I can’t believe it’s been a year already! I guess there’s no turning back now!

Anyway, the Minimal Regatta is an annual event put on by Schooner Wharf Bar in which contestants are given a sheet of plywood, two 2×4′s, a box of screws, and a roll of duct tape. With these ‘minimal’ materials, they build a boat to race in the regatta. Well to be more accurate, try to race. A lot of them sink.. which is where all the fun is!

I didn’t really know quite what to expect, I’d heard stories and seen some of the wining boats hanging in the rafters at Schooners, but any time you have a bunch of people dressed in costumes drinking you’re bound to have a good time, so sign me up!

My friend Eric (who drove all the way back to Key West from North Carolina for the event) built two boats; one for him and one for his wife Kelly. They were essentially the same but for the paint job. Hers had big pink hearts on it, his was just plain silver.

Event Day!

I had agreed to be on eric’s ‘crew’ for the event. I’m not sure what this really entailed, because they say you can have up to a 6 person crew, but really you only need one person to help you get the boat in and out of the water, and they sho’d people off the docks so fast you’d be hampered by a large crew anyways.

Eric had told me he’d be calling at 8:30 the morning of the event so we could go down and set up our tent in a good spot behind Schooner’s. When the phone rang that morning (after I might add, a long night of entertaining out-of-town guests) it was 7:00. Curse you Eric!

Well, I was up at that point so what the hell. He came by and picked me up and we went down to the marina. It was already hot and we were sweating profusely and it wasn’t even 8:00 yet! (in all honesty this could have been alcohol sweats) We finished setting up the tent and I had Eric drop me home so I could perhaps cop a few more Z’s before we had to meet for breakfast at 11:00. Ug.. never enough time on the day for sleep!

We hit Harpoon Harry’s for brunch at noon and did some carbo-loading for the big day of drinking and frolicking. The food was great, the service.. not so much. Our waitress seemed really put out that we were there taking up her time. I won’t let that keep me from going back though, the food is really good.

After brunch we  made our way to the party tent to begin the day. I’d been told that the two hottest days in Key West are the Minimal Regatta and the Battle of the Bars. I was skeptical.. the weather had been warm lately, but not too terrible, so I didn’t think it’d be all that bad. Well. I was wrong.

Key West had a record high that day, and it was like standing in an oven set to maximum broil on those docks! To make matters worse, the last time I’d seen the docks that crowded was new years eve. I’m surprised they didn’t collapse into the marina with all that weight on them. I found myself  secretly wishing for this because at least I’d be in the water if that happened.

To be honest I missed much of the races because of the oppressive heat and crowd on the docks. I only went out and watched when Eric or Kelly were racing. I’m not much for large crowds of people.. especially when its ridiculously hot. Also we had quite a crowd of folks at our party tent and we were having a grand time of our own back there away from the masses. Surprisingly it actually seemed 10 degrees cooler behind the building. It could have been the effect of the coolers full of ice and sweet-sweet vodka there.

Kelly actually won her first heat, Eric wasn’t so lucky. His boat sank as soon as the start horn sounded. Good times! So since Kelly won a heat it meant she had to race again. She didn’t feel like her arms were up to it, so she found a stand-in to race for her in the second heat. Her stand-in  however was not possessed of the same competitor’s mettle, and failed to even finish the entire course.

On to Dante’s!

When you’ve been out in the heat all day drinking, there’s only one thing to do! Walk down the docks and go to Dante’s for a swim! Well… everyone else at the event had had the same idea and the place was jam-packed. The pool water was a bit dubious as well, so we opted for just a few drinks before departing. Christina and I went home, passed out in the AC for a couple hours, then dragged our weary arses out of bed to meet up with our out-of-town guests for dinner at Jack Flats.

It was a very long day. Hot and long. But it was an absolute blast, and I wouldn’t have missed it!

Here’s a few photos for your perusal:

MinReg2010 (27 photos)
30 May 2010

Albumul poate fi vazut doar online.

I’ve never been one for big goodbyes, because I do believe good friends will always be just that, and distance can’t take that friendship away. And hey, this is the digital age, I communicate online with people more than I do face to face anyways. That being said, Eric, Danny, and John.. I will miss you guys! I’m sure you’ll be back to visit sooooon.

With that I’m going to leave you with a few of photos.

This one is of Danny jumping into the Key West Bight the evening of his going away party at Dante’s. He had a choice of either getting thrown into the pool or the bight. He chose the high road and decided to thrown himself into the bight for our amusement. Danny was always ready to amuse the crowd by snorting hot mustard or pouring lime juice into his eyes. Danny.. I didn’t know you well, but you made me laugh, and the huge group of loyal friends you have here speaks volumes about your character. Go in peace brother!

And where would I be in Key West right now without Eric (Below). I met Eric while working on the Haunted Fort and he immediately welcomed Christina and I into his circle of friends and made us feel at home. Most of the people I know and count as friends right now are such because of my friendship with Eric. His graciousness and hospitality are unequalled, and he knows exactly when to escalate a bad situation with a carefully placed plate of mustard, ninja-style. Dude, I’m going to miss you most of all.. well, I’m going to miss your courtyard pool, your smoker, and your Porktoberfest parties, but I’ll miss you too! SNIF! Have fun in Georgia!

I promise to keep Key West warm for you!

Christina and I met up with our friend Eric and his wife Kelly at their place right off of Duval, grabbed a couple of chairs from around the pool and parked ourselves on the sidewalk with some frosty adult beverages.

In true Key West fashion, the parade started about an hour late, but it was a grand good time. Key West certainly loves it’s parades, and this was no exception. You gotta love a parade where people just join in and walk carrying their coolers and beers with them.

I love this city!

CRParade (38 photos)
22 April 2010

Albumul poate fi vazut doar online.

It’s officially Spring here in Key West.. my first of many! The flowers are quite literally exploding all over Old Town. We’ve been walking in the evenings, and the smells we encounter are strong enough to knock you down. It’s really beautiful. Walking through Old Town Key West at dusk with a roadie during the spring has got to be one of the finest experiences out there. I highly recommend you try it whenever possible!

The weather is finally warming up after that cold-assed winter we had, and I’m beginning to think seriously about my beach hammock again.. Fort Zach, here we come!

WOO HOO!

Well, the spring breakers have finally abandoned the city, taking with them the late night WOO HOO!’s and the ever-so-popular drunken arguments between lovers that seems to be so prevalent in Key West’s nether-hours. The bars here don’t close until 4 AM, and when you add to that the gestalt idiocy of thousands of drunk college kids, you’re gonna get some anarchy!

The weather has been nice, so we’ve been leaving the windows open at night… this is great because it makes for nice sleeping, but…. being a block from one of the biggest party streets in the US during spring break, we definitely heard the party.

The nights typically started off quiet enough. I hit the sack around midnight most nights, so I’d slip into bed, pull out the kindle and start reading at just about the time things were ramping up on Duval. By about two AM I could hear the madness reaching a fever pitch.

There’s a phenomenon that happens when the alcohol intake of a crowd has reached it’s tipping point… especially for college kids on vacation; I call it the WOO HOO Phenomenon. They start high fiving and WHOO HO!’ing at EVERYTHING. It’s like drunken sign language.. they can’t speak very well anymore so they start howling at each other. I suppose it could also be a drunken mating call. Heck, it’s an all purpose exclamation!

“I’m Druuuuuunk! WOO HOO!”
“ME TOO! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!”
“Hey dude, I just threw up! Gnarly!”
“WOO HOO!”
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

At this point it’s spreads like wild fire, the drunk co-ed across the street hears the WOO HOO, and even though she has no idea what it’s about, she responds “WOO HOO!” as she stumbles into a lamp pole and drops the phone she was texting her BFF on into a pile of bum vomit in the gutter. Someone else hears her and WOO HOO’s in response. This chain reaction continues until the entire street full of drunk retards is WOO HOOing.. at what, they don’t know.. most people I think, are probably hoping it’s because someone saw a titty.

And Then…

The WOOOOO!’s and the WOO HOO!’s continue on through the couple hours between 2 AM and 4 AM. At 4 the bars finally kick people out, and the WOO HOO!’s start to become fewer and farther between; you hear them echoing off into the night as the mob disperses, until finally the only sounds left are the dulcet tones of drunk women arguing with their boyfriends.

Now, this is an interesting thing. I would think that the drunker of the two drunken arguers would be equally divided between men and women, but I swear I have never heard an argument between a guy and his girl where HE was the drunker one. And I hear A LOT of late night drunk-stumbling arguments going down the sidewalk. A LOT.

Without fail, it is the woman who is blind stinking drunk, mumbling about how he was talking to another girl, or he was drinking too much, or they don’t spend enough time together.. blah blah blah.. the content isn’t important, it’s the dynamic that interests me.

She’s usually yelling.. or trying to. She’s stopping every few steps and turning to walk away pumping her fists up and down, dropping shit, and/or just plain falling down. The guy without fail follows her, holds her up, holds her hair while she pukes, picks up her dropped items, holds her purse, and just generally tries to calm her down and get her to stop screaming while he ushers her back to whatever hotel they’re staying at so he can pour her into bed and just end the madness.

I’ve actually encountered this phenomenon personally. Christina and I vacationed down here probably 4 or 5 times over the years before moving here. Without fail we got into an argument in the middle of the night. And Christina, I love you.. but… well you get the gist. And we NEVER argue. There must be some special Key West argue pheromone or something. We’ve taken to just calling it ‘Key West Drunk’.

That being said, since moving here we’re back to our normal non-arguing life. I really can’t explain the drunk-chick-argument thing in KW. But it does makes for some super-entertaining porch sitting!

Of course, we were only moving from Orlando, but even Orlando freezes.. Key West has never seen frost; the lowest temperature ever recorded being 41 degrees, and that was way back in 1981. The only other time it had ever reached that low was back in 1886! I was safe from freezing. Or so I thought..

This last week down here we’ve seen the second lowest recorded temperature in Key West ever.. 42 degrees. Now I’m not one to complain, I mean it is KEY WEST after all, but like most of the old homes down here, ours was built to keep you cool in the summer.. scant provisions were made to keep you WARM. Few homes have central air, let alone central heat, and most homes have window AC units.. which typically have no heat cycle.

So over the weekend we broke down and hit up a few stores looking for a space heater.. of course, so did everyone else in Key West.. suffice it to say we came away empty handed. Now, I’d watched a lot of MacGyver back in the day, so I knew all I needed was a little duct tape, a lighter, and a small furry cat, and I could build a space heater, so I sat down with an irish coffee and put my mind to work. The more irish coffee I drank, the more I liked the cat idea, but Christina was against it, so I settled for the next best thing.. I turned on the oven and left the door open. Not as spectacular and cool as a flaming cat, but it did the trick.

Of course I wouldn’t recommend trying this at night while sleeping, but left on for 10 minute increments every half hour or so, it worked quite well in taking at least the coldest chill from the air. AND you can bake at the same time!

I look forward to some more warm weather, I’ve had enough of these ‘mainland’ temperatures!

It’s the week between Christmas and New Years Eve here in lovely Key West, and all I can say is WOW.. I have NEVER seen so many people here. Fantasy Fest was pretty crazy, but the vast majority of those people came out at night to crowd the streets and bump nakedly against one another with the relative anonymity of darkness.

The Christmas holiday travelers are swarming the streets in broad daylight; mothers dragging slack-eyed, Nintendo gazing  children around by the arms, huffing and puffing to get down the street to that next big tourist destination on their travel map, while the fathers lag a few yards behind, beer in hand wishing to themselves drunkenly as they stagger through the crowd that they were here without the family.

Duval Street is packed!

It looks like a Disney theme park out there. But I do have to admit that I find it pretty cool that 90% of the people I walk by aren’t speaking english, or even spanish.. the foreign folks are here in droves man, and they aren’t leaving without their T-shirt! It’s funny to me, and probably just because it’s new to me, but the family vacation dynamic seems to be the same for every culture; Dad just wants to plant it somewhere with a hot waitress and drink. Mom wants to see the lighthouse, Hemingway’s house, the little White House, the aquarium, the shipwreck museum, the secret garden, etc, etc, etc, and all before dinner at that Italian restaurant Frommer’s said was so good. And the kids just want to play video games in the hotel room. You gotta love it! The Key West motto is One Human Family, and this holiday season I’m seeing it in person, we truly are all the same.

Even my street a block over from Duval (which is typically pretty quiet during all the festivals and such) is clogged with more scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians than usual. Finding a parking space on the street is near impossible this week as thousands of rental cars driven by people who are most likely not only a bit tipsy, but more accustomed to driving on the other side of the road vie for open spots as close to Duval as they can get.

I lie in bed at night and hear raucous groups of drunks yelling and whooping it up as they walk from the bars back to their hotels and B&B’s at 4 A.M… something that even during Fantasy Fest and the Poker Run I didn’t hear much of. Sirens are wailing until all hours of the night; they seem to go on forever.. how is that possible? The island’s only a couple miles wide! Are they driving in circles??

Is it possible that Christmas holiday travelers are more unruly than Fantasy Fest goers? That certainly seems to be the case, although I never would have guessed in a million years. I can only assume that it will get worse as we creep closer to New Years Eve.

Christina’s brother Josh is coming Wednesday to stay through the weekend, so we’ll be doing our part to help crowd the streets Thursday night. Schooner Wharf Bar is having it’s ‘Wench Drop” at midnight. They drop a wench (A live one) from the mast of the schooner Wolf which is moored right next to the bar. I think we’ve decided that’s our midnight destination this year. There are other ‘drop ‘ celebrations happening at various bars on Duval, like the drag queen in the big red shoe, but I think we’re going to try to avoid some of the crazy tourists and stay close to the local’s haunt.

I’ll be sure and post some photos!

Mike

The boats were so loud while they were racing, I could hear them from my front porch and I could smell the nitro from their exhaust wafting on the breeze blowing across the island.. good times!

The Miss Geico boat won the race, and no surprise.. it was very impressive – it’s turbine powered instead of piston-engine powered. It sounded like a jet airplane when it went by, quieter than the other boats, but quite obviously faster.. it was like watching something out of a batman movie.. well except it was bright green! It shot by so fast on the water that I had a hard time snapping a photo before it was out of the frame! The photo up there is the victory pass, even at idle it sounded like a jet.. I get chills just thinking about it now.. it was very cool.

Still, as much as I enjoyed the Miss Geico boat, I think my favorite was the Cintron boat, it was LOUD and painted a very sober grey. Unfortunately I think it must have broken down at some point, because it wasn’t in the race on Sunday. When we saw it on the street Saturday night, I understood why it was so loud.. it had two 1500 HP blown V8 engines in it.. you can see the photos down the page a bit.. makes miss my gearhead days from high school!

MorePowerBoats (12 photos)
13 November 2009

Albumul poate fi vazut doar online.

The weekend before Halloween my friend Walter came into town for his ‘bachelor party’. It was just he and I, so I figured how bad could it be.. well we pretty much completely wore ourselves out that weekend..

I never made it to Goombay festival like I wanted to, but I had a great time anyway. I think Walter may have had a bit more fun than I did however because when Monday rolled up and it was time for him to get on the ferry back to Ft Myers at 6:00, he was no where to be found.

He did eventually show up, but far too late in the day to make it to the ferry, so the missus and I didn’t get to have that lull in the action before the next wave of revelers came in Tuesday.

He had so much fun in fact, that we had to call a Doctor who makes house calls (I love Key West) to check him out on Tuesday, turns out he had smoked and drank so much that he was on the verge of pneumonia.. well a few steroid shots, and some antibiotics later, I shoveled him onto the boat and promptly sighed a very heavy sigh of relief. It was all up to his fiance at that point, haha.

For those of you who know Walter, you feel my pain I’m sure. At least the next wave of friends were relatively tame and responsible by comparison.

The real kicker to that story is I had to leave that coming Friday morning to drive to Orlando to be in his wedding, so at best I was in the eye of the hurricane, AND I was going to miss my first Fantasy Fest Parade. Remind me to never agree to be in another wedding….

As it turns out, our Tuesday guests became Wednesday guests so we wound up having our night to lay like broccoli on the couch.. a VERY much needed respite. We eventually couldn’t resist, and decided to leave the couch for a couple of hours and make one pass down Duval, just to get a feel for our first Fantasy Fest.

By this time the night-time crowds on Duval were getting increasingly large and more naked. We wandered about sipping a couple of Coronas trying to take in all the madness. We were too wiped out to really spend too much time out, or to really register how many sets of boobs or male genitalia wrapped in sparkle wrap we’d seen. We snapped a few photos and headed back to the apartment to crash. It was all very surreal, and we were beginning to understand just how insane this was going to be…

I’ll get to the real meat of the adventures in my next post. Right now I have to run out to Fort Zach and start tearing down the haunted fort. When that’s done in a week, life will finally be back to something resembling normal. Next adventure is to find a job!

P.S…. no that is NOT Christina in that photo up there..