The Mar'keys' had a fun event in their campaign for Fantasy Fest king: an auction of dates with former kings at Bourbon (where one of the Markeys works; the other's a Conch Tour guide).
Bidding was spirited. Sounds like the dates would be, too.
. . . Though it was modeled by a particularly fetching dancer from Key West Burlesque, which our electrician's wife, Kyla, joins on some occasions that need her particular bump.
(A columnist for our newspaper, the Citizen, once devoted an entire week's essay to Kyla's backside, which I admit outdoes this one by several mile markers -- but I digress, thinking of bouncing quarters.)
What we did get at the Aqua costume auction to support Stacy for Queen was the acquaintance of a costume-maker and milliner in town, who made this and was at the event to fluff lace and drum up business. I will be talking with her about a Carmen Miranda hat.
And, considering that it all benefits AIDS Help, we also got: A stunning blond-red wedge-cut wig, from Queen Ginger; a silk brocade dressing gown, with high collar and wildly flared hem, that I am determined to cut down to my size; a devil-in-a-red-skirt costume, complete with horns; and some matching red pumps, from Queen Fizz, which at size 14 (women's) fit Robert pretty well indeed.
That's Gene's friend Vicki Gordon, who's running on a Green Queen platform for Fantasy Fest, under a canopy at the Cypress House pool, waiting for a chicken to, um. . . .
See, there are 100 squares, and when all 100 raffle tickets are sold, the chicken wrangler, barely visible with the big white beard in the background, lets the rooster loose, and then the crowd yells and whoops, and the rooster, erm. . . .
Let's just say he doesn't lay an egg, and where it goes determines who gets half the pot (which you are of course free to donate back to AIDS Help). Good time had by all, especially when I noticed the little campaign stickers everybody got, along with cool green glow bracelets and a drink or two.
"What's the difference between a Green Campaign supporter and St. Peter's Church?," I asked Vicki.
One has a Vicki sticker. The other, of course, a sticky vicar (bada-bing), speaking of laying eggs.
And it's not even season yet. From the Crime Report on Page 2 of Thursday's Citizen:
"A man wearing a coconut bra, red skirt and black thong allegedly attacked another man, who was in a shark costume, in the 300 block of Duval Street.
"Police couldn't find the alleged assailant, despite the coconut-bra getup, reports say.
"Witnesses said the attacker . . .tackled the shark-costumed victim from behind, then ran through the Hard Rock Cafe and out the back entrance onto Rose Lane.
"The victim said he was merely walking down the street dressed as a shark when he was hit from behind and knocked down to his knees. He said he didn't get a good look at the suspect due to the limitations of his costume, but that he wanted to press charges. Both his knees were scraped, but he declined medical treatment, the report says.
"Three cruise ship employees allegedly walking with the suspect before the attack said they had just met and knew him only as 'Daniel.' They reportedly didn't know his last name or where he was from, but added that he had an English accent.
"The officer took photos of the victim's knees, gave him a case number, and sent out an alert to be on the lookout for the coconut-bra suspect."
I've mentioned the guilty pleasure of tapping into the sheriff's website every morning, to see who did the "but for the grace of God" bit for the last 24 hours. (Friends of mine who run businesses say they check to see who won't be in to work that day.)
Most of the shots that catch my eye are bad-hair-day doozies, schadenfreude for the rapidly balding. Some show signs of having encountered a particularly burly bouncer. (Click on the picture for a bigger view.)
But this collection of arrest shots from the last few months -- innocent until proven guilty, remember? -- has an actual local celeb: The wife of the schools superintendent, herself a school administrator, who's charged with stealing a few hundred thousand dollars from the system in a credit-card scheme.
Ah, the Keys. Come on vacation, leave on probation.
I've been by myself in Key West for the last few weeks -- oh, did I need it -- and:
-- Re- charged my solar batteries, and bathed their plates in a perfect salt/humidity solution. It was t-shirt soaking hot by 8 a.m., but oh, the pool.
-- Tended the gardens daily (amazing what they do in a few months), helped our landscaper put some new bougainvilleas in the back and adjusted to the loss of the big palm that used to cover our parking spot and shade the parking-space garden. February's frond thief had done such damage to it that Arthur cut the whole thing down, and our plants roasted. Turns out the guy is now in jail on a coke bust, which ought to keep him occupied for a few years.
-- Read just a shade less than one book a day to clear my head (or stuff it), from a huge helping of John Sandford's "Prey" series to the final installment of Peter Matthiessen's "Mr. Ryan" stories of southwest Florida, with a good bit of Key West history larded in. I love our library, and its librarians. And if you ever want to taste Key West without having to visit, or if you just want to read something beautiful, read the best novel I've come across in years, Thomas Sanchez's "Mile Zero."
-- Reconnected with the street: the dog-walkers (though Vicar Don was away in Alaska), the revelers, the bad parkers, Songman gliding down Olivia on his bike (with me shouting "Sing it!" every time he goes), the confused, Zachary on his 7:30 scooter, the lost (yes, Hemingway's house is just there,) and the weird.
-- Used the meat counters at Fausto's and Albertson's (Hey, Jimmy!, in each case) to bring home a single fresh chop or chicken breast or chunk of fish for a delicious late grill.
-- Was careful to entertain strangers, because, as Hebrews tells us, "some have entertained angels unawares." In my case, it was four guys from Orlando, a nice couple from Maryland, two fellas from the U.K., a nice couple from Germany. . . .
Tomorrow I fly north, and I'll post again when I catch my breath.
I'm glad to see that Key West isn't letting our absence prevent the festivities from continuing.
Right now, it's Conch Republic Days, celebrating the glorious history of our fair island, and the colorful Drag Races on Duval are always part of it.
This is our friend Mitch (of course accessorized with a refreshing beverage), who has run for both king and queen of Fantasy Fest.
To run a turn on Mr. Porter, That's why the laddie is a tramp.
Around here, on a typical night, you never know who you're going to see on the street. These could be . . .
A former king of Fantasy Fest?
A former Queen Mother?
Two past presidents of the local chapter of the Sons of Italy?
Yes. All of the above.
When he was over for drinks a few weeks ago, Father Don sang the praises of Gary, the guy who provides St. Peter's with flowers every Sunday.
He's not quite the official sexton -- I guess Carl is in that job, and he came by the house the other night to check out what we'd done to our place -- but Gary does open and close the church every day, as well as do the floralizing. We smile hellos every morning.
So yesterday, when I heard the front gate bells ching -- the bells from my grandfather's harness shop -- and opened the front door and found three packages of orchids. . . .
Well. And well beyond beautiful.
Then tonight, when Gary went to close the church, he found a man in a pew who had just shot himself in the head. Horrible to discover.
I ran up to the church, and there was gentle Gary, shivering.
Wicked wit, heart of gold and you get the idea:
This is Richard, who shares cottage-tending duty at one of the rentals across the street with Martin, the very preppy Québécois.
If you have not noticed, Richard is not very preppy -- though he has cleaned up here from his usual red-bandanna do-rag.
He's from L.A., as in Lower Alabama, and the first time I said hi from our porch, so long ago, he wheeled and said, "Well, hell-LO, handsome! You can call me Blanche."
How can you not smile?
I'm able to provide a picture of the guy from Tuesday's entry, about the frond thief, courtesy of the Sheriff's Office.
Seems he was busted for "municipal ordinance violation" -- which usually means drinking on the street -- on Fleming Street soon after our encounter.
I'm of two minds about that ordinance: Tourists and supposedly solid citizens carry cups openly on Duval; it's the bums who get rousted. And I am a big fan of equal enforcement.
But apparently I'm also a good occupation-guesser: I wrote that he was likely a "hat-weaving panhandler," and the sheriff's site listed him as . . . "artist, panhandler."
Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.
I took a little break from reading on the porch for lunch, and when I came out and sat back down, I heard a scuffling in the garden between our house and the Clarks'.
I looked down, and there were huge fronds on the driveway.
Arthur's cutting 'em back, I thought, and then looked up.
A ponytailed guy was in the tree, definitely not Arthur, sawing away. . . .
Can I ask what you're doing?
"Six months ago the lady said I could cut it," the man said, slurring. Probably a hat-weaving panhandler harvesting raw materials.
What lady?
"White hair, thin lady."
Frankie Mae sometimes wears a reddish wig, sometimes a black one; she's not white-haired underneath. And she's definitely not thin.
"Sorry, man," the ponytail said, climbing down and staggering off.
I had to get the pole saw out to lop the branches he'd left dangling.
If you're walking on Thomas Street and you look left just south of Petronia, you could be forgiven for mistaking houses for a pack of Necco wafers.
Old-timers -- those old enough to remember, say, the drive-in theater on Stock Island -- also remember that most funerals out of Bahama Village used to feature a brass band leading the guest of honor to the cemetery.
We still have a few funeral parades, but the bands are a rarity now. Which is why, when I heard the ruckus more than two blocks away the other day, I knew it had to be for Candyman Butler.
He had played bass all around the city, and when he died at 90 it made Page One of the Citizen.
The players brought the Candyman along Truman, across Duval, up Simonton to Angela and then to the big iron gates, taking "Just a Closer Walk."
There was one big difference from the old days: Back in the day, the players for Village funerals were almost all black. Now they needed the oomph of Bubba Low Notes (yes, that's his real name now) on his wildly painted sousaphone, and the snap of Skipper Kripitz on the snare drum. Nobody is mourning the color bar.
We went to Mark Barauck's memorial service tonight, at White Street Pier, along with many hundreds of others.
Lovers, partners, friends, family and associates told of broken hearts, and Steve Torrence, at the center in the picture above, said the Kaddish. Sweet guy and former MCC minister and current KWPD sergeant and all, he's still a goy, and called it a kiddush.
But no matter. Bruce Moore sang Mark's favorite song, "I Am What I Am," and Julia Nixon sang "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going," and Jean-Claude spoke, and Lura spoke, and Mark's sister spoke, and Debra, standing next to me, needed a Kleenex when I did.
So we all took fistfuls of rose petals and tossed them into the sea.
We were on our way back down the pier, to go to La Te Da for a drink, and just behind us were Richard from Blue Heaven and the divine drummer Skipper Kripitz.
The sun was just going down. "That's Mark's sunset," said Skipper. And we all looked left and said our own blessings.
At least one lump of coal goes to Al, not that I know who he is -- aside from Florida tag J05 QQW.
He lurched into, and parked in, the plumbagos Monday night. I noticed it pretty quickly when we got back from Schooner Wharf, where Caffeine Carl was burning the place down.
I waited on the porch till he lurched back to his Jeep from the Duval bars. I pointed out the damage, and he drove lurchingly away.
Had he apologized even minimally, I might not have called the cops to report a drunk driver, complete with license plate and direction. But he didn't, and I did, and I hope he didn't run over anything else on his way home.
You know it's Christmas when "The Nutcracker" is on the local stage. And you know the locale is Key West when the story's Christmas reception is a palm-sheltered garden party, the scary villain is the Rooster King, and Clara sails with the prince to the coral reef, to descend in a diving bell and be entertained by the Sea Fan Fairy and her court.
We went Saturday night, and it was nothing short of magic.
Joyce Stahl, a retired ballerina who lives on Eaton Street now, brought her whim of iron to bear several years ago to adapt the story to Key West, and she did an astonishing job. It's wonderful to see the dozens of children in the performance scurrying around as the little chicks you really do see around town, or swimming as anemones, angelfish, reef fish or shrimps.
And it's fun to see friends onstage in various supporting roles.
But then the amazement: When the Snowy Egret Queen dances across the Salt Ponds, just try to catch your breath.
Try to keep from laughing when you realize the sunken treasure ship, with its dancing jewels, isn't Mel Fisher's Atocha, but "A Toe Shu."
And when the Sea Star Fairy and her cavalier do their final grande pas -- well, you appreciate just how well Stahl mixed huge local talents (e.g., our electrician's wife, who runs her own dance studio and is gorgeous) with some imports from, say, the Russian State Ballet.
Bravo!
