Holy Key fuckin’ West, man. Hell yeah, it is. And St. Patty’s Day too – double whammy. Party ‘till you puke is I guess what that equates to. Then scrape your bones from the gravel and lather your wounds with an alcohol salve… and do it again! But, here we are and here we ate breakfast in a genuine Cuban grease-pit, much as I imagine old Hem to have avoided at all costs. So if you’re on a Hemingway-opposite tour to Key West, this would be a good first stop. Actually, tho, yes, it was greasy, and cheap, but pretty hip and cool in a non-touristy way. And tasty. Kind of legit and authentic, I think, in that they sure weren’t putting on any kind of show for anyone. Almost like they had no idea that the world existed at all beyond the four walls and the sandy square. Did I mention it was cheap?

Furthermore… our tent stands tribute, among many like tents, to the fortitude + desire of American youth to band together above all else, to stay close and share drooly beer and the eventual sleep which comes to all who wait long enough, even in this gravel lot called ‘campground’ (“Boyd’s,” to specify)… and share bodies as the case may be, or share the desire, at least, to share bodies because that seems the main point and bottom line and thesis, if you will, to this whole affair: get laid. And if you can’t, well get drunk as a skunk in an ether binge. Share your sweaty, sunburned flesh. Lick and suck and sweat some more like the great American youth you represent. The American Youth to which you contribute a thin gruel of energy. Wow. Key West. Well, looky there. Sun + Fun + heat much like the tropics, truth be told, and another bottom line of: Not My Scene. This I must remember even through the haze and fog of my own inebriation, for now I know that this here developed + commercial strip (a little better, and more decent and authentic, and with a bit more nobility and self-respect, true, then Daytona strip, but still…) just ain’t for me. FLA in general, if I may, not my so-called cup of tea. It’s beauty and jungle and mystery long gone, confined, now manicured and mowed. A jungle tarred and glassed and glazed with conditioned air and golf greens and golf-green lawns. Though the grass still insists and resists with a certain scraggly, sharp-edged disobedience (I dig that grass) and the ancient birds still swoop and circle overhead, searching and calling: “wheere? Where? Where did it go?” in harmony to the surf which still surges and recedes and surges and recedes in a rhythmic notation that transcends all human effort and folly. 

It appears I have a ride, at least back as far as DC, should I bail out of this, where I can catch another: a train or bus, back to NYC. Home again, I’d say. Calling NYC my home now? Manhattan Jay, they call me, and I’ll answer to it.