Chapter Selection Menu:   P   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   E       Next>>

Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion, Dec 2013 - Key West, FL

Chapter 12th: Tuesday, December 10th. The best strategy for being homeless in Golden Gate Park; Laurence's unenlightening tour of Mile Marker 0, the Mel Fisher Museum, Mallory Square and Duval Street; How the pirates alarmed some of the local gay populace; Finding a place to eat and a Profile of Fenris Chase.

Photo: Mission
William Pace I awoke at 6 am when normal people are usually asleep in Key West (including William, who was staying on the couch). So I updated the Journal and typed in notes on drowning during the GAoP. William woke up about 9, by which time I was hungry. I explained this to him. "I'm hungry!" I announced as soon as he appeared. "No, 'Good morning William! How did you sleep William?'" he said with a laugh. "I'll get ready."

We had a nice breakfast at Blue Heaven where I learned that during his courting of his wife Tracy, William had lived for awhile in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I noted that this was an unusual strategy for courting a girl. He explained that it wasn't really a strategy, he was not trying to impress her by being homeless for a brief period, events just shook out so that he wound up without an apartment or a job at the end of the month during his stay there.

From this I learned that the strategy for living in Golden Gate Park is to live in the trees in the middle of the place, out of sight of the main walkways. As he explained it, most of the homeless live around the edges, so if you go there, you don't even have to worry about the neighbors.

Fortunately, William found a better situation than the Golden State Park. I asked what that experience was like and he called it "a life experience. It was miserable while I was going through it, but interesting to look back on later."

---

Photo: Mission
Fenris Poses@MM0 (North) Back at the condos, we decided to go and see what was going on at Keith and Leigh's place. Some of the Pirates of the Dark Rose were in the parking lot with Keith. Laurence (aka. the Viceroy) said he wanted to go down to Duval to get his poster. (Poppa Ratsey usually makes large mini-posters for the local businesses to post in their stores each of which features a pirate from the previous year.) So he called Wasabi to find out
Photo: Mission's Camera
The Group Poses @ MM0 (South)
where it was. "It's at the 801 Bar." Laurence announced. I laughed. "Are you sure?" I asked. "That's what they told me," he answered. "Why?" "It's the perfect place to put it. I want to go with you when you go to get it. I've never been there."

This was not to happen right away, however. The Pirates of the Dark Rose had stayed an extra day so that they could go and check out Key West. Laurence was going to lead the tour after they went back to Fort Taylor to put some of their stuff in their trailer. We headed out about half an hour later.

Photo: Mission
Sandi, Not Wanting To Let Go of MM0 The first place they wanted to see was Mile Marker 0. I have gone by it many times, but have never stopped to really look at it because.. well, it's just a sign that marks the end of Highway 1. However, it appeared to have more meaning to the Dark Rose folks, perhaps because they're from Maine where Highway 1 begins. So some of us posed with the sign heading North. Sandi Bilbo announced that she didn't want a photo with that side, she wanted a photo with the sign showing the END of Highway 1 which was heading SOUTH. So we all crossed the street and took that photo.

There was some discussion over where we should go next. (I am glad this wasn't my first time in Key West – all this deciding by committee would have driven me crazy.) The assembled agreed to strike out for the Mel Fisher Museum. In all my twenty-some trips here, I had never actually been in this museum, so it interested me. Of course, we weren't going to go in! That would take too much time. So we went to the courtyard in front of the place and looked at the cannons and large anchors there. I'll just have to put a pin into that particular happening.

Photo: Mission Pirates of the Dark Rose in the Mel Fisher Museum Courtyard

Photo: Cobbled Together The Skeleton Family Visits Mel Fisher's Giant Anchors

Photo: Mission
Laurence: "This is a Key West light pole!" William is clearly awestruck.
Laurence was explaining things along the way, although, as William put it, "Laurence starts to give us a piece of trivia but it winds up going no where."

For example, when we were walking around the downtown area near Mallory Square (our next destination), he pointed to the bricks in the road and explained, "Those are bricks. They are authentic bricks!" He may have meant they were authentic southern style bricks or maybe that they were brought over in the ballasts of ships or possibly that they were made from leftover hard tack from ships docked at Key West, but that's not what he said.

We wandered around Mallory Square, which was empty at this time of the day. (It's only active about an hour or so before sunset. Then it is crazy busy as you may recall from my account in last year's Journal.) We ambled through the kitschy marketplace near the trolley stop where Laurence helpfully pointed out a line of people. "They appear to be waiting for something," he said sagely. (They were waiting for the trolley bus – we were near one of its stops.)

Photo: Borrowed - The Last Flight Out Logo
Laurence asked the assembled if they wanted to see the Duval street shops, which they all said they wanted to do. I figured they would head for some of the nice shops nestled in between the ubiquitous T-Shirt shops, but they were actually looking for T-Shirts. And Emeralds.

This sort of thinking is entirely foreign to me – I always avoided the T-shirt shops because, while there are a lot of varieties of Key West T-Shirts available, I had found them mostly to be the same kinds of T-Shirts that you find in every other Florida tourist town, only with the location name changed. (The exception being Last Flight Out, which no longer appeared to have a store on Duval Fortunately you can still get them, just not downtown. Their apparel is now available at Last Chance Gifts.)

Photo: Mission
One of the T-Shirt Shops The Crew Visited

Photo: Mission
Fenris & Doc, Clowning
Last Flight Out probably wasn't the type of T-shirts the crew was looking for anyhow. Come to think of it, I don't know what type of T-shirts they were looking for because I don't recall anyone buying any of them. Most of the group were interested in traipsing through the shops, however and I was just along for the ride.

Of course, there are always a few funny new Ts out there, but they are not the sort of thing you would normally wear. For example there was a shirt with a stick figure giving the raised arms goal gesture (it looks like a 'Y') that said, "I pooped today!" It's kind of funny in a drunken, Key West way, but I can't see myself wearing it to a dinner theater. William pointed out a shop with a wall of shirts consisting entirely of team mascots giving the finger with the slogan "F**K (their rival team)" Ah. Klass.

I wound up on the sidewalk a lot, standing with William and Fenris Chase who seemed to want nothing more than to stop at a bar during this tour. He spotted Hog's Breath Saloon as we slowly made our way along the Duval stores and tucked in there for a beer. He later explained that this made the whole tour enjoyable for him. The journey wasn't without it's sights, however. Below are some of the things I noticed on Duval

Photo: Mission William at Emerald's International

Photo: Mission A Vintage Chevy Beach Wagon

Photo: Mission Portable Rest Rooms on the Sidewalk

image: Mad Magazine, Issue 220, Jan. '81, p. 4, There was
Photo: Mission
A Key West Yuccky
also someone on the sidewalk dressed like Chewbacca who was fishing for tips for the privilege of taking his photo. I can't imagine this being that lucrative. See, this was not the shiny, heroic combed-and-groomed version of Chewbacca. No, this was the scurvy, matted, somewhat hung-over-looking version of Chewbacca.

In his defense, having spent the past weekend dressed in layers of clothes myself, I can imagine what it must have been like to be encased in fake fur all day, so I should cut him (or possibly her) a little slack. Still, back when the Mad Magazine version of The Empire Strikes Back came out, they tweaked the name Wookiee into Yuccky. At the time I thought it was the typical Mad way of poking fun while also covering their butts against lawsuits. But this person seemed to have taken the label to heart; here was as close as I had ever seen to being a Yuccky.

Duval itself has long been such a mix of Class and Klass. While the west end tends towards commercial places, the east end contains the more artistic shops. Of course, there are T-shirt places and bars interspersed liberally just about everywhere on Duval.

Photo: Mission To the Left: Pacific Jewelry & Diamonds International. Awnings. Lights

Photo: Stolen To the Right: T-Shack, Inc. Cardboard Beer Bottles. Kitsch.

Photo: Mission
Fenris Preps Laurence for...

Photo: Mission
Laurence & Crudbeard @ The 801 After meandering through various stores on Duval, we finally reached the 801 Bourbon Bar. By now Laurence had figured out that this was a cross-dressing bar. The group of us barged in to find his poster. We wandered around the place, harrying the patrons, staring at the walls.

The bartender, sensing his regulars were becoming alarmed asked us what we were looking for. Laurence explained about his poster. The barkeep said that if it had been there, it would have been on the opposite wall, which had some provocative posters featuring cross-dressing shows and gay men. (You have to admit, that would be a funny place to put the Viceroy's poster.) Alas, Laurence did not get his happy ending at the 801.

Photo: Mission Pirates Entering the 801 in Search of Laurence's Poster

Photo: Mission Pirates Searching High and Low for Laurence's Poster in the 801.

So Laurence called Wasabi (whom I'm guessing had placed the posters in the shops.) Wasabi said Laurence's poster might be in the Bourbon Street Bar nearby. (This is a gay bar.) So we all trekked over there while Laurence asked after his poster. I was getting the impression that Wasabi was pulling Laurence's leg. But I was also getting some funny photos, so I didn't mention this to anyone but William.

Photo: Mission Laurence Asks the Bartender if He Has Seen His Poster Thereabouts

Photo: Mission Laurence's Exiting the Bourbon St. Pub.

The
Photo: Mission
The Crew at Charlie Mac's: Sandi, Laurence, Syd Leach, Doc, William and Crudbeard
crew was getting hungry, so they started looking for a restaurant. Crudbeard was mumbling something about reasonable prices which is not a phrase you often use in the same sentence with Duval Street. I suggested a Mexican restaurant that I remembered being on the same street as the condos. That would get us heading back in the right direction, if nothing else.

It turned out the Mexican restaurant had long since been replaced with a sort of American fare restaurant called Charlie Mac's. Everyone individually noted that this was not a Mexican restaurant while gazing at the menu and adding that the food looked good. Finally Crudbeard said, "Everyone seems to like the food so let's just go here." Which we did. They had a corn and conch chowder which, although it wasn't quite up to The Rum Barrel's corn and crab chowder (back when they had it) was a pretty good chowder all the same.

Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Fenris Chase Fenris went up to the bar while the rest of us were settling in and immediately got a beer. He's usually pretty quiet, so when he returned I started talking to him. His favorite part of pirate reenacting was instructing the kids on swordplay and choreographing fights. He had joined the Pirates of the Dark Rose at Eastport a while back. Crudbeard had spotted him walking around with a brand new sword strapped to his belt. Crudbeard examined the sword, which Fenris explained "didn't have a mark on it." Crudbeard asked him if he knew how to use it. Fenris said he didn't. 'Would you like to learn?" So he joined the crew.

Photo: Poppa Ratsey
"The British Came Through Here, All Right."
Fenris works at programming a Sequel-based system for law firms. He was currently working for a company in Connecticut, which those of you with a map may notice is not real close to Maine. He has to travel a lot and works 10-12 hour days, so he finds pirating a nice break from that. He explained to me that with technology the way it is today, he can actually sit in a hotel room, hook his phone up to the internet through the room's TV and control his computer remotely to do most of the work he has to do. He still has to travel to Connecticut to do training, though.

We finished lunch and headed back to the condos. William went back to our condo to get his stuff ready for his flight home and I hung out at Keith and Lily's place while the Dark Rose pirates got ready to leave. Not long after they left, it was time to take William to the airport, where Keith and I bid him farewell.

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Fenris on the Battle Field

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Foxy Gengen, Drake Francis & Fenris

Photo: Poppa Ratsey Fenris Looking Pensive

That pretty well ended the trip as far as pirate-oriented things went. I did suggest to Fenris that if he ever really wanted to see Key West to take the Old Town Trolley Tours or the Conch Tour Train. Although you look like a tourist, you get to see more than giant anchors and authentic bricks. (Besides... you are a tourist!)

Chapter Selection Menu:   P   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   E       Next>>