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Let me say this about that.

Front page news in a Florida Keys newspaper:

“The County Commissioners made it official on Tuesday, when they passed a law making it illegal in the Florida Keys to do anything of ‘redeeming value’.  Punishment for this second degree misdemeanor would force the convicted to drink 5 gallons of beer until completion, or the onset of projectile hurling, whichever came first.” 

County commissioners were shocked when the passage of this new law spawned an outbreak of…    lawn mowing, house painting, street maintenance and other blatant acts of redeeming value.  Commissioner Bob N. Weeve summed it up when he told reporters:

“I guess we undershot the penalty clause on this one.  It’s the first new law we’ve passed in the Keys since we banned sobriety 20 years ago.  I guess we’re a little outta practice.”

If Florida is the loony-bin of America, then the Keys are solitary confinement.  No other place in the country contains more insanity – and fun – than this 130 mile long, string of islands running from Miami to a few miles north of Havana.

Key West, the largest and goofiest village in this archipelago, is the ‘Center-of-the-Universe’ for sleazy bars.  In other words, it’s my kind of town.  A buddy of mine and I were throwing back a few beers at a Duval Street bar called the Tree Bar; a typical indoor/outdoor watering hole on the main drag in the old part of town.  A guy walks up and hands us a flyer and tells us there is a new strip joint opening up around the corner and invites us to partake of their “…innovative approach to adult entertainment.”

I told the guy that unless he had hit the bars on Patpong Street in Bangkok, Thailand, he had no idea what ‘innovative entertainment’ really was.  He said:

“Look, if you go, then the first beer is on me.  If you don’t like the place, just enjoy the free beer and leave.”

Now, if you engaged the smartest engineer in the world to design the perfect ‘Man Trap’, I will guarantee you that naked women and free beer would be an integral part of the architecture.  So, with nothing to lose, we rounded the corner and entered the club.  Oh – My – God!! 

I’ve patronized a few of these places in my time but I’ve never seen anything like this.  They had installed a glass shower stall on the stage and two, totally nude young nymphets were washing each other under a torrent of steaming hot water.  They just kept going on and on until they showered their way through most of the Bee Gee’s ‘Saturday Night Fever’ album.  Before it was over, my buddy and I had  slugged down the free beer and $60 worth of it’s siblings.  We lost count of the amount of donations we made to these young ladies’ college fund, but they are assured of making it at least through their sophomore year. 

My buddy and I finally left the place and stumbled down the street commenting on the amazing length of the ladies ‘shower act’.  I offered a fairly obvious explanation:

“I guess they were really, really dirty.”

“You’re right Shambo, they probably have day jobs as roofers.

Another crappy day in Paradise.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo