Saturday, January 29, 2011

'The Tackiest Street In America Contest': Nominations Are Open

     I live in Key West, Florida, whose main street, I'm sorry to say, is probably the tackiest street in America. I could be wrong, of course, because ours is a country with lots of tacky and I can't pretend to have seen it all .. or even a large part of it. Which is why I've decided to solicit nominations for the honor, to be measured again my own Duval Street. Whoever submits the winner -- which will be judged by an impartial panel I'll control with an iron fist -- will win either a life-sized statue of Andrew Dice Clay dressed as a Degas ballerina or a free hunting trip with Dick Cheney. The choice will be his/hers.
     Now for the sake of clarity, I should define 'tacky'. Tacky doesn't necessarily mean dirty or broken down, although each might easily accompany it. Tacky does mean tawdry, tasteless, cheap and exploitive. Golly gee ... think of Sarah Palin. And if you don't care to do that (and who could blame you?), think of John Edwards.
       Please note that I have no political biases.
      And that is Duval Street: two lanes that run for less than a mile from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean; two lanes than are tawdry, tasteless, cheap and exploitive; two lanes that are a testimony to municipal dysfunction and indigenous greed.
      I recently counted forty-seven T-shirt shops on Duval. Forty-seven! Some of the more tasteless shirts displayed in their windows said:

         I Pee In Pools

         I'm no gynecologist,
              But I'll Take A Look.

          My parents said I could become anything,
                So I became an ASSHOLE.

           I shaved my balls for this?

      Of course, every shirt boasts Key West as its source, as if asserting that it reflects the values of the city and its residents. And once inside the shops, one finds even subtler slogans of Key West like ..

           Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck

      But that's not all. In addition to the T-shirt sellers along this miserable mile are forty-one .. count 'em .. forty-one bars! You think I'm kidding? No, in fact, I'm not. (Live music begins blaring at ten in the morning.) There are also two strip joints, a 'gentlemen's club', an on-street escort service, a nudie bar, and an assortment of chain operators: a Hard Rock Cafe, a Fat Tuesday, a Banana Republic, Coach, Express and two drugstores whose sales of headache remedies must surely account for the majority of their business.
       And finally, to bottom out this stretch of 'Keys Sleaze', we're confronted with aggressive street peddlers, merchandise hustlers, pushy panhandlers, and abusive drunks who caroom along the sidewalks like horizontal avalanches.

       I accept that some tacky ambiance can be expected in a tourist town. And Key West is certainly a tourist town: a tiny, two by four-mile island that hosts nearly two and a half million people a year, with over one million of those (all on Duval) staying just for the day, buying a margarita or two and an overpriced T-shirt, maybe having a burger and then urinating enough to nearly overload our municipal waste system. And of those, almost nine hundred thousand come off cruise ships that arrive in the morning and leave by sunset.
       But now hear this! At this very moment, our greed-besotted leaders are considering an expansion of the Key West ship channel to handle the newest cruise ships: the behemoths that carry 5000 passengers and 2500 crew .. which I'm told are to be followed by a second generation of giants that carry 10,000!
       Can you imagine what Duval Street and its surroundings will look like when and if that happens? Can the diversity of this beautiful little island survive under the weight of, say, another million and a half people a year?

       The answers could be suggested by history because Key West has consistently shown itself to be the most short-sighted city in the United States; a city that was once the richest per capita in the country and thirty-five years later was the poorest.
      In the 19th century, it was the center of the American cigar industry, producing some 100 million cigars a year. Shortsighted labor policies caused the industry to abandon the island and move to Tampa. Then it became the largest producer of green turtle in the nation .. that is, until the turtles were hunted to near extinction. The same thing happened to its flourishing sponge industry which imploded, and most recently to the thriving shrimp fleet which shrank to nearly nothing as a result of over-fishing.
      In other words, just about every asset Key West has enjoyed has turned first to gold and then -- driven by blind greed -- to dreck.
       Today it still has magic, with pictureque old neighborhoods and buildings shaded by flowering trees and blossoming bougainvillea as beautiful as anything to be seen anywhere. It still draws and welcomes writers and painters and sculptors and musicians and playwrights (and everyone else) to its gentle climate and to its even gentler tradition of tolerance for all.
        But Duval Street has become a metastasizing cancer spread by the greed of the landlords, bar owners, shop keepers, tour operators, politicians and bankers who believe that any new business is good business and who continue to argue that more is always better.
       They do nothing to control the cancer or to treat it in any way. And they ignore the symptomatic and ominous complaints of tourists -- on whom the city dependa almost entirely -- who swear they'll never return.
       So the reason I nominate Duval Street as the tackiest street in American is not because it's tacky per se, but because of the tawdry leadership, the compulsive greed and the tunnel vision of those who, every day, permit it to corrode and to poison an otherwise wonderful place.
         Okay, nominations are now open to all.




p.s.- To be fair, a handful of very good restaurants still survive on Duval Street; and on the upper end of the street there are still a few tasteful shops and art galleries. How long before they become T-shirt shops? Who knows? And more to the point, who cares?
         As always, comments positive or negative are welcome.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Warts of Panama and Other Odd Subjects

 
 
 
 

 

     Wow!! What unexpected reactions!!
     After my first blog saying Baby Boomers were screwed, I had hoped to follow with postings about subjects like
… the slow, sad death of public television;
… the futility of thinking (or even dreaming) there will ever be peace in Iraq;
… the disappearance of simple courtesy in our society;
… the joke of campaign finance reform;
… and a posting about the most short-sighted city in the history of the United States:
Key West, my home and most favorite place.
     But the Baby Boomer blog struck a nerve with people who raised questions -- mostly thoughtful and a few suspicious -- that demand answers..
     So here goes.
     First, to ye of little faith: I am NOT ‘getting an honorarium from the Panama Tourist Board’. There are at least ten other countries that come immediately to mind where
Baby Boomers can live bigger, better, cheaper and safer than in the US.
     I used Panama as a prime example because the country WANTS retirees (from anywhere) to live there. Why else do you suppose it enacted laws to encourage them to do so? Why else are there 50,000 condos being built in the country right now?
     But I did NOT say it was for everyone or that it’s a perfect place. In fact, you must read the following email from a friend who lives in the same building where, five years ago, I bought a condo (now rented) in the big bad metropolis of Panama City:
     “Panama City is part New York City and part Dodge City. Laws are merely suggestions. Money is everywhere (in the upper class). There is no viable middle class. The upper class is usually anyone making $300 or more a week.     People are used to deprivation. Bridges are almost falling down, so motorists make the sign of the cross when crossing. Mass transit is chaotic, so commuting workers get up several hours earlier than necessary. Housing is based on very extended family units.    The Panamanian character is hopeful and cynical. Strongly democratic, though wishful for a strongman who can get the buses running on time and the Metro built.We have a Looney Tunes mayor whose claim to fame is that he won the local ’Dance With the Stars’ contest. His most genial idea: build an outdoor ice skating rink. Trash pickup has been terrible .. but improving.     A word about the ambiance. BTW, a private hospital SUITE costs $160 a night!     So yes, Panama does have warts .. as does anyplace. And keep in mind, my friend’s view is just of Panama City, a metropolis of 1.5 million people. The rest of the country is quite different .. with different warts.
     One thoughtful reader wondered how long my ‘rosy picture in Panama’ can last.
Good question. My hunch is it will last for the foreseeable future which, in this case, is about twenty years .. by which time the last of the Baby Boomers will already have slipped into retirement. I also believe that Cuba will open up in the not-too-distant future .. and possibly even Venezuela when Chavez finally exhausts his suffering country. But Ecuador, Nicaragua. Guatemala, Costa Rica and Belize, among others, are there right now. And if you don’t care about distance, there’s Argentina, Indonesia (Bali), Spain, Melanesia and Thailand.
     Take your pick .. but pick carefully.
     A few readers also asked what impact a mass migration of gringos might have on the environment of a country like Panama. Well, for starters, twenty-five percent of the total land mass of Panama is covered by national parks!! And that’s not counting sixteen wildlife refuges. How many countries even come close? Damn few. And there’s still plenty of empty space.
     But what’s curious is that no-one asked what impact it might have on the environment and on energy conservation in the States. Well, let’s say 350,000 Baby Boomers migrated to Panama. That’s 350,000 fewer homes that need heating in winter, and almost as many that won’t need air-conditioning in summer. That’s at least 350,000 fewer cars, and as many as 700,000 fewer people consuming food that has to be diesel-trucked or flown thousands of miles. (In Central America, at least, you drive much less, use far less A/C, and eat meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables raised, caught and grown locally. It‘s so good you get spoiled. Tomatoes that taste like tomatoes? Impossible.!)

     In writing about the Baby Boomer generation, I’ve tried to make the point that there are real and viable options to watching millions of people slowly descend toward poverty as their incomes erode and their quality of life deteriorates. (AARP seems in large part to agree. Try the link at
     But my overriding purpose has been to get Baby Boomers to FOCUS on the problem. As people grow older, they often rationalize that time will solve everything and that looming issues will eventually go away. One reader (a possible candidate for what I call the ‘NaivTea Party’) actually thinks the sheer number of Baby Boomers will be enough to form a powerful voting bloc. But that’s like thinking you can stop a supertanker but putting it in reverse. By the time it stops, it’s too late.
       So please --whether you agree with every point I’ve made or not -- spread the word both to Baby Boomers and to their children that they must get out of their comfort zones and away from unreal hopes and false rationalizations. They are facing sunset years that are stark, uncomfortable and profoundly disappointing.
     That is a no nonsense, indisputable fact. Yet -- with a bit of courage and imagination -- they can still do something about it by leaving the country that has let them down.
 
Please check out my next blog: The Slow, Sad Death of Public Television
Till then, feel free to comment -- good or bad -- on this one.
Nice to be with you again.

     I love picking up my meds over the counter and paying one quarter of what they cost in the US. My doctors charge $40 for an office visit, minus 15% discount, and a little more for a house visit. I have one internist, a neuro-surgeon and a cardiologist within walking distance; the same distance from huge shopping malls and three medical centers.
     I was just in the hospital for ten days with a spine that was bleeding out from Coumadin. They got to it before I lost leg function. CAT scan, MRI, all meds ( 100 bags of painkillers mixed with antibiotics), around-the-clock medical attention and the surgeon, three doctors, pain management specialist, anesthesia and four hours on the operating table and I am now as good as new. Total cost: $20,000.
     I love it here.
     I’m a salt water fisherman and go out all day for $500, shared with four other friends. Marlin are as plentiful as rats, but I prefer the 20-40 pound dolphins. And for $150 for the whole family, nothing beats the short drive from Panama City to go peacock bass fishing. Try catching twenty to thirty per person (one to three pounders) in a morning.
     Keep up the blog, my friend.
http://aarp.org/home-garden/bestplacestoretireabroad/ for a second opinion.)

Sunday, January 9, 2011

BABY BOOMERS, WELCOME TO RETIREMENT!!! NOW YOU'RE REALLY SCREWED.

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
      Nobody’s said much about it yet, but this month -- January -- the first 300,000
Americans from the Baby Boomer Generation reach the retirement age of sixty-five. And next month, another 300,000 hit that magic mark. In fact, ten thousand people -- yup, ten
thousand -- every day of every month of every year for the foreseeable future will be retiring.



      Here’s what I think they’re facing with their fixed incomes and unspoken hopes:
… a collapse, sooner or later, of a Social Security system which was
designed for people whose lives were far shorter than ours.
… a Medicare system that implodes from its own excesses or that charges
its beneficiaries (all of them) vastly more money for medical services.
… Reductions in all state and local help programs, like special transportation,
social centers, health counseling. fuel subsidies, senior discounts, etc. etc.
… Increased real estate taxes and higher sales taxes. There is no way for state
and local governments to fix the mess they’ve gotten themselves into
without raising taxes substantially. (Just as there’s no way -- despite the
surreal promises of the “NaiveTea Party’ -- to wipe out the federal deficit
without tax increases or radical tax reform.)
… Reduced pension fund payments. Maybe not across-the-board, but so
many pension funds, particularly public funds, are underfunded or
otherwise in trouble that millions of people will be threatened.
… And finally, here comes that stealthy and corrosive old enemy of fixed incomes:
inflation. Everybody notices the price of gasoline; but have you noticed
the recent price of beef, pork and milk? Up, Up and Up. One dollar in
goods and services ten years ago will buy you seventy-eight cents

today. And that was a period of low inflation. Can you imagine
what happens as consumer demand continues to explode in China, India,
Brazil and Latin America? As global demand for raw materials
increases? As whole continents demand more and better food?
Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is going to go up. It’s only
a matter of when and how fast.
        Now none of this is news .. or at least it shouldn't be. But the big question remains WHAT ARE BABY BOOMERS TO DO? Their homes aren't worth anywhere near what they were a few years ago. So it’s not worth borrowing on them, even if they can find a bank willing to lend them anything. And who knows when, if ever, the real estate market is going to get better. And you can be damned sure their kids won’t be able to take care of them either. Right now, the ’kids’ are having a rough time holding on to their jobs, paying off their credit cards, renegotiating their own mortgages and figuring out how to pay college tuition (talk about inflation!!) for their own children.
So the Boomers, as I see it, are screwed … really screwed!!!

     Unless …
     Unless they do something Americans haven’t done en masse since the 19th century.
     Migrate.
     Get out of Dodge. Pack your bags and move by the millions .. like those who traveled the Erie Canal to the fertile loam of the Middle West and those who -- with the Homestead Act --raced into the great grassy prairies toward the Rockies and beyond.
     Migrate. Immigrate. Leave.
     Find a place where you can live bigger, better, cheaper, safer and, hopefully as a consequence, happier. Can such a place exist? The answer is yes. In fact, a number of such places exist. And you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to find them. In fact, let me suggest just one and see how you feel about it, okay? Here’s the deal:
What you get right out of the box is ……
A warm, tropical climate.
A stable economy and a democratically elected government.
The American dollar as the currency. (So no currency fluctuations).
First-class medical care with American-trained doctors and costs far below those in the United States..
Easy access to and from New York, Miami, Washington, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles. ( also Montreal, London, Paris, Madrid and Stuttgart too if you’re interested.)
And best of all, a cost-of-living that’s HALF that of the US. So your income may be fixed, but your purchasing power doubles. So far, so good. Right?
But wait. There are kickers.
For $250,000, you can buy a brand new 3-bedroom, 2-bath home (or a high-rise condo) with a pool, patio and lovely garden. And you will be exempted from paying property taxes for twenty years.As a retiree, you’ll also get major discounts on your utility bills, including electricity, internet and telephone..

And if you tired of your own cooking, you’ll receive a 25 percent discount on all restaurant charges … as well as all charges for entertainment like plays, movies and concerts.
And last but by no means least, you’ll receive 25 to 50 percent discounts on all airfares you book in the country which , as you may have guessed by now, is the Republic of Panama.
        Google it, Boomers. Do a little homework and think about colonizing a country in an entirely new and different way. (How about this as a way to deal with the immigration issue in America? For every two Americans given residency status in a country like Panama,  the US will let in a Latino on the same terms. Just kidding.)  But Boomers, don't ever be ashamed of yourselves or think you've failed.
       You should have a far better life in retirement than your government, your politicians of all stripes, your business leaders and captains of industry, your bankers and brokers, and your educators have saddled you with.
 
 
 
 
(Not everything in Panama is roses. So in my next blog I’ll spend a little time on the negatives. Until then, thanks for reading me. And apologies for the screwed-up fonts.)

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Key West Wind - What Is It?

     Key West Wind will be a blog of personal opinion; sometimes light and breezy, other times strong and blustery and, very occasionally, angry and violent. Although it will incorporate an occasional squall of facts to drive the narrative, it will rely mostly on what so many people are afraid of: intuition.
     I've lived a number of lives in a long lifetime and have concluded that intuition is sum of experience divided by the pain of getting it, multiplied by the pleasure of surviving it. And if that's too glib, I don't give a shit. I trust my intuition and believe I can follow it.
     So anyone who wants to join me starting next week(whether as a fresh voice or as a blowhard) is welcome.
      The first subject will ask how all the new baby-boomers can retire and where they can go. Did you know that ten thousand people a day reach the age of sixty-five in the United States; and most of them only have a very shallow pot to piss in?
       Let me suggest an answer or two. See you then.