{"id":1399,"date":"2020-04-25T14:44:36","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T20:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2020-04-25T15:17:05","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T21:17:05","slug":"letting-tourons-back-to-key-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/2020\/04\/25\/letting-tourons-back-to-key-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Letting Tourons Back to Key West"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I usually try to keep it lite in my posts\u2026 especially during hard times. But today, I\u2019m taking a mostly serious look at the situation in which we find ourselves. I was spurred on by \u201cKey West Lou.\u201d I follow his daily blog about Key West and, of late, \u201cno punches pulled political commentary.\u201d CLICK HERE TO GO TO HIS BLOG<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Lou’s recent blogs started with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key West is closed down. Duval dead!<\/strong><\/p>

One of Key West\u2019s famous gentleman\u2019s clubs is The Red Garter on Duval. A strip joint with class. There is a large sign in its window: Sorry….. We\u2019re Clothed Until Further Notice.<\/strong><\/p>

A delicate touch! A Key West one!<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Lou\u2019s comments and the sign are clever ways to point out Key West is in dire straits during the Cootie Bug crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This pic was posted on twitter by Reese Piper, a stripper at the Red Garter. The comment with the pic was, \u201cMy club in Florida\u2019 Clothed Until Further Notice\u2019\u201d
Reese @reesepipewrites proclaims of herself: Freelance writer. Mostly sex work, disability, & the intimate details of my life. Stripper.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key West (and all of the Florida Keys) are almost entirely dependent on tourism. There is no other industry of consequence in Key West. Right now, there is a roadblock preventing all but residents from entering The Keys. During normal times upwards of 20,000 visitors are in Key West every day\u2026 sometimes more. While the full-time resident population of \u201cBone Island\u201d is small, about 25,000, I would venture to say 95% or more of the residents are in one way or another dependent on tourism. Key West is indeed in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Monroe County Sheriff\u2019s Office Col. Lou Caputo directs a driver wanting to continue down the Florida Keys Overseas Highway near Key Largo, Fla. Friday, March 27, 2020. The Keys have been temporarily closed to visitors since March 22, because of the coronavirus crisis. Keys officials decided to established the checkpoint Friday to further lessen the threat of virus transmission to people in the subtropical island chain. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY (Andy Newman\/Florida Keys News Bureau\/HO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Road block allowing only residents into The Keys.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I sometimes comment on Lou\u2019s blog\u2026 he\u2019ll let anyone comment. So today, I commented about the \u201cclothed till further notice\u201d sign. I said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the sign should read, \u201cWe\u2019re clothed until Fantasy Fest.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(If you don\u2019t know what Fantasy Fest is\u2026 it\u2019s held around Halloween every year and can be best described as a \u201cpublic tits & tease. I wrote about it last October.
For adults\u2026 HERE\u2019S THE LINK TO THE FANTASY FEST PAGE<\/a>. )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After reading Lou\u2019s blog, I went looking for pics or videos of Key West during the shutdown. There\u2019s one video of a bike ride down Duval just about sunset time. It\u2019s eerie. All the places I like to go to have their doors closed and no visitors. Capt\u2019n Tony\u2019s, Sloppy Joes, and yes, The Red Garter, are all locked-up tight. There are no tourists. Even Margaritaville is closed except for take-out food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaritaville closed! The horror of it all!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Here\u2019s a LINK TO THE VIDEO<\/a>, which is about 50 minutes long. Seeing The Rock like this is very eerie.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is some truth to my \u201cclothed till Fantasy Fest\u201d comment on Lou\u2019s blog. I mean, unless you\u2019ve recovered from the virus, there is no immunity. And with a vaccine maybe 18 months away, what are we to do. Visitors are the lifeblood of \u201cThe Rock.\u201d Can it survive all the way to Fantasy Fest\u2026 or longer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 And if Key West does open up for Fantasy Fest\u2026 or any time before there is an effective vaccination, what will happen? Of course\u2026 Tourons will flock to Key West by the tens of thousands. They will eat, drink, and party all over Key West\u2026 especially right down Duval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Touron = Tourist + Moron \u2013 Not all tourists are morons and vice-versa.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of maybe 20,000 visitors every day of Fantasy Fest, a few\u2026 maybe 100 or so, will have (or carry) Cootie Bugs into the bars and restaurants\u2026 and right down the middle of Duval. They will visit all my favorite places like the Chart Room, the “Trat”, the Rum Bar, or Aqua for dueling bartenders. And yes\u2026 Margaritaville!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 I have to ask: Do you want Key West and the world to wait 18 months for a vaccine, or; perhaps, just perhaps, it\u2019s time to rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with. Yes\u2026 it will be a lot like walking naked down the middle of Duval street\u2026 all exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s precisely what Sweden is doing. Not the naked part\u2026 but the \u201cripping off the Band-Aid part. They are allowing mostly \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d and accepting that rather than taking months for everyone to get Cootie Bugs, they are getting it over with\u2026 and then on with life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hummm\u2026 thinking about it and considering it\u2019s Sweden\u2026 maybe the naked part does apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how long do we wait? It\u2019s six months till Fantasy Fest. Is that long enough? Probably not. In a short period, the Turons are sure to bring the Cootie Bugs into every bar, restaurant, hotel, and t-shirt shop in town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Southernmost Point before Cootie Bugs<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Southernmost Point post “lock-down.”<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Can we even wait until Fantasy Fest… six months from now? If we wait that long, then there will be no bars, restaurants, hotels, and trinket shops for visitors to come to. All but wealthy and retired residents will be forced to leave. They will have to find work elsewhere. Then there will be nobody to serve the booze, no musicians, no one to work in the t-shirt shops\u2026. And no one will be at the front desk of the hotels. Those who make Key West the vibrant place that it is will be gone. The Rum Bar, the Trat, and maybe even the Chart Room will be gone. And I\u2019m sure we can\u2019t wait 18 months until there\u2019s a vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally\u2026 if we\u2019re not back to normal by Fantasy Fest, I\u2019m walking naked down the middle of Duval street. That should be motivation enough to get re-opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I ask… when should re-open? When do we \u201crip the Band-Aid off?\u201d  I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have to make the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I usually try to keep it lite in my posts\u2026 especially during hard times. But today, I\u2019m taking a mostly serious look at the situation in which we find ourselves. I was spurred on by \u201cKey West Lou.\u201d I follow … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[70,25,73,69,71,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kokomoman.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}