September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 5/13/8)

Key Largo is the northernmost Florida Key. It’s the first one you hit as you drive down US 1 and emerge out of the Everglades’ river of grass and into this string of islands that hook between Florida Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Depending on traffic, you can get there in an hour from Miami. This is both good and bad: Key Largo is the most accessible key, but it’s also the one where you’re most likely to run into urban problems, like crime.

At the Pelican, for instance – our favorite place to stay in the Keys and a jewel of a find I’m sharing with you now because I love you, oh MOLI reader – someone once stole my flip-flops from the shore as I was out kayaking. The resort figured it was the same young couple they caught trying to load one of the Pelican’s paintings into their car – and kindly reimbursed me for my footwear, which I had just bought down the road at one of my other favorite Key Largo establishments, Divers Direct.

Whatever: Having wandered up and down this Caribbean appendix to the U.S. many times in 20 years, I think that Key Largo has become my favorite key. Key West has the gingerbread houses and the gay-friendly nightlife – but it also has the roving drunkfest of Duval Street. Islamorada has Kaiyo Asian restaurant and the amazing Casa Morada – but both are budget breakers in these tight economic times. At $200 a night, the Pelican ain’t cheap – but for that price, you can get one of the waterfront rooms with your own private porch and watch the sun set over the water as you grill your fresh fish. It’s a quick, easy getaway from the city – and even after only one night, you’ll feel like you like you were in Jamaica, or the Bahamas, or Puerto Rico, or somewhere foreign and exotic and tropical. But you didn’t have to fly, and your dollar isn’t deflated here, and you can stop at Alabama Jack’s to see some old-fashioned clogging (yes, clogging) and eat a bowl of chili on the drive home.

Key Largo is a city. US 1 is lined with businesses; you’re not in the wilderness. That’s part of what’s so amazing about the Pelican (formerly known as the Hungry Pelican): At one end of its driveway, you can walk to a CVS, or get a milkshake from the funky diner Mac’s, or order custom deck furniture shaped like a lobster or fish or dolphin from the store across the street. But walk west down that driveway, past each of the modest cottages with its own little grill area, and you wind up at a Florida Bay oasis, with a hammock strung between palm trees over (imported) white sand and two docks leading out into the water, from which you can watch a mother horseshoe crab carting her baby around the bay’s bottom.

I’ve had some truly magical moments in Key Largo. Once, in a Pelican kayak, we found ourselves in a pod of feeding manatees. One of the great, lumbering beasts came so close to us, my husband scratched its head. On Mother’s Day last year, the water literally came to sparkling life: Some sort of tiny bioluminescent creatures do it every year in May under the full moon, and their coitus was leaving little squiggly marks in the water. This Mother’s Day, we kayaked to a mangrove island where cormorants and herons were nesting, and we saw a little white baby heron head sticking out of one nest in a tree.

Key Largo’s chief asset is John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, an oceanic preserve that is world renowned for its snorkeling and diving. The variety of life here in shallow waters is astounding – although if you’re at one of the reefs where the glass-bottom boats dump tourists, the quantity of human life can get annoying. Still, there’s so much reef, that unless you’re snapping pictures of the Christ statue, you can usually get away on your own and find the nurse shark nesting under a ledge, or have a little damselfish attach itself to you like you’re some lost mother figure.

Every time we go to the Keys (which is a couple times a year – lucky us), we make sure to stop at the Key Largo Conch House, an old Victorian with tables on the deck, a golden lab named Chief, a parrot named Romeo, and great breakfasts, sandwiches, salads, and smoothies. They also serve dinners there now, but we haven’t made it there yet for that, as we’re usually grilling at the Pelican.

This past weekend, once the steak was done, we found out that all the forks were gone from our room. The woman at the desk told my husband she had just stocked all the cabins with flatware – again – and only gave us two forks, one of which was plastic. Okay, so that wouldn’t happen at Casa Morada. Then again, we couldn’t bring our son to that child-free institution. And Cole loves Key Largo so much, he begged us to stay another night.

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 5/8/8)

(A tribute/parody inspired by the Glow in the Dark tour’s Miami stop on May 6.)

Every time I watch you rap
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you say
Get so out of hand
You would manage better
If we could see your band
80 minutes of just Kanye on stage –
Did the ego just land?

Oh, it’s your spaceship “Jane”
You sure have an imagination
(Though TLC in ‘99 did the robot voice)
You’re sweeping the nation

Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong now
Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong

I really loved the show
I really loved the show
I really loved the show
I really loved the show

Kanye West
Kanye West
We love you
But need the wood, get off the cross

Kanye West
Superstar
Do you believe you’re who you say you are?

We all know you think that you’re
The pick of the crop
But it’s nice you brought some friends –
It can be so lonely at the top
Lupe Fiasco, he was where it’s at
Is he where you were?
N.E.R.D. rocked the crowd
Pharrell is so hot
Speaking of hot, Rihanna — ouch!
Was that some cheesecake? Or
Is she on a dominatrix trip,
A record and ball breaker!

Don’t you get me wrong Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong, now Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong Don’t you get me wrong
Don’t you get me wrong, now Don’t you get me wrong

I really loved the show
I really loved the show
I really loved the show
I really loved the show

Kanye West
Kanye West
We love you
But need the wood, get off the cross

Kanye West
Superstar
Do you believe you’re who you say you are?

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 5/7/8)

The hand-lettered sign was one of many that dotted the arena. “Thunder Road [written in Bruce Springsteen’s script] for my 21st Birthday Please.” The Boss is in an obliging mood on this tour, so he played the piano-driven anthem that used to be his signature but for years he had dropped from his repertoire. The irony, of course, is that the 1975 song was written long before the requesting fan was born. Looking around the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, May 2, that wasn’t actually so surprising.

There are few things more annoying than bald boneheads shouting for songs from their youth at classic rock concerts. Sure, there was a lot of that Friday night: “Just play ‘Rosalita’!” some old codger rocker shouted behind me, precisely as Bruce was in the middle of a very soulful moment in “Devil’s Arcade.” The song from his ’07 album Magic is about a soldier in the desert, and the music got still as Max Weinberg’s drums enacted the lyrics: “the beat of your heart, the beat of her heart.” Then the idiot shouted.

More heartening were the teenagers in front of us singing along to every song, old and new. There was a surprisingly wide age range at the show – perhaps because Springsteen has never stopped generating new albums. Sure there were a lot of people (like myself) reliving the days when Born To Run defined their adolescent urges. But a generation of kids alienated by bling-hop and teen pop is listening to their parents’ rock’n’roll. (I recently interviewed the high school students behind the group For Darfur, and despite the fact they’re promoting a Kanye West concert in Miami on May 6, executive director and music obsessive Gabriel Schillinger confessed he’s a classic rock fan.) And while I’m not down with being stuck in one’s “Glory Days,” I think it’s important for music fans to learn from the masters. The Beatles were long broken up when I became obsessed with them as a pubescent – and I think my pop instincts are all the better for it.

I’ve been to many a concert where the Boss challenged his old-school fans, by turning “Born in the U.S.A.” into a noisy protest song, or playing “American Skin (41 Shots)” in a Madison Square Garden full of cops shortly after Amadou Diallo’s murder. In general, this wasn’t one of them — although he did raise the heckles, and hackles, of some of those around us when he prefaced “Living in the Future” with a speech about how the last eight years have been an attack upon the Constitution. “Fuck Obama,” another bonehead near us muttered. (Springsteen has endorsed the presidential candidate.)

Bruce reunited the E Street Band for this tour, and he played oldie after oldie – including “Rosalita.” He took the requests written on the hand-lettered signs, not the shouted ones – apparently, there was some Boss-head memo about this, as hundreds of fans knew to bring them.

The show was originally scheduled for April 18 but was postponed when Danny Federici, Springsteen’s keyboardist and friend for 40 years, passed away April 17 from melanoma. Bruce opened with a video tribute to the original E Streeter, accompanied by the song “Blood Brothers.” History shouldn’t be repeated – but it should be honored.

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 5/1/8)

I love my FUPA.

FUPA, in case you’re not up on the latest teen lingo, stands for Fat Upper Pubic (or Pussy) Area. It’s a word my now 17-year-old daughter taught me a couple years ago, right at the same time she gave me a boy-beater tank top with another contemporary acronym — MILF — on it. MILF, of course, stands for Mother I’d Like to Fuck. The two terms, one derogatory and one complimentary, are linked not merely because I learned them at the same time, but because many mothers battle their FUPA in order to maintain fuckability. I’m glad Kenda gave me a MILF tee — I believe the occasion was Mother’s Day, so it was a pretty rockin’ gift from a stepdaughter — and not one saying FUPA. But I am not ashamed of the fact that since I had a baby, my body hasn’t been the same. And yet, apparently, according to this very tough critic, I’m a MILF.

I bring all this up because, thanks in part to the celebrity mom boom and the media’s mania over it, new mothers’ bodies are becoming a bit of a cultural obsession. One tabloid cover I recently saw in a supermarket — I won’t buy these damn things — had the gall to rate which stars had best recovered their figures since giving birth. Equally heinously, a Miami plastic surgeon (of course) has written a children’s book to help kids understand why their mommies are covered in bruises and bandages after having operations to correct “the ravages of pregnancy.” I kid you not. (Thanks to The Miami Herald’s Howard Cohen for reporting on My Beautiful Mommy.)

I loved being pregnant. I suppose it was like being ravaged — but then, I kind of like being ravaged too. I’ve always been a bit of a skinny Minnie, and I relished the transformation into curves. In the Herald story, author Dr. Michael Salzhauer complains of sagging breasts and stretched skin. Maybe I’m an exception, but my boobs are bigger and better than ever at age 43 (just ask my husband). And stretched skin is a small price to pay for having my son wake up this morning, look at me with a big sleepy smile, and say, “I love you Mom.”

You, reader living in some hip urbane boho area, might assume My Beautiful Mommy is a laughable tome destined for dustbins. But I can tell you, here in Miami, where the beauty myth holds full sway, it has a captive audience. Many are the mothers at my son’s school who have comically inflated lips and breasts — thus disfiguring their resemblance to their darling children. I suspect some are familiar with Dr. Salzhauer himself.

Even fellow alt-parenting author Erika Schickel has chronicled her own battle with the bulge, fighting her “pussy belly,” as she calls it, with a girdle in a funny, poignant scene in her book You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom.

Now, I’m an advocate of fighting the notion that motherhood equals frump. That’s part of the premise of my book Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock’n'Roll. But I’m sick of the pressure on moms to be hot, hip, and wasp-waisted, like the caricature on the cover of Salzhauer’s book. Instead of applying teenaged beauty standards to grown women, we need to start fetishing mature bodies. Saggy breasts rock. “Look at these, my child-bearing hips.” FUPAs are fuckable. Put it on a T-shirt.

Posted in Populism, Cute Thing Kenda Did | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/29/8)

“What’cha listening to these days?” It’s the music buff’s conversation opener, a bid to share discoveries, compare notes – maybe show off. So in case you were wondering, here are three discs that recently crossed my CD player – and have stayed there.

Santogold, Santogold (Downtown): There’s something about females singing obliquely over angular, rhythmic tracks that makes me want to jump up and down. The debut album by Brooklyn toaster/singer Santi White (pictured) and songwriter John Hill mixes ’80s empower pop with ’00s dancehall: It’s Missing Persons meets M.I.A., complete with clap tracks and weird synth effects. Media from Rolling Stone to Interview have been salivating over tracks like “LES Artistes” since they first hit the Internet last year. Santogold finally arrives in stores today.

Macaque, Chinatown EP: Another fem-punk New York new wave outfit, Macaque warble like Bjork and cavort like the Brazilian Girls. Evers’s vocals are seemingly cotton-candy light, but pack a not-so-hidden bite, as she taunts a “Big Man:” “I can’t wait to knock you down.” Chris Hart’s beats are deliriously Garageband simple – you’ll wish you’d thought of them first. But Macaque did.

Various artists, Independent Music for Independent Coffee Drinkers (sonaBLAST!): My colleague Wendy Case would probably call this collection of mellow coffeehouse anthems chirp rock. But it’s really good chirp rock. In a compilation of largely unknown folk singers, you’d expect to find several bad beans – but the quality control here is excellent. Mark Geary (who used to be my favorite New York bartender back when I called Irish pub the Scratcher my living room) is at his Nick Drake loveliest on two tracks, “Here’s to You” and “Obi’s Chair.” Charlotte Kendrick is an endearing Luddite on “I Get Stupid.” The oddball winner of the collection is “Violet Morning,” in which Jamie Barnes sings with endearing, over-the-top sincerity and compassion about the day R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry collapsed from a brain aneurysm. I’d say these laidback tunes are more for the herbal tea than the espresso crowd – or maybe they’re for slow-grind aficionados (sorry, can’t stop the coffee puns).

Posted in Populism, Recommended listening | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/24/8)

The Cesar Pelli-designed Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is a tumbling marble reef overlooking Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Since it opened in 2006, the publicly and privately funded venue has struggled to attract audiences to a downtown known for its seediness and crime, and to meet its operating costs. In the last year — already in its short history — it has gone through massive changes, including a name switch (from the Carnival Center, when banker Adrienne Arsht outgifted the cruise line) and new director. Under Lawrence Wilker, the center seems to be making great strides forward.

Unfortunately, Tuesday night, I had the kind of terrifying, mystifying, criminal experience that keeps people away from this part of town.

The evening started magnificently. After a dinner at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drinks — the kind of meal that Frank Bruni recently raved about, when he picked Michael’s as the fourth best new restaurant in the country — Mom and I went to see the 25th anniversary edition of Forbidden Broadway at the center’s Studio Theater. It was the first time this hilarious and sometimes quite hard-hitting satire of musicals has played South Florida. Created and written by the witty Gerard Alessandrini, Forbidden Broadway is a show for people who hate to love and love to hate the theater. Gina Kreiezmar is a brilliant mimic — of Liza Minnelli, Sarah Brightman, Patti LuPone, Ethel Merman, etc. — and quite a good singer. I was all set to write a nice little review.

Then we walked out to the PAC parking lot to find out my car had been stolen.

I’ll try to make this long story short: After calling 911, it turns out my PT Cruiser had been towed at the request of the American Parking Company, the operators of PAC lot F. After a very stressful couple of hours, of dealing with police and PAC security and Galactic Towing and American Parking, my husband had to pick us up and take us to the tow lot in Liberty City — not a part of town you want to take your mom, who’s in from out of town late at night — and pay $101 to get my vehicle back.

Now, I know tow company scams are rife in big cities. But this one is particularly heinous. My car was not illegally parked. I was in a designated Arsht Center lot, as you can see on this map. Dozens of other patrons parked there that night. It’s one of the lots Wilker is referring to when he tells the press there is plenty of parking around the center. The lot is owned by the Florida Grand Opera, one of the center’s resident companies. The tow truck pulled up to take more cars when I was on the phone with the police, but at that point, the show was over, and the other patrons managed to get away without being robbed.

After I filed off an angry email to the Arsht Center’s publicist Wednesday, Larry Wilker called me to apologize for this incident. He said he was “angry and mortified and embarrassed.” FGO COO Mark B. Rosenblum also emailed me, saying he has “asked American Parking to stop the current towing policy. We will be reviewing all policies and procedures, and making adjustments as necessary.” They are also reimbursing my $101.

That’s great; I appreciate it. I doubt the center or the FGO is a direct part of this towing scam (although it does seem to me that towing a few cars is a way American Parking can make money on what would otherwise be a slow night, and FGO does presumably profit from its financial relationship with American Parking). But this is just the kind of thing that’s going to keep people away from downtown. Other patrons saw what happened to us. Word gets out — um, I am a journalist. Wilker told me there had been one other incident. That he knows of.

The other day, I blogged about the superiority of the cultural nightlife on the west side of the Dade County causeways. I stand by what I say. But I’m also once burned.

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/23/8)

It’s no secret that the South Beach nightlife scene long ago ceased to be a playground for the kind of off-kilter, bohemian individuals who make nightclubbing a blast. In fact, it’s more like a cesspool of overpriced clubs playing bad trance and full of narcissistic, superficial airheads who get by on looks and/or money rather than talent or brains.

The way in which SoBe clubs have become killing grounds for tourists and suckers was made abundantly clear in a Sunday story in The Miami Herald (full disclosure: I am a former Herald staff critic and still contribute to the paper and its associated websites). Reporter Lydia Martin details the costs and cachet of buying into bottle service, and thus VIP treatment, at the clubs. She talks to such partiers as Romy Grantley, a 39-year-old financial trader who says he spends $3000 every Friday at Set. Martin is a genius at getting people to say things that lay bare the weird culture of Miami; a couple years ago she quoted literary entrepreneur Mitchell Kaplan saying, “We have the image that everybody here has fake boobs. Well, some people with fake boobs are very intellectual.”

The winner in this story comes from party promoter Tommy Pooch: ”If we made you buy four bottles, and you’re only four people, you can bet we didn’t want you there. You’re probably ugly. We were hoping you would just leave. But you were so desperate to get in, you agreed to the four bottles, and now we’re stuck with you.”

This, of course, explains why South Beach clubs are full of ugly rich people and desperate model wannabes who are essentially, and often literally, paid to be there. I suppose if you’re one of those types, they’re a great place to hang. But
Word to the people like Grantley, who brag about buying their popularity each weekend: That kind of club scene is over. You can see T-shirts in South Beach with the letters VIP circled with a slash through them. There are club nights, even at such once star-obsessed Beach venues as Tantra, that brag that they are celebrity-free. Economic times have changed, people hate Republicans, and little democratic dive venues are where it’s at.

The infamous SoBe scene is not only over; it’s dangerous. Martin’s article was prompted by a recent episode at behemoth venue Mansion where clubgoers were allegedly beaten by bouncers after they protested the size of their bar tab. Mansion officials deny the allegations but the patrons have sued and eight bouncers have been arrested for battery. You can see a video of the incident here.

Meanwhile, the kind of DIY fashionistas, art-school kids, trannies, budding MCs, etc., at the heart of any city’s cool club scene – not to mention most of the rest of Miami — long ago decided to stay on the west side of the causeways. In neighborhoods like Wynwood, Lemon City, Downtown, and the Design District, there’s a vibrant mix of singer/songwriters, indie clubs, cool record stores, world-renowned galleries, and hip restaurants. Places like Sweat Records, Churchill’s, 190, Transit Lounge, etc., don’t pull that velvet-rope stuff. Pay your admission (if there is one, it’s probably dirt cheap), and enjoy some good local music. Ugly people welcome.

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/17/8)

There are two classic mistakes critics, particularly pop music critics, make: 1. Hating something just because it’s popular, or 2. Liking something just because it’s popular. On Tuesday’s Soundcheck Smackdown on WNYC radio, I was set up as the representative of the former position, while Slate critic Jody Rosen repped the latter. The topic of debate was “Mariah Carey: Bimbo or Brilliant?” We were somewhat role playing (or at least I was. I don’t know; maybe Jody really does think Carey is in a league with John Coltrane and Led Zeppelin). It was fun.

I didn’t and wouldn’t call Mirage (her high-school nickname) a bimbo; in an act of feminist reversal I learned from Ann Powers, I only call guys bimbos. I don’t think Carey’s stupid: She strategically married early in her career, has wisely followed the winds of pop change, and got loads of money from a record label for whom she only had to deliver one record. She’s always been involved in her own songwriting and musical direction; she’s not a puppet (though she does like to play the victim). And yes, I do envy her ability to hit a lot of notes I can only dream of.

But skill is not the same as talent. Carey has an impressive vocal range and a somewhat superhuman ability to pack countless notes into one syllable, yet I don’t think she’s a great singer. She’s not inventive, she’s showoffy, she coos, she lacks soul. Rosen compared her to John Bonham and Coltrane, but to me, she’s like Joe Satriani, who can pick the shit out of a guitar, but it still sounds like noodling to me.

That said, I don’t hate her. That would be too easy. Two things I will say for Mariah for sure: 1. She’s a survivor. Her career has lasted 18 years, and she just passed Elvis to have the second-most number-one singles in music history (the Beatles are number one). 2. She invokes passion. People — regular people, not just critics — love her or hate her. You can see that in the comments at the Soundcheck site, some of which are a lot smarter than anything Jody and I said. I once reviewed a Mariah concert, and it provoked the second greatest amount of hate mail I’ve received in my career, thank you very much. (My Chemical Romance fans beat her out some tenfold, however).

So what do you think: Mariah Carey, brilliant or, um, overrated?

Posted in Populism | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/15/8)

Is the Gossip a dream? Watching the video for “Standing in the Way of Control,” the band’s ’06 club and UK hit that is featured on Gossip – Live in Liverpool, it’s hard to believe that a major label is promoting this concert album and DVD (Columbia’s Music With a Twist imprint releases Liverpool today). Or that the self-defined radical feminist band is playing on Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night (April 16). And that in the UK, where proudly overweight singer Beth Ditto has been an unlikely, sometimes naked music-tabloid cover girl, the members are already rock stars. Even MTV is in on the action (the band’s part of the network’s “52/52” campaign). Is the revolution being televised?

Like the album, the “Standing” video (you can watch it in the View player) is a resolutely raw-power document. Singing in a throaty blues howl that actually merits the usual Janis Joplin comparisons, Ditto wears a shiny skin-tight minidress; in a recent Bust magazine interview, she talked about how she purposely wears exactly what fat girls are told they’re not supposed to. Token guy Brace Paine manages to play bass, lead, and rhythm guitar on one instrument, while drummer Hannah Blilie is the siren of the snare.

Back in the heyday of what Bikini Kill called Revolution Girl Style, I’d have been moshing with a pack of other tattooed women in some tiny Lower East Side anarchist space to a band like this. That was some 15 years ago, back before Gossip expressly moved from Arkansas to Olympia, Washington, to hook up with Riot Grrrls. Of course, even back then, major labels were dying to sign Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney; corporations like to buy into rebellion. The politicized musicians stuck with indies – and ultimately self-destructed (BK a lot quicker than SK).

It would be ridiculous to call the Gossip a sell-out. The band is scarcely trying to hide who it is; Music With a Twist is a label for gays and lesbians. In press releases, interviews, lyrics, everywhere, the band wears its politics on its sleeves. “This is for the faggots,” Ditto shouts before “Yr Mangled Heart” on Liverpool. (Later, she dedicates her cover of Aaliyah’s ‘98 pop hit “Are You That Somebody” to that tragically short-lived R&B star.)

As much as the Gossip’s success makes me giddy with surprise and delight, it doesn’t mean the revolution is won. In some ways, they make it harder for their kin. Any rock conservative can now counter an argument that so-and-so’s career has been waylaid by homophobia, misogyny, fat prejudice, or the feminist backlash by saying, “Well, that didn’t stop the Gossip!”

But like a precision instrument led by a diamond-hard drill bit, Ditto et al are an unstoppable force. They’re that good. When there’s a band as mediocre as a dozen popular boy bands – or surgically altered pop tarts – and fronted by a big, fat, loud, strident, bull dyke that gets its MTV spotlight, then I’ll believe the revolution has been won.

Until then, somebody pinch me.

Posted in Populism, Recommended listening | No Comments »

September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/10/8)

You know when you have an idea of what you’re looking for in a vacation spot, but you’re not sure where to find it? You drive and drive, and instead of a pristine fishing village and quaint inn, you keep passing the same old chain stores: Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart. You start to wonder if you’ve fallen for some vintage postcard image that condos wiped out a couple decades ago (ain’t that America!), and if you’ll be camping at a KOA after all.

Then at the end of another one of those miles-long bridges that stitch together this oceanic region, there it is: a riverfront lined with 19th-century clapboard warehouses and fishing boats. I’m talking real, working fishing boats with nets and pulleys and crates that haul in shrimp and oysters – not white and chrome outfitters who charge $200 a day to take tourists out to slaughter some gorgeous game fish. A couple blocks past the end of the bridge, there’s a main street with broad sidewalks and diversion-filled cross streets. Within spitting distance of each other, there’s an independent book store, a handmade chocolates store, a shop selling nautical bric-brac that spills out onto the yard, and an internet café called Café Con Leche with Venezuelan specialties.

Perched where river meets sea just around the bend in Florida’s panhandle, Apalachicola is a gem of a town. No, in honor of the oysters that are plucked from the Gulf of Mexico here, and whose shells fall off a conveyor belt into a giant seagull-surrounded pile down the street from the nautical store, let’s call it a pearl. My husband, son, and I made a last-minute decision to drive around Florida for Cole’s spring break at the end of March. We had an ultimate destination – Bud’s aunt and uncle in Crestview, which is about as far from Miami (some 600 miles) as you can get and still be in the Sunshine State; in fact, we ventured into Alabama for one afternoon idyll. In between, we were winging it. We figured drive a few hours, find a place, stay a night, check it out.

Matlacha, a strip of road connecting the mainland to Pine Island, is a great beach-boho village amid the overpriced development of the Naples and Fort Myers area. The charming Bridge Water Inn is built on a deck, so water literally laps under the rooms – but we’ve stayed there before, so it wasn’t a discovery. The next day, we were impressed by the rescued animals (my type of place!) at Homosassa Springs State Park – but the area was packed with families on spring break.

We thought we’d stop earlier the third day, but instead we kept driving, because nowhere seemed “right” — though the scenery was improving. After Crystal River, we’d finally escaped the strip mall sprawl. We were driving on two lanes down Florida’s back country, over the slow-moving Suwanee River, past sweet-smelling orange orchards, through palmetto-filled swamps, to the white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.

My friend Hunter had tipped me off about Apalachicola, but I was maintaining a healthy skepticism until proven otherwise. We’d eaten a gas-station nonlunch and I was hungry and cranky by the time we reached the river and sunset was approaching. Along the way, we’d seen a lot of beachfront being replaced by blocks of cookie-cutter condos, and I was bracing for another gentrified, touristified town, where actual industry had been replaced by Ye Olde Shoppes. From that first bridge glimpse, we could tell Apalachicola is the real deal.

Yes, one of those riverfront warehouses has been converted into a hotel and restaurants. But the Apalichicola River Inn is a charming and unpretentious place. The lobby doubles as a liquor store, so sweaty locals pedal up on bikes for their daily fifth as you check in. The rooms all have gorgeous views of the river. On the second floor, you get your own private balcony. It was our first real mattress in a couple nights, and there was a cooling ceiling fan and rattan furniture. There are two adjacent restaurants: upscale Caroline’s and the legendary Boss Oyster, whose motto is “Shut up and shuck.” We ate at the latter and it was divine. The oysters are (obviously) very fresh and come topped with all kinds of things; we chose Oyster Bienville, which had blue crab, sherry and Monterey cheese. Bud and I have a thing for hominy, so we had to have the grand grits, which were served in a cream sauce with chunks of ham and jumbo shrimp. The grilled bay scallops were delicate and tasty. We enjoyed all this while sitting on the river, watching the boats come in from a hard day of fishing and the gulls trying to scavenge.

The inn is handily located beween the oyster shell pile and the nautical store. We managed not to invest in some little wooden shrimp boats – which we regret. At Downtown Books, a cozy store focusing on local authors, I bought a copy of The Yearling, the classic novel set in the old Florida landscape through which we had just driven. The clincher, though, were the chocolates. I can’t tell you the name of the store, because the chocolatier is a retired man who told me he just does this for fun, not for fame, and he doesn’t make business cards, or stickers, or anything with a logo. He opens and closes when he feels like it and doesn’t take credit cards. He does make dozens of types of creamy fudges, truffles, turtles, etc.

Especially for Florida, Apalachicola is an old town; in fact, Dr. John Gorrie invented the basis for air conditioning (and refrigeration) here in 1849, essentially enabling the settling of the state. There are beautiful Victorians near the water – many of them for sale. Go inland for a few blocks, and you’ll quickly see that this is also a working-class, even a poor, town. Unlike so many quaint seaside villages, it hasn’t all been gussied up for tourists. Which is how this tourist likes ‘em.

Finally, of course, there are the beaches. The panhandle is famous for its soft white sand and the Gulf of Mexico is gentle and blue (when there are no hurricanes, of course). St. George Island, with its state park, is just a few miles away.

A heavy fog denied us a sunrise over the river the next morning and sparkling sea views as we left. But you know, you can’t have everything.

Posted in Populism | No Comments »