When Men Wrestled Bears

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away - like, Florida, circa 1970 - the noble sport of wrestling was once undertaken by bears in Sarasota. That's right, bears, those crazy huge furry animals that stand up on their hind legs like a gorilla but have a head like a dog and bizarre clawed hands like a sloth.

Sometimes, I stare at the 1970 newspaper ad above, announcing a wrestling match between Bruiser Ben, a 650 pound bear, and one Eduardo Perez, and ponder what motivates men to wrestle bears. Especially having viewed videos on the Internet of TV hosts and news reporters being attacked, live on the air, by bears they had been assured were totally trained, docile, and safe. And another video of a circus where a trained bicycle-riding bear suddenly decides he's going to hop off his bike and go eat one of his fellow performers, a trained bicycle-riding monkey, to the utter horror of the audience. (No, I'm not going to link to these. Google 'em yourself if you must.)

But apparently, wrestling bears is as old as the Bible and as American as apple pie. Consider this news report from the Idaho State Journal, November 29, 1953:

Gorgeous Gus, a 300-pound black bear, got a bit temperamental Friday night and disappointed an estimated 700 wrestling fans, the biggest crowd of the season. Gus was scheduled to tangle with Dr. Jerry Graham, a hypnotist and wrestler, in a feature event at the National Guard armory. The big bear, however, refused to let handlers put on his muzzle and mitts and the match had to be called off.

And from the Evening News-Journal, Clovis, NM, May 18, 1932:

Dutch Mantell beats Big Andy, man vs. bear: The crowd screamed with laughter when the Dutchman chased the bear out of the ring, and the bear consequently chased the spectators from the ringside seats on the stage ... (Mantell) actually pinned the bear's shoulders to the mat.

And from the Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, NY, November 18, 1877:

The tendency of the age is surely retrograde. In the days of side arms and dueling, a prize fight would draw an audience of the aristocracy. Nowadays, to secure immunity from the police, the bruisers must wear gloves. The Greco-Roman wrestling match has superceded even the latter, and now again we have variety in the form of a Pyrennean bear, who wrestles all comers under the rules. We are going back to the days of St. Paul, who "fought with wild beasts at Ephesus."

While you chew over all that, I'm going to go lay down and think about the phrase "hypnotist and wrestler".

The Shake Pit

Though there's all sorts of delicious expensive gelatos, fancy frozen yogurts, and exotic smoothies to be had on the Gulf Coast, I find myself immediately drawn to The Shake Pit every time I roll into Bradenton. It's an old mom-and-pop relic that has been dishing out the old-fashioned milkshakes since 1959. Their milkshake selection ranges from the traditional usual suspects to more out-there selections like peanut butter and watermelon. My personal favorite is their Coke milkshake, which is not just a milkshake with Coke added but actually uses the pure uncut Coca-Cola syrup straight from their soda-fountain tanks to provide the flavor.

The Shake Pit was plugged in a 2004 Marvin comic strip. I'm not sure whether this means the strip takes place in Bradenton, or if Marvin's family was vacationing, or if it's just one of those comics-world surrealisms not to be analyzed too deeply.

I Dream of Jeannie

Sometimes people forget that the iconic TV series I Dream of Jeannie, which ran from September 1965 to September 1970 with a couple of slight returns in TV movies, was set in Cocoa Beach on Florida's Space Coast. The show wasn't actually filmed there, unfortunately - as a cost-cutting measure they shot the series in California, which explains the incongruous mountains sometimes seen on the horizon in outdoor shots. The cast, however, did make promotional appearances in Cocoa Beach, and a street called I Dream Of Jeannie Lane still exists there to this very day. (I wonder how many pop-culture-clueless young people wonder who this "Jeannie Lane" is.)

The show, inspired by the Tony Randall-Barbara Eden film The Brass Bottle, tells the story of a NASA astronaut named Tony (played by Larry Hagman) who finds a mysterious bottle (actually a gaudily-painted limited edition Jim Beam whiskey bottle!) in the sand when his one-man capsule Stardust One makes an emergency landing at a deserted island in the South Pacific. When he opens it, out pops a blonde female Persian Jinn in a belly-dancing harem costume who proclaims him to be her master for freeing her from the bottle. Despite his misgivings about the whole thing, she follows him back home to Florida and proceeds to make his life chaotic with her well-intended magickal attempts to serve him.

Although Tony attempts to keep Jeannie's existence a secret, his best friend and fellow astronaut, Captain Roger Healey (played by Bill Daily, later of The Bob Newhart Show fame) soon finds out, and eventually in later episodes she dons ordinary 20th-century clothing in order to pass herself off as Tony's human fiancé. They are continually snooped on by the show's villain, NASA's head psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows, who suspects that something is not quite right about Tony and Jeannie's relationship.

There were two subsequent TV movies - one in 1985, another in 1991 - that reunited the cast except for Larry Hagman, who by this time was thrilled to have shed his typecast image by starring as J.R. Ewing in the blockbuster hit show Dallas and wanted no part of a reunion. This summer, Barbara Eden made a promotional appearance in her Jeannie costume with President Bill Clinton, and still looks great in it.

The Space Coast

One of Florida's greatest claims to fame, the Space Coast is the area around Merritt Island (where NASA launched Space Shuttles from Kennedy Space Center until the last voyage on July 8, 2011) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the site of various space launches both civilian and military. Cities in the area include Titusville, Rockledge, Cape Canaveral, Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne and Palm Bay. One of the Space Coast's area codes is "321", which was chosen as a deliberate nod to the "3-2-1, liftoff" countdown of space launches.

You can watch rocket launches from a number of handy points on the island, as delineated in the graphic below, swiped from spacecoastlaunches.com.

The place is a veritable space-geek's wet dream, but even without all the rocketry going on, there's plenty of good old fun and sun going on. Me, I like to hang out on Cocoa Beach and slug 'em back at the Mai Tiki Bar on the pier, 800 feet out over the Atlantic.

Gas

Gas Full Service Restaurant, locally known simply as "Gas", is currently my favorite eat-house on the enchanting Anastasia Island. It's located at 9 Anastasia Boulevard, just before you run out of island and go over the Bridge of Lions to St. Augustine's Colonial Quarter.

They've got a super-deep craft beer selection (I think this is the first time I've ever had Green Flash West Coast IPA in a restaurant) and their menu is filled with unique goodies like the espresso-rubbed steak (pictured below) and strawberry-datil pepper ice cream (they do love their datils down here!) It's located on the premises of a former gas station, hence the name, and they run with it by using a fun retro gas-station decor scheme. Get there early as you can because it's a small place and there's often a line, but it's worth the wait, Jack.

A lot of people like to swan into a joint and then swan right back out again; when I go into a place I'm there for the long haul, and I can think no better place on Anastasia Island than Gas to set up camp and hold court.

When Kirpal Came to Town

And so it was, in winter 1963, the swami Kirpal Singh of the Ruhani Satsang sect flew in by jet to the Sunshine State to lay down his rap, during the time when the nation was reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the history-altering arrival of The Beatles to America.

An old article from this site tells us more than we probably ever needed to know about what was apparently the Swami's third Florida visit in short succession (either that or whoever made the newspaper ad above was really, really, confused) noting that among the stops on his goodwill tour, he hit up a Masonic Lodge, a Christian church, and the Seaquarium:

Arriving at Tampa Airport, Florida, on December 27, Kirpal Singh was greeted by Mr. Jess Mays, his Florida representative, Mr. Dean Schumaker, the Sarasota group-leader, and Mr. George Lawrence, the group-leader from St. Petersburg. The Master gave two public talks at the Scottish Rite Club in St. Petersburg, and was also invited to the Scottish Rite Club as guest-speaker for the United Liberal Church. He was presented with the "Key of the City" of St. Petersburg by the Mayor, Mr. Herman Goldner, on December 30. Television and press photographers were present, and in the evening the presentation ceremony was screened on two television channels. That evening Kirpal Singh spoke at the Women's Club in Sarasota, about fifty miles from St. Petersburg. Meditation sittings were again held each morning at St. Petersburg, and a large number of people were initiated into the Science of the Soul on December 31, New Year's Eve.

The Master's motorcade set off for Miami, Florida, on New Year's Day, 1964, led by Mr. Jess Mays. On arrival in Miami, Kirpal Singh was welcomed by Miss Jerry Astra Turk, group-leader for that city, and many devotees. The Master was the guest of Philip and Etta Perrin, two dedicated and loving disciples, for the duration of his stay in Miami. When the Master and his party arrived at the Perrins' residence, each visitor was presented with flowers. A continual buffet-service of meals was kept in operation at the Perrins' home, which was an "open house" for all devotees, seekers and friends. The Miami Herald interviewed the Master, and a very fine report of the Tour and the Master's mission appeared in that newspaper.

Three public talks were given at the Miami Senior High School's great auditorium, and further talks were given at the Ewing Gallery and the Congregational Church of Christ. These talks were all well-attended, as were the smaller and more informal talks given at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Perrin. On January 4, a reception was given at the world-famous Seaquarium of Miami by the Director of Public Relations, Mr. Roger Conklin, Jr., in honor of Kirpal Singh. Press reporters and cameramen followed the Master and his party as he was escorted through the Seaquarium. Great amusement was created when one of the dolphins rose out of the water and grasped the Master's coat-sleeve, gently tugging it as the Master sat at the edge of the tank. A sea-cow, noted as an extremely unsociable animal and generally preferring to ignore human beings, came up to Kirpal Singh and presented itself for a gentle stroking from the Master-Saint.

Actually, the manatee is a very social animal and loves people - which is part of why it's so endangered today - but let's not let that dampen our fascination for ol' Kirpal's savoir-faire. What I really wanna know is, what else did he get up to during his visit? Did he go to the dog races? Hang out on the beach at Pass-a-Grille? Knock back Grasshopper cocktails at Charles Villa?

Charles Villa Hotel

It's part of the inherent Interzone-ness of it all that everything down here is constantly shifting, mutating, roiling, folding back in on itself. But even without acknowledging the paranormal energy which lends to Florida soil this especial quality, it must also be said that part of it has to do with the culture. You don't have to be a Buddhist to grok the transient nature of everything, but it's even more transient in Florida, where at any given time there are more visitors than locals.

In my other outpost-state of Kentucky, by comparison, one might note that a building could be built in 1950 and torn down in 1980, and that you'd still have an easier time trying to find an old-timer or a historian-geek to tell you anecdotes about it than in Florida. Often, the man on the street in Florida has no clue what was in any given spot 50, 20, or even 5 years ago because, probably like you, they just got here. Like Kurt Weill, I'm a stranger here myself.

The Charles Villa Hotel. Hmmmmmm. On December 11, 1947, the St. Petersburg Times ran a classified ad for it stating "NOW OPEN" at 14701 Gulf Boulevard, Madeira Beach and heralding "Scientific American, French and Egyptian cuisine." Let me just try to wrap my head around that for a moment.

Okay, I'm done. I got nothin'.

Like the initial classified listing, other later ads for the hotel seem to focus far more on the hotel's restaurant than the lodgings. But then consider their beautiful exotica-esque ad shown at top, which depicts a belly dancer far more prominently than the tiny micro-clip-art illustrations of the shish-kabob and such. Truly, this must have been a place of wonderment in its day, and I plan to spend a lot of time standing around at night waiting for its day to come back and haunt the place. The term zeitgeist, after all, uses the German word for "ghost" or "mind" even though it is popularly interpreted as meaning "spirit of the times" using "spirit" in its vaguer semantic sense (i.e. "getting into the spirit of things"). If there can be a ghost of a hotel, I wanna hang out with it.

So what's there now? Something called Dockside Dave's. Looks like some damn fine grub, too.

I'm going to go smoke a cigar and watch the tree branches move in the wind now. Let me know if you figure out anything else.