Monitor Lizards in Florida

Yet another crazy critter to watch out for in the wilds of Interzone: not only do we have bears, panthers, pythons, monkeys, giant grasshoppers and giant snails, we have monitor lizards. Nile monitors, native to Africa, have somehow gained a foothold in our ecosystem and have been thriving in Florida since at least 1990.

On the eastern side of the state, the monitors seem to be concentrated in the area from Palm Beach through Miami, and then following down south into the keys, especially Key Largo. On the gulf side, their numbers are rapidly spreading outward from the Cape Coral area, including all nearby islands (Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, Pine Island, and Gasparilla Island) and as far north as Siesta Key and Sarasota.

Wild iguanas are also an increasing problem in Florida. Like the monitor lizards, they disrupt native species like birds, turtles and crocodiles by eating their eggs and competing for food. There are an estimated 10,000 feral iguanas on Boca Grande alone, and Lee County has spent over $100,000 trying to trap them. But you know how it is; once these invasive aliens start layin' their eggs in the primordial soup that is Florida, you might as well just throw up your hands and just watch and see how it all comes out.

Sexy Siesta Key Salt Shakers

Stay classy, Florida.

The Cottage

Sometimes it may seem, especially from reading my blog and my Twitter, that Florida is just sloppin' over with nonstop great places to eat and drink. Not so. Many places are stuck in that rut of "we know most of you are tourists and will never be here again, so we can feed you garbage and treat you with bored indifference and it won't matter."

This, then, is why when a restaurant like The Cottage on 153 Avenida Messina of Siesta Key comes along, I crow about its awesomeness, even if there actually isn't a whole heck of a lot to say about it. You know the drill by now: grouper sandwich (theirs is enormous, genuine, and delicious) and a Mojito (like Columbia's, theirs is the real deal.)

To illustrate its marvels, I wish I had some elaborate story involving drag queens, chemtrails, a talking dog, a Bible, and a rubber raft, but sadly that's not the case. It's just this restaurant, you know? The fact that this place simply doesn't suck would make this noteworthy data, but that would be damning with faint praise; this is without a doubt my favorite grubshack on Siesta Key.

Siesta Key Street Musician

This guy was sitting outside Beach Bazaar on Siesta Key playing an electric guitar and an electric bass guitar at the same time. The bass strings he mostly noodled openly without fretting, while he tapped the highly amplified guitar - which was apparently in some sort of open tuning. Most of the stuff he played during the time I observed him was primitive free-form hippie-metal-jazz originals, kind of standing at the three-way intersection of Pat Metheny, Eddie Van Halen and Buckethead; or to put it another way, kind of like if Hasil Adkins were trying to play Frank Zappa's "Rubber Shirt".

Triton Statue

This Triton statue looks pretty digestible to me. It depicts him blowing his magic conch just outside a gelato shop, and the more I look at him, the more I can't unsee Jeff Bridges from The Big Lebowski.

Sniki Tiki

Siesta Key's Sniki Tiki is another good example of my Anomalous Enthusiasm Axiom regarding Tiki Bars. Despite being Tiki-named on a freakin' island in the freakin' gulf, the decor is not really retro and the waitresses seem hurried and disinterested even when you're the only customer in the joint. Nine tenths of the Tiki Bar experience is about the mood, the setting, and the demeanor of the staff. But if pressed on the matter, all these managers of these sorta-but-not-really-Tiki-bars would probably just shrug and say, "Look, man, this isn't 1957. I just gave the place that name 'cuz, you know, it's all tropical-sounding and stuff."

Having said that - ah, the inevitable "having said that" - I nevertheless visited the place three times and still have fond memories of it. Because the food is excellent. And that's really what it's all about, isn't it?

First time I went, I had the clam chowder, second and third time the Philly Cheesesteak. All superb, and it must be said I am an authority on Philly Cheesesteaks, you ask anyone. The drinks are top-notch, even if they are served in dinky little boring clear plastic cups and not in a proper Tiki Mug or a ceramic tumbler that looks like Fu Manchu's less successful brother.

You'll find Sniki Tiki at the world famous Captain Curt's Village on Stickney Point, Siesta Key.

The Interzone Sausage Report

Having just spent three months on Siesta Key, I had sufficient time to sort out where all the important stuff is - namely, the good cigars. It's a neverending cigar store safari in Florida, with my selections of smoke being wholly dependent on the vagaries of local sources. And it's frustrating to have to pull up stakes and ship out to another city just when I finally had this town figured out. But as our Solar System is currently hurtling through space at 420,000 miles per hour into the Local Fluff, none of us can stand still even if we try.

After Siesta Key, I took an extended-stay residence in a hotel in Sarasota's Rosemary District. It being not so far from my prior cigar sources, my left-jacket-pocket lineup didn't change so much. I did, however, discover a new place not previously reported on here - Smokin' Joe's downtown. It's a swingin' bar with a kick-butt walk-in humidor and some knowledgeable employees. They carried delicacies like Loose Cannon, Gurkha Cellar Reserve, Alec Bradley Black Market, and Esteban Carreras Aged 12 Years. Best of all, they were an additional supplier of my current favorite cigar, the Alec Bradley Nica Puro.

While in the Rosemary District, I happened to be smoking a cigar in the park when a lovely lady walked past me, smiled, and remarked on how good my cigar smelled. I should have asked her to marry me but was too stunned to speak.

I spent some time in Ocala, and though I'm sure they must have serious cigar tobacconists hidden there somewhere, I never found them. My dwindling supply of sticks leftover from Sarasota carried me through this difficult time. I know you feel my pain. When the X-class killshot solar flare hits Earth, pray for me that I'm not stuck in Ocala.

Then came Orlando, land of Cigarz at Waterfront (and Bubble Tea.) The guy at Cigarz was a swell Johnson who spotted me a free sample of Cordoba & Morales Family Reserve torpedo. I also dabbled in delights as Puro Pinar, Pinolero, San Lotano Oval, and Don Pepin Garcia. A liquor store (whose name escapes me now) carried in its dusty old humidor a neglected box of Nat Sherman which I pounced on like an antique dealer buying a Renoir from a yard sale whose owners don't realize what they have.

Don't think me ungrateful; I do adore hotel living but the biggest drawback about the lifestyle is that everyplace is "no smoking". This means that, now more than ever, my car has become my substitute smoking parlor in lieu of a lanai on which to lounge. As you might expect, this puts a damper on my predilection for pairing my cigar with a fine craft beer or a shot of something funky like Zwack.

Someday this war's gonna end.

Now I've arrived at yet another hotel, this time in the promised land - Tampa, the cigar capital of the world. And as if to herald this momentous event, a supernova exploded in the Cigar Galaxy, a.k.a. M82. Truly we live in miraculous times.

Does it get any better than this? I intend to find out.

The Banyan Tree

Since shacking up down here, I've become enamored of those crazy huge trees with a complex web of exposed roots that seem to illogically and impossibly emanate from tree branches, creating Dali-esque crutches and props for them.

They're called Banyan Trees, and they're actually, like lichen, a combination of two different life forms together - the weird extremities are actually what's called Strangler Figs, which are an epiphyte ("air plant") that attaches itself to any given tree and eventually just takes over. I'm perenially interested in life forms like this, such as dodder, Japanese knotweed, bamboo, and the Armillaria fungus.

There are numerous Banyan/Strangler Figs around St. Armand's Key, Siesta Key, Longboat Key, and Sarasota, and I've heard it said that these all spread from thirteen starts that Thomas Edison gifted to John Ringling from Edison's collection on his estate in Ft. Myers. (Newspaper clipping image below from the Lewiston Journal, April 9, 1984.)

LeBarge Tropical Cruises

A couple months ago I saw a dazzlingly lit cruise ship go by as I sat watching the sunset on the rocky beach at the dead-end of Shell Road on Siesta Key. I was particularly struck by the fact that it had palm trees on its deck, and made a mental note to seek and find this exciting vessel one day.

Then, day before yesterday, I was loitering around the Sarasota Bayfront with a cigar in one hand and a Starbucks in the other, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the ship. Interzone has a way of leading you to where you need to be. Now that I know where to find LeBarge Tropical Cruises, you can bet I'll be enlisting their boatly services soon.

Primrose Path

Not only have I been on Easy Street, I've walked the Primrose Path - and it's on Siesta Key of all places. Who knew?

Tube Dude Surfboard Holder

A Tube Dude surfboard holder, spotted at Siesta Beach.

Ted Stevens and the Doo-Shots

Last week I was walking down the street on Siesta Key and heard some amazing reverby surf instrumental music coming from one of the joints. Aa I got closer, I realized it was Gilligan's and the band was Ted Stevens & the Doo-Shots, one of Florida's greatest surf-rockabilly-blues treasures. I wasn't up for any eatin' and drinkin', but loitered around Gilligan's as a non-paying customer anyway, just to catch more of Ted's act.

Ted and the boys are constantly out there performing in Florida, and you can follow their gig schedule here.

Siesta Key Drum Circle

Siesta Key's drum circle on Siesta Beach starts every Sunday evening, one hour before sunset. Be there.

Tube Dude

When I first started hanging around Siesta Key a couple years ago, I noticed this nice metal stick-figure guy posing with the Turtle Beach sign. Then I saw another one, and another. And now the damn things are everywhere you look in this part of the Gulf.

At first I was disappointed that the first one wasn't unique, and thought "oh, it must be some generic store-bought thing that's everywhere like those horrifying air dancers that give me nightmares."

Well, it's true they are from a store now, but it wasn't always so. Scott Gerber was in the yacht business but went under in the 2008 recession. Just for something to do, he whipped up one of these metal tube people and placed it on his dock. Next thing you know, other people are asking him to make one for them too, and they began spreading around the area so fast, it became a local "what the heck is up with these things?" mystery. Now he has an actual thriving business selling them and a gallery displaying them on St. Armand's Key - and they're catching on nationwide! To date more than 15% of all Tube Dude production has gone to support fundraisers, golf tournaments, and other charitable events.

Cigar Store Safari

There's a lot of things I miss about Kentucky, but most of all I miss the days of life in St. Matthews when I had a house with a wine cellar and a walk-in humidor for that most Floridian of fancies: cigars. Talk about your "man caves"; I camped out down there literally for days at a time, like a Franciscan in a monastery studying illuminated manuscripts. (Except my manuscripts were moldy old pulp fiction and the dusty old dregs of comicdom.)

After I moved from there to the JSH Plantation in Anchorage (Kentucky), I tried to set up a primitive cellar and humidor in the unfinished basement, but it just wasn't the same. And from there, I entered into a still-ongoing period where I constantly go out and forage for a few cigars at a time, rather than keep them hoarded at home. I don't do those little-bitty desk humidors; they're a pain in the ass to fiddle with and it's strangely far easier to keep a whole room properly humidified than a small cedar box on your desk.

In Louisville, hustlin' sticks was easy, for the most part. With Riverside Cigars just over the puddle in Jeffersonville, Indiana (Where I scored Nat Sherman, Drew Estate Undercrown and the Riverside Cigars Casa Especial), J. Shepherd's in the Highlands (where I got my Leccia Black, Jaime Garcia, Tatuaje, La Duena and Tarazona 305), Kremer's downtown (Kristoff, Ashton VSG, Quesada Tributo), Oxmoor Smoke Shop in Oxmoor Mall (Perdomo Lot 23, CAO Sopranos) and - if I was really desperate enough to pay inflated prices for poorly-kept sticks - several Cox's and Liquor Barn locations. I even came to know all the lesser-known little nooks and crannies where cigars could be found, like a place on Bardstown Road that sold glass pipes and crap like that, but also had a small walk-in stocked with goodies like the LFD Airbender. And Claudia Sanders Dinner House, of all places, had an innocuous little humidor of stogies quietly sitting off to the side in their little-used upstairs.

But now that I'm in constantly on the go in Florida, traveling for work (the great work), I continually have to re-suss the lay of the land wherever I go and try to let my nervous system's cigar-detecting antenna reach its invisible tentacles out, sniffing, feeling, searching for those elusive boxed beauties until, like a dowsing rod, something begins to twitch and quiver in recognition of its goal.

My tour of duty in Jacksonville started off with a bad omen - a great cigar store had long existed in San Marco Square, just moments walk from my house - but had recently closed down. Fortunately, I soon sought out Tobacco Cove, a great place with a bunch of great old guys loungin' around and talkin' trash. Here is where I got turned on to a lot of this year's faves, like my current all-time #1 stick, Alec Bradley Nica Puro. I got in such a groove on those, I actually had to stop tweeting my cigars for awhile because it was Nica Puro every day and got just plain redundant.

Espinosa is another brand that was new to me until Tobacco Cove, as was the Esteban Carerras Chupa Cabra.

Meanwhile, I discovered four other great places - Island Girl Cigar Bar (with three locations!), Art of Cigars, Aromas and Smoke City. I mostly played it safe at Island Girl and propped up the bar with old standbys like Alec Bradley Black Market (I still worship this cigar for some reason, even though they're often too tight and have a real vegetal quality at the very end) and Drew Estate Liga Privada No. 9. Smoke City, whose dinosaur we've already discussed, provided me with stuff like Revolution, Upper Cut, Gurkha Ninja, and Gurkha Evil. At Aromas I got a little more experimental with oddball stuff like Pura Sangre, a Ventura offering which initially smelled like a cage at the zoo but once lit, honestly was a delicious, powerful and tantalyzing spicy smoke. I miss it. Good times.

Then came Clearwater. Not so good. Once again, I found there had recently been a cigar store - very close to where I was living - on Fort Harrison Avenue, but it had given up the ghost. I quickly determined there to be a number of cigar shops over the bridge in Clearwater Beach but they mostly specialized in hand-rolled stuff - and just between you and me and the microphone in the potted plant, dear reader, I'm a real snob about my hand-rolleds and hard to satisfy. Fusion Cigars carried a decent line of name brands but unfortunately they don't open until 3pm and I usually stepped out to fetch my fineries in the mornings. A little joint in a strip mall called Smoker's Paradise turned out to be my primary smoke source while in CW, and they got me obsessed with Nish Patel's XEN cigar, which is a creamy-tasting Connecticut-wrapper "breakfast cigar" that puts off a lot of billowy smoke with a real ass-kick to it.

Finally, my cigardian angel led me to a place way out Highway 19, called Smoker's Den who showed me the San Lotano love and the ways of Asylum 13 as well as stocking my XENs. But aside from a rack of My Uzi Weighs A Ton baitfish packs at Smoker's Paradise, there wasn't a serious Drew Estate to be had in the whole damn city. Mark my words, there's a real market void waiting for someone to fill it: there needs to be a serious cigar shop that sells the good high-end collector's stuff right in downtown Clearwater, preferably on Cleveland Street.

Now I'm on Siesta Key, that wacky party-island off the coast of Sarasota, learning the ropes all over again about where to find the rope-a-dope. For the third city in a row, I found a shut-down cigar store that had been right at the top of my street, practically. These are apparently tough times for the stick-store business; watch yourselves, boys, keep sharp.

As luck would have it, I soon found a hip liquor store called Siesta Spirits that has a goodly humidor full of can't-go-wrong crowd-pleasers like Arturo Fuente Hemingway and Drew Estate Natural Clean Robusto. Over on the mainland, I discovered Mardo's, a place run by a guy who was very knowledgeable in some ways (he could rattle off the entire history of many of the companies and knew the exact composition of every cigar he stocked, right down to the country of origin of the filler) but then said some baffling things too (like, regarding several new upstart companies I mentioned, he muttered dismissively, "Ehnh. All those places get their cigars from Oliva and put their own band on it, who needs it?")

Most recently, I was relieved to find Bennington's on St. Armand's Key (who also stocks my local snooty-grocery, Morton's, with their cigars) carries the XEN and a boatload of other good stuff including some new to me, such as Giacomo's and Flor de las Antillas. And then there's Norman's Liquors way out Clark Road - they have a way deep walk-in with an old favorite of mine from back in the Kentucky days, Perdomo Patriarch. But it's Sarasota's Maduro Cigar Bar that takes the prize for the place to go - crazy-complete selection of sticks and a dark cozy atmosphere, where a man can hibernate, drink craft beer, and ponder his sins. When I saw they had cans of Drew Estate's Papas Fritas I knew the hand of providence had placed me right where I belonged.

Papas Fritas are an exercise in audacity that not many other than Jonathan Drew might have attempted - selling an expensive product that is openly admitted to be a recycled short-filler amalgamation of leftover table sweepings from construction of Liga Privada cigars. But these Frankenstein french fries really are tasty.

Other cities I find myself often in include St. Petersburg, where I recently discovered the joys of Central Cigars, a really dark can't-see-my-cigar-till-I-light-it saloon with one whole wall of smokes going off practically into the vanishing point. In several visits to St. Augustine, I've learned where every cigar is to be had - but usually go to St. Augustine Tobacco, hidden deep in the labyrinth of the Colonial Quarter. Ybor City, of course, is such the cigar capital that you can't throw a rock without hitting a tobacconist.

And then there's Orlando. Well, the less said about Orlando, the better.

Sooner or later my Steampunk Tiki-Bar concept, the Pulcova Club, will be up and running and then once again I will have a wine cellar and walk-in humidor to lord over, like an evil genius in his doomsday fallout shelter. You're welcome to join me... until then, I'm out there on the hunt, constantly vigilant, searching the seaside for the sweetest sticks, day by day, hour by hour, to help serve the cause to which we all are so devoted.

Stay tuned; developing.