FAST BUCK FREDDIE’S

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All good things come to an end. Nothing is forever.

Fast Buck Freddie’s closed down three years ago. Support for a store of its quality no longer existed.

I loved Fast Buck Freddie’s! Great stuff! Expensive prices! Nothing cheap. It was not a place you shopped in often. Anything purchased there was a treat.

I recall 15 years ago buying my wife a mask for Fantasy Fest. A gold eye mask with big green feathers. Looked terrific! It should have. Cost me $125. The mask sits to this day on my bedroom dresser on top of a glass head. I got it in the divorce.

Whenever I made a Fast Buck purchase, it was based on impulse. I walked in one day and saw this elephant chair. Short. Heavy. I could never have lifted it. With a pair of two foot tusks. I knew immediately where it would look good in my living room. $1,000.

My Boston granddaughter Samantha was visiting. She was 12 at the time. Grandpa offered to buy her a tee shirt. Why or who or what directed us to Fast Buck Freddie’s for the tee shirt, I cannot recall. I remember however that the tee shirt for my 12 year old granddaughter cost $60.

I am not listing complaints. I loved every minute I spent in Fast Buck Freddie’s and every penny I spent. The place was the Taj Mahal of Key West!

Its street windows were long and huge. The best window displays in Key West! I doubt anyone would dispute the representation.

Over the years, the building housing Fast Bucks was owned individually or jointly or whatever by Tony Falcone, Jimmy Buffet, and David Wolkowsky.

Tony Falcone operated Fast Buck Freddie’s for 37 years. The store has been empty for three years. Falcone has done everything possible to get a Key West type occupant in the store. To no avail. CVS is going to open a drug store in place of Fast Buck Freddie’s. Falcone feels bad. However, he had no choice. No one can blame him. Money is money. He hung onto an empty store way too long.

CVS in its new location will be blight on Duval Street. Such is progress!

My house was shown two times yesterday. No one bought it.

There were two highlights in my day yesterday. A visit with Jim Wallace at Joy Gallery. He has my Jack Baron’s for sale. The other was dinner with Lisa and the family last night.

Cameron is back from Turkey. He brought Robert and Ally each a fez. Bright red with a tassel. Robert wears his all the time, except when sleeping. He looks Turkish. Ally was not thrilled. She never wears her fez.

After dinner, I did something I never do. I was driving home. Suddenly had a desire for a soft chocolate ice cream cone. Dairy Queen! Oh, so good!

Enjoy your day!

NORMALCY RETURNS

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Got my car back! Yesterday afternoon. Freedom returned. I can once again go anywhere anytime.

The problem was twofold. An electric box above the ignition and the battery. All fixed! The car even feels different.

Food was a continuing problem without wheels. Could not get out to shop. Cupboard and refrigerator bare. So bad that at 7 this morning I was at Publix when it opened.

Jim Wallace of Joy Gallery was over in the afternoon. I am unloading some of my art work. He is a very knowledgeable fellow.

Big night last night! First time out in roughly a week. Stopped at Don’s Place first. By prearrangement, we were going out to dinner. We turned into Don, David, Hershel, Erika, and Randy. A few drinks and we were on our way to Benihana. One of Don’s favorites.

The food and company were enjoyable.

Met Jose and Judy while at Benihana. Jose is originally from Cuba. He nows lives in Marathon. Delivers lobsters up and down the keys. His lady friend was Judy. She makes cigars in Cuba. She is here visiting. I wondered how it was possible. Turned out she is a citizen of Spain.

I did bad things last night. Felt good, however. Had a few drinks and smoked cigarettes. It felt good!

This week end is part of the Mel Fisher Days celebration. Streets will be blocked off all day. Fun time big time, especially this afternoon and evening.

Enjoy your day!

TONIGHT…..JACK BARON EXHIBIT AT JOY GALLERY

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My dining room walls are empty. So too my center hall. Two spots in the living room. Three wall spaces upstairs.

My Jack Baron paintings are gone!

Tonight from 6-9, Joy Gallery at the corner of Simonton and Eaton is exhibiting Jack Baron’s works. More than fifty. Fourteen of which are mine.

The exhibit is a tribute to Jack Baron. Jack was my friend. A close friend. I miss him to this day. He passed on some six years ago.

An e mail announcement went out yesterday by Jim Wallace. Jim is the curator at Joy Gallery. It announced the exhibit this evening. Two Baron paintings were shown on the face of the announcement. Both mine!

My home is naked. My dining room was all Jack Baron. Except for two mirrors, nothing remains. A lonely feeling.

I suggest you visit the exhibition this evening. From 6-9. See the great work Jack did with acrylics and black people.

The season has changed in Key West. It is now humid all day. Need air conditioning all day. Besides being uncomfortable without it, the humidity invites mold inside a home.

I spent my daytime yesterday working on next week’s KONK Life column. A story about Thomas Jefferson and how he died poor. The title: He Died Broke.

Bocce last night. We have not done well this season. To say we sucked would be accurate. Not last night. We played the #2 team. They will end up #1 before the season is over. They have been champions three times.

I stayed for the first two games. Played in the first. We won both! The first one that I played in 16-8. The second 16-15. My ass was dragging so I left at the start of the third game. The two wins a major victory!

John and Ali are good friends from England. They live outside London. They spend every December in Key West.

Last night Tom introduced me to Phil and Joelle. They live in Guildford, just outside London also. Phil is into landscape gardening and Joelle works for an engineering exhibition company. They have visited Key West six times. This year for two months. Joelle said, next year for three!

Phil and Joelle are good friends with Tom. I figured they should be good friends of John and Ali, also. I called Larry Smith over. Made the introductions. He is going to contact Tom to set up a meeting between Phil and Joelle and John and Ali.

My age was evident last night. Someone asked me Erika’s name. She was score keeping. I know Erika. I love Erika. I could not remember her name. I asked team mate Norman her name. He is 15 years younger than me. He looked at her with a blank expression. Finallly, her husband Hershel said…..Erika.

This Russia/Ukraine mess appears to have no end.

The book I recently published The World Upside Down contained a chapter entitled Floras’s Story. I also wrote a blog about Flora last year while I was in Greece. Flora lives in Albania. She was in Greece working at a summer job.

Flora is 41. A school teacher. She has lived in Albania her whole life.  Albania was part of Soviet Russia as Ukraine was. Flora lived her first 21 years under Russian rule. She told me being independent was better. Things were very tough under the Russians. I mentioned her comments in this regard in Flora’s Story. You might want to read the tale in its entirety.

I have a busy day today. A business meeting at 2. The Baron exhibit at 6. Two things in one day is busy for me!

Enjoy your day!

JACK BARON EXHIBIT

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Jack’s back! Jack Baron! One of Key West’s premier artists. Now dead some six years. Jim Wallace at Joy Gallery has scheduled an exhibit of Jack’s works.

Wallace has accumulated over fifty of Jack’s paintings from private collectors. I am one of them. I have 14 pieces. Several will be in the exhibit.

The Jack Baron exhibit opens Friday evening, May 2, at 6 in the evening. Refreshments will be available. The exhibit will remain open through May 17.

It is not necessary you buy. Though it would be nice. The exhibit is an opportunity to view a large number of Jack’s paintings. Such an event may never occur again.

Lunched at Burger Fi yesterday. I have returned! Their product was not the best a couple of months ago when they first opened. The burgers have since gotten dramatically better. Robert and Ally enjoyed their cheeseburgers last Saturday. I enjoyed a double today.

While at Burger Fi, I met the manager. Rob Litman. He is retired military. Originally from Philadelphia. Has a daughter living in Key West. Came down to join her. Now burger Fi has been added to his family.

Rob told me Wednesday night is Ladies Night. Everything like half price. Raven Cooper is singing again tonight. A spectacular voice!

One of the things I like best about Burger Fi is that locals get a 20 per cent discount. A burger costs nothing to begin with. Throw in the discount and it is like eating for nothing.

Needed the New York City touch. Had dinner at the bar at Marriott’s Tavern ‘n Town. Mike Emerson performing again. I sat reading the newspaper, sipping some gin and picking on fried calamari. At the same time, singing quietly along with Mike Emerson.

England’s John and Ali were at Tavern ‘n Town having dinner with Ray and several others.

College tuition in the news again. Loans, payments, etc. A sad situation. What happened to working your way through. I did, as many of my friend’s did. We made it and generally with good grades. Liberalism took over and decided that the government would help finance college. Has not worked fairly. Graduates are burdened with tons of payments that in many instances are impossible to meet.

What galls me and is little known is that our benevolent government is benefiting big time. Last year, the government made over $40 billion off the loan programs.

Chiropractors and Medicare. It was announced yesterday that a Brooklyn chiropractor charged and was paid in excess of $1 million by Medicare in 2012. I do not know the details. However, sounds like a lot of money to me.

When I started practicing law in 1960, a chiropractor could neither testify nor have his bills paid as part of a negligence law suit. New York did not recognize chiropractor as a profession and so any testimony regarding them was not admissible. Now, they are a major factor and force.

I am not expressing an opinion as to right or wrong. Merely stating the facts as they have developed from the 1960s to present date.

Bocce tonight. Yesterday was the first day I felt better since Sunday. Never again will I play bocce in the day time in the boiling sun!

Enjoy your day!


LIMES…..GREEN GOLD

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Who would have believed? All of a sudden, limes are an expensive luxury. Do not expect them with your alcoholic drinks.

There is a shortage of limes.  A recent occurrence. Two reasons. A drought in Mexico. Plus, the Mexican drug cartel. The cartel is fighting for Mexican routes and roads. Limes cannot be safely shipped over the roads.

The price of limes has doubled and even tripled overnight. A case that cost $36 is now $110.

I learned of the lime problem last night. Jean Thornton, Merri and I were chatting at the Chart Room. Jean mentioned Captain Tony’s was no longer serving limes. She understood there was a shortage. My research discovered the rest.

There was a time when an attempt was made to grow limes in Florida. The attempt failed. Florida weather is too cold for lime growing. Additionally, diseases common to Florida vegetation did not help.

There is discussion of attempting lime growing in Florida again. Nothing definite as yet.

I finally was able to get into the art gallery I was not able to last week. Joy Gallery. It is located at the corner of Simonton and Eaton. A comfortable place inside. Chairs, couches and coffee. Free wi-fi. Come in and make yourself comfortable, even if you might not be buying. I suspect I shall be doing some of my writing from there occasionally.

The owner of Joy Gallery is Jim Wallace. Curator is the professional term. I enjoyed my time with him. He is a knowledgeable person.

Stop in and take a look at some of the fine pieces he is showing.

I lunched at Sloppy Joe’s yesterday. A thing I rarely do. I enjoyed lunch with the cruise ship people. A Sloppy Joe sandwich. What else!

I needed some groceries. Stopped at Publix. Apparently I needed little. The bill was only $42. I felt like I had made money!

Merri has been bartending at the Chart Room one or two nights a week for several years. Last night was her last night. Jean, Sheila and I were celebrating her departure. Yes, celebrating. Merri is only moving 100 yards down the walk way. To the Pier House beach bar where she will be working more days a week. More money and constant fresh air. Nil smoke inhalation.

Met Wally Miller in the Chart Room last night. Wally hails from somewhere in New Jersey. His nickname is Mayor. He has visited Key west before.

Wally, his wife and three other couples are staying at the Pier House.

Wally told an interesting story. He and his friends “steal” Key West menus. When home in Jersey, they try to cook certain dishes listed once a month.

It is Che’s birthday again! He is 81 today. Seems like yesterday we celebrated his 80th. Happy birthday Che!

Che sounds Cuban. He is not. Where he got the name Che from, I do not know. Che is a New York City Jew transplanted to Key West.

I briefly discussed neo-Nazism in yesterday’s blog. I was motivated by the Kansas City shooting by a neo-Nazi(s) at two different Jewish synagogues. Three persons were killed. I said the three were Jewish. Turns out one was. The other two were Presbyterians or some similar sect.

Two readers jumped on me in their comments. One said correctly that only one of those killed was Jewish. The other indicated none of the three were Jewish.

Whatever, I was wrong when I said all three. Mea culpa. I try to be careful and get the facts straight. Sometimes I do not. I am only human. I do make mistakes. I would suggest the Bible’s admonition…..Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

In defense, I offer the following. The national news media is always in a hurry to be the first out with a big story. Their facts are many times incorrect. Sometimes I only have those facts to deal with. I write that section of the blog when I read the news on the internet. When the blog is assembled, I unfortunately do not go back to check the facts. There is only so much time in the day. Occasionally, I repeat the erroneous information contained in the news report. As I did yesterday.

Please keep in mind this  is not a gotcha game!

My blog talk radio show tonight at 9. Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Join me. Interesting up to date material discussed. Sometimes with my personal take on the situation. www.blogtalkradio.com/key-west-lou.

Tonight some information re the United States’ combat readiness, air pollution in China and France, the economy bringing down some big corporations, how Putin is gaining for his own bank account from monies recently being sent to Ukraine from the U.S., some things I did not know about the Catholic Church, Albuquerque police executing citizens, and more.

Enjoy your day!