The Jacksonville Summit Part 1: Da Funk Bus

Anticipation was high as I casually strode through the early morning streets of Downtown St. Petersburg, pre-dawn before the hordes of rotting vagrant flesh could awaken from their inebriated slumbers to grub some pocket change out of me.

The streets at this time of morning are so robust with the odor of the damned that city workers are assigned to come downtown and spray City Hall with a deoderizing foam to mask the stench.

A stench I bullied my way through to arrive an hour early for a 7:20 am meeting with the Greyhound Bus that was scheduled to pick me up and haul all 180lbs of magnificence known as John Miller up to the city of Jacksonville in north Florida where I would converge with other die-hard fans of cult / horror / grindhouse / drive-in / exploitation cinema for the first (and maybe last?)end all, be all of conventions for weirdos such as myself known as Cult-Fiction.

Arriving before the doors opened allowed me time to be talked at by a brother / sister combo that wreaked of unwashed clothing and beer cans after they have been mildewing in the summer heat for a few days. Apparently the pair were catching the bus for a trip up north to Daytona where they would give a final good bye to an old friend on her death bed due to cancer. Not that I particularly cared for their stories, a part of me was selfishly thinking to myself that if I sat next to this haggard old bag of wrinkly dried out skin that I may be able to negotiate a hand job or something out of her on the bus.

Unfortunately no such luck, before I knew it the doors had opened and the brother was requesting to the lady at the counter that he be seated next to his dear ol sister. He would be my first of several encounters with a cock blocker this trip.

Carrying a Tampa Bay Rays duffle bag around my neck, resting it along my chest and a black Jordan backpack on my back, while still carrying around two cardboard poster containers I made my way up to the front counter beaming with excitement over the possibilities that were to come over the next several days. "Here to pick up my ticket", I said with a rare smile.

As I leaned forward resting my elbows on the counter anxiously awaiting my tickets to print I noticed the biggest, ugliest, blackest son of a bitch I have ever laid eyes upon. The best description I can give is that he looked like the lost siamese twin of Charles S. Dutton, the guy who played Roc and the annoying preacher in Alien 3.

The woman working the counter that morning looked up at me with a straight face and said, "your ticket has already been printed". Taking this as some sort of correctable mistake I calmly asked this diarrhea faced whore for a quick resolution to arguably the stupidest fucking crisis I have ever been mixed up in. Especially after I flashed her my million dollar smile and said, "well, you see that is impossible, I don't even have a printer at home". Her response, "doesn't matter, your ticket has already been printed and I cannot give you another one".

After several exchanges of trying to understand the situation I realized that talking to this braindead twit was an excercise in futility of biblical proportions. I could barely barely get a blink out of this comatosed bitch let alone a straight answer. With the bus's departure minutes away I somehow managed to argue a 1-800 number out of the Terry Schiavo of customer service reps, which ofcourse only worked on CENTRAL TIME!.

When I heatedly asked the woman to speak to her superior she blinked at me one last time before I nervously shouted, "miss, what the fuck is it that you do around here? You have absolutely no answers to any of my questions, you refuse to be helpful in any way besides occassionally blinking to show me that you are atleast a notch above comatosed, I need to get on this damned bus, can you please print me another ticket or something! Anything?!?!"

She blinked at me again and before I knew it Charles S. Duttons ugly siamese twin decided to chime in with his two cents by telling me very boldly, "man, you need to chill the fuck out!".

I'm sorry, but the last thing I am wanting to hear minutes before a $80 round trip bus ticket slips through my fingers and causes me to miss out on the hotel I spent roughly $250 for the weekend to stay in, is the guy from Alien 3's brother boldly telling me I need to, "chill the fuck out".

That's right about the time I completely flipped a gasket to the point that I was ready to just say fuck it and spend my weekend in the 49th Street County Jail.

Without thinking I turned to Charles S. Duttons siamese twin and said, "excuse me motherfucker? How much did you spend this weekend on a hotel room in Jacksonville and a bus ticket to get there?" He calmly continued eating his scrambler bowl (a combination of grits and other assorted breakfast foods)as I ended with, "exactly, now shut the fuck up please unless you have a solution to offer".

Finally, from out of nowhere at the very last possible second the incredible blinking woman opened her mouth and recommended that I just get on the bus outside and go to the corporate office over in Tampa where they would find a way to resolve my issue. Which, logically, a somewhat coherent person would have offered that suggestion from the start instead of walking around for twenty minutes blinking and occassionally muttering on about how she could not give me any assistance. Dumb ass heffer.

Me and Chris visit Artpools Abnormal Formal.

After a couple of months sitting around on my ass mooching off of unemployment I was delighted (to say the least!) to find out my old job was hiring back temporarily (which means forever cause they are to cheap to hire permanently) and I would not only be able to make a bunch of money very quickly in a short amount of time but also that I would be doing alot of hours working overtime on nights and weekends.

Feeling my free time was about to be pinched I had a jonesing to get out of the house for what could possibly be my last weekend of freedom for quite some time.

Normally this would mean drowning in liquor and oogling females before catching a cab ride home. But not this time, my cousin called asking if I'd be willing to watch her son Chris for the weekend. Ofcourse, I obliged and before I knew it I was celebrating an early October Halloween with the lil cuzzin.

Chris is a big horror fan for his age. Him and his brothers know the Freddy and Jason films like the back of their hands. So he comes over, we watch the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its sequal The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 then decided to head out for a night on the town.

Our first stop was the soon to be demolished St. Petersburg Pier. This was a big deal for Chris since it was his first visit in years and a big deal for me to be able to share with him a place that was pivotal during my own childhood.

We followed that up with a trip to a Central Avenue pizza joint (I'm a regular there but the name escapes me), before heading up the road to the Artpool Galleries Abnormal Formal Art Party.

Readers of my blog know I was sold on Artpool some months ago when I attended with a friend to the I Love St. Pete show. This go around the gallery was packed with a halloween themed crowd and featured performers, musicians as well as a fashion show!

The price was a little steep this go around with an entrance fee of a whopping $20! But it worked itself out since Chris was free. My only complaint is that the DJ was locked up inside of the building instead of outside where most of the mingling was taking place amongst guest. This guy was pumping out some jams! Run-Dmc, Nas, the list goes on and on, I was actually pretty impressed.

When I wasn't snapping photos of Chris with costumed charectors I relinquished control of the camera to him and let him snap his little heart out. The kid had never been to anything like this before (hell, me either! I wish I had an older cousin as cool as me growing up) so virtually everything seemed to capture his attention.

All in all it was a great bonding experience and I was more then happy to have the opportunity to help stimulate the mind of a young horror fan.

I love St. Pete @ ARTpool

A couple of weeks back while loitering around the streets of downtown I stumbled across several advertisements for an event called I Love St. Pete. A showcase of local artistic talents and all around cool show featuring live music, held at the ARTpool gallery / vintage boutique on First Ave. Because of transportation issues and a lack of cultured friends I had all but counted out the event as something I could realistically attend.

As the Saturday of the event arrived, I had surrendered all hope and accepted the fact that my evening would be spent munching on stale store brand potato chips and flattened Jolt Cola. Thankfully at the very last second a moment of clarity shined down upon me in the form a instant message from none other then long time friend / high school chum Mindy Van Devin. We managed to arrange plans on short notice and before I knew it we were on our way downtown.

Being that I am a virgin to the ARTpool experience I was really unsure of what to expect and went in with very few expectations. With that said, ARTpool is simply amazing. Sort of a glorified thrift store that feels more like a nostalgic playground filled with retro clothing and knick knacks. Also available are hand crafted jewelry and artwork from local artist. There is so much going on inside of the store that the building itself begins to take on a life of its own.

I must say, ARTpool sure knows how to throw a shin-dig. Everyone in attendance seemed to be having a blast roaming the cramped isles of the store and snapping personal photos to commemorate the experience. The DJ, located above the main entrance, was a nice touch as were the creepy mannequins that seemed to be dressed up flamboyantly around every corner. Outside of the building in the neighboring parking lot a second party was taking place featuring live bands and various vendors.

Next month the folks at ARTpool will be throwing another event just in time for Valentines Day, for more info on that or anything else I highly recommend swinging by their website, http://www.artpoolrules.com/.