Florida on 12 Brain Cells a Day

Here I am, writing to you live from my Uncle's living room in Ponce Inlet, Florida. I won't be able to make this post as amusing as it might be, and for this I apologize, but my mother's sitting next to me on the couch looking over the laptop, so I'll have to censor all the swear words and overly honest commentary.

We flew in to Daytona Beach International Airport the other day. I'm not 100% convinced it's actually an international airport. Most of the flights go to Atlanta and back, and though it's occasionally difficult to understand people from the ATL, I'm not sure it counts, technically, as international. My Dad suggested flights might go to the Virgin Islands, but is this enough to qualify your airport as International? I think, if your plane's not landing somewhere they want to kill all the Americans, it's not truly been an international flight.

Daytona Beach announces to you immediately that it's the Birthplace of NASCAR. Honestly, the whole town is pretty much structured around this fact. All around the airport, before you even have a chance to find the baggage claim area where you'll be spending the next several days of your life, you see the huge signs announcing that, yes, you have arrived in the actual place where guys first figured out that rednecks would pay them to drive around in circles on the off chance that you might crash and seriously hurt yourself. The main road? International Speedway Boulevard. The main tourist attraction? The Daytona NASCAR museum. There are even tourist trap souvenier stores specializing in nothing but NASCAR-related merchandise.

They even let you drive on the beach here. Can that possibly be safe? Particularly in a town where 90% of the local economy relies on Spring Break-related drink-a-thons? One minute, you're slurping down the day's fourth blended Strawberry Margarita, the next moment, you're hurtling across the sand-covered promenade snugly attached to the undercarriage of a '94 Honda Accord.

I guess the town focuses on NASCAR because the only other notable source of local pride is serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who stalked johns in this area. Tonight, we even drove by the house she stayed in (it's about 5 minutes away from my Uncle's place). Interestingly, right now, there's another serial killer working the town, this time killing prostitutes. It's like a reverse copycat crime, or something. I'm not sure what it is about this neighborhood that drives its residents to kill, but I'm going to go ahead and guess it's the humidity, the massive bugs and the proximity to a NASCAR museum.

My Uncle doesn't actually live in Daytona. He lives in a small community called Ponce Inlet, about 20 minutes down the road. And when I say "the road," that's precisely what I mean. You get on the one road leading out of Daytona, drive down it for a few miles, and then you're in Ponce Inlet. And if you keep going on the road, you wind up in the Atlantic Ocean. The whole inlet is only about three streets wide. His actual house backs right up to a river, where you can even fish right off the dock in his backyard.

Naturally, I have caught absolutely nothing thus far, although I did plunge a fishhook directly into my thumb trying to stab a shrimp. They bought live shrimp for use as bait, because apparently they are appealing to the fish, but unfortuantely it's very unpleasant for the fisherman. Live shrimp are really disgusting and slimy, and hard to actually even grab in the bait box. And then, once you grab one, they squiggle around so much, you just might stab yourself in the hand trying to get them on the end of your rod.

Aside from the fishing and the constant imbibing, I've spent my time mainly playing with my Uncle's girlfriend Debbie's dog, Ivy, who is a 10 month old Cairn Terrier.


She's extremely adorable, but unfortunately has not mastered the art of not peeing all over the house and her houseguests when excited. Right now, she's pushing a tennis ball into my leg trying to get me to toss it down a hallway for the 800,000th time this evening.

We also went to Target today, so we could pick up some CD's for the car ride to Orlando later this week. I bought the new Stereolab album, this first new CD I've actually gone to a store and paid for in some time. Years, maybe. They don't just have Target here...they have Super-Target. It's a Target, a grocery store, a department store and a villainous corporate monstrosity, all wrapped into one. You'd need a team of trained Shirpas just to find your way to the sportswear in this place. 32 different checkout lines...FOR ONE STORE!


There's also a Super Wal-Mart right across the street, but I won't even go to that place. For obvious reasons. These seem to be just about the only games in town, large store-wise. At least, in terms of large stores that don't sell exclusively NASCAR-related merchandise. You want a Richard Petty jacket? Youve got 100 options. Groceries? Wal-Mart or Target.

Driving to the Target today, we noticed more than one man brazenly walking down the street, sporting a mullet. I had always thought the mullet jokes were purely for nostalgia, that everyone had figured out mullets looked ridiculous, and we were all just having a good laugh at the silly fashions and styles of a bygone era. BUT NO! Dudes down here are still thinking that's a good look! For real!

It does seem like pop culture stuff takes a long time to get down here. Listening to the radio today, every song on the classic rock station was played out in Los Angeles by the late 90's. It's nothing but Sublime, Cracker and Eagle Eye Cherry around the clock. Once, they played Audioslave, and it felt like a revelation.

But that's enough bitching and moaning. Actually, we're all having a pretty good time, just relaxing and fishing and hanging out and playing with the dog. I got into a swimming pool for the first time in a decade, so I got that going for me. And tomorrow, we're going to check out the Kennedy Space Center, which should be at least kind of interesting (even though I'm not exactly Mr. Astrophysics).

And then, in a few days, we're going to Orlando to check out some of the Disney Parks, which should be kind of interesting. I want to check out that Wild Animal park, although I'm troubled by the travel guide's indication that the park "combines real and animatronic animals and attractions." Combines real and animatronic animals? Shouldn't the wild animal park have all real animals, don't you think? Is it, like, one actual gazelle and then an entire theme park filled with robot giraffes and dinosaurs? I'll report back when I find out.