Apalachicola

I saw this stupid thing on Public Television about Apalachicola.

(This post starts boring, but degenerates very entertainingly.)

It looks real pretty... there's something very "Eastern Shore of Maryland" about it. Which is odd, to think that the same environment exists in the SAME STATE in which I live right now with rubber trees, banyans, coconut palms and what...the...what are those other goddamn trees called? The orange and green ones? The really pretty ones? Damnit.

Not palmetto trees. Bugs. Not trees. Nor forsithya trees, we don't have those down here.

Well hell. I don't remember what kind of tree it is, but it's very pretty with orange flowers and green, green leaves. A little HELP here!?

Okay; back to my point. Apalachicola looks nice in that crumbling-decrepit-but-with skillfully-restored-streets-full-of-1870s -era-Victorian-Homes-but-with-a- Shabbily-Tropical
-Flavor-like-a-brokedown- tiny-rough-around-the-edges-hell-hole-version of Gorgeous, Graceful Savannah.

Tangents, tangents.

I want to go there.

And I looked up the driving directions...and it would take me Eight Hours and Forty Two Minutes to drive the five hundred twenty nine point fourty two miles it would take me to get there.

That's right. I live in a state in which I can travel more than HALF A THOUSAND MILES, and still be in EXACTLY the same state.

(I was just interrupted in mid-throught, with a dear friend telling me I should be with a guy like Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye because "you would be really cute," and because he can sing. (Apparently, someone watches Celebrity Duets. But she also enjoys Idol immensely.) I strenuously disagreed, as that is just about the polar opposite of my type. Ugh. Julie. Jai?! Ugh. Kyan is the ONLY one I would even THINK about, and he's pretty-much un-doable even as it is. Still, I love you, even when you couldn't be more Wrong if your name was Wrong W. Wrongy-Wrongerson. :) You're wrong. But I know, you're saying "GENUG" so I'll genug. But still. Jai. Bleeehhh.)

That's far as hell. I've never been to the Florida Panhandle. But check it out. Looks nice, right?

Well, I wanted to take a roadtrip there. But... That's like me taking a "Roadtrip" from my house up to Boston. We don't do that. It's not worth the trip for two days!

Day and a half...

Whatever. Almost eighteen hours worth of driving. Screw it.

Another wonderful thing skipped in Florida, because it might as well be in Texas.

Now I'm pissed. Thanks, Public Television...

An Open Letter To Whomever Keeps Pooping in my House:

Dear Whomever Keeps Pooping in my House While I'm At Work:

Are you fucking kidding me?!

No.

Really.

Are you seriously taking a shit in my home when I'm at work?!

I'm dumbstruck. I'm almost tempted to take my house off the market and the key back from the realtor, just because you're engaging in such vile behavior.

Have you no shame!? Were you raised in a BARN!?

WHO THE FUCK SHITS IN SOME STRANGER'S HOUSE WHILE THEY'RE LOOKING AT IT TO BUY IT?!

I mean... honestly. Who? Who the hell does that?!

I'm not going to lie. I feel violated. Violated, and...repulsed.

The fact that I'm showing my home, gives one license to LOOK AROUND, and NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.

It does not give one license to pull one's pants down, and rest one's strange buttocks on MY PROPERTY, relax one's anus, and excrete FECES in my HOUSE.

Furthermore, it does not give one license to finish off a half-full roll of toilet paper.

Yeah. That's how I know this happened, AGAIN. Last time, you left me a "present" in the bowl. That's really nice. Actually...

That was horrible. And today, I walk in what sees I?! A once half-full roll of toilet paper...empty.

Ew.

If it's the Realtor - you have an office. Shit in your office. I don't fucking care if you're banging one out in your wastepaper basket. Not in my place. If it's a potential buyer... don't think I won't know it's you if an offer comes ticking in soon. And don't think I won't mention something about it at closing...

Whoever you are: you're a disgusting pig. Really. A disgusting, smelly, mannerless pig.

Know what I'm gonna do?! I'm not going to have any TP on my rolls from now on. And I'm going to hide it under my sink. That way, you'll be shit out of luck next time you go in to bust a dookie in my pad. I'll know where it is. I'll get it before I have to go.

But you... You enjoy wandering around Hot Miami for the rest of the afternoon with a shit-smeared tushie. You fucking sick bitch.

When I go into another person's house to look around, I don't even want to open their CLOSETS for Chrissake. And you have no qualms about shutting the door, turning on the light, and... oh holy mother of god...

If you've taken my GQ or my Details in there with you... there will be hell to pay...

Huh. Despite my opinion that I live in Cuba...it's still sort of..."The South."

Proof that even though I live in Cuba, the land of sweat-stained shirts, short ties, a tinny, scratchy '78 whirring on the Victrola, and hand fans trying giving slight respite to those Muggy September Days in Court are only a stone's throw away...

From the Miami Herald, Thursday, September 7, 2006:

IN MY OPINION
Broward 'Bubba judges' up to same old tricks
BY FRED GRIMM

The courthouse transgressions that riled the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court were of the redneck kind.

These were the doings of good ol' boy judges who said to hell with public records law and dispensed VIP country-club justice for local pols, fellow judges and the monied folks who grease county politics.

Bubba judges caused the divorce records and the files of potentially embarrassing civil suits to vanish into secret dockets -- illegal secret dockets. But who had the gumption to tell some damn judges they were breaking the law?

Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis, that's who. Lewis asked the state's county court clerks to investigate secret dockets. And to recommend new rules the Supreme Court could adopt to stop the practice.

It was a statewide request, but Chief Justice Lewis had one particular county in mind, a courthouse where sealing files has been rampant. It was not, as one might expect, a circuit up in the region Floridians disparage as ''Lower Alabama.'' Or one of those counties in spitting distance of Georgia.

The courthouse in question was not frequented by loitering old men with whittling knives and chewing tobacco. No statute of a Confederate soldier stands watch on the front lawn. Nope. It was the Broward County Courthouse crowd that went Bubba.

SHAMEFUL PAST

Let me rephrase that. It was the Broward courthouse crowd that went Bubba once again. This was the same county where judges so corrupted the practice of appointing special public defenders that they inspired a state law aimed at their abuses.

Broward judges were appointing relatives and campaign contributors to represent clients -- lucrative work that often entailed no more than arranging a quickie plea deal. In 2000, The Miami Herald's Larry Lebowitz and Sabrina Miller discovered that certain lawyers had made more than $100,000 (one collected $291,390) thanks to cozy relationships with the gang in black robes.

In 2004, legislation was passed -- with South Florida judges in mind -- to require that special public defenders receive appointments on an impartial, rotating basis.

It was the supposed end of the Bubba system.

But in July, The Miami Herald's Amy Sherman and Melissa Sanchez reported that some Broward judges were inventing excuses to ignore the law and directed work -- and taxpayer money -- to old familiar faces.

Judges, entrusted to interpret and uphold the law, are flouting a law that they find inconvenient.

''Maybe, in some cases these judges don't know their legal obligations,'' said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, although he didn't sound convinced. ``But in most cases, they're just refusing to follow the law. It's wrong, and it's illegal.''

AND NOW, SUPERSEAL

And now our modern, urban version of 1950s rural justice has introduced Florida to a new legal term: superseal.

A supersealed document is not only sealed from public access but excised from the public docket. Of course, supersealing was reserved only for special friends.

One might think that an ethical judge somewhere in that courthouse might report unseemly, illegal behavior by a fellow judge. But once again, it fell to reporters. The Miami Herald's Dan Christensen and Patrick Danner discovered more than 400 cases had been supersealed. It was their stories, not some vigilant judge, that made the chief justice ``almost swallow my tongue.''

Finkelstein said that in his 30 years of lawyering in Broward, he never had a clue that secret dockets existed for extra-privileged citizens.

Of course, Finkelstein's clients, defendants without means or influence, would hardly be expected to get their corn bread buttered by judges.

Or maybe it was that Howard just didn't know how to hunker down with the Bubbas.

FINALLY!

Finally:

One of Vincent's dresses that "got him off,"

GOT HIM OFF.

Thank GOODNESS he's gone!

Kayne - you're next sweetheart. Not that I want to see you go, but you better pull a nice looking dress out of your ass or you're history.

And Laura - you're my "after-Kayne" prediction. But I could be reversed. You look like you might have a nervous breakdown in the next episode, so you may be gone.

Either way - I don't want to see either of you go. I'd rather see Jeffrey get kicked off...but let's face it. He's this Season's Santino...

He's in.