Melbourne, Florida

5am Monday Morning Jan 15th

This is too fucking early to wake up. It had been a long time since I had to be awake at 5am, it is more likely that I am finally going to sleep at this time. We are flying out to Orlando and the temperture is 5 degrees in Salt Lake City The pilot tells everyone that its 75 degrees in Orlando at 8am. This is a good gig.

FLYING

I have had a phobia about flying for years and now I have a job where I fly everyweek, and never a direct flight. An ironic job choice.

ARRIVAL

Mykul and I walk out from the baggage claim waiting for our luggage and are assaulted by the heat, 80 degrees and humid. Its wonderful and I spend a few minutes smoking a cigarette and just feeling the weight of the air and smelling the mix of flowers and jet exhaust.

We get into the rental car and drive toward our hotel. As we are driving, Mykul starts counting:

* 1 Wild Boar
* 1 Wild Turkey
* 3 Pelicans
* 1 Paper Mache Lion
* 2 Paper Mache Alligators
* 1 Paper Mache Shark pierced by a liqour store sign.
* Assorted bugs.

We are going to Melbourne for our first workshops and on the way we drive through Cocoa Beach where we will be on Wed. Cocoa Beach is dingy and slighly apocolyptic. I notice a few of the strip mall signs. One hair salon is called, "The Hair Poets". Mykul decides to get a quick trim and ask the girl behind the corner if they can give him aSonnet she tells him that the girl that gives sonnets is out but if he would like a Haiku she could help him out, There was a fishhing shop called, Just Shut Up and Fish, and a Church's sign tells us that Jesus could Pimp Out Our Lives!
We stop at the beach and collect shells and just stare out at the ocean.

We arrive at the hotel in Melbourne. Melbourne is more inland and is nauseatingly suburban. James Kunsler in his book "The Geography of Nowhere" observes how with the modern version of chain stores and malls we can't really tell where we are. This is Melbourne, there is nothing distinctive about it, with its chain resteraunts, grocrey stories and malls. I could be in California, Florida or a number of of other states.

We spend the night preparing for the next day and end the night sharing a bottle of Vodka channel surfing.

Comments

[B]

Strip malls and Subdivisions

Americas middle class paddocks

Nothing to do but shop for shit we don't need and watch TV

Cheers brothers

[Liam]

If you saw the Wild Turkey, why were you drinking vodka?