Local Observation / Bench Press

By Christina Oxenberg

David Wolkowsky’s annual party was the usual roaring success with the best of Key West from the artists and authors and poets to the elite conchs with streets named after them. And of course there are the ‘guests’ who have never received a cream colored embossed invitation in the handwritten matching envelope, but they crash the party each year. David notices everything.

I, on the other hand, notice very little these days as I’m in the middle of swimming across the Atlantic Ocean, metaphorically speaking. Only two reasons are good enough for me to tear away from my current project, one being anytime David Wolkowsky calls, and the second being anytime Xperimento perform at the Green Parrot, the Ozymandias of watering holes.

Another not on David’s party guest list is the new most popular personality in town. This personality has their own Facebook page and ‘friend requests’ are blowing up.

This fresh personality can reliably be found outside the Green Parrot. To be precise, directly across the street. Because it is a bench, it is :www.facebook.com/courthouse deli benchthe bench outside the Court House Deli. This bench by day hosts coffee drinkers and newspaper readers and by night it hosts stringy strung-out hippies and snoozing drunks. Some nights it is host to me and pals with parrots, for chatting smoking drinking laughing. One local told me, “I post on the Bench’s Facebook wall if I’m coming out, so it’s like a date!”

The bench is the latest subject under observation at L.A.R.S.(Large Animal Research Station).

Since David is unlikely to invite this bench to his party perhaps I can persuade him to come sit on the bench with me, next time Xperimento are in town.

In the meantime I’ll content myself with the memories of a couple of great nights and now it’s back to the Atlantic for me, for the long cold home stretch to gold, Diana Nyad watch out for your record!

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