Golden Brand Mart Interchange

Honk if you like bottles shaped like AK47's filled with candy liquor. And Like if you like late-night shopping for spirits @ TotalWine. A place where deals are serious, smiles are on display and all to often there is no open bar.

Treats and tricks is what we can expect in the coming days as the spook season in South Florida heralds the start of some iconic brew. The Fall season that is. Time to squirrel away some nuts.

But first let's travel though and under the golden arch of the golden glades interchange up on 163 street otherwise known as that crazed rats' nest of high speed cross roads. 

Turn left and you will find yourself and incidental passengers on a patch of real-estate industrial park trapped in a pocket of old urbanism. 

This area is  home to a menage of vendors that not only sustain a demand but are surreptitiously housed is some rather remarkable architecture. 

Classic Swampchitecture that is.

Classic indeed.

The encapsulated pod entrance place.

The aztec zig-zaggerat place.

The fortified moorish factoria.

 The elite research institute.

The Cosco of acrylic sheets ACME Plastics, your one-stop shop in the Gotham City of the South.

Best Wood. Whittlesey's

No Matter. What counts is the goods.  

Together these floundering businesses form a ramshackle industrial park effectively a pocket of not so disperate proto-urban swampyness interrupted by attempts at architecture.

A renovated facade of a warehouse housing the new and improved local PD...

And the old familiar landmark stands sentry for a plunging economy defined by diminished demand and brand banality.

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what in TarNation

What in tarnation is up lately with the maniacal use of crude.  Why are jobs so linked to this filthy poisonous fuel source.  Are we so stupid not to see our addiction to oil as the eventual tarring and feathering of this nation.

It seems that everywhere you turn there is a bright orange work crew tearing up perfectly good sidewalks and curbs and streets.  I guess we are just another one of those "developing nations".



We all know these are tough economic times and so having any job is better than being unemployed.  The gov'ment knows there must be jobs otherwise folk get all revolting in the streets.  So for a swelling underclass of unskilled laborers, breaking rock is welcomed work when available. For shady contractors, endless road work is a golden goose.

But who exactly are the genius planners that decided to destroy American infrastructure only to rebuild it one dump truck at a time.  It is the non-partisan experts in DC who craft those economic stimulus packages.  And it s also those paid-for legislators in the state capitol handing out contracts to their clients.  And it is the lowly ditch digger just doing his job.

It is possible that all this tearing up and shit is simply a very unimaginative ruse by politicians in a last ditch effort to stall the global economic meltdown looming in their own rearview mirrors.

Is it just me or are others getting a little bit fed up with endless road work.

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If it ain't broke, break it.

The Town of Surfside is still a nice enough place to live. It encapsulates why people move to South Florida. Essentially they do so on the promise of a lifestyle paved with affordable luxury.

Folk mostly just want to be left alone behind a thick curtain of ficus, a fragile fortress of illusion.

All is fine so long as the maintenance is kept up, so long as our elected leaders look out for our collective best interest, take care of the people's business.

The mandate is status quo, out with the old and in with the new. This means mortgaging the family farm while ignoring fiscal responsibility, disregarding the urgency of frugality.

Concurrently Surfside is now hawked up to its sand dunes in capital improvement costs for the promise a cleaner care-free future, an indeterminate tomorrow that will never arrive for whomever is here later. Those who follow will bear the burden of their own version of progress, i guarantee it.

We today are in the throws of tearing up our otherwise quite streets and replacing all the water and waste systems to the tune of millions and counting. We are using miles of cheap plastic tubing that has a life expectancy of 30 years. Funny when discussing budget approval,no one mentioned externalized costs such as car wash compensation or diminished lung capacity due to yucky air quality in an otherwise really clean place.

Bottom line is we now live in a dirty slow world of diversions, detours, rubble, delays and dust. yet in fairness to the planners the elaborate infrastructure upgrade operation is proceeding marvelously according to neighbors who embrace progress for the sake of a betterment, whatever that means.

Enough said of compliance and complacency. Finally, be sure if you park here, it is no more than 12 inches from the curb or else...

Irony has its signs.

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Visual Pollution

While world-class cities such as SaoPaulo Brazil logically abandon the odd model of promoting overt "In Your Face" consumerism, other towns such as Miami continue to embrace advertiser's invasion of public air space. So with unapologetic gall, another billboard goes up.

In the swamp, every tree that is cut down seems to get replace with some steel and concrete contraption. Sadly the defoliated iron crosses yield little flower or fruit. What they produce is a bunch of visual pollution.

The argument against billboards is simple, they are often so imposing that it is almost impossible to not look at them. If you don't like a tee-vee commercial, change the channel. If you don't approve of magazine ads, turn the page. But the appropriation of our common eye/air space for the benefit of private interest is just plain ballsy.

Why Fight the massive trend of a vinyl-clad world? Because the swamp is not a circus.

To be fair, a billboard on your roof or backyard is great for property owners struggling with soaring real estate taxes. Politicians and bureaucrats love the permitting kick-backs. But with the economy in the dumps, it is no surprise promoters of these towering scarecrows are coming up a bit short on advertising dollars. The answer for now seems to be a windfall for well heeled arts funding endeavors and starving artist. For the counter-cyclical, opportunity is a matter of perception.

From menaces above to obstacles below. Today some folk contemplate finding shelter under the bridges and highways, while the FDOT continues to use our tax dollars as toilet paper for road improvements projects that seem to never end.

At least this one is quite interesting; a ready-made earth-work featuring 300lbs dingleberries.

For this election year, let's hope that progress remains the opposite of congress.

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from the swamp and beyond

One of the hazards of modern living is a tendency to obsess with the trivial and ignore substantive issues worldwide. Folk are distracted by celebrity, smart phones, sports and art. I for one am fixated on endless road work in South Florida. This cone-headed logic serves to shrink our world into a innocuous air-conditioned bubble drifting in the wind. Sifting out the insignificant from the material facts that affect us is a personal challenge in the age of distraction.

Why stare at the teevee or the asphalt when there are major issues looming in plain sight? Because is it easier to stick our heads in the cement than it is to influence global concerns that affect us directly.

Ground Force One gets feather-dusted by secret service. Obama sits in the back of the bus for a presidential ride through the heartland.

UFO or DARPA? Up where the air is thin there are plenty mechanical oddities that defy the eye. The stratosphere also is a vast clutter of satellites and space junk beaming and drifting slowly back to earth. From supersonic air-busses to un-maned predator drones, the sky may not be falling, but there is certainly a change in our collective psychic weather.

God does not create disasters, people do. A stalwart family near Japan's Fukishima nuclear meltdown knows there is unity in homogeneity.

Proud to be stupid. A skinhead wears his cluelessness on its back.

Chilling in Chile. Thousand take to the street in peaceful demonstration.

Royal pain in derriere. The ruling class of aristocrats runs the gamut from true blue blood to nouvelle riche. Where on the totem of privilage do you find yourself ?

A bit of push-back. Exasperated Londoners clash with riot police.

Smile, your on surveillance society. A chap gets his mug and neck snapped in jolly Britain.

Bird of Piccadilly. A lady Diana lookalike in a smashing robo-cop ensemble !

Israel Firsters. Regular folk are taking their grievance with authority to the street, even in Jerusalem.

Bart Cops, Holy San Fransisco. Even here in the USA, people are fed up with the bullshit of overt militarization of civilian police.

Wikileaked. You don't have to be a fanatical theorist or near futurist to see where things are going. People who otherwise would rather ignore the facts, are ticked off and with good reason. The pandora's box of world financial usury is unraveling. No wonder Jesus got so pissed off at the money lenders in his dad's temple.

World whatever. This swamp family is boarding up the windows and officially on summer vacation.

Will Florida be here on our return in two weeks? Probably yeah.

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