Who would go to Big Cypress Swamp
on a vacation? Not to get ahead of our story,
Large Pyle was an adventure travel correspondent
for outdoor magazines. He wrote long-form nonfiction
as a participant observer. He was the ecotourism czar for
South Walton County. Stay home. Go back where you came from--
you're not welcome here. You could fuck up a wet dream. The sex
tourism czar for Panama City Beach. Please drink responsibly. Show us
your tits. He went to a hootenanny in Sneads, Floirda, where the principal
industries were a mental hospital, a reform school, and a home for
retarded citizens. Homeland über alles Security almost confiscated
his point-and-shoot camera for taking a picture of the fence outside
a prison. The Water Towers of Malone, Florida 32445.
A Christmas casual at the post office.
Go home and write a book, Bukowski.
Post Office. Women. Factotum.
Pulp. Stewart Home and neoism.
Plagiarism, praxis, and apartment festivals.
The art strike. 69 Things To Do with
a Dead Princess. Ventriloquist's dummies.
Stone circles. The ghost of Pete Horobin.
The ghost of David Zack. Lost writings.
They are not lost, they're buried in my stack.
They are hidden treasure. They might have passed
their sell-by date. They might be a little suspect.
They might be dated, off, they certainly aren't current,
with-it, what's happening now. More like what didn't happen,
when. I thought I'd be a writer. I thought I'd make a living at it.
T. K. Wetherell says Jimbo Fisher is going to be the new head coach
at Florida State. He says he knows Bobby Bowden will do the right thing,
and retire. Why is he telling me this, by email? Well, I'm an alumnus.
I guess he figures I give a shit. I don't know if they're winning or losing.
I'd scrap the football team and hire a poet. A bunch of conceited muscles
running around Campbell Stadium, Dr. Dailey says. A bunch of mesomorphs.
I'm disgruntled. What did I do, in my career. I got sacked and blacklisted.
I'm not fit to carry Jimbo Fisher's jockstrap. Don't tell me what he makes.
I don't want to know. Don't tell me about his record as an offensive coordinator.
It's all MacBeth to me. It's all Watergate. Nixon and the pumpkin tapes.
The HUAC. Help underserved arts communities. The School of Business.
Teaching future leaders how to game the system. Captains of industry.
Captains of erudition. Where is Thorstein Veblen, now that we need him.
Sacked and blacklisted. In the College of Hard Knock an expulsion is
often a promotion, Scott Nearing says. I won my badge. The hard way.
I am the man, I suffered, I was there. A Florida writer.
Disgruntled. Twisted up with bitterness.
Envious. Resentful.
Just another loser.