FISH.

Around here, fish are really big. It seems like they grow a lot bigger in the ocean than in freshwater lakes up north. There's 3-feet long fish with huge teeth swimming around in little inlets and canals. Fish with teeth. And people wonder why I don't scuba dive. What did I just tell you? Fish with teeth. It's kind of scary. And the fish aren't even what I worry about. Tampa Bay has the third largest concentration of sharks in the world (after the Great Barrier Reef and someplace in Australia). Yes, you read that correctly. S-H-A-R-K-S. Now, sharks I'm told, have teeth as well. Only big teeth. Really big teeth. This may appear odd to you, but I now live in a state where sharks swim freely without proper identification papers or visas. No immunization shots are required. No flea collars. No curfews. Nothing. For some strange reason, sharks--one of nature's finest killing machines-- are allowed to prowl around at will. And, in all the recorded cases of shark attacks, there has NEVER been a conviction. It's unbelievable! At least some people have the right idea. An art director at another agency invited me to participate in controlling the population of these dangerous denizens. And being the socially conscious sort, I leapt at the chance to rid the fine, overdeveloped, vacationland that is Florida of these squatters and interlopers. He called it "fishing", and it involved a long graphite "rod" with what he called a "reel" attached. A device that wound up a nylon line. The line was stretched out from the rod to its tip and down to something appropriately called a "lure". The lure is by far the best part of this setup. It looks very much like a smaller fish, except that it conceals a razor sharp hook. By projecting, or "casting", the lure with its attached line out into the ocean and slowly winding the line back into the reel, fish are fooled into thinking someone rang the lunch bell and they devour the lure. Once that happens, we jerk abruptly back on the rod and rip the hook into the fish's jaw, rendering him effectively really ticked off. Then we reel him in and display him for the losers twenty feet down the pier who wasted their money on shrimp for bait and haven't caught squat, but now have to explain to their wives what happened to the appetizers for the PTA meeting. In New York, if a fish was too small to keep legally, or there was a high probability that you'd get caught, we'd throw him back. But this is Florida. And these fish have teeth. So, we'd toss their little slimy, flapping carcasses to the salivating pelicans nearby, who would pause temporarily from taking dumps all over the pier to scarf them down like diet pills at an Overeater's Anonymous meeting. For those of you who can tell the difference, we caught grouper, flounder, jack and silver trout. Flush with victory, we cut their heads off and made hand puppets.

GUAVA.

In Tampa, they've got this thing called Guavaween. It happens every Halloween and it's basically an excuse for about 200,000 deviant, twisted individuals to express their personal sexual preferences by dressing up and parading up and down 7th Avenue in Ybor City (the alternative area of Tampa). Everyone wore something black. But that's not very unusual for these people. They think they're from NYC. They're the kind of teens whose lives are perfect and parents are rich. So when they feel that rebellious teen angst, they reject their suburban existence by dying their blonde hair black, dressing in all black and living on the seedy side of town and denouncing their parent's wealth. (At least until rent is due.) Still, they throw a mean street party. It's really not much different from drunken Halloween street parties we've all been to before, but being in Florida puts a unique twist on it. Even though it's winter to most of you, it's still hot down here and so the females aren't exactly wearing full-length wool coats, if you catch my drift. I think you know what I mean, and I think you should have been here to see it. Oh, sure there were the loud, obnoxiously drunk transplants from Georgia, but they were busy fighting amongst themselves, breaking bottles over their own heads or trying to get women to lift up their shirts. All very entertaining and highly recommended.

GATORS.

I recently drove to Gainesville, home of Tom "I look like I could kick off any minute" Petty, to see what they call Gator Growl '92. This is one of the scariest sights you will ever see. Over 60,000 people filled the University of Florida stadium for what was billed as a pep rally prior to their homecoming game against Louisville (which they won, 31-7). In reality it was a young Republican bonding session. To give you an idea of the enormity of this event, they had three giant screen video monitors which they played rather expensive network TV quality 3-D computer graphics. As well as student produced skits of the Weekend Update on SNL nature. A half dozen or more lasers, spotlights, fog machines and pyrotechnics were scattered all around the stadium. In addition, they had booked comedians Larry Miller and that guy from "In Living Color", I forget his name (he sucked) to perform. But, the kicker came when both presidential candidates, George and Bill gave brief personal statements to the Gators. When Clinton spoke, the entire crowd booed. But, when Bush talked, the crowd went nuts. Never in my life have I been that close to 60,000 drunk Republicans, and that far from the exit doors.

LIGHTNING.

Florida is the lightning capital of the country. As such, it's evening storms lend a real sense of credibility to the storm sequences in the movie Ghostbusters. Clouds act like the globe in those science fair plasma balls that you touch and the electricity touches your fingertips. Lightning zaps from the ground and spreads up! The first time you see that happen you figure The Mighty Thor's in town. It's gotta be seen to be believed.

FALL.

Hey, ya know what? Leaves don't fall off palm trees.

WINTER.

Yeah, right. There's no snow. And they expect us to get in the holiday spirit? Not bloody likely. Still, there is a slight chill in the air these days. Fortunately, that'll be gone by tomorrow. It almost got down to the fifties! (the temperature, not the time period). Yikes! (I had to wear a windbreaker. Hey, it's cold to me.) Ah, there's nothing like the smell of chestnuts roasting on a hot sidewalk. Mmmmm! Anyway, I'll be back in the frozen north Dec 24th-Jan 3rd, so mark your calendar.