The Story Behind the Story: Post Angeles

 As some of you probably know, I've been gradually easing into the writing of fiction. With my fourth book, "Secret Orlando: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure," now in production and a fifth book underway, I'm feeling confident enough in my abilities at last to go from recording my exploration of the external world to documenting the world (or worlds) that exist internally. It's a shift, but one that stems from my historical and travel writing, which I'm finding ways to incorporate and reimagine. Ideas like the uniqueness of locations, the methods and motivations behind curiosity seekers, and ways of conveying wonder all are providing key elements to this new path I've been taking.

Which leads me to Post Angeles, the first of my new fiction to see (digital) print in The City Key. You can read it by clicking here: Post Angeles

It's a short piece (flash fiction, technically speaking), with a somewhat longer story behind it's development. Really it was the confluence of several things including:

1) Some time ago a friend of mine moved to Los Angeles and asked me my thoughts on the city. I hadn't been there in a while, but based on what I recalled, I told him that it seemed like a massive illusion sustained entirely by the power of its fascination with itself. More recently I thought back on that and found myself wondering, what if that illusion failed?

2) I've been reading a lot of fiction lately that's been making me rethink the idea of the city. A couple of the more notable visions/versions of which include The City by Ray Bradbury, about a living city that has kept itself alive for 20,000 years awaiting its revenge on those who depopulated it, and In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker, which was such a radically different take on "living cities." If Bradbury's story stretched my thinking on the subject, Barker full on broke it - but in a good way.

3) It was a new way to my non-fiction writing and research to work. After all, I've seen firsthand what happens when cities "unbecome" and leave ghost towns, if even that. Once booming areas that suddenly found the railroads and highways passing them by, or lost their major or only industry. And with large cities like Los Angeles declining in population over the last few years, well, maybe the illusion really is failing. (One reader of Post Angeles commented, "are you sure this is fiction?")

Anyhow, that's where my head was and where it is still going. If and when I have other publications on the fiction front, I'll try to give a bit more context and depth here for you.

Thank you, as always, for reading my mind.

Oldest Tampa Bay Bonus Content: Oldest Stilt Houses

Once again, as with Tampa Bay Scavenger, I failed to find a way to squeeze Pasco County into the book. It wasn't for lack of trying though. In the final rounds of edits, I decided that really this chapter would be a better fit for the Secret or Amazing series, as the stilt houses aren't just the oldest but also, as far as I'm aware, the only of their kind in the area. Still very much worth seeing for yourself, in my opinion, while you can.

Oldest Stilt Houses – 1916 to 1918*
Pasco County Stilt Houses

Typically, homes along Florida’s beaches and waterways are highly sought after, some fetching millions of dollars. But there are always those more affordable structures, built not next to water but rather directly over the water. On the edge of Miami-Dade County’s Biscayne Bay is the cluster of wooden houses known as Stiltsville, Cape Romano has its dome homes, and in the greater Tampa Bay area, near where the Pthlachascotee (aka Cotee) River flows into the Gulf of Mexico, are the Pasco County Stilt Homes. They are the area’s oldest and only such buildings.

Despite the curious appearance of these rudimentary structures, they played a practical purpose as camps built by fishermen, where they could catch and store mullet, snook, and other fish while also staying sheltered from storms. The exact date of their construction has been lost to history, but it is believed that they were first erected between 1916 and 1918. Similarly, credit for who first built them is a matter of speculation —different articles suggest either William John Baillie Jr. and his brother or James Washington Clark Jr.

Prior to Hurricane Gladys in 1968 there were as many as two dozen stilt houses. Following the storm, owners set out to survey and repair them, but the state balked at supporting the “squatters rights” claim that generations of fishermen had been using. After a fight, the state upheld its ban on the construction of any new stilt houses, but relented in allowing previous owners to rebuild them, so long as the owners agreed to lease one acre of underwater land. The Florida House of Representatives approved a bill in 1995 again allowing reconstruction of some homes after a storm two years earlier. Further restrictions have since been added, including being at least eligible for a historic designation.

The Stilt houses’ most famous guests were likely Johnny Cash and his friend Reverend Billy Graham, who visited Des Little’s fish camp in March of 1976. Cash is said to have paid for use of the camp with a Toyota truck.

As of 2022, just eight of the stilt houses remain.

* The houses are believed to have been first built between 1916 and 1918, but a more precise date is not available.


Sidebar:
The easiest way to see the stilt houses is by renting a kayak, paddleboard, jet skis, or boats, or taking the sunset cruise from Gill Dawg Tiki Bar and Grill.

Recommended Reading: Selling Dead People's Things

Reading independently published books seems to me a lot like vintage and curio shopping (and I do a good bit of both). If you’re like me, that means spending countless hours closely examining things that don't always strike your fancy, but you continue to do it because you know that somewhere hidden under that cover or lid is some truly astounding treasure awaiting your discovery. Selling Dead People’s Things by Duane Scott Cerny is that rare gem, it’s the original Highway Men painting tucked away in some bin at the back of a St. Petersburg garage sale. Really, it’s that good.

Collectors are a curious lot, all of whom, for reasons each their own, compulsively return time and time again to that place where obsessions and possessions intersect. Quite possibly no one knows this better than Cerny, who has built an extraordinary career on his keen attunement to such ordinary madness – those (often weirdly) specific needs and desires of his mentors, neighbors, classmates, colleagues and customers. Given his unique window into what motivates his buyers and sellers, maybe its not entirely surprising that what emerges from the pages of his book is hard-earned wisdom, a straight-razor-sharp wit, and a cast of characters more memorably peculiar than any ever assembled in a David Lynch film. 

A brief list of those individuals includes the inimitable Hy Roth (an illustrator who rather than telling former bosses what to go do with themselves drew them detailed diagrams) and his Goth goddess wife Marilyn, an elderly collector in the market for muscle magazines and dentures, an octogenarian ventriloquist and his foul-mouthed, disgruntled dummy, and two very large sisters who may or may not have been the descendants of Mussolini’s gardener.

Then there are the objects themselves, every bit as fascinating as the people connected to them. From part of an iconic jet plane under a porch, to a menagerie of stuffed, two-headed animals, a haunted desk, and what might be the only surviving program from the Iroquois Theater the day it burned down.

Really though, this is a book about more than just things and their people. While Cerny never lets us lose sight of the fact that vintage is a business, beneath the clatter of cold, hard cash, he offers us glimpses of something far softer. Tender, actually. Even as he presents us with a seemingly endless variety of reinventions and resurrections, he reminds us that the prerequisite of each of these is a death. Virtually all of the stories in the book begin where some other person, place or thing has ended. In light of this it would be hard not to reach the conclusion that after all the countless transactions have been conducted, all the many lives altered for what they’ve gained or lost, what remains is the single greatest collection of all – the stories they leave behind.

Get a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Dead-Peoples-Things-Objectionable/dp/0999894900/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527087053&sr=1-1&keywords=selling+dead+people%27s+things