Here in the Keys, Christmas comes but twice a year. That’s right, festive fun-lovers: Christmas in July is Friday night, July 22, at the Brass Monkey, and New Year’s is the following Friday, July 29. Isn’t it funny that Christmas and New Year’s always happens around the same time as that other seasonal holiday: lobster mini-season.
Perhaps we should call them the Christmas Crustaceans. Well, at least in Marathon, anyway. For those who don’t celebrate Christmas twice a year, you’re missing out on a lot. Stop by the Brass Monkey in Marathon either night and you’ll see it’s like no other holiday party ever. Really.
And before we get too far, let’s all say a holiday prayer for our hard-working commercial fishermen. When one considers all the fisherman has to deal with these days, from sport divers, state and federal fisheries management practices, trap poaching and more, it’s a wonder that anyone chooses to be in this business. Our fishermen are truly the salt of the earth (sea?) and deserve our respect and thanks, especially as we enjoy the fruits of their labors. Just think: without fishermen, there would be no Christmas Crustaceans, and that’s not the world in which I want to live!
Touching briefly on lobster mini-season, we’re proud to present the condensed Keys Disease Guide to Lobster Mini-Season Etiquette.
1) It is not cool to defend “your hole” with firearms the way some wacko nutjob did several years back. You don’t own the water or the lobster submerged below.
2) It is not cool to take more than the legal limit. Neither is it cool to take shorts. Should you get caught doing either, you could wind up spending the rest of your vacation in Monroe County’s windowless “extended stay” facility.
3) Stupidity on the water could cost you your lobster, your boat or your life. Please don’t be a freaking idiot nutcase.
Speaking of freaking idiot nutcases, the ongoing 50th anniversary of the Apollo/Saturn moon landing program has brought out (again) some of the wacko nutcases who actually believe we didn’t really go to the moon. Sure, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but damn! To take the fabricated “evidence” put forward by the Lunar Loonies at face value while ignoring all the real evidence and the efforts – as well as the implicit complicity – of the multiple thousands of people who worked in the Apollo/Saturn program signifies extreme stupidity and lack of basic cognitive skills. Listen up, nimrods: all your “evidence” has been credibly discredited. We really did go to the moon. The Earth isn’t flat. Find some way to deal with it, and get on with your ignorant little lives.
This makes the perfect segue to our modern-day conspiracy wacko nutbags: the QAnon crazies who actually believe that there is a cabal of Satanic baby-eating pedophiles who operate a global sex trafficking ring and conspire against former President Trump. One of the main traffickers is allegedly former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — she, along with other high-profile Democrats, were supposedly sexually abusing children at a Washington, DC-based pizzeria. This makes just as much sense as Jewish space lasers starting California wildfires, but hey — people believe the stupidest stuff.
It is reminiscent of the “Birthers” who actually believed that former President Barack Obama is a foreigner and not a native-born American. The level of stupid there was profound. Here are a couple of things people should have considered then: 1) Obama has a legitimate birth certificate. There’s a copy of the long form certificate recorded with the Hawaii Department of Health that has been there since 1961. 2) Two newspapers in Honolulu recorded the birth announcement of one Barack H. Obama in August 1961. If there was a conspiracy by Obama to forge his citizenship, it would have to have been conceived while he was in the womb by people who believed that this (allegedly) Hawaiian future-baby would one day grow up to be president, and they could control all the factors between his birth and eventual election.
Anyway, enjoy your hunt for lobster, try to avoid all mental afflictions, and we’ll see you at the Monkey. Merry Christmas!
– Catch John each Monday at Boondocks, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Key Colony Inn, and Thursdays at Sparky’s Landing. Find his music anywhere you download or stream your music. www.johnbartus.com
