TIME TO LOOK ALIVE, GRAB IT BY THE THROAT

YOUR AMERICAN INSIGHT, DETRIMENTALLY,

MY DEAREST COUSIN.

In all great expanses, around the world in which we have so desperately traveled, I have found myself back in the cradle, the shit of the thing, Saint Petersburg Florida. The seemingly sundown villa of the world, surrounded by newer highrises and the despairingly lost fellowships. The world does not stop here, but in the timely manner that it does, would be completely contingent on the man you write about. The man desperate to voice his surroundings, a man so greatly impacted by where he will end up. 

May our rent be high, unreasonable, may our landlord be the one to sip dietary margaritas and wear polyester linings, but may we never let the newer age encompass our ability to see our world as we once knew it to be. The truth you harp, is what we know, never what we will know.

The air is thick, full of metals and sounds that do not resonate with you and I. In the weeks that I have been surrounded by the elaborate reconstruction of my home, I have grown angry at the complacency of our citizens. The folks that once yelled at the homeless for a quick look back and forth, and spit and drank for evening ball games. Morality of the herd relied on the independence of the man in the junked town, who fought for his home, his wage, his family. The lack of want for a gritty beachtown to remain a place where drinks cost sub-ten and parking didn’t require a third of an hourly wage, is more evident than ever, leaving a calling and reason to return. 

Lion’s Paw on Central Avenue is open from Wednesday to Saturday. Defying all ability to remain a rightfully open business. Its success is now contingent on the city's property tax, its traffic flow. Once a monument to the city; ran by an Armenian fashion junkie, is now the city's way of showing its regiment of tourists a good time halfway through the week. Encouraging the slow march of wallet-fulls and fat-asses to walk happily through the town, at certain hours, on certain days. The businesses all along central are faced with this fate, puppets of the city. Just a quirky little stop made for a resident with no idea of the historical significance of the small businesses that once made the city what it is. 

There’s your little thing to get mad at. 

                                          We’ll make it here. 

Jack.