Part I - Culinary Delights
Why are all the restaurants on the Gulf Coast so foul and disgusting? How did they cram this endless collective abomination of all things culinary into one 20 mile stretch of coastline. Dining here is a horrible experience from beginning to end. For some strange reason, I was compelled to try it out. One hot August night, I went to Captain Jimmy’s. The internet ads proclaim it to be ‘The finest dining on the Coast’. The hostess, a very pretty blond headed young lady wearing a pirate outfit, told me there’s an hour wait. I gave her my name and went outside to join swarms of sanguine faced rednecks and clouds of gnats and mosquitoes near the entrance to the restaurant. The topic of conversation I overheard was mostly Alabama football, Nascar, fishing, hunting and other matters of redneck interest. After a few minutes I escaped inside to the bar where I was greeted by a surly and churlish bartender and dozens of drunken sweating lobsters all laughing and yelling Roll Tide. These rustics are accompanied by a chorus of a dozen giant flat screen TVs delivering an endless logorrhea of unintelligible and meaningless sports jabberings. I saw my bewildered reflection in the mirror behind the bar-- Jesus Christ what the hell am I doing here? Finally after 20 minutes of nothing but noise and chaos, the 8 oz. margarita was delivered. It’s ingredients are 98% lemon lime slushy and 2% rotgut bottom shelf alcohol. The actual cost of one these $15 slushies is probably 25 cents. I took a few sips. I was overwhelmed with an excruciatingly intense sugar rush. Add to this the chaos of noise and the suffocating heat of all the people crowding the bar. I started sweating and struggling for breath. I left $15 under the drink (14.99 plus 1 penny tip which was more than the bartender deserved) and ran back outside gasping for fresh air. After forever, I was called and then seated by the pretty pirate girl. A few minutes later a tired and unattractive waitress came up, tossed a menu down in front of me and said she’d be back in a minute. The menu recommended ‘Captain Jimmy’s Favorite’ which is fried fish of the day at ‘market price’. I’m always suspicious of ‘market price’. It sounds like they can profile you and determine how much they can rip you off for. Working guy is charged $11.99 and the blueblood is charged $39.99 for the same thing. Anyways what the hell - I decided to go with Jimmy’s favorite and placed my order. After 30 minutes, the meal was delivered. It consisted of a gigantic mealy potato split open with a heaping rounded gob of yellow stuff in the middle. This partially hydrogenated emulsified yellow food colored scoop of lard is supposed to look like butter. This stuff is toxic and should be labelled as such. Not only is it known to cause cancer in the State of California, it is known to cause cancer across the entire planet. It does other horrors too. It never breaks down and fills and clogs your arteries till the river of blood flowing through them is reduced to a choking trickle and your laboring overworked heart is ready to explode. If you’re lucky it won’t explode but it will deliver a massive myocardial infarction. As I’m contemplating grease and fat and mortality, the waitress came by to check on me. Does the establishment have a defibrillator I inquired. She looked at me and said “A what?” I repeated myself. She paused and looked at me in puzzlement. “No. No! We don’t serve those. You’re not from around here, are you?” No I answered. She rolled her eyes and walked away mumbling something under her breath about Yankee snobs. I returned to my meal. To one side of the abortion of fat and carbohydrates is a wedge of zero nutritional valued iceberg lettuce douched in thousand island dressing. And now for the glorious entrée---described as fresh (NOT), local caught (NOT) fish of the day. It has been deep fried in grease that is probably changed out once a month. It oozes grease and nastiness. It smells of some foulness rotting in the rat infested dumpster behind the restaurant. It has no semblance to fish or any other food stuff. In a word---it’s disgusting. After a while, the waitress happened to come up and drop the check in front of me. “Here’s your check,” she said and noticing I had barely eaten anything she asked, “Is something wrong with the food?” I paused, poked the fish with my fork and asked her what kind of fish this catch of the day was. “Huh?” she said. I repeated my question. She replied with equal doses of irritation and passive aggression, “What kind of fish? Hell I don’t know. Nobody ever asks and I don’t know. Can I get you anything else?” No, no thank you. She turned and mumbled something under her breath about snobs and assholes. I glanced around at the full to capacity 300+ diners shoveling this stuff into their pie holes. All these stupid people wait in line and pay for this shit. I looked back at my plate, took one bite, spit it out, pushed the plate away, got up and walked out without paying. Most people are masochists. Not me. Fuck You Captain Jimmy!
Part II – The Existentialist Beachgoer
The entire beach experience is a reflection of the culinary horrors therein. A kind of existential despair permeates it. As soon as one arrives and checks in to their worn out hotel room or condo with sticky carpet on the floor and broken appliances, the beachgoer feels the pains of buyer’s remorse mingled with thoughts of how many days until the trip is over. The mix of greasy fried dining at crowded restaurants; swarms of dumb drunken rednecks crowding the beach or driving giant SUVS and pickups up and down the packed two lane beach road; screaming kids and their worn out parents playing in the surf and acting like it’s all great fun; the 120 degrees of heat that shimmers over the sand; the giant sweltering skin cancer inducing sun; the dip in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico where thousands of people have been urinating---- These and so many other beach experiences combine to deliver an amount of angst and horror equal to that expressed in the haunting and terrified face in Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream”. And how does the beachgoer alleviate his despair? By drowning it in magnificent and copious quantities of cheap beer and booze. You can’t blame him. After all what else is one to do in this place?
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