Saturday, being stuck in Miami with nothing specific on the agenda, I ventured to Key West. That’s the context for what follows.
Key West is a town filled with weirdness and tourists – like San Francisco without the militant homeless and with better weather. In the 1930s it became something of a bohemian place: Hemingway moved in and Tennessee Williams wrote plays down the road. There are two bars claiming a Hemingway connection and I scribbled this little rant out at the noiser, more touristy one.
These notes are not, unfortunately, scrawled on the back of a bar napkin – nothing quite that romantic – but they are written on a brown paper bag I had with me when the urge struck to record my thoughts:
Which is the real Sloppy Joe’s? The place on Greene claiming to have been Sloppy Joe’s from 1933 – 1937 or the place on Greene and Duval called Sloppy Joe’s and claiming to have been founded the day Prohibition ended?
Knowing the very little that I do of Hemingway – but being a serious student of alcohol like him – I’d put my money on Captain Tony’s – the original Sloppy Joe’s – on Greene Street. Dark, dank, oddly smelling with no frills behind the bar or anywhere else.
A self-respecting drunk would never patronize the current Sloppy Joe’s. Too many yuppies, college kids, tourists and general fun seekers. A real drunk wants a quiet place to fade into oblivion. Serious drinking requires a few ounces of melancholy with a dash of meaningless conversation shaken amidst the rocky chill of loneliness.
Interestingly, that’s the recipe for a perfect martini.
This is not a coinicidence.