Florida Is Like the Internet, and Other Ruminations from the Deeper South

[To Michele and all my other wonderful readers: another reason, besides the guitar, that I haven't posted as much lately--not that I've ever been all that great about doing so--is that I'm writing a weekly column for our local newspaper, the Morgan County Citizen. Where it makes sense to do so, I'll post those columns here--perhaps with a little editing, inasmuch as they usually make reference to people and places here in Madison. The following, on our experience at RT last week, is an obvious candidate, and I present it in its entirety. Will post some pictures as soon as Deidre emails them to me. And Dana, I'm so sorry to have missed you, but by all means we plan to be in Houston next year.]

It was a working vacation—honest. I suppose if we’d gone to Dayton rather than Daytona, it would have been easier to believe the “working” part, but it so happened that the Romantic Times (RT) Convention took place at the Hilton right smack on Daytona Beach. And since our literary agency focuses primarily on romance and women’s fiction—not to mention the fact that my wife Deidre is a romance writer—we had to be there. A sacrifice, yes, but we were willing.

Every year, RT draws several thousand romance writers, editors, agents, fans, and assorted others affiliated with the world of clinch covers and bodice-rippers. When attendees weren’t signing books, networking, or taking in workshops such as “How to Create Realistic Fight Scenes” and “Psychic Authors on Psychic Fiction,” they were partying at the Faery Court Ball or the Vampires of the Caribbean Ball. And then there was the Mr. Romance Pageant, at which the male cover models strutted their stuff—no doubt a most memorable event.

One scene pretty much sums up RT for me. As I was wheeling a suitcase full of wet, sandy swimsuits and towels through the lobby on my way to the laundromat, I found myself behind a woman in a purple belly-dancer costume, complete with jingling castanets. She passed a man wearing kilts, and the fact that neither of them seemed to regard the other's apparel as remotely unusual says a great deal about the whimsical spirit that prevailed.

The vast majority of attendees were women, of course, because that’s who primarily reads, writes, and sells romance. Then there were the cover models, easily identified by their tanned, muscular frames and their eyes scanning the onlookers to see who was looking at them. A few doors down from us at the hotel was a couple, the female half of which had appeared on the cover of a client’s book. She was beautiful, of course, but her man almost had her beat in that department, or anyway he seemed to think so, judging from the amount of time he spent fussing over his long black hair while she sat around smoking and looking bored.

One afternoon I watched a hulking figure posing in a black pair of Speedos, holding a giant golden sword that looked like he’d swiped it from Captain Hook. He was standing out front of the fountain between the hotel and the beach, with a group of women snapping shots—not just the official photographers taking his picture for a future paperback cover, but also various admirers collecting visual souvenirs. I watched, too, observing his abs and thinking about how hard he’d worked to acquire and maintain them.

The rest of the men in attendance—aside from editors, conference personnel, and those very rare male romance writers—were husbands/companions. It wasn’t difficult to tell them apart from the cover models, though thanks to an aggressive workout program over the past six months, I presented something of an anomaly. I could almost hear people thinking, “He’s not good-looking enough to be a cover model, but he doesn’t look like he swallowed a basketball either, so he can’t be one of the husbands. Maybe he’s a romance writer.... Wait, maybe he’s gay!”

In addition to providing behind-the-scenes assistance while Deidre met with clients, editors, and fellow writers, my job was to represent her and The Knight Agency in as favorable a light as possible, and though I had a couple of run-ins with officious service personnel, punky teenagers, and a vagrant who reminded me of Charles Manson, I generally remained on my best behavior. We had a room on the cabana level, with just fifty feet of grass and concrete separating us from the beach, and every morning and night, I sat out there and played my guitar. People often stopped to listen, and at one point a security guard asked me, “Sir, are you a guest at this hotel?” I didn’t think I was that badly dressed.

My brief experience as a street musician gave me an idea I fully expected Deidre to veto: “Maybe one of these days,” I said to her with a devilish glint, “I’ll just stroll up to the square back home and start playing.” Amazingly, she had no problem with that—probably using reverse psychology—so I just might do it, assuming the police wouldn’t arrest me for disturbing the peace. If just one person told me they’d come listen, I could probably overcome my admittedly low levels of stage fright.

Back from our trip now on Monday morning, we’re all suffering from vacation nostalgia. But I at least am going back to Florida next month, though not to sit in the sun: Jeopardy is holding auditions in Orlando for people who passed their online test, which I took in March. (I’ve already gone through this one time, in 2002, so we’ll see if it goes anywhere.)

The Jeopardy saga is another story, as is something else, quite at odds with the upbeat spirit of the trip: the commemoration of my single greatest personal tragedy, which occurred in Daytona twenty-five years ago last month. That, too, will have to wait for another column. But this brings me back to my title: Florida is indeed just like the Internet—whatever it is you’re looking for, be it good, bad, or indifferent, you’ll find plenty of it there. Then again, one could say the same thing about life in general on this strange little planet.