True-blue, Red-button Pushers

After my entire childhood and teenage years being spent in the more seedy areas of daytona. Drinking rot gut wine in the hollows of the US1 wooded havens while skating. each alcove Laden with hypodermics and 'ridgewood white-fish'(used condoms), empty Steel Reserve & NattyDaddy cans...

Breaking pool Cues at The Crook's den (RIP). Or, essentially just going as far out of my way to be a fly on the wall in as many of the more 'dirtona' elements & areas of this sleepwalking beach town...It was just a natural decision to want to move somewhere else, on such short notice.The hunt for more inspiration across the country. A rival of the bizarre

briefly. heres what led up to my (technically) last 'wild night in daytona'...

broke up with a girlfriend.signed lease for solo apartment. met a girl from west coast FL. she was moving out of state. hit it off supremely. 4/5 months in. shes living with me mostly. early 20's, reckless as all hell. said fuck it. subletted apt to friend. moving North.

So, there we were, about one month away from moving out of dirtona to go explore some new kind of seediness(my aim). ZEBA, for those of you who dont know, was an fantastic gay-friendly showbar with drag shows, on beach street. About a decade ago. fine establishment until I THINK there was shooting or something and it got closed down? I dunno I was 1500 miles away.

My girlfriend that I was soon to be escaping the state with, and myself, became a pair of regulars at the club for the three months prior to our departure. It was right down the street from my apartment. So we would usually go get some cheap drinks and some mental 'pre-gaming' done at The Crooks Den (RIP). break a pool stick or two, roleplay with other couples in completely random alter-egos. Then stumble our way to go do lines of blow, with the most wonderful and hilarious drag queens, or take hallucinogens at the club. The dance, drink and all-around-unabashed-debauchery to the fine tunes that the DJ fueled the frenzy with, was our home away from home. To date, its only ever been in that place that I have ever been able to tolerate any kind of 'techno' music. EDM, what the fuck ever its sub-genred in to these days...

The place became our primary watering hole at LEAST 6 nights a week. The owner would give us free long islands & other drinks, we pretty much became part of the staff so to speak. never a cover, drinks were just for a tip. couple that with some wild ass drag queens, hilarious banter+on staff DJ= A Daytona Beach version of the sitcom 'Cheers' meets a harmony Korine film.

There was one particular bartender there, who I wont name, but Ill give the hint 'guns and roses frontman', thats all. Pretty sure he roofied me one of the last nights we were going, and my girlfriend had to piggy back me back to the apartment. I remember absolutely NOTHING, and I was very much able to keep composure in all scenarios in those days. i wasnt positive i was roofied until a few nights later, when us three (the owner,myself and her) were having some drinks and he said," sorry about what happened with _____, he has a tendency to try and turn straight folk a lot, its a game for him." (he smirked and shook his head) "sometimes he just takes it to the roof" (then winked)

a few days later, we decided we were going to have one of our last hurrah's among the packing and preparation for our move cross country, yard sales, and swap meets that we hunted down. to get whatever extra cash we could to face 'city life'. we decided to take some liquid LSD and make a night of it. Annnnd we DID. Sex in the bathroom, and VIP spot. Drag Queen Congo-line, doing our best stage dances, giving the full monty (all things considered)

During all of this wild nonsense, towards the end of the night the owner of the bar said that he was willing to pay us both $500 (total) to let him watch us have sex. I figured, why not!? thats probably what we were going to do when we got back to the apartment anyhow. She shared the same idea. We also didnt want to kick a cash cow in the rectum, or whatever that saying is...

but considering I had been roofied a few nights earlier, we figured we would set some ground rules. (whether by him or the bartender, is unclear) definitely could hurt, right! Making sure to still keep them as strange as possible (for our amusement). Here they were:

1.$250 up front/$250 upon completion

2.we pick the location (our apt)

3.no touching from him. strictly her and I

4. to be filmed in sepia tone on my early 2000's camcorder for a collection of wild scenarios that i sought out over the course of a decade or so

5.we pick the music (we were thinking some ridiculously horrible death metal/grind music for added effect)

6.I would be wearing a nun outfit during & she would have on my abe lincoln top hat & smoking a corn cob bubble pipe during the sexual encounters we had.

7. no requests from the peanut gallery.

  to the two of us this was hilarious! So the next evening, still coming down from our trip, we went to the club to lay out the terms. He seemed receptive to them. We got the 'deposit' and the night of the 'filming' that was to take place, there was a show going on with live music and other wildness and we ended up just doing everything that we had planned in our list of conditions. But far more comfortably. and $250 dollars richer.

Now, I am not saying that this is only something that can happen in Daytona. I will say, that this town is where all of the people from its golden years of Spring Break MTV came to visit...

and the greater majority either never left, and just developed drug addictions and explored new kinks. Or, came back with that same sort of nostalgia, and cover it in a polo.

Needless to say, for the years that I was gone looking for something with more inspiration. I realized that Daytona is certainly a town with its VERY OWN unique 'charm'. Depending on what you consider to be charming, of course.

- Charles Wilson