A lot of weird things happen in Florida every week, and on Friday we're here to round up the weirdest. This week:
- You can now bring your gun to FSU's football stadium, which, as a Hurricanes fan, terrifies me.
- A man named King got busted for having himself his way in a Burger King (with bonus amusing mugshot).
- And the answer to question you've surely always wondered: What if John Cheever set "The Swimmer" in Florida?
Southern college football game tailgates are known as drunken, sometimes heated but generally good natured affairs. To many people they might not seem like the most appropriate place to bring a gun, but to Florida Carry, Inc. they're the perfect place to bring your weapon.
The group was started in 2011, and since then has made fighting for the right of college students to bring guns on campus a champion cause. Two years ago the group won a lawsuit against the University of North Florida. That school had a policy that prohibited people with concealed carry licenses from brining guns on campus even if they kept them locked in their cars. Since Florida Carry's courtroom win, several other public colleges in Florida, including FSU, have changed policies to let those with concealed carry licenses to keep a gun locked in their car on campus.
FSU, however, never clarified their policy in regard to football games, and Florida Carry sued on Wednesday. A day later FSU said basically, 'Yeah, OK, you can officially bring a gun to Doak Cambell Stadium as long as you've got a license and the gun's locked in your car."
That's not enough for Florida Carry, and they will continue the suit in the hope of allowing anyone with a gun to be able to bring it on campus and locked in their car.
As a Miami Hurricane fan, I am terrified of this development.
Then again, as a Miami Hurricane fans it's highly unlikely that I'm actually going to drive that far for an away game anyway.
Man Named King Caught Masturbating in Burger King
Well, Jefferson King couldn't pick a more appropriate place to touch himself than a restaurant that shares his last name, we suppose. Last Thursday, a woman spotted the 33-year-old King playing with his little King at a Burger King in West Palm Beach.
"What? I'm playing with my penis!" King said when the woman asked him what he was doing, according to the arrest report.
A manager was called and tried to eject King from the Burger King for trying to eject things from his little King, but King refused and continued his King-on-King in King on action. Finally police were called, and King was arrested for indecent exposure.
Man Ejected from One Bar Swims to Another
In John Cheever's classic short story "The Swimmer," a well-off man decides to head home from an afternoon pool party by swimming his way across all of his neighbors' pools until he gets home. Things quickly turn surreal and his journey through the river of connected pools turns from a cheery good time into a depressing journey. It's a metaphor for aging and a jab at the emptiness of a certain type of American suburban life, or something.
In Will Greenlee's recent weird florida news blog entry "Ejected from bar, Stuart man jumps in water, taunts bar patrons, swims to another bar," the protagonist is Gregory Sorensen. He showed up at the The Twisted Tuna in Martin County and quickly found himself drunk, taunting customers, and trying to fight people. Management tossed him out, but Sorensen jumped in a river and swam towards Shrimper’s Grill & Raw Bar. Oh, and while he was swimming he was still yelling at and taunting customers from The Twisted Tuna.
One would hope this could have gone on in surrealist fashion, with Sorensen getting kicked out of a terribly named Florida bar after terribly named Florida bar, only to jump in the river and swim to the next one all while yelling obscenities at the patrons of the bar he just left. It'd be a great metaphor for a certain type of Florida life until he just finds himself sinking underwater at the end (just like most of Florida will be one day, anyway).
Instead, police ended what could have been the classic literary journey when they arrested Sorensen a short while later and charged him with a disturbance in a public place and resisting an officer without violence.
