Was Tom Petty correct to think he was cursed by the critics for sounding so "normal"? I'd rather listen to Tampa Red or Cannonball Adderly. You can list many people who spent winters in Florida, or died there, but they don't quite count. Ernest Hemingway had a close enough tie to Key West and I favor his short stories over his novels. Zora Neale Hurston is still worth reading. Carl Hiaasen is true Florida but I've never finished one of his books. Juanes lives in Miami and he has five or so very good pop songs, maybe more. Celia Cruz ended up there too and I suspect many other Latino musicians did as well. In sum that list probably would be very impressive. Purvis Young is a good "Outsider" artist.
Many excellent movies are set in Florida. Where do I start?
Body Heat. The underrated Wild Things. Key Largo. Contact. Deuce Bigelow. Ace Ventura (a favorite). Various space launch movies. The superb Ulee's Gold. Parts of Midnight Cowboy. Didn't Elliott Gould and Robert DeNiro end up there every now and then? I feel there are additional noir movies and parts of gangster movies. I Dream of Jeannie was set there.
Miami has long been one of my favorite American cities and I like Tampa for its dumpiness. Naples is boring.
Miami Vice!
The only thing good about it, but even if that is all it still makes it worth it.
I second Dexter. Have not seen the show yet, but I am reading the novels and they are stunning. Very well written, unsettling, and even hilarious in parts. The author, Jeff Lindsay, is from Florida.
Some Like It Hot
1. To cut the the heart of it, was Deuce Bigalow really set in Florida? I thought it was Los Angeles but I can’t find any confirmation either way.
2. Isn’t the greatest reason for Florida to exist so that it can continue to spawn “Florida or Germany” jokes for Jimmy Kimmel? And, relatedly, I would guess that a disproportionate number of COPS episodes have been set in Florida. With its constant warm humid weather, the state is like a petri dish for idiocy.
Hyman Roth “retired” to Florida in the Godfather II.
Adaptation from Kaufman and Jonze
Best Band: Against Me!
Best Place: Ybor City
I don’t know how any literate person can speak of Florida and not mention the excellent Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald.
I spent a three day weekend walking around Miami ten years ago during a lull in a transaction. Did nothing for me. My two memories are seeing a manatee in a canal and a complete absence of bookstores, despite walking a lot each day.
For movies, also There’s Something About Mary.
Gloria Estefan for pop music.
for a long time i’ve wanted to visit a staples in naples.
Don’t forget Body Heat. Central Florida is truly unique once you get behind the veneer of tourism.
You like the dumpiness of Tampa and local music?
Cruise on into the Brass Mug near Fletcher and 15th St for an earful of up and coming rock and metal acts. It’s not far from USF in the one of the rougher areas of the city (lock your car and don’t mind the black kids on bikes, they’re just local entrepreneurs).
Or stop by the eclectic Florida weirdness that is Skipper’s Smokehouse on N. Nebraska and Skipper Rd (just south of Bearss Ave). They host local and national Blues acts with Reggae, Cajun/Zydeco, and a Greatful Dead tribute band to wind out the weekly lineup. Good times getting sloshed under the stars in the outdoor Skipperdrome music venue while listening to music you rarely hear on FM.
http://www.skipperssmokehouse.com/
http://www.myspace.com/brassmug
Charles Willeford, the crime novelist was from Florida. Robert Rauschenberg lived there and James Rosenquist still does.
Kerouac spent a large part of his adult life in Orlando and did a lot of writing there.
Que tus ojos me despierten con la luz de tu mirada…Yo a dios le pido!
Jaco Pastorius, one of the most significant and influential bass players, was raised in Florida though he was not born there.
Best FL town name and tagline:
“Hypoluxo, Florida. Home of the barefoot mailman.”
http://www.hypoluxo.org
Barefoot mailman on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_mailman
Cannonball Adderly–and Nat Adderly, for that matter–continues to be seriously under-rated as a performer. Nat, as well, was a fine compaser and a very good cornetist.
Gram Parsons was from Florida…he influenced many musicians and bridged gaps between several genres of music
@affe I’ve only been to Miami once. We visited a mall looking for a bookstore. We couldn’t find one so I asked someone in the video store if there was a bookstore in the mall. The clerk looked at me like I had two heads and said “I don’t think so. Maybe over at the college?”
As a third generation Floridian (born in Tampa, raised across the Bay in Clearwater, living elsewhere now), I thought I should chime in. For food, there are fried grouper sandwiches (I’m partial to Frenchy’s on Clearwater Beach), smoked mullet, and stone crab, plus Cuban food as long as you stay away from tourist traps like the Colombia restaurant. There is also the must-see weirdness and wine list of Burn’s steakhouse. Ybor is worth seeing, but was more fun when it was run down, more dangerous, and less crowded. Tampa-Clearwater also have a shocking number of English pubs, and you can sometimes run into retired English footballers enjoying their anonymity.
Kerouc’s mother lived in St. Pete, and I think he lived there for some time as well, not Orlando.
The Dali Museum on St. Pete Beach is well worth the time, and I say that while not being a huge fan.
I grew up in Tampa in ’70s & ’80s and I heartily endorse the Skipper’s plug from previous commenter. Also lived in Cleveland for a decade, and my personal conclusion was that Florida’s strengths and weaknesses generally are the reciprocals of those of the Midwest. Tallahassee and panhandle are much different culturally, economically than the peninsula.
How could you forget “The Cocoanuts”? –classic Marx Brothers schemes and scams in ’20s Florida.
Cool Hand Luke is set in Florida.
Duma Key, a book written by Stephen King is set primarily in Florida. I listened to the audio CD while on the move from Oregon to Florida; I was immediately suspicious of the place as a reult.
Vernon, FL (the documentary)
Appalachicola
The stretches of 441 still in tact as they were prior to I 4,75 & 95 and Disney
Killing Mr. Watson
Key Deer
The John Pennekamp Coral Reef (or what’s left)
Gatorland
The early Allman Brothers
Payne’s Prairie
Kennedy Space Center
The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party
I agree, Skipper’s Smokehouse is not to be missed. Perfectly captures Florida’s atmosphere of casual trashiness.
Inseparable from Skipper’s is WMNF, the best radio station I have ever heard (as long as you ignore the politics/economics).
It’s really obvious some of these posters know nothing about Florida. There are as many bookstores in Miami as anywhere else, how can you judge on 3 days?
Florida is not generally an intellectual mecca, it doesn’t have the universities or seats of power and culture to be one, but it has a lot of retired people and retired people read a lot of books.
Also, it’s a state you really need a car for. None of the cities have decent public transportation and biking/walking is hard because homes are generally set far apart, it’s hot and sticky in the summer, and old people don’t really notice anyone outside of their oldsmobile.
I actually like Hiassen, but I still totally understand where you’re coming from.
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