On The Sad State Of Affairs In The Sunshine Empire

The Sunshine Empire is a place of sun, sand, and savagery unimaginable. It is a place of violence and humidity. A dichotomy of unbelievable opulence, and staggering suffering. A general rule is that when the national or local economy goes south, the amount of crime and violence goes north, but these are times that defy any comparison to any other time in the history of my home. Jacksonville and Duval County are the home of the Sunshine Empire and this place has managed to become more violent than the days of vice in Miami. People are routinely threatened with guns on the highways and byways of of this vast sprawl. These are the people who have only brushed the savage violence of this place.

On the night of Independence Day, Biggus Rickus and I met at our favorite establishment in the Five Points neighborhood. We had to wait for a heavy police presence including upwards of 10 JSO cruisers and a helicopter to die down before making our way to the Starlite. After drinking for a while and telling a gentleman from Michigan that this was nothing more than an aberration, I ran into a close friend of an ex-girlfriend as he had been DJ’ing at the Starlite. After chatting briefly we split ways. At the end of the weekend I spoke to my ex and she stated that he had not been home the entire weekend that she had been gone. She looked everywhere for him and verified that he was not in the Duval County lockup as well. Three days later she called me and let me know that he had been found on the side of the road beaten badly. He had given someone a ride roughly an hour after I came in contact with him that evening of July 4th. That is when the man that he had graciously given a ride to, disfigured his face to the point that he had to have his eyes removed. He is now blinded for the rest of his life by this heinous act of violence. This horrible act of violence occurred in a place that I once considered the bastion of the warmth of home.

I was brought up every Sunday being around my grandmother’s house in the Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville. The area was a historic part of town that white flight and urban neglect had caused to become a shell of itself. I came there for years of my childhood and built up a false sense of safety. This is a violent and horrible place and this is just a microcosm of the drastic decline of our great nation. I’m rambling, but I am upset and don’t know what to make of this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Random Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.