“Three more mongrel dogs were found castrated and barely alive tonight,” he said, “and investigating officers said there was no doubt that all three animals were victims of the same bloodthirsty psychotic – a stocky middle-aged Cuban known as ‘Castrato’ – who has terrorized dog owners in Coconut Grove for the past three months. Last night, on this same radio station, I heard a warning about “a new outbreak of dog mutilations in Coconut Grove.” The disc jockey reading the news sounded angry and agitated. He was probably a desperate political activist of some kind trying to send a message to Washington. Jesus, no wonder that poor bastard up in Fort Lauderdale ran amok and decided that all bowling balls were actually nigger eggs that would have to be hurled, at once, into shark-infested waters. Or, failing that, he will foul the national air for the next six months and drive us all to smack with his poison gibberish. And now comes this filthy news in the latest Gallup Poll that Hubert Humphrey will be our next president……. But from my perch in this plastic catbird seat out here on the southernmost rim of Key West, the barometer looks to be falling so fast on all fronts that it no longer matters. And some people say we are already deep in the midst of it.

Because this is, after all, another election year, and almost everybody I talk to seems to feel we are headed for strangeness….… of one sort or another. Which could happen a lot sooner than even Henry Kissinger thinks……. We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out. This news just came over the radio, followed by a song about “faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money …”* and then came a news item about a Polish gentleman who was arrested earlier today for throwing “more than two dozen bowling balls into the sea off a pier in Fort Lauderdale” because, he told arresting officers, “he thought they were nigger eggs.” …įox News Calls Biden Speech 'Evil,' Declares America the ‘Least Racist Country in the World’ What you have to remember is that a horse sees things maybe six or seven times bigger than we do.”-Billy Herman, a harness-racing trainer at Pompano Park in Miami

“A lot of people will tell you that horses get spooked because they’re just naturally nervous and jittery, but that ain’t right. THE VIEW FROM KEY WEST: NINETY MILES NORTH OF HAVANA AND NINE HUNDRED YEARS ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL … FAREWELL TO THE BOYS ON THE BUS OR, JOHNNY, I NEVER KNEW YE … ANOTHER RUDE AND WISTFUL TALE FROM THE BOWELS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, WITH NOTES, NIGHTMARES AND OTHER STRANGE MEMORIES FROM MANCHESTER, BOSTON, MIAMI AND PLAINS, GEORGIA … AND 440 VOLTS FROM CASTRATO, THE DEMON LOVER OF COCONUT GROVE

Fear and loathing on the campaign