Florida Man isn’t the hero we need. He is the hero we deserve.

This cantankerous shape shifter wanders the Sunshine State inflicting folly on small town and big city alike. His love of drugs, especially stimulants, is at a level usually reserved for Gonzo journalists.

He is skilled in all things from weaponry to garden maintenance. He has the uncanny ability to be arrested and back on the street within minutes. Some suspect that he might be a time traveler, like a pill popping Keystone drinking Doctor Who. The sheer amount of newsprint dedicated to his exploits might be a record.

Sometimes, Florida Man is crafty beyond measure. Like the time he foreclosed on a bank, or accidentally banned all computers in the state. Underestimating Florida Man just because he occasionally gets so drunk he sets his car on fire and gives the cops a taco for his ID is a definite mistake.

There is also a dark side to Florida Man, an insane fugue state that leads to incredible disasters. Just the other day Florida Man pretended to be a plastic surgeon and botched a penis enlargement. Or there was the time he chewed his fingertips off to avoid being fingerprinted by the cops. His antics are both Jekyll and Hyde. In a state that is filled with giant lizards and more humid heat than a nuclear reactor, is it really surprising that he can’t always control his powers?

In the end, this vagabond is America. He lives free, untethered to the rules and laws of man. Sure, he might burn your house down for telling him not to masturbate in front of a window, but haven’t we all been there? Let he who hasn’t tried to pay for booze with a rock cast that same stone. Like the guitar solo in ‘Freebird,” Florida Man is a living monument to what the blood of patriots has won. He is a reminder that our self imposed limitations, like Florida laws, are just a constructs of The Man.

Fight on, Florida Man. We’ll see you in the papers.

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Tony Southcotte hails from the Rocky Mountains somewhere around the state of Colorado. Possibly raised by grizzly bears, this gritty denizen of the arena now spends most of his time grappling with Java updates and dysfunctional RAM. With not much fiction under his belt, it might seem tempting to bet against Mister Southcotte, but an impressive knowledge of everything from PVC pipe to psychedelic drugs makes Tony a storehouse of fiction waiting to hit the paper. Plus, you know, there’s the possibility of him ripping you apart like a grizzly bear.