I recently read Mickey J. Corrigan’s chapbook Florida Man. As the title suggests, these poems are about Florida Man, a meme that blew up in the early 2010s which has since mutated into a symbol of American exceptionalism (if you consider dangerous, antisocial behavior exceptionalism). While reading this book, I also happened to be staying in Florida for a week, giving me a perfect chance to write about the book, the state, and the meme.
The Florida Man meme was born from bizarre news headlines which involve a Florida Man (or Florida Woman) getting arrested, killed, humiliated, or saving the day in bizarre ways. Such headlines include “Florida Man killed by alligators while hiding from cops,” “Florida Man chews off another man’s face,” “Florida Man claims wife was kidnapped by holograms,” and my favorite, “Florida Man catches huge tarpon while fishing from rainbow unicorn floaty.” A good Florida Man headline acts as a one-sentence tall tale, a narrative that satisfies our need for both the mundane and the absurd. We live in a time where Paul Bunyan’s exploits are tired relics of an older generation, the story of John Henry working himself to death reads more like a Marxist fable than a tall tale, and most people under the age of 25 don’t know who Dolemite is. So in place of these classics we’ve created Floridian Gilgamesh. And luckily for us, Mickey J. Corrigan has translated these headlines into poetry.
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The standout feature of Florida Man is Corrigan’s mimicry of the flat, objective tone of a news article. This lack of affect in Corrigan’s language recreates the clear-cut Associated Press style and contrasts with the surreal subject matter of each poem—which is part of the appeal of the Florida Man meme.
Speaking of subject matter, many of these poems are based on actual Florida Man headlines. “Frozen Food Lands on Roof of Florida Man’s Home,” “Drinking and Driving Florida Man Style,” and “Florida Man Goes on Honeymoon on Stolen Yacht” are all based on real events, and Corrigan succeeds at recreating the funny human-interest stories you’d expect from these headlines.
Of especial interest is “Florida Man Burns Down House Trying to Bake Cookies on George Foreman Grill,” which follows an inebriated, naked Florida Man who almost burns his house down while trying to bake cookies on his puny George Foreman Grill. Despite the absurdity of the situation, this poem’s Florida Man is more than a clown and becomes a mock hero. His efforts to save his home are ineffective as he tries to “dampen the fire/with dry towels” but I can’t help but love the guy’s determination. Florida Man at his best is a “superhero/of bad decisions” who demonstrates the heroism of the absurd, and even if he doesn’t win, he still makes us smile.
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Corrigan is originally from Boston but currently resides in southern Florida, so chances are Corrigan may have been nearby while I was reading Florida Man. My reading of Florida Man was inextricably bound to my time in Florida, and I’d like to say that I enjoyed Florida the state as much as Florida Man the book and Florida Man the meme, but I have to admit, I didn’t like Florida.
During my stay in Florida I was surprised that I didn’t see a single alligator. Where were they? So many Florida Man stories feature alligators, you’d think I’d find at least one.
I also bought some tomatoes from a fruit stand, and when I cut into them, all the seeds had germinated. They tasted like gravel. I got some oranges from that same fruit stand and they tasted like rice vinegar. I left my fruit for the anoles to eat, but the anoles didn’t seem interested.
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Of course, there’s more to Florida than alligators, oranges, Disney World, and drunks burning down their houses. There’s a dark side to the Sunshine State, too.
As you read Florida Man you’ll notice that, while the concepts remain ridiculous, the tone becomes much darker. “Florida Man ‘Inspired’ by Wal-Mart Shootings” confronts mental illness and gun violence. “Florida Man Nearly Deported Even Though Born in US” tells a story about racial profiling and corrupt immigration policies. “Florida Mayor Fired, Acting Mayor Fired Too,” while hilarious, is a microcosm for how nepotism and buck-passing fucntions in American politics on both the local and federal levels. And “Florida Man Executes Zombie Attack” is about the infamous Miami Cannibal Attack of 2012. More on that soon.
For Corrigan, Florida Man morphs from absurd hero to villain, a symbol of the societal and political ills of America. In Corrigan’s own words:
Florida man:
indestructible
and coming
to a nightmare
near you.
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I was a junior in high school when the Miami Cannibal Attack occurred. Of course, back then everyone called it the Miami Zombie Attack because it was 2012 and America was obsessed with zombies.
The Internet transformed what should have been a routine (though gruesome) news item into a drug-addled, bloody, carnivalesque version of the truth. A man who was high on bath salts mutilated a homeless man over a (supposedly) missing Bible, which should have been horrific enough. Drug addiction, violence, homelessness, organized religion—this incident was already a modern-day nightmare before the Internet injected zombie mythology into it. I don’t know—even in high school, listening to my classmates jokes about zombie season in Florida felt sick.
O, Florida—what an unreal state you are!
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Every non-Floridian in Florida is there for Disney World or one of the thousands of other tourist destinations/mantraps that orbit Orlando, but I was there on family business, and when you’re not in Florida for fun, you start to realize how not-fun Florida is.
The humidity’s unbearable, for starters. The interstate traffic is bumper-to-bumper most of the time, and the local news stations are filled with stories about motorists falling into randomly-ocurring sinkholes. The tap water smells like hardboiled eggs, and every time I stepped out of the shower during my “vacation” I reeked of hot egg salad. And I know that some Floridians will want to stone me for saying this, but I don’t get the hype about Publix. It’s like Safeway, only more humid, and the subs are mediocre at best.
And this is where Florida Man was born—Florida Man in all his glory, goofiness, corrutpion, and wrath. My time in Florida reminded me that geography is integral to literature and the human experience. Just as Huckleberry Finn wouldn’t be Huckleberry Finn without the Mississippi River, and Crime & Punishment wouldn’t be Crime & Punishment without St. Petersburg, the Florida Man meme is inextricably tied to Florida—its backwaters, bayous, amusement parks, WalMarts, interstates, and decaying truck stops. Florida Man the book and Florida Man the meme made more sense to me while in the heart of the American Absurd.
So if you read Florida Man, try to read it in Florida. Don’t worry, the alligators don’t bite. In fact, you probably won’t see any.
