389 to 952 miles

40 Miles west of Jacksonville and the hallucinogen of the Floridian landscape is setting in. Perfectly manicured golf courses give way to tumble down trailer parks then back to another golf course followed by strange church malls, huge, modern, clustered in fives, a new form of golf.
“My favourite Pastor is in Jacksonville,” bellowed the 300lb black woman. “He had cancer of the lymph’s you know! Now they told him he wouldn’t have long, that it will get him. So I went to see him preach and he looked weak but his voice was strong, had the power of god working in him. I tried to take a picture of him preaching but the devil gone interfered. He double exposed the picture and put someone else in the way.”
Up and down both the woman’s arms were burn marks. The thrift store we found her in collected money for a local charity called Helping Hands that supported victims of domestic violence. In the crate of records we found one by a victim of a unique sort of spousal abuse, the only album by Vince Cardell who took covering another musicians to extreme new levels. Trying to contact Vince to allow him to tell his amazing story has proved unsuccessful so I will have to tell it as I know it.



Vince Cardell was Liberace’s longest standing “chauffer”. They duet on this album with the song “Tea for Two” but perhaps the most telling song title is the records opener “You Make Me Feel Brand New”. The uncanny resemblance between Vince and his “employer” is no coincidence but rather the result of a birthday present from Liberace. In one of the greatest known examples of 21st century narcissistic decadence, Vince Cardell underwent plastic surgery to satisfy and resemble the man whose car he drove.
Perry, a little town with a two foot bouffant behind the liquor store counter and 50 cents oysters at the bars, is where we sleep. Florida, though in the South, is predominantly white. You can divide these people into two categories: those who are saved and those who are damned. Those who are saved have adapted biblical dress to include khaki Bermuda shorts and polo shirts. Those who are not wear leather or camo and ride bikes and trucks. Being and dressing like neither, Floridians are finding us very hard to understand and are assuming therefore that we must be very lost. Therefore the only time they have extended us the courtesy of kindness is when we are asking them for directions away from their town. This in itself creates problems, as it would appear many of them have never left their own town.
“Head north and you’ll get to Alabama,” was some of the kindest advice we heard in Florida’s panhandle and as it was free we took it. Not, however, before stopping in a small roadside thrift store where the woman pointed us in the direction of the records with “The big CD’s are over there”. Amongst them we found many corking Christian albums that stood as testament to our time in the sunshine state. ‘Gods Brady Bunch’ and ‘Richard and Gail Miller’ sang for us from the gospel of love as we got the hell out of Dodge and, thanks to the kindness Floridians, drove into Georgia.