Hello Long-Haul Truck Drivers!
It’s been a minute, lots to think about…
Love,
VF
🧡 The Very Famous Five 🧡
1. For detailed stories of seeing Sasquatch, UFOs spotted above a hyper-dimensionally charged Hawaiian ranch, the dolphin-human connection, and, earnestly speaking, the most beautiful delectable website I’ve ever seen, may we present a Friday discovery: joanocean.com.
2. VF Friend Luke went on a Creed cruise and wrote about it! Exceptional…
It’s high noon on a blazing April day, which is the ideal time to be sitting in an Irish pub aboard a cruise ship the size of a small asteroid. The bar is called O’Sheehan’s—yes, pronounced “oceans”—and it’s located deep within the belly of the boat, just above the teppanyaki joint, the sake bar, and the lustrous duty-free shops. This consciousness-altering diorama of infinite seas and cloying Guinness-themed paraphernalia is where I meet Colleen Sullivan, a 46-year-old woman with a beehive of curly red hair and arms encased by plastic wristbands. She wants to tell me how Creed changed her life.
And his fiancée and VF Friend Becca wrote about her experience in her newsletter Beccacore, which was very funny and generous and real about the cruise atmosphere! A big highlight: the pros and cons of occasionally playing the Silent Idiot Wife.
3. And speaking of voyages, join me on one here…for a reason I’ve since forgotten, last week I was googling the phrase “tini [sic] martini” (maybe a name of a place I was looking for?) and two different but equally pixelated things came up that fascinated me!
This video of a random night in January 2005 at a now-closed Chicago bar called Tini Martini:
And NEXT, what I will dub a Little Mystery. Several videos came up of a livestream of a different bar also named Tini Martini in St. Augustine, Florida. File this under r/InternetMysteries because, inexplicably at least to me, people were sharing assorted clips from this livestream featuring mildly interesting things that might occur outside a bar — people goofing around, a rainstorm sending patrons scrambling inside, the police being called.
For instance, there’s a minute-long video shared by one user titled “Tini Martini Bar - Run from the Rain” where outdoor diners are seen, as described, rushing inside after an afternoon Florida rainstorm hits.
I read the comments and realized this livestream had a pretty dedicated following…
“Gained a good wave of customers from the rain,” one person wrote. Another posted: “Anyone know whats happened the live cam..its just closed down?” Talk of litigation theories ensued in the comments (“…little difference, which makes the Martini Bar confiscation arbitrary and capricious and worth litigating…”)
Another video was titled “Tini Martini Bar 🍸 Girl Pulls Up Flower 🥀” which was a 17-second clip of the Tini Martini Bar at night. This time, whoever uploaded it took the liberty of adding animated martini glasses and palm trees to the livestream video and soundtracking it to the sort of kicking-open-the-saloon-door song that might soundtrack, say, a bar scene in Yellowstone. In the video, a girl dressed in black is seen aggressively ripping up a flower in a planter outside the Tini ‘Tini and throwing it on the ground.
The comments, again: “When their webcams will work again? I so miss...” and “Hi Fe, brings back memories when a group of great people chatted, sweet to see you…”
There’s more! Plenty of highlights have been culled from this now-defunct livestream. An instance of a fight breaking out outside the ‘Tini, the police and firefighters being called another night, another video with the title: “That Was Never Going to Happen 🤦♀️Nice Try ... Tini Martini Bar St Augustine FL 🍸” depicting a girl trying to physically pick up a guy outside the bar. The comments here: “FEBRUARY 2024....WHAT THE HECK? WHY THE BLEEP ISNT THE CAMERA ON?” and this non sequitur: “The Tini Martini Bar live cam is down; but hopefully not for long. Note my use of the semicolon. It's something I learned in high school English. I didn't learn much else, but I did learn how to use a semicolon.”
~
What in the good hell is going on here? Was this livestream of a random bar in St. Augustine simply an actually-real reality show for people to follow on YouTube? Are these aliens communing with each other through cryptic messages on the livestreams of small Florida businesses?
It’s unsettling, it’s low stakes, it’s involving a bar in St. Augustine, my favorite kind of mystery!
4. Meet Suebelle from Palm Beach!
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5. The Local Woman! This week, she…
☆ is starting a new fitness center in Middlebury, Vermont
☆ is making vibrant wood carvings for “neighbors, friends, and clients” in Isabella, Missouri
☆ was found living in a grocery store’s sign in Midland, Michigan
☆ found her passion as a fly fishing guide in Canton, Massachusetts
🧡 Blingee Museum Entry of the Week 🧡 HEART OF THE PRINCESS by goldenkingdom330
