photo by Jack Cusumano

For better or worse, we live in Orlando. I hear a lot of people say they'd rather not, and to their advantage there are quite a few places in this wide world of ours that are not Orlando. I recently visited one of them, Bisbee Arizona, to be exact, which is about as different from Orlando as you can get. Hell, unless you happen to fall within the cosmic minority of cowboy/hippy/graffiti-artist, you probably could have never even imagined this place.

Tucked between some mountain range or other, Bisbee is the town that time forgot. My first impression upon arriving was that I was Marty McFly and I had just travelled back to the old west. It wasn't long, however, before I decided that this was not in fact the old west, and was more likely the set of Godspell. After time forgot about this place, you see, it was acquired by a mountain dwelling population of hippies who converted nearly every saloon, whorehouse and miner's home into an art gallery.

In a town stuck up at the top of some desolate, currently snow-capped mountains, full of nothing but storefronts boasting local craft wares, there remains little in the way of entertainment for the resident angsty youth. It's only natural, then, that someone around there has been spraypainting every last flat surface in sight with some of the most bizarre street-art I've seen in my day. That, in this traveller's opinion, is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this impossible place. Most pieces have something to do with America's decimation of this land's native population (our bad), and apart form their medium have little to do stylistically with their hip-hop counterparts, but a surprising few are just straight up wildstyle.

The locals proved just as colorful as their vandalized walls. One resident celebrity has (I swear I am not kidding) trained a cat to stand on a dog's back, and a mouse to stand on the cat's back. I saw the things strutting down the sidewalk like some kind of unholy cheerleading pyramid, but apparently you're only allowed to take a photo if you pay money, and I don't have that. If actual celebrities could do anything nearly as impressive as this they might actually deserve their paychecks.

If none of that strikes your fancy, the town still has one saving grace rolled up in its shirtsleeve: Dave's Electric Beer. Yes, in a town without a single Best Buy you just know somebody would have enough freetime to start that brewery they'd been fantasizing about since college. This hop-tastic, mind-numbing nectar comes in both lager and ale. Feeling particularly wussy at the time, I opted for the lager, which I found to have a rich, golden color and bold (dare I say, "electric?") taste. Thank you Dave, whoever you are.

Leaving the town I couldn't help but wonder. In another time, in another place, could I have called a town like Bisbee home? Hell no. Be happy you live in Orlando.


 Story by Jack Cusumano