Florida the rules are different here Chapter LXXIII

Key West will celebrate the new year with Sushi. It isn't raw fish.

KEY WEST, Fla. - For New Year's Eve revelers on this island city, sushi doesn't mean raw fish. Instead, it refers to a drag queen who plans to bring in 2007 by being lowered inside an 8-foot-long red high heel shoe and spraying champagne.

This will be 10th consecutive year that Sushi, the alter ego of Key West resident Gary Marion, has presided over festivities in front of the Bourbon St. Pub on Duval Street, the city's main party strip.

Seconds before midnight, the shoe bearing a lavishly gowned and coifed Marion, 39, is to be lowered from the bar's second-story balcony toward revelers below. As midnight strikes, Marion should land and gleefully pop the cork on a ceremonial bottle of champagne.

"In Times Square, they drop the ball," Marion said. "In Key West, they drop the red shoe with Sushi in it."

The wackiness is the vision of former pub manager Jimmy Gilleran. He and a partner designed the shoe at a boatyard that constructs fiberglass vessels.

"It's only in Key West could we do something like this," Gilleran said.

I'd say Key West or Florida myself. Whatever rocks people's boats down in Keys is fine with me. Isn't this a great state or what?

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