The King Mango Strut, or at least one of two competing versions of it, moved a couple miles down U.S. 1 to South Miami. BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
Sunday, as a parade broke out in the midst of a vintage Volkswagen show, a famous fruit went where it has never gone before.
For 28 years, King Mango led a band of merry pranksters through the heart of Coconut Grove in an irreverant alternative to Miami's Orange Bowl parade: the King Mango Strut.
Sunday's event -- featuring a kazoo marching band, a lifesize banana, a LeBron James ``distant cousin,'' and the Blackbird of the Apocalypse -- was an alternative to the alternative.
Staged in South Miami with the consent of VolksBlast -- a car-club confab that lined several blocks of Sunset Drive east of U.S. 1 with Beetles, VW Things, hippie vans and Karmann Ghias -- the parade sought to reclaim what organizer Glenn Terry says the ``official'' Strut has lost.
Terry, an elementary school teacher, co-founded the Strut in 1982 but parted ways with longtime collaborators during a three-year feud over creative control and financing.
``The folks that put on the parade for decades, The Friends of King Mango, began arguing in 2007,'' Terry explained in an e-mail. ``Some...wanted to make it bigger parade while the others'' -- Terry's faction -- ``wanted to keep the Strut small and simple.''
The 2010 Strut, on Dec. 26, was neither, featuring dozens of floats, some with adult themes, and lasted nearly two hours.
Terry and Bobby Deresz, the 60-year-old yacht broker wearing the King Mango head, claim it was neither exciting, funny, nor family-friendly.
It was, said Terry, ``a little too loud and lewd. ... Now it appeals more to drinkers than thinkers.''
Sunday's event, led by Boy Scouts, was strictly G-rated, and lasted less than 30 minutes.
It lacked a grand marshal, however. Terry tried to recruit Mr. Clucky, the Miami Beach celebrity rooster exiled by that city's code enforcers.
He was shocked to learn that Mr. Clucky was no more, having expired on ``10-10-10.''
The event came together much like a ``flash mob'' -- at the last minute, through social media and e-mail communication.
Flash mobs are groups of people who stage surprise gatherings like singalongs and pillow fights in public places.
``In this case, fruit fans will suddenly show up to march down a crowded street,'' Terry said.
The locale remained secret until Saturday night, when Terry notified participants and the media that ``we're going to gather at Sunset and U.S. 1. At 11:30 a.m., we are going to march east through an existing event.''
South Miami's mayor, Philip Stoddard, undetected behind a bright blue mask, said his city had nothing to do with the arrangments.
``This is the entertainment for VolksBlast,'' he said. I made a point of staying out of the way.''
Those who came to see the cars didn't quite know what to make of the walking black-plastic oil slick, the Little Miss Mango beauty queens, the marching-band drumers beating on plastic buckets, and the ``I put the piano on the island'' sign that a small child in a stroller displayed.
But most seemed amused.
``This is a great idea -- something different,'' said Lucy Boczko of Perrine, who was checking out the VWs on her 44th birthday with her family when the Blackbird of the Apocalypse swooped by: Terry's son, Dylan, 25, in a winged costume, periodically crashing to the pavement: a nod to a recent epidemic of unexplained bird deaths.
``I think it's great,'' said a VW fan calling himself Mississippi John. ``I like a freak show.''
Not so his Missouri snowbird companion, Hershel Burden, who groused that ``it distracts from the show.''
Jason Walters of the Wide 5 VW Club was one of Volksblast organizers whom Terry approached.
He didn't know much about the original Strut -- and nothing about the controversy -- but said he agreed to permit the parade nonetheless, and ``heard positive things about it'' after it ended.
It was certainly a hit with particpants.
``Miss BP,'' South Miami resident Regina McFall, decked out in the oil company's yellow and green trademark colors at the head of the ``spill,'' proclaimed that ``the spirit of King Mango was here.''
Artist Deborah Starbuck, who'd been pulling a miniature bed crawling with bedbugs, liked ``the element of spontenaity, like guerilla theater.''
``This takes it back to its grassroots,'' added Ann Donaudy, a teacher who marched with a pooper scooper.
Stone mason Josh Billig, the marching banana from the Banana Anti-Defamation League, used to strut in the ``official'' parade, but believes it gave in to ``censorship'' by accepting city funding.
In 2001, Billig-as-banana marched with a delegation comparing Miami to a ``banana republic'' because of its crooked politicians. There were no city government spoofs in the Dec. 26th Strut.
``This parade helps reclaim the freeness to parody things,'' he said.
The parade, which launched at Sunset and Southwest 59th Avenue, didn't so much end as deconstruct at the same place.
``We're all about leaving the troubles of the past behind us,'' Glenn Terry said.
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