I’m watching CSI: Miami and there’s apparently a drug dealer they’re looking for that cuts his coke with vitamins and calls it a “Health High” and that, specifically, is a very Knox thing to do
Knox Taylor— It’s a name that for anyone over the age of forty who’s watched porn, sparks memories of the eighties, of nude glamor shots, and lots of very sexy saxophone music playing while a young man with an incredible mustache slowly unbuttons his windbreaker to reveal an alluring amount of chest hair.
Granted, he still has the chest hair and the mustache with just a bit of grey here and there— but no one can deny he’s still just as charming as he appeared in his films.
For anyone who was never formally acquainted with Knox’s prolific film career, they may know him for his latest venture, Celebration Strip, an old theme park that quickly got overshadowed by Disney, shut down, and handed over from partner to partner, owner to owner until a very nice older woman gifted it to him in her will (his fans always gave him the weirdest things).
Unsure of what to do with an entire amusement park, Knox decided to invest in the one thing that he knew would never go out of style or be bought out; a party. Miami style.
Nothing is off limits at Celebration Strip...except that no one is allowed to be a buzzkill. Knox is more than happy to report that there have been no malicious deaths at Celebration Strip (at least, not ones that weren't promptly cleaned up), not one instance of illicit drug use (that’s just baby aspirin on the tables!), and no one has ever been engaged in scandalous affairs in the Mirror Room (just regular ol’ dirty, sexual affairs).
The old place still looks like its usual dingy, unamusing self but inside it has become more lucrative than it was in its hay days. He even knows how to work the rollercoaster! And you can totally go on...after signing a waiver or two.
Hometown: Miami, Florida, USA
Birth Date: September 15, 1965
Orientation: Bisexual
Height: 6'3"
Knox………….. He is fun, how do you get into his Park.. place…?
🎡 META: CELEBRATION STRIP
Celebration Strip is located in Miami, Florida, and came around in the late sixties, right before Disney™ first opened and killed it in the water.
It was, like many smaller amusement parks at the time, catered towards family vacations with a number of pools, a stage for live entertainment, a fun house and a few modest rides, and more notably a few long rows of small, one-bedroom cabanas for guests to sleep in.
After shutting down, thanks to the rise of the rat, in the mid-seventies, it went from owner to owner until landing in the hands of an elderly aristocrat who was one of Knox Taylor's biggest fans. She eventually left him the deed as a small token of her appreciation when she died in 2016.
When Knox got it, it had been abandoned for decades and apparently a few attempts to renovate it had started but never fell through. The pools had been drained and used as makeshift skateboarding rinks, made obvious by all the scratches and leftover graffiti. The rides were all in disrepair and not safe at all. And all those little houses that had been vandalized and were barely hanging on.
But Knox is a pretty resourceful guy. Plus he's made a number of connections over the years with his job (celebrities love to appear risque despite not actually doing anything), so after talking to a few, framing it as more of an investment venture rather than a renovation, he got some funds to start repairs.
And they were humble funds as turning a decades-old amusement park into a club didn't seem feasible.
Knox did the best he could, mainly focusing efforts on the interior fun house, as it was the largest indoor section of the park.
Today, the outside looks exactly as it did when he got it— it looks abandoned and dilapidated, the only difference now being that a section of the surrounding wire fence has been cut out and if you come during the day you'll see Knox in a speedo sun-bathing.
Inside the fun house, the whole underground bar and club thing makes more sense. It's been repainted, floors polished, a long bar installed in front of the fun house mirrors, and TV's and wall speakers in every corner of the place with snippets of Knox's early films playing on repeat.
The other rooms of the fun house (dark room, moving-floor room, barrel-room, etc.), were also re-painted, and tinkered with and oiled up until they were in somewhat working conditions— at least once a month Knox has to call a mechanic to take another look at something.
These extra rooms are quite literally fun rooms, solely used for sex or illicit drug use...or just hanging out if you want, Knox doesn't care. If anything Knox does suggest the moving floor room for sex as the whole thing vibrates a little. He would not recommend the barrel room unless you enjoy being violently flipped over mid-fuck.
To get into Celebration Strip, you need to be invited by someone who's been already (preferably Knox himself, as he'll give you a personal tour of the place), shared the address, and then, of course, told to go specifically to the funhouse where the bar was. There is minimal front door security, seeing as Knox insists anyone is welcome— they're mostly there to warn of incoming cops or to tell journalists to get stepping.
The rest of the grounds is fair game, honestly. Skateboarders still go by to skate in the pool, lodgers set up in the empty cabana houses to get away from the sun and because Knox will give them a free drink if they hang around long enough.
Below the cut are some pictures I would use as inspiration for how Celebration Strip looked like pre-Knox:
