TampaBLAB

Aren't you glad you live on the West Coast of Florida? When the traffic is as thick as a brick because of the NCAA tournament both Men and Women, Good Friday, Baseball and poor road construction, you always have a fall-back position. This time of year, I like to go to the beach and take some photos, get some sun and just walk around and enjoy one of the treasures we have in the Tampa Bay area. Great beaches are certainly one of them. Look at all these people on the beach in March!

I used the streetcar to get to downtown today. An editorial and other thoughts.

There is a real enemy to Black people in America, and I see it every day. It is poor decision making. While I was sitting at an Amscot waiting for this black lady to cash her paycheck and pay on her "Payday Loan" I could not help but think that she is a true victim. What is worse, she may never get out this cycle.

Low income people and the uneducated spend their money on goods and services that economist call "inferior goods." There is no real value for their money. Why not a bank? Why rip-off Amscot? Why the $60 for a cell phone you have from Metro PCS(rip-off) when you don't even have a car..that is why you call for the cab(rip-off) 5 times a day. It goes on and on and at the end of the day, they have no money so a slick Willy type preacher comes along and tells them that it is OK to hate Whitey...because he did it to you...To some extent that may be true.

The Democratic party is made up of many rich White folks, the very same that Obama's church hates and votes for. The same party that for 50 years has sold them a bill of goods that they cant do a damn thing on their own other than play sports of sell drugs and that if they continue to vote for them, life will be better. Is it?

That philosophy has, over time, caused them to abandon their own neighborhoods which blacks used to own. They once owned all the property, the banks, the insurance companies, the doctors where black, the grocier was black..now, they are all Arab or Korean and the people that live in the area are still waiting for Bill Clinton to knock on the door and change their life. Micheal Obama may have been right in her masters thesis. Self imposed Black apartheid may work. At least when they are working together they have done well in the past.

Her husband is a Democrat. Why would he do anything? The Democratic party is committed to the impoverishment of minorities. Why? They need their votes. If all minorities overnight became wealthy, the Democratic party as we know it would cease to exist. It would be counter-productive for them to change that stat. Sadly, they just need more and more poor. A good Depression would really help their cause. 

Apparently there are at least three people running around out there who say I remind them of this dude on American Idol

How, exactly, is it possible to not know that Gary Glitter is a child rapist?

It's not like it's something recent. He's been molesting children for decades. He's been kicked out of four countries!

Yet look at all the people they found in this article who had no idea the 'Rock & Roll, Pt. 2' guy was a chronic child rapist.

Oh, yeah, you might know a dude who gets quoted a few times in that article. Read all the way to the end, he sounds particularly smart there.

Sent to me by a castmate from R&GaD, after I went off on how sorry the state of human affairs are when you consider how damn insipid Second Life is. I present to you GetAFirstLife.com!

Just a bit of local transit photography to keep things jumping.

Your Irish Name Is...

Kane Campbell

Kane Campbell? Sounds like a good name to me...

This is my next show. I'll be Rosencrantz to Shawn Paonessa's Guildenstern. Those of you who saw The March of the Kitefliers or any of the (abridged) shows have seen us goof off before. It's actually pretty nifty as there are circles within circles all over this thing (but that's sort of the beauty of an ensemble company, isn't it?). Fellow (abridged) and MOTK cohort Jason Evans is in the

This Quote anb video are off of Obama's church website. The future President appears in this black propaganda video.

"We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community."

Some links underscoring the gas price increases and their relationship to lack of mass transit.

We have been very busy. Today was the first time in two years that I can remember, the airport was "King and Route." That is a term we use that means it is so busy we cannot handle all of it. What has caused all this?

A perfect combination of snow up north and warm weather in Florida with spring breaks, and all the planes are full coming to Florida. It will be short lived. That is sad. If it was this way all the time, I would be a wealth man.

What really hurts us is we can't serve some of our regulars on time. The other morning I was on a two cab call at a house that was going to the airport to go on a ski trip to Colorado. Bear(Our Dispatcher) could not get another cab to respond, and the people said screw it and they drove themselves. I wonder if they will ever call again.

It was so busy today that Eloy was on the run to get to his cab. He went by me causing a breeze and I was able to get this photo of the famous Eloy on the deck at holding. In the image above, I was the  third cab of three when there are usually over 100. Wow. We need this to continue.

I have been thinking about getting a GPS lately. There have been several fares that went to St. Pete and Pasco and I really had no idea where I was going. Sorry if I don't know but being a street driver for so many years and being screwed by dispatchers, I never got to go to these places much.

This little girl wandered into traffic today and some foolish cab driver stopped to pick her up...She told me that she doesn't eat much, won't keep me up late, and doesn't chew or make much noise....Right....You must be on drugs girl if you think I am going to fall for that...You are OUT at the first chance...You must be kidding..Think I am going to fall for that...

My lease has gone up. Many people think that cab drivers get a salary or a hourly wage. We don't. In fact, we have to pay them for the use of the taxi. After gas and lease whatever is left is our profit. Sometimes the profit is small and it is now getting smaller. Gas went up 5 cents in one day this week. Now I get the bad news.

I have for years been grandfathered in under a lower rate for years of loyal service. They have now changed their mind. $425 a week is now $460. I understand that new guys are now paying $485. They say their expenses have gone up. Bullshit. OUR expenses have gone up. We are reaching the breaking point and I don't mean maybe.

Please remember this folks when you take a cab and we save you from a DUI or something and give us a good tip.

It is interesting that a recent Trib editorial alludes to those who mistakenly believe the real issue is the fact that Orlando is "getting a commuter rail network", in the controversial CSX story. That's sure not TR!

I want to preface this by saying that I love the Florida Studies Program at USF St. Petersburg, and this little tale should in no way reflect negatively upon it.

I do, however, have a very different word for a certain other program at USF.

See, I've gone on a few excursions with FSP this semester. I spent a weekend at Fisheating Creek, playing with wild hogs and battling water lettuce. I went to North Florida and ate Apalachicola oysters. I had a great time and had absolutely no reason to believe this trip would be any different.

I should have realized the potential for problems when I realized that this trip was organized somewhat outside the program.

We were supposed to leave Friday morning, sail to Cabbage Key, and come home early Tuesday morning. All for $120, which included most of the meals. Sounds fantastic, right? I agree. So much so that I talked two of my friends into signing up for the undergraduate section of the class.

Well, Friday dawned windy and cold, so they (and I'm carefully leaving out references to who "they" are) postponed the trip for a day. Saturday rolls around and I head down to the docks. Still windy but we're leaving. As we're about to push off, I ask about our itinerary. I mean, we lost a day, so how are we going to get to Cabbage Key?

That's when I should have run screaming, because the answer indicated that we didn't really have a plan. Now, I am the master of no plans, love not having a plan, don't really believe in them. But I long ago accepted that the majority of the world is not like me, and nine times out of ten when people say they don't have a plan, they're full of shit. When they say they don't have a plan it actually means one of two things: they're lying or they have no clue what they're doing. Both of these things differ DRAMATICALLY from not having a plan.

So we shove off and leave the harbor... and encounter gusts to 38 knots. We sail on, the dinghy flying behind us. Yes, flying. Little windy. No biggie to me but when I start to get wet I know we're in trouble. Not because we're going to sink but because I suspect we'll have to stop soon. Which we do, at the Holiday Inn Sunspree by the Sunshine Skyway. It's 12:30 in the afternoon. Our captain announces we're going to dock here for the evening.

I, at this point, do the only logical thing and call a friend to come get me after a few hours. I mean, I'm 15 minutes from my house and I have no desire to crowd in with eight other people on a boat that sleeps six. Oh, yes, did I not mention that? Yeah, it was a little crowded.

The captain says we'll shove off "at first light", which we work out means 8 a.m., so I return at 8 a.m. and he's nowhere near ready to go. By way of excuse he blames the time change. Now I ask you... do you need to have your watch set properly to know when it's light out?

We leave shortly before 11, and I realize we're not going far but I still cling to foolish hope that we'll make, oh, I don't know, someplace south of Anna Maria. It takes us almost four hours to get from the Skyway to Egmont Key, during which time several people (not including me) start to puke. Here's where it gets interesting.

One woman also pees while puking. All over the cockpit. Lovely. Delightful. When we dinghy into Egmont Key on a dinghy with a motor that no one apparently tested before we left the dock - it keeps dying and we have to paddle to shore- she lies down in the sand and proceeds to tell me about it. She does not change her pants; you can see the stain on them.

So you can understand why, when we left Egmont at 5 and our captain asks us if we want to stay at a marina or at anchor, the majority of people who paid for the trip say a marina. I desperately do not want to spend the night on a boat that someone has peed all over and no one has hosed off. Also, a lot of people are fairly queasy and say they'd like to at least eat on solid ground. The captain tells me that if I can find a marina at Anna Maria or close to it on my iPhone we'll dock at it. Not sure how that became my responsibility, but whatever.

So I find one and he tells me there isn't enough daylight to try and find it. OH-kay. I mean, we have three hours until sunset and a nice wind, but whatever. At this point I'm ready to kill them all, because all I've heard for the past day at sea is how quiet it is out on the water. Over and over. Loudly. Three people at a time competing to say it the loudest.

"Gee, it's so QUIET out here!"

"I KNOW!!! THERE'S NO NOISE! IT'S GREAT!"

"I LOVE IT! YOU KNOW, NONE OF THAT CONSTANT BABBLE!"


Are you fucking kidding me?

This continues until I'm about to wrap the lot of them in the storm jib and throw them overboard. It's a 37' boat; there's nowhere I can go to escape them. I briefly entertain the idea of swimming for shore or staging an all-out mutiny - I think enough people want to bail out at this point that we can take the boat - but Peepee Pants (who still hasn't changed, by the way) is on the side of the "GOSH, it's so QUIET" crew, and she's a big woman and as annoyed as I am I don't have the rage to take her.

We drop anchor by Emerson Point on the Manatee, but only after we head up into the Manatee and I actually overhear the captain ask "Are we on the Manatee now?"

And then the next morning I realize he and the professor are meeting up with friends who have dropped anchor on the same stretch of river. Gee, maybe that explains why we "didn't have enough daylight" to go anywhere other than the river.

We sail back the next day and, because SOMEONE'S hell bent on sailing, it takes us five hours to get from the bay pier at Fort DeSoto to the harbor at USF. At one point our speed over the ground as a half a knot. For those of you playing the home game, no, we hadn't hosed the piss off the boat yet.

BONUS: As we're about to cruise under the Skyway (OK, it was actually a 90 minute sail away, but we were physically very close to it), I went and got my camera. And dropped it. It bounced off the deck and, you guessed it, into the drink. We retrieved it and I'm guessing saltwater won't hurt a digital camera, right?

Oh.

Isn't that just slap you in the ass fantastic? I blow $120 on a cruise to Egmont Key (why take the $20 ferry when you can spend six times that?) AND I lose an $800 camera to the sea.

Look, I know this sounds whiny and bitchy, but here's my point: $120 was a great deal to get to Cabbage Key, a place I've never visited. But when the plans changed I wasn't given the option of a refund. No, I get the option of a sunset sail one night. Around Tampa Bay. Um, dude, I don't know if you realize this, but we live on a peninsula on a peninsula. I've been in Tampa Bay before. I can get out there anytime I want. I can't get to Cabbage Key as easily. How about delivering what you promised?

I'm all in favor of sailing. I love boats, sailboats more than any other kind. But NOT when they become a floating party where you're lured on board for one reason and once your money is a distant memory the game changes. Lesson learned: never sail with strangers, not even for class credit.

So, to recap:

1. Egmont Key, not Cabbage Key.
2. A night at a Holiday Inn by my house, not at Longboat Key.
3. A night anchored by liveaboards who didn't appear able to sail or motor anywhere instead of at Cabbage Key so the captain and the teacher could catch up with a friend. Gosh, isn't he scenery beautiful? Look, we're anchored around the very people who give boaters a bad rap. Let's blend in...
4. Pee in the cockpit for the last 36 hours of the cruise.
5. Camera all gone.

Let's do that again.

Old Seminole Heights 1920's Speakeasy Porch Party

15 March 2008, 7pm

5310 N. Branch Ave

We are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the end of Prohibition by having a 1920's Speakeasy themed party, to include roulette, blackjack and poker tables. A stack of chips is $5 to play. 1920-30's clothing is optional but encouraged. Don't forget to bring a dish and a drink.

Find out about events like this even sooner!

Jim Cramer suffers from bipolar disorder. See what happens when he is off his meds.