Blurbex

In addition to volunteering at public and community radio outlets as I wrote about in last week’s issue, I also got some (intelligent) TV in there, too. A year ago I volunteered with the folks at WEDU (they’re always in need of a few dedicated interns), where I delivered coffee and talk to Phyllis Busansky and listened to Ernest Hooper tell me why I (of the generation of non-newspaper readers) need to read the TBT*. (Insert clever jab at shitty paper here.)

Not that I even own a TV (or have time to watch with all my jobs), but when I do have some spare time, I am all about C-SPAN.org. You can watch archived programs and stream all three channels live 24/7.

Who needs canned/framed news when you can watch the rawness of politicos in action? Who needs grad school when you can watch the hip-hop summit and Bill Moyers delivering the keynote address at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Convention? I eat this stuff up! The exchange of information is awesome â€â€� back in May I watched a discussion between TNR’s Jon Cohn and the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon, both of whom authored books earlier this year on health-care reform (I got a little story out of that, too.)

When I got word that C-SPAN’s Book TV Bus was coming to the St. Pete Times’ Festival of Reading, I was so there. I sent off an e-mail to the general info address and a week later got a call from a C-SPANner. Sweet Jesus, it was like speaking to God/Brian Lamb.

So I spent a few hours in front of the bus handing out tote bags and informing St. Petersburgers on the joys of C-SPAN Book TV. Surprisingly (or not), people under 53 have no idea what the heck C-SPAN is. I was happy to fill them in on its wonders. One passerby, a woman, 30-ish like me, had her hubby and two small children in tow. She took one of each of the brochures and signed up on all the mailing lists. I could see in her my sister-in-C-SPAN-obsession. I asked her to explain her love and she couldn’t, but I understood – there just aren’t enough words. Her husband rolled his eyes and continued pushing the baby carriage along as she and I winked our goodbyes.

Afterward, I headed home to pack. This is my last week at CL. I’m moving up north in search of ways to get paid for my public radio and TV fanaticism. Tampa Bay has been so good to me â€â€� I leave with an awesome resume, empty pockets and much love.

Eat, drink and be merry.

Blackwater has half-learned Ben Franklin’s saying, “In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.�

With the whole global warming crisis thing, Floridians will need to eat their broccoli now more than ever before.

Ever feel like whacking a big, fat media conglomerate?

Edwards tells Bill Maher how “way not romantic� life is on the campaign trail and sends a love letter to Bill O’Reilly.

Who says you can’t have a partial birth, um, adoption in Missouri?

Remember that study a while back that said old people still get it on? They could have just asked the 84-year-old woman who was shtupping the 24 year old dude…

Channelside’s attempt to Save the Arts (a fundraiser for Visual Arts for Students with Disabilities, the Education Channel and Gala Corina) this weekend looks to be a success. Adam Rose, the event’s creator and GM of Channelside IMAX, put the attendance at around 4000 throughout the day and the estimated net (from a Bennigan’s donation and StA T-shirt sales) at $8,000. He also pointed out that several groups approached him to make the event an annual occurrence, and plans are in the works to absorb the film festival of the newly impoverished Ed Channel into the next StA. (Their Independent’s Film Festival, which happened in September, screened at Channelside.)

Michael Mendolusky with dancing baby Olivia and Nikki Ferraro (d’Visitors lead singer) come to see Jay Giroux beautify an old CL box.

The locale, however, was less than ideal. On Saturday night Channelside was the eye of a meat market hurricane � frat boys and hot chicks swirled about as funky models and out-of-place creative types descended on the downtown Tampa nightspot. It was hard to tell if people were there for the arts, or because Channelside was their usual game. Auditorium frontman (and fellow Creative Loafer) Joran Oppelt, a self-proclaimed “jaded, bitter musician,� played late in the evening and couldn’t argue with the good attendance numbers. “At least there were people there,� he said. “[It was] smarter than doing it at a theatre and no one showing up.� But if the bodies aren’t paying attention, is art really being saved?

After watching the fashion show by Aleka Phoenix, Ivanka Ska, and (2007 Best of the Bay’s best designer) Ben Chmura, I literally had to run to Tampa Theatre (well, you know, park then run) to catch the screening of Itty Bitty Titty Committee at the second-to-last night of the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (just renamed the Clip Film Festival, by the way; their new logo will be unveiled early next year). The screening brought out between 700-800 people, mostly women.

Itty Bitty Titty Committee (directed by Jamie Babbit) is the first production of Power Up, a professional organization that promotes the visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment, the arts and all forms of media. The film, which proved a good counterpoint to StA’s skinny-thigh-dominated fashion show, follows the CIA (Clits in Action) as they tag L.A. plastic surgery clinics with slogans such as, “Women come in all shapes.� Interesting, since in this Hollywood-produced film most of the leads are as bite-sized as their mainstream counterparts. The character’s MO is “reclaiming public space for women,� even if many of them are vaguely (or completely) unaware of the effects of the societal demands on women’s lives. But it’s the thought that counts … right?

Pass the celery stalks, please.

This afternoon for lunch I stopped into my favorite beans-and-rice place in downtown Tampa, priced just right for young alt weekly writer-types.

After I parked and was exiting my vehicle, I faced a moral dilemma. Upon spotting an empty Tupperware container on the passenger seat, I thought I could bring it in with me instead of getting the Styrofoam take out container. But the part of me that occasionally abides by the mores of society overruled that thought, and it was left in the car.

When asked by the pretty cashier with the Jamaican accent if I wanted a bag for the box, however, my inner environmentalist saw an opportune time to out herself. I declined the bag and she asked why, a little astonished.

I explained I thought the bag was unnecessary � it wasn’t as if I was taking out anything spillable. I read just this morning that it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down in a landfill and that earlier this year the entire city of San Francisco banned plastic bags altogether.

I wished aloud that Tampa would do the same, seeing as with almost everything else, we’re at least 10 years behind the rest of the country. Again, she had a look of astonishment and said she had no idea about all this stuff, adding that I should be the person to get the ball rolling.

Hmm…but how to educate and make others listen, care, etc.?

Some things I’ve already noticed in this vein: Pinellas County has dog-walking stations around town with biodegradable poo bags. Why not pay a few pennies more for non-plastic grocery bags that we use once that won’t hang out for the next millennium? And am I the only one who sees the pointlessness in buying plastic garbage bags? It’s literally throwing one’s money away.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Looking for a new best friend? Dunedin Doggie Rescue, which I did a Curiouser on earlier this year, is just one of many local dog rescue groups sheltering many animals in need of homes.

If funky mutts aren’t for you, many rescue organizations specialize in certain breeds, like Greyhounds and Dalmatians. Dachshunds will be invading David Island this Saturday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Michael Vick-types need not apply.

Dan Mathews is the Vice President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the man responsible for the “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur� campaign. He stopped by the offices of Creative Loafing this morning to chat about his book, Committed: A Rabbel-Rouser’s Memoir.

The most obvious question to me was the way celebrities adopt causes like Angelina Jolie adopts babies. I had to ask which celeb was a flip flopper on animal rights. To my surprise, he only had one.
“Naomi Campbell. She thought we were the coolest thing to come along, but when her career faltered, she went back on her word. She’s a glaring example of someone greedy.�

Otherwise supermodels and actors have stuck by PETA and were a stepping stone into the world of fashion. Mathews, a former model himself, explained that engaging designers behind the scenes was more important than the passing era of supermodels. The designers were the ones after all making the decisions about whether or not to include fur in their collections. “PETA’s about keeping an eye on what people are paying attention to,� Mathews says. “Like fashion.�

Just last week Mathews was invited by the Liz Claiborne Company, which sells a high quantity of leather shoes and bags, to do a presentation to the staff. He says it was “a great sign of things to come. 15 years ago the only way to get attention was to take over their office. Now we get invited in. Most of the time.�

Committed spills the details of Mathews’ numerous times behind bars, among them for protesting without a permit in Harvard Square in his drawers for a “fur-out, love-in� in a mock bed with four other activists.

“Part of the point of the book is that you can devote your life to a cause without becoming a total bore. You can do serious work and still have a good time,� says Mathews. He’s learned that people want entertainment, not education. An energetic, mostly in-house team comes up with PETA’s campaigns with creativity that rivals any Madison Avenue advertising execs. They know they have to compete for attention with cable TV, celebrity headlines and myriad other distractions to get people to pay attention.

Which is why Mathews and PETA are so successful at reaching out to youth around the world. PETA2.com has a few hundred thousand street-teamers. At PETATV.com, pop star Pink narrates a video on wool. Mathews says of the video: “Most people don’t want to watch a sheep being mutilated. But her loyal fanbase will.�

Mathews is ever optimistic and only let defeat creep into conversation once. He says PETA focuses primarily on reaching the younger generations because breaking habits of someone who’s eaten a steak a week for the last 50 years is nearly impossible. “I ask the kids to look at how unhealthy their grandparents are and if they want to end up like that,� he says.

Dan Mathews will do a book reading and signing Tuesday night at 7 p. m. at Barnes & Noble, 11802 N. Dale Mabry, in Tampa at 7:00 PM.

How old must a female be before she is referred to as a woman and not as a girl? In a story on Chelsea Clinton in today’s New York Times, loyal Clinton supporter John Catsimatidis calls the 27-year old former first daughter a “very talented girl.�

This caused me to put the paper down, look over to several co-workers, three males and one female in their 20’s and early 30’s, and ask if they think referring to a female adult as a ‘girl’ is as inappropriate as I do.

The other woman in the conversation said it didn’t bother her. The three men in the conversation didn’t get my side at all.

“You mean, if I went up to you at a party and said, ‘Hey girl!’ you’d be offended?� one male coworker asked.

Would you if I called you a boy? What about our 21-year old male intern?

“No way! That’s an insult.�

Why the difference? The men offered it’s because there’s no female equivalent to the term ‘guy.’ I argued guy could be male or female, but still, what did that have to do with calling a woman a girl?

I also argue that this is not about my being offended or my female coworker being indifferent, rather it’s about society being so unaware of this inequality that ‘girl’ is a mainstay in our acceptable language.

Dictionary.com defines girl as: 1. a female child from birth to full growth and 2. a young, immature woman, esp. formerly, an unmarried one.

For years, I have been a one-woman force trying to even things out. I’ve always used the term ‘boy’ when referring to any man I’m romantically involved with who pisses me off, as in “Boys are dumb.�

Conversely, I also use ‘boy’ as a term of endearment for guys I like, as in, “Wow, that George Clooney. He’s the cutest boy ever.� That no doubt stems from growing up on Sassy’s Cute Boy Alert.

The deal is, I’ll grow out of my immature teenage ways of referring to men as boys when society grows out of calling women girls.

ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz and Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran â€â€� veteran Iraq War correspondents with recently published books about their experiences â€â€� joined about 200 people who braved an afternoon downpour at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg Saturday.

The crowd paid $25 apiece to attend the lecture series, which was held theater-in-the-round style.

Chandrasekaran’s book, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” writes of the heavily protected Green Zone, the place where non-military government administrators stay while in Iraq. He called the Zone a bit of “D.C. on the Tigris” and a “bubble” where civilians make decisions for the U.S. military, often without communicating with them.

In early 2004, for example, American administrators signed a decree against Muqtada Al Sadr, a popular cleric supported by the majority of Iraqis in Sadr City, a Baghdad slum home to 2.5 million people. They shut down Sadr’s newspaper, prompting massive protests. To that point, only one American had died in Sadr City in the previous 12 months. After the decree, guerrilla warfare broke out. One night in March 2004, an American armored vehicle was pinned down in an alley in Sadr City, and the 1st Calvary, in open trucks, was sent in to make the rescue. 8 men died and 70 were wounded in that operation.

(more…)

Many terrific benefits and shows are going on this weekend, among them Lorna Bracewell’s On This Earth, a concert series she started a while back to raise money for various local causes.

On This Earth, tomorrow night at Ruth Eckerd Hall, will feature Bracewell, her cute wife Lexi Pierson, Rebekah Pulley and Geri X.

Pulley was a guest on my early Monday morning radio show on WMNF, which can be streamed until this Monday morning. My guest host for 7/30 is Flashpoint-er Brendan McLaughlin. (Yes, it’s already been recorded and no, Wayne Garcia was not allowed in the studio.)

Speaking of PoHo, he’ll be on Rob Lorei’s Florida This Week on WEDU tonight at 8:30 along with Patrick Manteiga, Mary Anne Stiles and Andrew Skerritt.

And if that’s not enough reporters in one room for you, stop by St. Pete’s Poynter Institute Saturday afternoon from 1-3 for a conversation with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz and Washington Post assistant managing editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Both have recently written books on the war in Iraq.

Ah, I love how big business takes care of the little guys.

Who cares if it’s safe? “It still sells,� said an employee of the biggest child-care car seat manufacturer in the U.S.

According to Oprah, “doctors found that men who stopped smoking experienced a rise in sperm count of up to 800%!� Conversely, guys who stopped drinking stopped knocking up ugly Betties 2000%.

Also for those trying to get preggie, a study says many home cleansers are linked to fertility problems, especially because the mood kinda gets lost when watching ones’ spouse on bended knee scrubbing the toilet.

This underdog is barely back from a brief retirement – and is not only already in trouble â€â€� but ready to upset the champ.

That’s so gay! Almost. Well, depending how you look at it. OK, uh, maybe not.

Steven Spielberg wrote a letter to Chinese president Hu Jintao to put the smack down in Darfur, reasoning that the Sudanese oil that fuels China’s economy is like “pocket change compared to what you’ve made off of pirated DVD copies of E.T and Indiana Jones.� (I paraphrased there just a bit.)

The headline: Republicans Like Giuliani’s Electability. The story: They hate him for everything else.

“I’m not a child, Madam. I’m a midget with bad habits!” — from the 1966 film The Trouble with Angels.

After being held in Libya for eight years, the Bulgarian medical staff accused of intentionally giving Libyan children H.I.V. are freed.

Then there are those adventurous Americans trying hard to get into Libya…

Adults really should pay more attention to what their kids have to say.

On the other hand, let’s not forget Lord of the Flies.

Speaking of reading, an old Atlanta CL article popped up on digg.com this weekend. Proceed with caution!

“It may only be a matter of time before bloggers start to have a major influence in local politics and policymaking.�

LL Rocks. Make that powder.

“In the morning I’d awake and couldn’t remember/What is love and what is hate?” –The Flaming Lips, “In the Morning of the Magicians”

Senator Robert C. Byrd, wearing a tie with puppies on it, chews Michael Vick on the floor of the House like a beef-flavored rawhide.

Daniel Radcliff speaking about his 18th birthday today: “I just think I’m going to be more sort of fair game.” Mrs. Robinsons, start your engines.

Ad-libbing journalist pulls number out of ass.

Upon discovering larvae living under her husband’s skin, a devoted wife says: “I will love you through your maggots.”

Hip-hop and theology: as long as it sounds better than Christian rock.

Boy’s Don’t Cry, unless “breaking with the party line and movingly acknowledging the real costs of this war.”

Last night in a 60 Minutes interview updated from February, Anderson Cooper lets Kenny Chesney tell the world he’s still not gay as they hang out in an alley behind a bar.

“The HIV epidemic is essentially uncontrolled” in Africa and Asia due to unavailability to condoms and sterile syringes. It’s a good thing we’ve got abstinence, abstinence and abstinence being taught in our schools.

Net radio hasn’t been saved yet, but its demise won’t be Monday, according to Wired.com.

Because negotiations are under way between SoundExchange (the nonprofit offshoot of the RIAA that collects royalties from digital media), payment has been postponed until an agreement has been worked out. This gives Congress time to work on passing the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Also, the House Small Business Committee yesterday introduced H.R. 3015, which gives small webcasters a 60-day grace period before SoundExchange can send their collection agencies a’knockin.

Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez said of the bill: “There has not yet been an agreement reached that provides fair compensation to artists while allowing broadcasters to stay on the air without excessive fees.”

The lights, the sweat, the ripping off of numerous shirts.

OK, maybe only two shirts, which he then hurled into the front rows and hipsters in cute glasses fought to the death to score a thread..

I may have heard three Morrissey/Smiths songs in my life. I blame growing up in suburban Jersey, where before the Internet permeated our way of living, and one had to be 17 before they could drive away from the neighborhoods where only three styles of houses existed.

Other than the occasional Cameron Crowe flick or a Sassy or Spin magazine, I had no insight into the music world, no older sister to take me to an all-ages show, no one to rescue me from Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.

In the early-to mid 90s, conglomeration had already began its take-over of Philadelphia radio stations, but there were a few that still struggled to expose kids to music that would grant them worthwhile glances back upon their adolescence. Such stations allowed my ears to hear Sarah McLachlan, Morrissey and Bjork for the first time, but vanished as quickly as the obsessed emo-kids who rushed the stage at last night’s show.

Since I’ve been in Tampa, I’ve happily paid 3-9 bucks on any given night to patronize a variety of local venues for great original local bands to entertain me. I’m making up for lost time, doing the stuff I wish I had gotten to do when I was a young one.

So it’s not like me to shell out to see a big name, but that I did last night, under the influence of a friend. We watched the sun set as we drove from Tampa to Ruth Eckerd Hall, getting to our seats in the 10th row just before the lights went down for the incorrigible Englishman to take the stage.

My inexperience and musical ineptitude has sheltered me from the artist. I always passed him over as someone my gay boyfriends couldn’t get enough of. But there I stood with my straight ex-boyfriend, who grew up on Moz’s stuff. As did the 19-year-old hipster behind us and the yuppie middle-aged couple making out in front of us.

After a few songs, I had gotten used to his pomp and showy theatrics and started paying attention to his lyrics, which are poetry. (more…)

Even though lots of unlucky Americans have suffered harshly at the hands of the U.S. health care system, few have done much more than complain about what’s been happening. It’s not just the poor and unemployed who lack quality care; employers aren’t required to give their employees health care, thus many don’t. The uninsured then have to deal with private insurance companies on their own and hope for the best. Ever chase a rainbow to the leprechaun? Promises, promises with very little return.

As someone said in Michael Moore’s latest flick Sicko, the health care industry is not only allowing people to fall into the cracks, but it’s creating new cracks and sweeping people into them. In honor of the movie, I reported on how this affects us here in Tampa Bay (including my own personal sobby medical tale) in Creative Loafing’s latest cover story (at newsstands and online 6.27.07).

I saw a sneak peek of Moore’s film last Saturday in Sarasota, then stood outside the theater with a microphone asking people what they thought. After 6 or so hours of cutting it all down into a neat little package, it played last night on WMNF’s Evening News. (If the sound file is not active yet, it will be shortly. It will also be available on Creative Loafing’s website mid-Wednesday.)

As I began my journey into the cave known as the U.S. health care system, I started with a book called Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis—and the People Who Pay the Price by Johnathan Cohn (a Senior Editor at The New Republic). Through stories of people who battled both illness and the broken system, Sick goes briefly through the history of health care up to its myriad current problems.

My friend and co-volunteer at WMNF Arielle I’m-the-only-17-year-old-with-Jim-Davis’-press-secretary’s-number-in-my-cell-phone Stevenson read the book Healthy Competition. It advocates less taxes going into the defunct health care system and less government regulation on insurance companies. Author Michael Cannon (Director of Health Care Studies, The Cato Institute) believes the result will be a more competitive market where citizens have ample choices to purchase the insurance that they want.

Arielle and I interviewed our respective authors and the interviews will be on the WMNF Evening News later this week as well as available for podcast on Creative Loafing’s website.

Reporting about the health care crisis is the oddest health kick I’ve ever been on.

As is the case with most books-to-film, the movie version can only encompass so much. A Mighty Heart (which opens today), is as sentimental as one might suspect, though of course the best details of the story are left within the pages of Mariane’s book. In the film version, Mrs. Pearl has many flashbacks of sweet moments spent with her husband as she works with the authorities to locate Danny.

The book has more of those moments, as well as Danny’s OCD habit of keeping lists on what he loves about the world and his wife, and a detailed memo to his bosses’ at the WSJ on the protection of journalists in hot zones, written after he returned from the Balkans in late 1999. It was very Jerry Maguire “mission statement,â€Â� only while Maguire’s memo got him fired, Danny’s was simply ignored. His back up plan was the constant communication he kept with his wife, and her intuition was the alarm that went off the minute he was late for dinner the last night she ever saw him.

Mariane is Buddhist and Danny Jewish, but both believe in truth above all else. She wrote, “We believe we can change the world by changing the way people think about one another.� Thus the reason they traveled around the world in search of stories to tell to anyone willing to read them.

In 2002, former colleague and friend Helene Cooper edited a book of Danny’s top 50 stories from the Journal, At Home in the World. It’s a terrific way to get to know the man through his work, and see how he took in the world and gave it back to us. A Mighty Heart, on the other hand, is the story of how he loved a woman and how that love made this world a better place for us all.

Wayne is out for the next week and the kids are running amok… 

This one’s for the dogs: The ASPCA reports that some 30K animals euthanized in Hillsborough each year could be saved if animal shelters improved a few policies.

Tyra Banks a “dork?” Doubtful. Now this guy’s got it in the bag.

Between this and the two minute bedroom “cycle,” what ever will we do with all our spare time?

Frampton comes alive at Taste of Pinellas (with proceeds to benefit All
Children’s Hospital).

Lock up your grandma! Dr. Death is a free man once again.

A real canceled TV show about a fictional struggling TV show airs its last five episodes, in which the fictional show-within-a-show is facing cancellation. To keep your head from exploding, Jay Black of TV Squad offers an explanation.

“I need a Whopper. Take me to the Burger King or I’ll shoot you in the face
with my B.B. Gun!”

Things are getting very Harry at Universal Orlando.

So much was wrong with the latest feature in “Encounters,� the St. Petersburg Times’ “small but meaningful� feature series, starting with its being on the front page of this morning’s paper.

I like learning more about the love bugs. They affect everyone and everything. I plan my day around avoiding them. So I appreciate the effort staff writer Amber Mobley made in getting the knowledge out there.

But using it to rant about the downside of being a singleton? Lame, lame, lame. She claims, “Love bug courtship is like your own experience with mating. Cold, brief and impersonal.� Please. Speak for yourself. Better yet, come to a girls night out with the CL staff and we’ll introduce you to some quality hotties.

The story was full of painful dating clichés. But Mobley’s biggest mistake was giving into the stereotype that promiscuity in females is “dirty,� while the Casanova status of males is okay, referring to the female bugs as “hoochies� while the males bugs got to be “lusty lovers.�

I’m an advocate for reciprocation and prefer equal opportunity love fests, such as that offered by Salon.com on the hotness of Hugh Laurie. The story may have knotted the boxers of some male readers, but the ladies had a rare chance to completely objectify this fine specimen of man for his mind and body. I concur. We can play doctor anytime.

Last night at Tampa Theatre, a panel spoke after the screening of USA vs. Al-Arian. No-last-name Ron, a juror from the trial that found Al-Arian not guilty on all eight counts, talked about the “just for show” security measures that were put in place during the trial. “From who? It was made to look like something large.”

Anyone new to Tampa in 2005, like I was, would have been led to believe
danger abounded. It was a time when fear permeated the air of our country, like a Dixie Chicks tune wafting out of the radio. Or not.

Now thoroughly rooted in this community, I was eager to find out more about the case. I knew it would be from the family’s perspective, but that was the one side I had yet to hear from.

I ran into Amber, a young Muslim woman and former colleague from Americorps in 2006. She was with her friend Maryam, who I profiled in my day-in-the-life-of column Curiouser earlier this year. Plenty of WMNF folk were there, including Rob Lorei, who led the panel, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations‘ Ahmed Bedier, who was jovial throughout the evening. People I knew from being active and aware in the community.

When Bedier introduced the “Dream Team” of lawyers who represented Al-Arian
and the three other co-defendants, he laughed, saying, “These are the people you want representing you if you are accused of being a terrorist.”

Bedier pointed out that the legal team and most of last nights’ audience were not Muslim (one lawyer was Jewish) but all “believe in the American
system.”

When the Q&A opened, the first questioner asked if any one of us can be
treated the way Al-Arian has been (found not guilty, imprisoned anyway,
etc.).

Al-Arian attorney Linda Moreno answered that this story is a cautionary tale. “We are all at risk. We need to care about our civil rights. We need to pay attention.”

James McFarland, a native of Chicago, watched the guys he played shows/had neighborhood barbeques with get famous (Billy Corgan, Liz Phair, UO) when one morning he rolled over to find the ’90’s nearly gone. He needed fresh air.

In late ’99, he threw a dart at a map and moved to St. Pete. In a few years, he’d become one of the most revered songwriters in the Bay area, but at this point, he had yet to play one of his own songs in public.

In Chicago, McFarland played bass in several types of bands, from a goth group to a Bossanova-laced rock outfit called Butter that was fronted by San Paulo, Brazil’s Ruth Varella. She encouraged McFarland to sing backup but he declined, saying she was just too good.

But songwriting always burned in the back of his mind. A couple of months after he moved to the Bay area, he told patrons of an open mic night at Yeoman’s Pub on Davis Island not to throw tomatoes and he gave it a shot. McFarland says he had technical difficulties but he was finally playing his own music, so he kept going. Afterwards, host Ronny Elliott complimented James on his writing. Four years later the two shared a bill at an WMNF tribute show at Skipper’s Smokehouse.

A couple of weeks ago, friends and fans packed the Globe coffeehouse in St. Pete to bid McFarland adieu. He’s leaving in less than two weeks and heading to Portland with his lovely wife to take in and contribute to the Northwest sound he’s always been so fond of.

It’s a good move for his family, he says, but he also hopes it’ll help his career. Yes, he became a well-established name in Tampa’s “off the gridâ€Â� music scene. But he’s never been able to make a living at it. He spent more nights working behind the bar at Café Alma than playing shows or going out to have a beer in support of his friends’ shows.

I recorded an interview with James McFarland for my MNF show, which airs Monday, May 21, from 4 to 6 a.m. on the dial at 88.5 or online at wmnf.org. Don’t worry about waking up early – you can stream it from the archives for up to a week afterwards.

In the meantime, go out and see a local band at your favorite establishment tonight.