Upon pulling in, I noticed that the rows of pumps were really close together. So close, that only one vehicle would fit between them at any one time. Odd layout, I thought. Despite their close proximity to one another, the pumps were shinny and new, and the gas was cheap by local standards ($3.89 a gallon), so I decided to fill up. I had popped out of my car and was digging in my pocket for my wallet when the heavy-set man in the blue workman shirt that cried out “I work on cars!” spoke up:

“May I help you, sir?”

“Um, no thanks. I’m just getting some gas.”

“All our pumps are full serve, sir.”

I was flabbergasted. Had I awoken in the 1950s or in New Jersey? And which one would be worse? (I lean modern-day Jersey, myself.) To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what to do. Do I just stand here? Do I get back into the car?

“You can get back in your car, sir.”

So I did. As I waited, the oddest thing happened: The two attendants cleaned my windows! A small tear may have escaped the corner of my eye, descending down my reddened cheek in recognition of a simpler time, when my grandparents were kings of the world and America was a benevolent superpower drowning in cheap crude.

Tank full, the attendant screwed the gas cap back on, handed me a receipt and sent me on my way with a friendly, “Have a nice day, sir.”

Some quick searching online turned up a story that indicates that Bob Lee has been doing free full serve for some time. I guess they consider it a loss leader, and hope that you check out the new deli while the attendant gases up your whip.

As soon as I drove off, I wondered if I should have tipped the guy. In the end, I decided no. Two reasons: #1. I am an incredibly cheap bastard capable of all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify not spending money, and #2. I was willing to pump the gas myself, and was already out of the car when I leaned of the full serve, so why pay extra? (See: #1.)

I have no idea how long Bob Lee can keep up the double-whammy of full serve and the cheapest gas around, but as long as they do I will keep gassing up from the comfort of the driver’s seat.

You have to hand it to Gotvmail; these are sure to get a ton of play across the Web in the next few days. And for all that publicity, I’m sure they only had to shell out an 8-ball or two.

While the start of Bucs training camp is still 11 days away, it’s never too early to begin strategerizing for Fantasy Football season. This year, a few good sports from CL’s editorial department are itching to take on you, the reader, in our first annual Fantasy Football Challenge. Do you have what it takes to do statistical gridiron battle with us this fall? I doubt it. (Let’s face it: you’re weak and you don’t know your football from your pinball.) But if you are one of the brave souls ready to face the virtual ass-whoopin’ of a lifetime, let me know. Send an e-mail with the subject line “Fantasy Football” to joe.bardi@creativeloafing.com, and I’ll forward you all the details.

There are no prizes, of course. That would be gambling, and we all know gambling is very wrong. (Except when done on sacred Native-American land, cruise ships, foreign countries, or in Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut, Mississippi, etc.) However, we will be featuring breathless coverage of the league on the CL Blogs and at tampa.creativeloafing.com. This is your chance at fantasy gridiron greatness. Don’t screw it up rookie!

(Photo Credit: Nightthree)

For the moment, those of us manning the CL 4000 Weather Center advise you to stay out of the Home Depot, as we have not yet issued our “Buy plywood or die!” advisory notice. However, you should stay tuned to this blog for extremely late-breaking weather news and last rites.

And run for you lives!

(Sorry, the excitement of hurricane season is already getting the better of us.)

When I heard the news this morning that comedian George Carlin had died yesterday at the age of 71 (not bad for a guy with long-term heart problems and a love of cocaine), I was immediately overcome by the urge to stage my own all-day Carlin Comedy Festival. Alas, Carlin’s death has not yet been made a national holiday, so I am instead at my desk attempting to complete this week’s edition of Creative Loafing for your consumption on Wednesday. That’s an odd conundrum for me, since though I wish I wasn’t at work right now, I wouldn’t be sitting here had I not encountered one of Carlin’s HBO specials in the early 80s (when I was far too young and impressionable to be watching late-night cable TV).

The standard boiling-down of Carlin’s career is as follows: Straight-laced nightclub comic transitions to counterculture icon after seeing Lenny Bruce perform, writes “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” and ends up the impetus for a Supreme Court case that resulted from its airing, performed varied acting duties (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Prince of Tides and Mr. Conductor on TV’s Shining Time Station among them), but remained a dedicated stand-up comic to the end. As of last weekend, Carlin was still performing.

Though true, this rundown largely misses the point for me. Before all else, George Carlin was a linguist and a truth-teller, combining these skills to surgically carve up sacred cows and everyday life alike. The love of language runs through Carlin’s work — from stories of riding the NY subways as a kid listening to the multi-culti accents to his deconstruction of the evolution of the term “shell shock” into “post traumatic stress disorder” — and it was this love that most attracted me to his work. To my ear, Carlin’s routines are more musical performance than stand-up comedy routine.

So, in lieu of my Carlin Comedyfest, here (in no particular order) are 5 of my favorite Carlin moments from YouTube:

I Used To Be Irish Catholic

This almost-gentle dissection of the comic’s religious roots struck a chord with me, a Roman Catholic kid who had spent his elementary school years attending St. William The Abbot catholic school in Seaford, New York. Carlin’s routine helped give me the courage to face that nagging feeling I kept having that the adults were all lying to me about this whole religion thing.

Flying On The Airlines

Carlin divided the world into two halves: the big world, the focus of his “serious” political and social commentary, and the little world, comprised of those small moments we all share. One suck small moment: flying on the airlines. Carlin talked about the airlines periodically throughout his career, but distilled his thoughts down to one perfect airline bit for his 1992 special Jammin’ In New York. That special, Carlin’s ’90s comeback after a decade of health troubles and addiction recovery, debuted the comedian’s more angry stage persona (an act he rode to the end). Jammin’ In New York is gold from start to finish.

Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television

Carlin’s Hamlet. A bit so obvious it took a genius to pull it off, Carlin tweaked the Seven Words throughout his career — adding to (and sometimes subtracting from) the list year after year. I saw Carlin perform twice in the late ’90s— at Bally’s in Las Vegas and at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater — and both shows contained some variation on the Seven Words. At the Ruth Eckerd show, I bought a poster of 2400 or so obscene words and phrases as compiled by George Carlin. I still have it and consult it for inspiration more frequently than my mother would like.

Carlin on Driving

I had to include some of Carlin’s material on driving, if for no other reason than I say “Cops didn’t see it, I didn’t do it. I’m gone!” at least twice a day.

The Hippy-Dippy Weather Man

What Carlin list would be complete without a visit from Al Sleet, everyone’s favorite weatherman? Certainly not this one. In fact, here’s a second Al Sleet clip, this time from a 1966 Tonight Show appearance. Note that Johnny almost falls out of his chair.

And, finally, a bonus clip. Here’s Carlin on death:

Have fun with The Big Electron, George. The world is a less interesting place without you in it.

(Photo Credit: Point-Shoot-Edit)

Some of Martin’s rhetoric sounds familiar. Instead of a “creative class,” a la Richard Florida, she speaks glowingly of RenGen — short for Renaissance Generation — a multigenerational group of savvy cultural consumers who “constitute the country’s best chance for continued intellectual and economic relevance as workers.

Martin’s visit to Tampa was part of a national tour sponsored by MetLife Foundation and America for the Arts, and was hosted locally by the Tampa Bay Business Community for the Arts. You can watch Martin’s presentation for yourself in the video window below, or check out Megan’s story on the CL Tampa website.

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Patricia Martin on RenGen (Tampa, 6/10/08) from Art Squeeze on Vimeo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]425/350

Good news: Fans of horrific R&B ballads can breathe easy as pop-pisser R. Kelly is free after a Chicago jury found him not guilty on all 14 charges related to child pornography and a famed sex tape.

Bad news: NBC News icon and Meet the Press host Tim Russert is dead of an apparent heart attack.

Actually, maybe that’s bad news/bad news.

Papa Smurf = Steve Carell in Evan Almighty

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Smurfette = Paris Hilton

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Gargamel = Antonin Scalia

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Grandpa Smurf = Pai Mei

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Handy Smurf = Ty Pennington

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Lazy Smurf = George W. Bush

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Apple honcho Steve Jobs unveiled the electronics giant’s new iPhone 3G yesterday. The second incarnation of the company’s hipster-coveted handset, the iPhone 3G is a little bit thinner (much like Jobs himself), a lot faster (about twice as fast as the first generation iPhone) and now has built-in GPS. All this for a new lower price of $199-$299 depending on how much memory you want. You’re thinking, “where do I line up?”

Not so fast there, Captain MasterCard.

Technology fans have notoriously short memories. Think back to September 2007: Three months after Apple unleashed the original iPhone, they dropped the price by $200. A few (i.e., tens of thousands) of the early iPhone adopters were outraged — outraged!!! — that Apple had taken them for a ride. But that was then. The price of the iPhone 3G has already been cut way down, a smart move by Apple that will halt any “They’re just going to drop the price in a few months” scuttlebutt dead in its tracks.

So, should you buy one when the phone hits the street on July 11? It depends, but probably not.

Along with the iPhone 3G, Apple unveiled the new iTunes App Store. Starting in early July, Apple will upgrade for free both first and second generation iPhones to the new iPhone 2.0 software. (iPod touch users will have to fork over $9.99 for the upgrade.) In addition to refining the Operating System (OS), the new software will allow you to download applications that run natively on the phone. Currently, all third-party programs are Web-based (requiring an Internet connection to work), and have no access to the powerful iPhone OS. These new applications, distributed through the iTunes App Store, will take full advantage of the power of the iPhone. Since almost anyone with the know-how can download Apple’s development software for free and start creating programs, there should be hundreds of desirable programs in very short order. Expect iPhone gaming to take off in a big way right after launch.

But note that while Apple is about to unleash hundreds of programs for you to download, it did not bump the storage options for the phone. There are still only two choices: 8 or 16 gigabytes (GB) of storage. For users that just want a cool phone and don’t really care about the iPod, watching video or using a large number of the new applications the phone will offer, this new iPhone 3G is a winner.

But for people who, you know, actually want to use all the bells and whistles they just plunked down their hard-earned cash for, 16 GB is woefully small. And Apple knows it.

(Author’s note: I have a 16 GB iPod Touch, and it’s a constant battle for me to create enough free space.)

My prediction is that by November (and probably sooner), a 32 GB iPhone 3G will be available. 32 GB is a much more reasonable storage size for a phone that is capable of doing so many things. (iPod fans: Bet on a 64GB iPod Touch before the holidays as well.)

The bottom line: The new iPhone 3G looks great, GPS and 3G are much needed additions, and the App Store is very promising. But the phone will look a lot better in the fall, when you can actually load the phone with all the content your heart desires. Can you hold out that long? Apple is betting you can’t. But what do they know? They’ve only sold millions of phones all over the world and turned the cell phone market on its head — all in less than a year. Jesus phone, indeed.

Good news everyone: You can rest easy, as I have taken one for the team and stopped global warming in its atmosphere-choking tracks. For the first time since I purchased them almost two months ago, I remembered to bring my reusable cloth grocery bags to the store. Please, hold your applause until the end.

(Photo Credit: Heidi K.)

Back when we at CL were prepping our Green Issue, which detailed “100 was to go green right now,” I pitched Bite the bullet and get reusable grocery bags as one of my ideas. Deep thinking, I know. Editor D-dub liked the idea and it made the issue at #21 with a bullet (hopefully produced from recycled metal).

I thought it a bit hypocritical to suggest you buy cloth grocery bags without buying them myself, so in early April my girlfriend and I purchased three bags for $.99 each from our neighborhood Publix. Beaming with the pride of new parents, we brought our bags to the checkout aisle where the clerk noticed that my girlfriend and I were planning to save the world. “Lots of people buying them?” I asked. The clerk said she saw her fair share. “But will three bags be enough to hold what would normally take 10 to 12 plastic bags?” I asked the bagger. He gave me a sly grin, letting me know he took the query as a challenge to his still-burgeoning manhood.

A grocery-bag-Tetris savant, this kid squeezed the cereal box next to the organic half-and-half bracing the boneless chicken breast adjacent the ice cream below the eggs. The items were so tightly packed that one bag shredded along the seam and I had to run and get a replacement.

In the end everything fit, leaving me impressed and self-satisfied. The girlfriend and I drove our selections home, beaming at our contribution to saving the earth. The groceries unpacked, we stowed the bags in a closet by the front door, where they would sit in anticipation of our next grocery run.

And sit they did. Funny thing about saving the world: after the initial surge of civic pride, it pretty much slipped my mind. On my next trip to Publix, I only remembered that reusable bags existed as I was pushing my loaded cart toward the checkout line and encountered them hanging from a sales rack . I’ll remember next time, I thought.

But I didn’t. Or the time after that. After six or seven trips to Publix, the bags became a joke. Hey honey, guess what we forgot? or It’s a good thing we’re so stupid, because if we actually remembered to bring the bags we’d have nothing to pick up the dog’s shit with.

On a trip two weeks ago, I told the cashier that we owned three reusable bags but could never remember to bring them to the store. The clerk laughed and said not to worry, most people forget them in the car. Jesus, some people are fuckin’ stupid.

Last week, I finally remember to bring the bags to Publix — but forgot them in the car! I swore that next time we’d remember the bags.

And thank God for my girlfriend, because last night we were halfway between the apartment and the car when she remembered. I ran back in and grabbed two from the closet (it was a light shopping night), and we proceeded to Publix content in the knowledge that we were doing our part to save planet.

You can thank me later, polar bears.