Daily Loaf

Every now and then in class, I mention “the library” and look out to see rows of blank faces. Time to explain myself again.

“It’s like the Internet, only it’s printed out,” I tell my students. “It’s this big building across campus . . . surely you’ve seen it? Has a million or so books?”

Blank stares again. “Books! You know, sort of like a blog that’s been printed out?”

There are a couple of Florida writers, longtime bloggers, whose work has now been preserved the old fashioned way: in books. It’s probably not much different than the old days when writers serialized their work in popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s.

But for a semi-old fashioned guy like me, it’s so much handier – and more handsome – to tote around books, rather than carrying a laptop. Because this is the kind of writing you want to read aloud to friends and a book is a lot easier than saying, “Hey, hang on. As soon as I open my laptop and link to the network and type in the URL, I got some really funny shit for you.”

In this case, the really funny shit comes from two Florida writers, both in their early 40s, with connections to the Bay Area – Lance Carbuncle from Tampa and Patrick Hughes (at left, in his younger days) from Gainesville by way of (long ago) Tarpon Springs.

Let’s start with Hughes, because his wonderful book, Diary of Indignities (MPress Books, $14.95) has been out for some time.

It’s basically his life story, from his blog, Bad News Hughes. He’s since put that blog into hibernation and now maintains The Domesticated Shithead. The change reflects Hughes’s life, so his Diary is sort of like Pat Hughes: The Early Years. Indeed, from the cover —  a disturbing photobooth portrait of Hughes at 8 (an estimate) — we see the whole catastrophe of his life laid bare.

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Super Bowl Weekend at Jackson’s Bistro: “Leather and Laces”
Carmen Electra, Jenny McCarthy and Kim Kardashian (left to right in the photo) co-host this Super Bowl kickoff bash at Jackson’s Bistro, Harbour Island’s high-end pickup joint. There’ll be live entertainment by Cirque USA performers and spins by celebrity DJ Tendaji Lathan, with proceeds to benefit Generation Rescue, an autism research and treatment advocacy organization headed by McCarthy. Admission is $275 general/$550 VIP (includes passed sushi and hors d’oeuvres). And since it’s for charity, you can write it off.
601 S. Harbour Island Blvd., Tampa, Fri., Jan. 30, 9 p.m.-3 a.m., 813-265-1234, leatherandlaces.com.

Pepsi Música Super Bowl Fiesta The second of two Pepsi-hosted concerts at Ford Amphitheatre (last night’s rain-soaked Rihanna bash was the first), the Friday Fiesta features Enrique Iglesias and Belanova. The concert will be taped to air on Telemundo Sat., Jan. 31. Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m. Ford Amphitheatre, 4802 U.S. 301 N., Tampa, $20- $45 per concert, nfl.com/pepsismash.

Lights On Tampa 2009: This weekend’s your last chance to check out the installations in Tampa’s  illuminating public art display.

King Hedley II and Picasso at the Lapin Agile: Two good reasons to get out and see a show tonight, the former at American Stage and the latter at Jobsite Theater. The acting in both productions won raves from CL theater critic Mark E. Leib. Check out our ArtsSpeak interview with Hedley star Postell Pringle, aka Playboy X.

Tim Dorsey: Safeguarding our region’s reputation as a mecca for wack jobs and illicit entertainments, Tim Dorsey’s Nuclear Jellyfish brings us another installment in the hilarious adventures of everyone’s favorite serial killer, Serge A. Storms, and his stoner pal Coleman. Dorsey reads from his new novel twice today, first at Haslam’s Book Store in St. Pete at 4 p.m., then at Skipper’s in Tampa at 7:30.

Seems the older we get, the more we fuck up. We stop doing the stuff that got us here.

For one thing, we stop asking questions because we fear people will think we’re stupid or that we will come off as uncool. But the result is that we grow dumber because by not asking questions, we’ve atrophied as learners.

Same goes  with reading. Remember when you were a kid and you used to read at the table after dinner each night? OK, so maybe you didn’t do that. My son Jack, a well-read boy of 6, entertains us with a book a night aloud.

Once a year, we go off to a remote cabin in a state park, freed from the bonds of television and video games. All of us – husband, wife, four small spawn – amuse ourselves with murmuring radio and reading aloud. We’ve done a couple of Harry Potter books that way and those sorts of memories will never fade.

But in your everyday life – do you ever read aloud? Are you worried about that “uncool” stuff? You’ve got to get over that. The best part about aging is no longer giving a shit about trying to be cool.

I used to keep English Romantic Poets by Marius Bewley (Modern Library, out of print) in my bedside table. I’d occasionally serenade a guest with one of Wordsworth’s Lucy poems or even Leigh Hunt’s “Jenny Kissed Me” (I’m such a sentimental swine).

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