Tampa Bay Street Team

“Do you have no pride?” asked Natalie Saturday at the State Theatre, questioning my choice of cheap American beer over her Guinness.

“I drink Bud Light as a matter of pride,” I said.  “It tastes like America.”

Obviously she was in need of a serious history refresher.  America was founded on cheap beer. What do you think George Washington was talking about when he penned the lyrics, “amber waves of grain” — the malt and barley used to make delicious golden beer!  Or why do you think the Sons of Liberty dressed up like Indians and dumped ship tons of tea in the harbor during the Boston Tea Party. This wasn’t something sober people would do. These patriots were a bunch of drunken smugglers with a lust for drinking cheap beer, dressing up and destroying shit. And who do you think led these hooligans? The patron saint of all cheap beer drinking Americans: Samuel Adams.

“Alfie!?” called a voice behind me, drawing me away from my lecture on the finer points of American history. I was confronted by two ladies named Hanna and Amy who I wished I had recognized. “We met you last night. You were wearing a cape?” (more…)

After the first round of fruity cocktails the gay jokes flew like rainbow flags. As one of the few non-gay CL staffers marching in the St. Pete Pride Parade, I was the ass of most of their jokes. Byron McMullen told me the bandana trailing from my back pocket (which I had intended for midday sweat collection) was actually a type of gay flag. Turns out that along with rainbows, black leather and Lance Bass, bandanas have been co-opted by the gay community. He directed my confusion to a group of men festooned in piercings, straps of leather and combat boots. I spoke to a man with deeply tanned muscles bulging out of tiny black leather shorts and a sash that read, “Mr. Gay Day Leather 2008.” I figured he was a reliable source. Turns out a bandana hanging out of your back pocket indicates whether you are submissive or dominant, depending on which cheek you wear it on. The colors are also significant: Checkered means safe sex only, yellow is water-sports, black and white mean you are up for anything, and red (the color I was sporting) means you’re into fisting. This wouldn’t have been so troubling had I not already been hit on by a gentleman who insisted on helping me set up the CL tent. And I thought he was just being nice.   

Dykes on Bikes kicked off the parade followed by a fleet of boat floats borrowed from the Gasparilla armory and sufficiently gayified by the likes of the Tampa Bay Bears and men in construction caps. The range of floats was about as diverse as the crowd. Spurs Bar pulled a mobile line dancing stage. Actors from Bath House the Musical wore towels atop a Hummer. My favorite was The ROTC (Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps) in sailor caps and sleeveless shirts who whirled rainbow flags in a routine that climaxed with a burst of rainbow confetti. Creative Loafing rode second to last on a fire engine rigged with long range squirt guns and a roaring siren to drown out the protestors who brought up the rear.

“I’m slightly offended,” CL’s Senior Editor, Eric Snider, confided in me near the end of the parade. (more…)

A stretch limo pulled up to Push Ultra Lounge Thursday with a load full of suits.

“What’s going on tonight?” one of the passengers asked the doorman.

“A reggae show.”

The limo drove away.

Push has quickly become known as the go-to St. Pete venue for cougars on the prowl; professionals who can’t stomach PBRs at “Nastry’s;” dudes wearing suit jackets in the heat of summer; and girls who want to have a wild girls-night-out at some place nice, then end up standing in huddles, straightening ever falling tube tops, and looking for a place to sit and rest their feet that are strapped into heels that are too high.

But like any good club, Push has tried to keep things fresh, especially on Thursday nights with live bands. 

The posh atmosphere was the same as any other night: Bathroom attendants waited with hand towels, and bouncers stood tall in all black as dance lights painted the walls of the club. But, the crowd was anything but usual. It was the kind you’d find at an outdoor music fest or selling hemp jewelry outside Jannus Landing — alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a shock to see bare feet stomping on the Push dance floor. The club itself even switched a few things up to accommodate the reggae clientele. The bar served $2 Coronas and the booths (which are the only places to sit), were not reserved for patrons who bought entire bottles of liquor for what it would cost to start a small religious war.

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“I’m starting to cook more with beer,” said Katie, a chef-in-training and one of the 40 or so people who came to The Retreat Friday for the resurrection of Beer Club.

“I find that I cook more with beer the more beer I’ve had to drink,” I told her. “If I order pizza after a six pack, there’s a good chance I’ll pour beer on the pie, intentionally or otherwise.”

I went on to give Katie a list of other dishes that can benefit from a healthy dose of beer: day-old nachos with three different types of congealed cheese, top-shelf ramen noodles and Cheerios. Of course, the thing that goes best with beer is more beer.

 

“Everyone keeps trying to get more than their share,” said the Pepin pourer — dubbed “The Ticket Nazi” by a group of college kids who dubbed themselves “The Shizer boys.”

The fact was that we wanted people to drink more than four samples of the Michelob Porter, Widmer Hefeweizen, Landshark Lager, and Shock Top, but we wanted them to be creative in earning their extra drink tickets. Next month we’ll test out a rewards system for guys who bring more than two women a piece and hefty men willing to pull up their shirts and do the truffle-shuffle.

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“That ain’t even my beat,” Laws told DJ Knuckles, who he nicknamed DJ Unprepared for the night. “Fuck it. I’ll rap to it anyways.”

Friday at Crowbar Laws laid down aggressive rap that commented more on socioeconomics than hip-hop culture. He spent a good part of the show off stage, rapping face to face with the crowd while his hype-man, LA, stood on stage, doubling up on Laws’ lyrics.

Between performers opening for Little Brother, host Young Deacon kept the crowd lively while DJ Sandman made sure they had something to dance to. 

Before Laws, a tall, thin songstress owned the stage with her supreme confidence and songs that sounded like sped up spoken-word poems.

“She’s pretty AND she can sing,” people kept saying of Dynasty. 

When she yelled for people to throw their hands up, hands went up.

 

Saturday afternoon, nothing could have prepared me for the number of times I would hear “cornhole” during Tampa Bay Club Sports 1st annual Cornhole Classic at Ferg’s Sports Bar. The strange thing was that the term never lost its humor. It could be hyphenated with any word: regulation-cornhole, cornhole-free-for-all, Barbara Bush’s cornhole.

“I see some great cornholing going on,” announced the commentator over the PA.

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“Creative Loafing needs a sexual predator writing for them,” advised Nate Oliver of Have Gun Will Travel when he found me talking to his lady friend. “That could be your hook, Alfie.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but that’s basically what I already do.”

We were backstage at Skipper’s Smokehouse for WMNF’s “This is Radio Clash: a Tribute to The Clash.” Nate was jealous of my ability to talk to tons of hot women each night under the guise of investigative journalism, while his only pick-up line was, “Hey, I’m in a rock ‘n’ roll band” — as if women ever fell for sweaty musicians. Besides, Skipper’s was teeming with over 17 bands’ worth of musicians but only one erotic journalist.

 

The event was a success for the same reason that WMNF is the premier community-funded volunteer radio in the country: There’s strength in numbers and diversity. With 17 bands playing 15 minute sets, I expected the show to run late, but the volunteer staffers kept things moving with as much efficiency as they run their radio station.

“This is as close to country as The Clash comes,” announced the Urbane Cowboys, setting the stage for their clap-along rendition of “I Fought the Law.” However, when Blind Buddy Moody took the stage after the Urbane Cowboys, he proved it could get a little more country. He sat in a straw hat and a denim tuxedo strumming his acoustic and blowing his harmonica. He howled Clash covers like Irish ballads with a deep, bottom-of-the-barrel voice and just enough teeth to prove he’d taken some hits in his life and was still swinging. I hadn’t expected an old-time country singer to cover a Clash song and probably neither did The Clash, but I should have suspected it considering WMNF’s eclectic mix. I may not always keep my radio tuned to WMNF, but I always check the station to see what wild stuff they’re playing. 

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“‘Music is a business that requires devotion,’” I said, throwing one of Daylight District’s lyrics back at the front man, Frank. “You have to give the people what they want, and what they want is for a hip-hopper to rock out a goddamned key-tar.

“I’ll look into it,” Frank said.

 

We were in the green room of The State Theatre, which reeked of herbal greenery. Frank had just finished playing his set for the CL In Concert Series, and I was brimming with ideas on how the band’s fusion of rock and hip-hop could go big time. Although Frank has never played a key-tar, after our talk, no doubt he’ll soon be prancing around stage, breaking hearts while working his strap-board with suggestive hip thrusts.

Tailgunner Joe and the Earls of Slander kicked off the night, playing fresh off a CL review touting the band’s cowboy rock as “Rock ‘n’ Roll without the sex and drugs.” The projectionist who painted the theater with moving images must not have read the review about the group’s Christian roots, as a video of a woman stimulating herself played behind the band for a moment. Being an understanding person, I’m willing to believe that maybe the projectionist considered the clip an instructional video on how to preserve the integrity of one’s virginity.

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“You here for the mud wrestling?” the shuttle driver asked.

“Mud wrestling?” I repeated, weighing the box of promo gear I was to handout at a wine tasting against my primal need to watch naked women squabble in mud.

“Just get in,” The driver said, and I did. It turned out he was just screwing with my emotions. There were no kiddie pools filled with mud or women to wrestle in them at the Don CeSar. There was, however, a model in pasties being painted with a scene of the wine country, but I was assured that she didn’t take tips nor would she wrestle another girl covered in paint.

 

The Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival proved to be three full days of high class debauchery. Saturday, The Don CeSar hosted a Grand Tasting Village on the beach beneath a tent large enough to house a royal wedding. The place was consumed with the kind of people you’d find having fun in travel magazines, wearing sunglasses in the shade, floppy straw hats, sun dresses, khakis, polo shirts and white linen pants.

Not only did the soft white sand provide a cool ambiance, it also acted as a landing pad for anyone who had too much wine and for the hordes of high-end gals I couldn’t afford who stepped into the event wearing heels. From behind, these perfectly tanned 40something cougars looked 20. A few looked just as young from the front with mask-sized sunglasses and distracting boob jobs. There were also plenty of younger women with professional sales jobs — wild girls all grown up but who still bore the smudged party-girl tattoos of their college years.

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Creative Loafing’s staff celebrated the weekend early on Wednesday at Gators on Treasure Island. We had just finished our much anticipated Summer Guide issue and the staff had plenty of reasons to party. We munched on vats of hot wings, trays of mini Cubans, and fish spread (whatever that means). I attempted to rally the scattering of patrons and tourists eating on the deck to join us by offering them free Frisbees, but most gave lame excuses like, “I have to work in the morning,” or “I don’t do parties.” Luckily for the CL staff, we were drinking with our boss, which meant the more beers we bought her, the later we could come to work the next day. But even if our publisher wasn’t there, I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a Wednesday night, eating fried food, drinking beer, watching the sun sink into the water and, if you’re like me, hiding behind giant sunglasses to stare at the legs of the waitstaff who scampered about in short-shorts.

 

The next night, we were back at Crowbar in Ybor City.

“This is not your normal hip-hop crowd,” Crowbar’s doorman Wolf told a white-collar security guard Thursday. “It’s going to be a nice, relaxed night. These kids came to hear some intelligent shit that flows nice.”

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Preventing waste was a major theme at the Pinellas Living Green Expo, held last Saturday and Sunday at the Harborview Center in downtown Clearwater. Many of the vendors featured home construction materials that reduce energy waste: thicker windows, foam insulation and low-flow toilets. The current dilemma with going green is that one must purchase more products to be green, and in doing so, generate more waste. This is just a consequence of the movement, being relatively new, and one that is still something of a status symbol for those who can afford to buy hybrids or to build new “green” houses. With this said, I was surprised that the majority of expo attendants were regular folks looking for tricks to save money on their energy bills. There were a few hardcore idealists of the dreadlocked and patchouli variety, aging hippies with gray pony tails, and yuppies uniformed in bicycling spandex, helmets, sunglasses and fanny packs, but they were the minority.

  

One major exception to this good natured crowd were the prize-whoring elderly, dead set on loading free garb in their complementary cloth, grocery sacks. Those who were less agile (or couldn’t simply swipe promo items and run) delivered long oratories about how they loved CL (mostly because it is free) as their justification for leaving the booth with five promotional ball point pens. At times I felt like I was in a Charlie Brown comic strip, sitting at a booth labeled, “the doctor is in.” More than a few told me dramatic sob stories before explaining why they needed an entire stack of temporary tattoos. I tried to scare them away with CL’s latest cover, featuring a pair of pink bumper-balls hanging below a license plate that read “Nutz 2 U,” but they were too blinded by the promise of prizes to be swayed by nuts.

“I need four because I have four grandchildren,” a granny in an electric scooter told me as she took four miniature beer mugs from my table.

Did she even have grandchildren? Would she use the mugs to sort her collection of sugar packets from various fast food joints despite the fact that she’s diabetic? I can’t begin to fathom how excited her grandchildren will be next Christmas when they get matching miniature beer mugs from Grandma. What kills me is that these prize-whores horde promo items like treasure, with the intent of passing it on to their relatives. The reality is that when these pack rats keel over, their heirs will just throw away all the coffee cans full of free pencils and drawers full of stress balls. Perhaps some sort of entrance fee, say the price of bus fare or a pint of blood, would discourage these prize hunters. Or perhaps next year I could set up a booth on how to keep your grandparents from collecting promo garb like Halloween candy. Maybe I’ll give away handcuffs or tazers.

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