the 941

Ivan Valencia, Nelson Oliver and Tommy Pettiti (left to right) help the Sarasota Boxing Club get its new location in order

The door to the old Sarasota Boxing Club sits wide open, but not much is left inside. When I was here in August the place crackled with the energy of boxers, spectators and families.

It’s still hot in late October, but quiet. With one of the boxing rings and all the equipment now gone, ambitious weeds grow in through the gaps of the plywood hanging over the glassless windows. Footsteps echo off the concrete floor, metal walls and tin ceiling.

An orchard of dust and debris is scattered about the far side of the building. Coach Harold Wilen stands in the center of it all, talking on the phone. His old blue Hyundai has broken down in front of the Sarasota Boxing Club’s new location on the corner of 15th and Lime Avenue — on the edge of Newtown. He needs a tow truck before the sun goes down, and he needs a good mechanic.

My phone in hand, I rattle off the number to Jay & Dean’s and he taps it in. I mention he should save it and he looks up at me with a sheepish glance: “I’m not sure exactly how.”

He holds his phone out and I bend down, walking him through the steps of saving a contact. He thanks me, smiles and says: “Robin Givens was in for a private lesson last week.” No doubt about it the man knows how to take a punch. And he looks like he has gone a few rounds; losing the place where he’s lodged his heart for the past decade and a half to a man he trusted.

On top of that, he’s losing an ex-wife to cancer at any moment, someone still so close to him, that I feel the pain in his eyes when he tells me. The man needs to get to Lakeland, where she’s dying, and his car is not up for the trip.

A white pickup climbs backward up the ramp to the door. It seems official. They are taking the toilet — the SBC board of directors took a vote. They lost some serious donations: a boxing ring and the main support beam for all of the heavy bags, $15,000 worth of material given by their landlord, Harvey Vengroff, and revoked with their eviction. Put it all together and what do a bunch of guys with ricocheting emotions and a truck full of hand tools do? They talk about taking the damn toilet and leaving the brush, but I can see that Coach’s heart isn’t in it.

“She refers to him as ‘Michael,’” Wilen says. It takes me a second to snap back: He’s talking about Mike Tyson, Givens’ ex-husband. I nod. “She’s doing a movie here in Sarasota,” he shakes his head and looks up at me. “She’s a soccer mom, a very down to earth lady.” The man shows genuine wonder at the events that transpire around him. His ex will have died within 24 hours, and he will have buried more than her remains in the coming week.

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Rain forests cool the planet. Forty to 75 percent of all species on earth live in tropical rain forests — species that most of us have never seen. It has been estimated that millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms are still undiscovered within the world of the rain forest. We need rain forests.

Rain forests are known as the “world’s largest pharmacy” because of the large number of natural medicines that are discovered there. And they are also responsible for 28 percent of the world’s oxygen “turnover” – oxygenation through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and storing it as carbon through a process that is called biosequestration.

But rain forests are also a primary source of revenue for many nations.

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The Sarasota Herald-Tribune broke the news yesterday that Justin Matthews, the owner of Matthew’s Wildlife Rescue  who made international news for planting his 14-foot pet python “Sweetie” in a Bradenton storm drain, has been charged with a third-degree felony for misuse of a 911 emergency system and a second-degree misdemeanor for maintaining captive wildlife in an unsafe manner, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Matthews could face up to five years in prison for the stunt, which he says was an attempt to bring attention to the Burmese Python problem in Florida. The Herald-Tribune says that Matthews was released from the Manatee County jail Thursday after posting a $5,750 bail, and that he thinks the charges are “extreme” and plans to hire a lawyer. David Sadkin, a volunteer director at Wildlife Inc. Education and Rehabilitation Center, compared the staging to a “wildlife version of the balloon boy.”

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Cliff Roles interviews Lucinda Streiker-Schmidt

From our boy Cliff Roles:

“A Separate God Journal of an Amish Girl” Book Signings:

Starbucks
Saturday, November 7th from 10AM-2PM Starbucks Bee Ridge and Beneva
Sarasota, FL

Circle Books
Sunday, November 8th from 1-3PM @ Circle Books, 478 John Ringling Blvd.
Sarasota, FL

Starbucks
Wednesday, November 11th from 10AM-12N @ University & Tuttle
Sarasota, FL

Starbucks
Thursday, November 12th from 5:30PM-7:30PM @ US 41 & Worrington Avenue
Sarasota, FL

Lucinda Streiker-Schmidt left the close-knit Amish community of rural Indiana to start a new life. Streiker-Schmidt, who married and had two children while in the Amish faith, grew up with questions about the outside world, and after a tumultuous, abusive marriage, divorced her Amish husband and began a new life with her children. After putting herself through nursing school and establishing her career, she began working on her novel, which is based on the journals she kept as a young girl.

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The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Doug Sword blew our minds just now with news about an accidental window during which Sarasota County has no open-container law on the books. What does that mean for you? You can legally consume any variety of hooch “along the sides of roads, on sidewalks, in public parking lots and, well, in the street.” I’d say that moves Siesta Key to the top of your list of sweet weekend destinations.*

*A message from our sponsors, the good people at Duff Beer: Please drink responsibly.

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On a recent Friday night, I finished work around 9 p.m. and drove to Publix to grab a sandwich and some coffee for the morning. I picked out my few groceries and got in line to pay.

The man in front of me was all smiles: simply, but neatly, dressed in flip-flops, shorts and a T-shirt. The cashier rang the man’s single item up. He swiped his card to pay. It was denied.

A second try. The cashier reassuring: “This happens all the time.” A third try — nothing. The man grew increasingly embarrassed. I opened my wallet to pay for his purchase at the same time the cashier said she’d get it herself. The man protested. “No, let’s just forget it,” he said.

I said, “Look, it’s no problem. Let me.” The man demurred at first, then looked at me again, then back at the cashier, and said, “OK, thank you both,” and took his bag with the single item in it and left. The cashier, who had been digging into her own pocket for money, said to me, as she scooped up the money I’d already placed on the counter, “OK, I’ll let this be your good deed for today.”

“We all know what it’s like,” I said. But she shook her head. “I’ve never been that down,” she said.

I have.

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The news everyone will be talking about today: The Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office concludes that the Sarasota Police Department did nothing “illegal, unethical or immoral” in its handling of the Juan G. Perez case. Lots of stuff to sort out:

— Click here to download a PDF of the report for yourself from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

— “[City Manager Robert] Bartolotta emphasized Thursday that he has not read the nearly 3,000 pages in the full report and has not made a decision on [Police Chief Peter] Abbott’s future with the department. The report concludes that Abbott made ‘mistakes’ but still has the confidence of employees at the department. Bartolotta said that conclusion is another piece of information, but does not mean Abbott will keep his job.”

— Legal experts disagree that the SPD did nothing “unethical”: “The Police Department improperly mixed a civil settlement with an ongoing investigation by having the same detective who was investigating allegations of excessive force broker a civil settlement in the case, said Joseph Pollini, a law professor at John Jay College in N.Y. Also, it was unethical for the city’s risk manager to have victim Perez sign a waiver on a Saturday morning, use a fellow officer for a translator, and do so without a lawyer representing Perez, Jacob said.”

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I had the pleasure of meeting the wonderful Lorna Galloway of Lorna Ruth at the Delray Stitch Rock indie craft show this past October. As I’m sure some of you may have noticed (all seven of my readers) I like the dark stuff. I like the things that make the hair on my skin stand up and take notice. Lorna must too because her photography and perfectly edited images make me wake up and calm me at the same time. Is there a word for that? Damn, it eludes. Lorna will be at the Saturday night Atomic Holiday Show on 12/12/09. Her images are the perfect compliment to the upcoming dark-hearted evening craft show. Get to know her by reading her interview below:

Name of Business/Website Address? Lorna Ruth / lornaruth.etsy.com

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Hello, fellow Sarasotans. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my new blog, which I have oh-so-fittingly dubbed “The Starving Artist.” My goal for these posts is to give you an insider’s view into the trials and tribulations of a musician trying to start a music career on the Suncoast. I plan to provide you with some valuable tips on how best to market your music and get shows booked, and also what it’s like to play at our local establishments from an artist’s perspective. I’ll let you know who draws the best crowds and how receptive they are to the music, what venues have the best sound, what it’s like dealing with the booking agents and what you can expect to earn for a night’s work. I hope I can entertain and enlighten you on what it really means to be a starving artist on the Suncoast.

First thing’s first. Any musician that wants to break into any music scene has to start by getting their name out there. And before you can do that you have to have a name. I will be writing this blog from a solo artist’s viewpoint, but most of the information should translate to full bands as well. A stage name or band name can be the most important decision a musician will ever make. Once you put all the legwork into marketing your name — website, MySpace page, press kit, promotional materials and, most importantly, public name recognition — you’re pretty much stuck with it. Unless you’re Jack White and you can come out with a new band every few months, you will probably be tied to that name for the entirety of your musical career.

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The latest in a never-ending string of theme months for Little Movie Review is Comic Book Month. We here at LMR are actually more into comics than we are movies, and are always disheartened at the defeatist attitude most folks take to the medium. “They’re not for me” or the even more baffling “I don’t know how to read them” are frequent but insufficient excuses for dismissing an entire art form as varied as movies or novels and intrinsically more accessible than both. (The answer, by the way, is “from left to right, and read the words and look at the pictures in any order you want.”)

One of the point-of-entry problems for comics is that the “classics” are greatly admired by experienced comics readers, but not necessarily great starting points. Watchmen? Too dense and too dependent on a knowledge of comics history to be enjoyable as a first read. The Dark Knight? Juvenile and violent. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not everyone’s cup of tea. Maus? Would you give someone War and Peace as their first book? Probably not. Comics Month here at Little Movie Review will be about providing some more accessible points of entry into comics for those unsure of where to start with them.

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