I know I mentioned the art show at Nova535, but I’m going to have to go back on my word. If you want class, society, culture, etc. feel free to go ahead and hit up the show. If you want horror, gore, exploitation, and “the most shocking film ever made,” join me at the Gasparilla Film Festival at Channelside for a screening of Blood Feast presented by director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman.

You’re going to have to drop $15 to get in, but trust me, it’ll be worth every penny. This has long been considered one of the first splatter films, and is a must see for kids of all ages - bring the little ones! Buy your tickets now, guys and ghouls.

• 2 Comments

Oh hai. I don’t like Charlie Crist. Two awesome stories today:

State Proposal Would Raise Gas Taxes To Offset Amendment One Losses: That’s right all you stupid assholes that voted yes on 1, that money has to be made up somehow. You know, like by doubling the gas tax. Thanks Chuck!

Private schools say the governor’s plan to halt the program would hurt poor students: I have an idea, let’s kill the Florida Resident Access Grant and make sure kids from Florida don’t attend those new age hippie ass private schools. Think only rich kids go to private colleges? 41% are minorities (35% at state schools), and one in three is poor enough to qualify for federal Pell Grants (one in five at state schools).

Am I the only person concerned that this guy is a complete assnozzle? Check him out below, swooping in to christen the big ball of fail that is the new stadium.

• 4 Comments

Technically it kicks off Thursday if you’re into seeing the Candy Bars cover Cat Power’s Moon Pix album. Personally that just confuses the shit out of me, considering Cat Power actually did a cover record and now someone else is covering a 10 year old original Cat Power record. Either way, fun should be had by all! Thursday, February 28th, 8 pm, Push Ultra Lounge, get ur tickets.

As you long time readers already know, the Splog is sponsored by both Red Bull (gives you wings®) and local band Auto!Automatic!! As part of the latter deal we agree to promote every A!A!! show, and as such we are pleased to announce that this Friday, February 29th you can catch the boys along with Red Room Cinema and City of Ships kicking off at 9 pm (converted to aes time that’s 11 pm) at the Crowbar. Bring $7, or a hot chick to sweet talk the doorfolk.

But wait, there’s more! Saturday night, March 1, at the newly opened Nova535 you can check out some dope art for Free.99 (get there before 9 to get in free, after 9 it is $10). All of the work is female portraiture and I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Eric Jones (mmm, nekkid chicks), Andrea Heimer (mmm, 50’s and 60’s chicks), and Daniel P. Williams (mmm, slow loading website chicks).

It is pretty awesome to sit back and realize that 2 of those 3 are taking place in the ‘burg. Thanks Joel. Thanks whoever owns Nova. Thanks loyal readers of the Splog. This adds at least 3 days until the authors of this blog get that long overdue DUI.

• 4 Comments

I am 247% confident I could do a better job running the city. Once again, a shining example of our stellar recycling program below. Le sigh.

• 5 Comments

As seen on a business card at EVOS. Nothing on the back. Serious motherfucking inquiries only.

• 1 Comment

I spent last evening in South Beach, which has officially changed its name to Push Ultra Lounge and relocated to downtown St. Pete. There are soooooooo many reasons to hate this place, from the douchetastic bluetooth-rockin’ doormen, to the 148 rotating raver lights in the main room, to the abundance of South Beach colored and shaped paraphernalia, to the rooftop bar with “VIP” seating, to the cabana “VIP” areas on the main floor, to the bathroom attendant yelling at you for using the wrong architectural sculpture disguised as a faucet, to the fact that there are 3 bars in a place that requires only 1, to the dress code requiring that you a) wear a collared shirt and b) pop that shit, to the Monstro the whale laminated press board I-think-that’s-art-but-I’m-not-sure rib bone rafters, to the fact that they are projecting shit onto frosted glass behind a bar like nobody’s fucking business, to the glowing orbs that they picked up on a fire sale from that Rooms To Go knock-off called Rooms To Geh, etc., etc.

Here’s the fucked up part, though. I liked it.

I will admit it didn’t hurt that $2 Coronas flowed down like a cascading waterfall of rayon shirts and short skirts that linger in the air from the other 6 nights of the week. It also doesn’t hurt to be drinking said beverages on the roof of a building with a rad view of the sea of skyscrapers that is downtown St. Pete. And it most definitely doesn’t hurt when you get a bonus ass-handing by the dudes in Summerbirds.

Seriously though, it was like getting fucked in the ear. I mean, it jostles the shit out of your brain and seems like it really should be unpleasant, but then you just sort of dial it in and go along for the ride. You know what I’m sayin’, right? Right? Nobody? Shit, bad analogy. The reality is that Push is one of those places you just want to hate, and it is trying really hard to help you hate it, but ultimately you realize you’re having a good time. A good time at a bar that places ropes and stanchions around their seating areas so you can block that shit off like the baller you are.

The moral of the story is this: go to Push for Thx Mgmt’s Thursdays. I highly recommend March 6 when you can catch Velveteen Pink and Giddy-Up, Helicopter.

In closing, Nate from A!A!! and Chris from Pale Horse are douchebags.

• 5 Comments

Ohhhhhh, ROFLCOPTER. Who knows how long it will be up, but if you go to stpete.org right now, you’ll see that Network Solutions has imposed a compulsory redesign on the site for our fair city. It looks like someone forgot to renew their domain in a timely manner, or at the very least missed a bill payment. I know, it’s your first day, right? The intertron is hard. Screengrab for teh posterity.

• 6 Comments

If you haven’t been to the Maxi Mall around 40th Ave. S and US 19, you haven’t lived. Seriously, what is your problem? You’re missing out on some St. Pete authenticity that isn’t attainable anywhere else. Regardless of your douchebaggery it appears that some dudes fixin’ to get some free bling fired shots inside the Maxi Mall today.

If you actually have been there you are sleeping soundly in my camp where we’re all “dude, guns and Maxi Mall go together like peanut butter and jelly.” And the crazy part is that despite the unshocking nature of guns at the MM, I still love that place. I mean, where else can you get crazy oversized t-shirts with repeat gold and diamond patterns while simultaneously taking advantage of the tattoo studio (one of two in the MM) running the spend-$100-get-a-free-name-tattoo deal?

• 5 Comments

In recently working on a logo which required the state of Florida (hardest shape to work with evar), I did a quick Google search to see how other assholes had utilized America’s wang. Two things happened:

1. I realized clients that demand Florida in their logos have shit taste and hire shit designers (moi and Chris Parks excepted).
2. I became aware of a most awesome organization called Students Association in Human Values, Inc.

Finding a goldmine like this is one of those mental overload things where your brain just isn’t sure where the hell to start the lambasting. It goes without saying that the most delightfully awful part is the incapable-of-being-turned-off midi backed children’s choir remixing classics with new, enlightened lyrics. Be sure to hit all the pages, there’s a different song waiting for you on every page.

Next I suppose we need to address the scary ass afromonk on the homepage. This is Sathya Sai Baba whom I am sure you all are familiar with on account of his wildly popular Saicasts. He is actually a “highly revered spiritual leader and world teacher, whose life and message are inspiring millions of people throughout the world to turn God-ward and to lead more purposeful and moral lives.” Ah, I see, the hair makes sense now - it is a transmitter, a radio for speaking to God.

Our boy Baba does some good work - builds hospitals, purifies water with his healing touch, etc. His previous consultant psychiatrist (*cough* crazy *cough*) started up SAIHV in Jacksonville to teach kids to get high on God, not the far superior high-inducing drugs that run the Splog. I can get behind that. And what better logo to represent such a noble cause than the “dude, pull my finger” beauty below.

Haha. Hahaha! HAHAHA!! ROFLROFLROFLROFLCOPTER!!!1!! Oh man, I’m crying here. Baba says this means solidarity or some shit, but where I’m from this looks an awful lot like a different activity altogether. One of you talented readers needs to throw together an interactive flash movie that allows you to click on the logo and pull the finger. Whip that shit up, eh?

I suppose I must close with a disclaimer, I just re-read this post and realized I sure do sound like an asshole. So here’s the disclaimer: I am an asshole.

• 2 Comments

Well fuck, looks like our home away from home, Michael Serrano’s Used Auto, just got shut down. Brightlight is inconsolable. Apparently Tampa PD finally wised up to the fact that a cockfighting operation was running from the location. Now what the hell will we do with our Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays?

All joking aside, any asscowboy that gets his kicks by watching animals fight to the death should promptly be shot in the dick. While bleeding out, he should be subjected to an overload of supercute kittens and puppies. Oh, and one well trained pack of wolves that loves blood, but not supercute puppies and kittens.

There was one slightly troubling part about the story:

Ryan said some of the birds would be euthanized, but that some of the others might be able to be relocated to schools or agriculture programs.

Uhhhhhh, what?! You’re going to send trained assassin roosters to schools? Yeah, that should go well. Let me know how that works out for you.

You may be asking why brightlight in particular would be so devastated. Well, about 8 years ago he decided to declare his love of the cock(fighting) in the most permanent way possible: an incredible stomach piece. Photo below.

• 1 Comment

In light of today’s decision by the State Board of Education to add language to the state’s science standards prefacing the word “evolution” with the phrase “the scientific theory of,” I think we should all just bow our heads and pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. While at first I thought this decision was just another victory by a cretinous tyranny of mediocrity, so devoid of intellectual humility as to reject and fear anything that exceeds an order of complexity not covered by its third-grade education, I realized that this was actually a great day. I mean, if we’re opening the door for competing ideas here, then it means that finally, the door is open for the teachings of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster to be taught in earnest in our schools. Hey, you pick your magical superhero in the sky and I pick mine, you mouth-breathing fuckwit.

Now let us pray:

Our spaghetti
Who art in the colander
Hallowed be thy sauce
Thy serving come
Thy strands be wrung
On forks as they are on spoons
Give us this day our daily meatball
And forgive us our starchiness
As we forgive those who are starchy against us
And lead us not into Kraft parmessan
But deliver us from Chef Boy Ardee
For thine is the garlic
And the onion and the bay leaves
For ever and ever.
Ramen

• 3 Comments

The kids over at Idiotik Ink (I would link to their site, but your eyes might asplode) posted this almost 2 weeks ago, which makes me late to the party, but I’ve been on this press tour for a month now and it is a little hard keeping up with shit via hotel internet connections. Either way, Gayle Guyardo of News Channel 8 (on your motherfuckin’ side) spent her Gasparilla good and liquored up, despite the fact she had a job to do. Oops!

• 6 Comments

Why the shit wasn’t I notified that I could potentially be the next owner of Weeki Wachee?! $10? Sonofa… In a change of ownership only slightly less confusing than the previous owner (Swiftmud), Weeki Wachee is now a state park. I’m going to venture out on a limb here and say this might very well be the only state park anywhere with mermaids. Totally awesome. Although, we still have nothing on Big Bone Lick State Park in Boone County, Kentucky.

You can read all the juicy details here, which technically aren’t all that juicy and don’t actually contain all that many details. It does, however, remind us that the springs are 403 feet deep, the deepest springs in the US. That’s right, Big Bone Lick, our mermaids go deep. Take that.

And now for a sad and revealing admission: I have never been to Weeki Wachee. Yes, I know, a travesty. I will most definitely take this opportunity, however, to patronize this classic Florida attraction. And I will do so using both definitions of patronizing, since that’s how I roll.

*All research for this story courtesy of the Mermaid’s Grotto, an incredibly comprehensive and well-designed internet stop.

• 0 Comments

While perusing the St. Pete site I noticed that their top news item is the completion of the first LEED-for-Homes GOLD rated home in Florida, which just happens to be located here in the ‘burg. This site about the home says it is one of only 19 in the US - technically there are 58, although 35 of those are in an apartment complex in San Jose and thus, I suppose, technically not classified as “homes” - either way, it is one of about 23 “homes” in the US, which is pretty damn awesome.

Ed. note: Here’s a little inside look at writing for a wildly popular “publication” - I spent an inordinate amount of time doing research for the previous sentence. Seriously. I probably burned 20 minutes and too many brain cells just to clarify that instead of 19, there are 23 homes. It isn’t all coke and hookers, kids, you’ve actually gotta do some work.

For those of you not in the knizzow:

LEED-for-Homes is a rating system that promotes the design and construction of high-performance green homes. A green home uses less energy, water and natural resources; creates less waste; and is healthier and more comfortable for the occupants.

The reason it is a news item for the city is that Rick Baker was there to say some nice shit about how St. Pete is all green and blah blah blah. Which reminds us that we should check out the St. Pete Green Site and the new AWESOME LOLtree graphic they added. Le sigh.

Seriously, though, I continue to actually be impressed with the fact that the city, and the state on a larger level, seem to be doing some green shit as opposed to just talking about it. Granted I will totally not forgive the abomination that is St. Pete recycling, but still, I think it is safe to say Florida may be slowly working toward not being the butt of the nation’s collective joke.

• 1 Comment

Actually, paying $8 or whatever to sit in BFE and watch the Rays on a weeknight isn’t the worst thing in the world. The $17 watered-down beers, however, are. The Times has a short piece this morning on slogans over the years with some reasonably good analysis, kind of a fun read. I’m too lazy to come up with a high-larious related image for this post, so you’ll have to settle for Papa Bush.

Speaking of the Rays, I’m made increasingly nervous by all the activity surrounding the idea of a new stadium. I’m beginning to fear that it is a done deal and they just aren’t telling us yet. Although, what am I saying? The city guberment wouldn’t just make bad decisions on our behalf without us having some say, right? No, that just couldn’t be, they’ve never done that in the past.

• 21 Comments