Spotted at Mema’s Alaskan Tacos.

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Gay pride is in the air; in fact, it’s been in the air all month, seeing as how June is pride month.  It seems to me it’s had a little lower profile this time around in the media.  I can’t figure out if that’s a good or a bad thing.  You might remember that last year we got to deal with everyone’s favorite brimstone-spewing megaphone jockey, Larry Keffer, and there was a lot of discussion of free speech zones, all of which, of course, somehow magically elicited lots of feisty, raving anti-sodomoy bursts from Larry Keffer.  I swear that dude captured a Google bot and keeps it somewhere in his basement.  That dude will comment on your blog before you’re even done writing.  Oh, that reminds me: HEY BUDDY!  Now make with the Leviticus.  I’m still a little unclear on that shellfish thing.

I don’t know, maybe the protestors are keeping it on the DL this year, since a bunch of them who came down here in their creepy church van from Georgia were just found guilty of violating a city ordinance for having signs that exceeded a certain allowable width.  According to the ordinance, signs can’t be wider than the carrier’s torso.  Rad.  See, now this is one of those moments where the absurd literalism of the law can actually be used for good.  Had the ordinance had anything to do with the actual content of the signs, well then you’d have a free speech issue on your hands.  No, however, as the ordinance states, it’s just about public safety and ensuring that people are able to walk freely around you, your bible, and your silly sign.  You know, public safety, and ok, maybe an eensy weensy little bit to do with keeping jackasses away from the proceedings.  Unofficially, of course.

Why not fight a technicality with a technicality?  Are you morbidly obese?  Do you hate gay people?  Can you carry a sign?  Awesome!  The van will be by your house at noon.  Bigger torso.  Bigger sign.  Ahem.

The other startling news this year?  Mayor Baker will again neither be endorsing, nor attending the parade tomorrow.  Why the latter?  It appears his office never got the email invite.  Sure buddy, sure.  Jesus built my spam filter.

You love a parade, and it’s tomorrow, June 28, at 10am.  Be there.:

Details here and here.

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Times Columnist: I need an image for a story about a girl who murdered her mom. We need to be a little sensitive, though, it is a pretty rough story.

Times Photo Editor: Hmm, sensitive. Not sure what you mean there, but I’ve got the PERFECT photo. We obtained this AWESOME image of the little girl appearing to STRANGLE her now dead mother. Check it out!

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Despite the fact that he is correct, this doesn’t let Aaron off the hook for his bad speculative reporting on the matter. Dammit. Check out the breaking news here.

I look forward to the full story to figure out exactly what changed. Now what the hell will I do with my POWW yard sign? Bust it out again in 2 years? And what does this mean for Al Lang? Another abandoned downtown St. Pete edifice for the next 2 years?

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I should clarify that I do not wish for you, if you possess a pair of balls, to rock them off. I am speaking figuratively. As such, women are more than invited to rock their balls off as well, this is an all inclusive ball rocking offage.

Wednesday, June 25 @ The Orpheum
El Ten Eleven and Petrograd in Transit
El Ten Eleven proves once again that instruments with MORE THAN ONE NECK will rock MORE THAN ONE BALL off.

Thursday, June 26 @ Crowbar
Maserati, Summerbirds In The Cellar, Red Room Cinema & Clock Hands Strangle
This should be a good one, if nothing else you can be absolutely MOFUGGIN’ certain that Summerbirds will hand you your balls. Twice.

Saturday, June 28 @ The Orpheum
MeWithoutYou, Maps And Atlases and Gasoline Heart
Not so much a fan of the MWY, but Maps and Atlases is definitely worth checking out.

Thursday, July 3 @ The Social (yes, you’ll have to drive to Orlando)
Boris
Thank your lucky balls that Boris is coming to Florida, and then kiss those fuzzy bastards goodbye.

With Dethklok and others on the horizon this is going to be one hell of a summer.

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This story is AWESOME - and here’s why: it could have been written for St. Petersblog. It has all the trappings of one of our finely written stories such as a lack of facts, serious speculation, assumptions and willy nilly half ass journalism. Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Tampa Bay Rays may soon abandon their push for a November referendum to build a $450-million waterfront stadium.

Well I’ll be damned, that sounds good to me, I bet there are a ton of facts within this fine story to prove such a statement.

Rays executives did not return calls for comments Tuesday, and team officials denied as late as Monday the possibility of pushing back the referendum.

Oh, OK, the first fact actually says that the source has denied a delay. But hey, often times “no comment” means FUCK YEAH I’M GUILTY AS FUCK!

No one the Times spoke with on Tuesday expected the Rays to halt their quest for a new ballpark, or even one on the waterfront.

Hmm, I would read this as “seriously, we made this shit up, no one has said a damn thing that would make it true.” But, upon closer reading (which is a rarity for me), it looks like no one expects the new stadium to be HALTED, which is different than DELAYED. So, hmm. More facts please!

Members of the St. Petersburg City Council were unaware of a possible delay.

Well shit, another group that is not backing the Times claim. So the score is Times says delay, everyone else says WTF are you talking about!?

Look, I’d be happy if this were delayed, certainly it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen later, but a broomstick in the spokes of the new stadium plans would certainly hurt the necessary momentum for something like this. The problem, though, is that the Times should leave the shitty journalizing to the professionals - namely us. You guys are supposed to have facts and supporting evidence and shit when you make claims, don’t be trying to front on our half ass speculation mongering stylee. You are not a blog, you are composed of paper and shit, we are composed of internets. BIG DIFFERENCE.

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Not to beat a dead flag into the ground, but all this recent talk about the hugh jass confederate flag really did get me thinking about the south rising again, and just how smelly and decayed it would be; well, and then there would be its inexplicable desire for BRAAAIIIIINNNNNSSS.  Thankfully, Troma produced this delightful educational film on How to Survive a Zombie Confederate Uprising.  Whew.

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You know, I’ve been writing in this blog for a while now, and I have to be honest, sometimes the comments I get really hurt.  I like to think of myself as being pretty much above it all.  I mean, it’s just the Internet, right?  Everyone’s an asshole on the Intertrons.  Actually being affected by anything anyone writes on the Internet is a clear sign that you’re doing it wrong.  And yet, I don’t know.  Maybe I just had to read one too many comments in which it was suggested that I a) Get a life, b) Get a job and/or c) Do something more productive and positive with my life.

Ultimately, I think those misguided, ostensibly geriatric, contextually confused, and laughably incensed commenters may have a point.  It’s with that in mind that I’d like to take this opportunity to announce that I’ve turned over a new spiritual leaf and brought myself under the guidance of a spiritual advisor.  You might know him as Raymond, that shirtless guy in your neighborhood with a transistor radio bungeed to the milk crate on his bike.  I, however, refer to him as His Absurdly Holy Luminescence.  His Absurdly Holy Luminescence hopes to make me a more positive and productive person, and he has a number of teachings to bring me into an openness and oneness with my fellow travelers.

The first thing His Absurdly Holy Luminescence wants me to do is stand on the side of the road in high and tight cut off jean shorts and sing .38 Special songs at the top of my lungs all day.  I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical concerning how doing this was going to make me a better person.  “Like, seriously Ray Ray - er, I mean, Your Absurdly Holy Luminescence,” I said.  “How will people react?  How will the awesome 80’s country rock stylings of .38 Special teach them about the one true path?”  I’d like to share with you HIs Absurdly Holy Luminescence’s response in full, as I think it will help you in your journey:

We’re approaching the closed mind and the open mind — whatever mind drives down that interstate. … Is he or she going to drive in and check it out and determine what this is? Well, if he or she does, they’ll get the picture on the ground, which is the important picture. If they don’t, if they just drive on by, it’s a lost cause. If the closed mind stays closed, then they lose and we lose, because our object, our goal, our aim has gone amiss. We haven’t gained anything. …

Awesome, right?  Ok, I lied.  I didn’t have a spiritual awakening, although, who the fuck doesn’t love some .38 Special now and again?  No, that quote came directly from Alex Pickett’s interview in Creative Loafing with Marion Lambert, apparent mystic, sometimes historian, and batshit crazy member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  You remember, those zany folks who are still pissing everybody off with their hugh jass confederate flag.  This is how that dude responds to questions in an interview.  How Alex Pickett didn’t just stop and go, “Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?” is completely beyond me.  That’s why he’s a professional I guess.

I’m a little late on this article, but it’s worth reading just so you know the kind of people we’re dealing with here.  Go for the article, stay for the batshit crazy amateur historian redneck commenters.  Jesus.  Which one of you assholes told those people about the Internet?  Bad move.

Also, in case you didn’t notice, that spiritual awakening thing was total bullshit.  I am still totally a dick!  Go me!

**Update: But wait, there’s more.  Alex Pickett directed me to his post on CL’s “Blurbex” blog which includes the full version of his interview with Lambert.  Bonus awesome: “Confederate Flag Dude talks about his ‘tourist attraction’, presidential hopefuls and his Scientologist black friends.”  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better.

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Word up, St. Pete has once again been thrust into the national spotlight because of some weird shit that makes people go “St. Pete, hmm, isn’t that the place where only WEIRD SHIT happens?” Yeah, St. Pete: the capital of where weird shit happens. Oh, and also apparently now the capital of world champion ugly ass dogs.

In a gallery of faces only a pet owner could love, Gus — a one-eyed, three-legged Chinese Crested from St. Petersburg, Fla. — has won the annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair.

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Looking for something to do tonight?  Look no further than Summer Jam 4.  “What’s that?”, you say.  It’s a dual-venue smogasbord of bands, DJs, and girls with goggles on their heads.  Five out of five Swedish chefs agree: It’s teh awesome.  Check the poster for details:

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Um, just wow.  So there I was, minding my own business, and this shows up in my inbox:

But wait, there’s an entire photo set: Midget Chippendales at the James Joyce in Ybor City.  You stay classy, Tampa.  *facepalm*

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We here at the Splog have remained quiet until now, but the time has come to announce our full-fledged support of offshore oil drilling here in Florida.

Huffington Post:

Gov. Charlie Crist has dropped his long-standing support for the federal government’s ban on offshore oil drilling and endorsed Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain’s proposal to let states decide. The governor said he reversed his position because of rising fuel prices and states’ rights. Crist is considered a possible running mate for the Arizona senator.

We were against drilling before, too, but now that the VP candidate spot is open on McCain’s ticket we thought it might be a good idea to start sucking his dick. Slurp, slurp Charlie Crist!

Couple of things that we are choosing to ignore so that we can support drilling and remain on McCain’s shortlist:

1. The potential for pollution to our beaches (the only reason people actually come to the godforsaken state of Florida)
2. It would take years (some say as many as 10) to produce energy from new drilling sites
3. Producing more oil would have 0 impact on prices, the oil would simply go to companies who are not required by the government to keep costs in check - more oil, more profits

Hmm. This might be harder to ignore than we thought, but dammit we’ll try. Let’s close with an inspirational quote from our new best friend Charlie “Bleeding Heart” Crist:

“I mean, let’s face it, the price of gas has gone through the roof, and Florida families are suffering,” Crist said Tuesday. “And my heart bleeds for them.”

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In case you didn’t know, tbo.com has this odd repository of stats pulled from its own archive called the “Data Bay.”  This already pleases me.  Why?  Beause it makes it sound like it’s from fucking Star Trek, that’s why.  Sure, all you remember is Sick Bay.  All mentions of Data Bay got edited out.  Whatever.  Apparently, not even hot chicks in standard-issue space miniskirts can make data entry interesting.  I, on the other hand, find it fascinating.  A hot chick in a space miniskirt can come over to my house and normalize my tables any time.  Rawr.

Wait, where was I?  Oh, right, the Data Bay.  Wait, not yet.  Before I forget, and while we’re still relatively close to the topic of Star Trek, I’d like to take this moment to congratulate George Takei on his recent legal marriage to his partner of twenty years, Brad Altman.  Sulu, FTW!

Right, so Data Bay is this awesome land where Tbo gives a statistical overview of the whole gamut of sensationalist awesome we tend to find in the MainStreamMedia these days.  Look, people, those ads aren’t going to click themselves you know.  School bus incidents, homicides, motorcycle accidents, objectionable license plates - they’re all represented in the data bay.  You know, it’s valuable stuff.  You never know how much real-life relevance SHIT THAT HARDLY EVER HAPPENS EVER has for most of us.

Ahem.  This most recent Data Bay installment covers Florida animal attacks over the past 35 years.  No shit.  The somewhat odd part is that it appears to be derived only from a thorough search of the paper’s own archive.  Now, normally, I’d imagine that this would lead to the impression that a lot of attacks would be underrepresented in their stats.  Probably not, though, since this is the sort of shit that the MSM dispatches teams of wild-eyed reporters to cover all the time.  Seriously, there’s a shark attack listed in there that came from a high school performance of West Side Story.

If anything, then, this has got to be, ironically, one of the most thorough databases of Florida animal attacks.  You can even search by species!  Wait, how the fuck do you get attacked by a sturgeon?  Beats me, but it’s happened three times in 35 years.  Sadly, we’ve still only got that one pelican attack on the books.  Time to step it up, pelicans.

I guess for me, the thing that makes this unintentionally interesting is that it almost functions as Tbo’s conscience.  I mean, you can actually look at these stats and it will temper the sensationalism of the reporting.  Look at things longitudinally, and you realize that yes, the fact that you’re pretty sure that there’s a shark, cobra, and a lead-based Chinese toy out there with your name on it is only an illusion generated by the over-reporting of the anomalous.  Whoa.  Deep.

Lastly, do I even really need to say anything about that tragedy of a banner graphic?  I didn’t think so.  Seriously, I think they’re breaking child labor laws in their graphics department over there.

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Hey everybody, well what do you know? We got voted Best Local Blog as part of the Netroots Awards, at least, that’s what the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog is telling me.  Usually when I hear the word “coalition,” it’s followed by the word “forces” or some other such scary, martial sounding thing.  This, however, is like a militia of badass Progressives.  I bet they have awesome uniforms.  Like, cool jumpsuits with a really well-designed patch.  Anyway, Coalition + Progressives = good.  We’re in good company, too.  Creative Loafing’s Political Whore got Best Media Blog.  That Wayne Garcia is a swell dude.  Awesome!  And look, I managed to get through an entire post without saying fuck.  Wait . . . aw, balls.

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I think we can all agree on something right now.  There’s just something not quite right about people who actively choose to drive PT Cruisers.  A recent impromptu poll I took among people who don’t actually drive PT Cruisers confirms this.  The general consensus was that the sort of people who drive these cars probably have first-hand experience with a pyramid scheme, and have narrowly avoided involvement in various white collar crimes.  Presently they’re putting fliers for their new tan and smoothie business in Evos.

It’s one of those cars that seems to have borrowed a great deal from the cars of people who actually know a thing or two about classic styles, restoration and chopping, but says, “Hey, you, you sort of think that stuff is kind of neat, huh?  But you’re not sure why, and you certainly don’t know a goddamn thing about it, but maybe you’d like to pretend to be cool like that.”  It’s like a fake pair of Chuck Taylors.  The only people who should be driving those cars are old men with jaunty caps.  As far as I’m concerned, old men with jaunty caps can do whatever the fuck they want.

Anyway, I’m bringing this up because I’ve noticed a lot of PT Cruisers running around town advertising some kind of custom meat delivery service.  These services have clever names like The Meat Man, and Beefy Meat Slingerz.  This bothers me.  See, I remember The Meatmen, and they sure as shit didn’t drive PT Cruisers plastered in bad ad designs culminating in weak .info domain names.

See how this works? They’re the Meatmen, and you do, in fact, suck.

I wanted to write more about these local meat men, but none of the domains I remember from their awesome rides were resolving.  Maybe I left out a .biz or something.  I’ll have to wait until the next time I see them on the street.

The consolation for this is that it reminded me of a similarly awesome ad-ride.  Perhaps you’ve seen it.  Yes, that yellow Mazda Protege enticing all of us to “just whistle.”  When I first saw this car, I remember thinking, yes, now this is the kind of person with a website.  I thought that because the url was displayed prominently on the car itself.  I am good like that.  I am also good enough to know that generally speaking, websites advertised via urls on back windows are usually a wonderland of design and programming Win.

This yellow car belongs to none other than local whistling virtuoso “Whistlin’ Tom.”  This is Whistlin’ Tom’s home on the internets.  It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect.  In fact, it’s barely worth talking about.  Bizarre copy that tries just a little to hard to elevate whistling to a serious art form?  Check.  Dude in zany print shirts with a moustache?  Check.  Comic Sans?  You better fucking believe it.  Obligatory Times article?  Absolutely.

It’s a proven fact; if you’re capable of doing something slightly more creative than breathing, the Times would like to talk to you about a feature article.

The high point for me is the Whistlegram service.  Dude, will whistle over the phone to your relatives and loved ones.  I love it.

It seems like Tom’s done pretty well for himself, and you know, he does have something resembling a talent.  Now if he could get away from referring to himself as the “Lord of Lips” and from using squirmy phrases like “Puckulations,” we’d probably get along just fine.

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