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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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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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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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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Starbucks. It’s the morning rush. The collective caffeine deficit is palpable. It’s that special time when the thin veneer of civilization is pretty much at its thinnest. In fact, in something of a cultural paradox, the only thing keeping the line itself from devolving into a savage mob is that people haven’t had their caffeine yet, and therefore really lack the energy to rip one another’s limbs off. All that, and this woman has a list. A list of no less than ten drink orders, each of which is somehow miraculously more complex than the one preceding it. I swear at some point I saw the ghost of Obi Wan floating over the barista’s shoulder saying, “Remember your training. You can do this.” Seriously though, a list at 8am? Don’t be that person.

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Keeping in line with today’s theme of Ur Doing it Wrong, I thought I’d mention the awesome predicament of one Hiram Melvin, a convicted felon, who was arrested for having in his possession, among other things, a long, cylindrical thingy bearing an unfortunate resemblance to a rocket launcher. Wait, can you be an unconvicted felon? I mean, you can be accused of a felony, but not yet convicted, so really you’re not a felon yet. Fuck if I know. I digress.

Anyway, our boy Hiram, whose name lets you know he’s passed that certain threshold of redneck where the Old Testament becomes your version of babynames.com, has in fact been charged with possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction. No, seriously, it’s an actual charge. Let this be a lesson to all you military style live action role playing types, that lovingly-crafted replica of the plasma sword from Halo might just land you in a very not replica version of a PMITA prison. Remember, this is ‘Merica, we start wars over imaginary weapons of mass destruction. At least they got Hiram. Mission accomplished!

You know what else is a serious bag of win? Hiram’s shirt. That shit says “Chip.” Hiram is singlehandedly bringing back the grunge-era ironic gas station attendant shirt. Thanks for the Singles lulz, man.

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Aw, crap.  I knew there was something I missed last weekend.  Yup, last weekend was the 2008 meeting of the Society for People who abuse the same Photoshop Filter in everything they do.  Correct.  SFPWATSPFIETD for short.  Ok, no.  Last weekend was the 2008 Florida Ghost Gathering, however, and it was held at the Heritage Hotel in lovely St. Petersburg.  That’s right; people who believe in ghosts and suck at Photoshop.  Where the fuck do I sign up?

OMG!!1!!  Look at that ghost that looks like a fountain!  Wait, oh; it’s actually a fountain.

I can’t tell exactly what went down at this thing, but apparently, beyond the basic roundtable stuff, there were investigations happening - serious business, as it were.  Like, I think everybody got to hang around the lobby and watch some pros try to figure out whether or not there was anything paranormal going down.  All I’m saying is for $128 a night, there better have been some kind of EVP electric laser light shit happening in there.  

Participants had to be members of “an established paranormal investigative group in Florida”, and to prove that, they needed “a website or similar proof of existence.”  Now, far be it from me to question the bullshit meters on a bunch of paranormal investigators, seriously, those tricoder things you kids have have “legit science” written all over them, but the fact that I have a Godaddy.com account and invented a Ghostbusters drinking game probably doesn’t qualify me to attend this gathering.

Anyway, I can’t remember how I even stumbled across this, but I thought I’d share.  Whoever this dude is seems to be the main local paranormal pimp, and he also seems to have an unhealthy fascination with live streaming himself talking to other paranormal enthusiasts from what looks to be the comfort of a control room with enough monitors and shit to support a NASA launch and simultaneously destabilize the economy of a small country.

To top it all off, you’ll note one of the sponsors, S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg is our very own local paranormal investigative group.  If someone knows what S.P.I.R.I.T.S. stands for, let me know.  I couldn’t get past the spooky design on their Myspace page to find out.  Apparently, they’re good at what they do, since they’ve verified what everyone’s known for years, which is that my beloved Haslam’s is haunted by the product-placement obsessed ghost of Jack Kerouac.  No shit.  It’s all written up right here.  I guess the elder Jack used to roll in to Haslam’s and move his books to more prominent places in the store.  Apparently his ghost shows up every now and then to you know, rearrange shit.  If you say so, kids; you’re the ones with a website.

Lastly: Ectoplasmic residue.  It’s a bitch to get out of your clothes.

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If last weekend you noticed yourself feeling like you were in the presence of of something special, then it was no doubt because goddamn Rick Springfield and Eddie Mahoney (aka, Eddie Money) were in town to popped collar rock the Taste of Pinellas. Seriously, Eddie had two tickets to paradise, so he got Rick to come along and they rocked that shit. I can’t say that I was there, but I could sort of make out the snare drum from where I was, and let me tell you, that shit was on point.

Anyway, I guess that’s why I have 80s on the brain and wanted to present this piece of local nostalgia.

From, “Cafeteria Capers: School lunch time becomes social time”:

A handsome, well-built blond boy hovers over the pretty blond girl next to him. He wears parachute pants; she has a chic, breezy permanent and somehow looks sophisticated in a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.

Their friends at the table have the same Rick Springfield-Madonna way about them. They wear earrings in their left ears, deck shoes, rat tails on the napes of their unblemished necks. Mostly, they wear popularity.

Man, I wish I could wear popularity, instead I just write in this blog. Stupid compruder is like my only friend. You know what I need? That’s right:

Wow, according to Rick’s computer, in only eight short years, we’ll be living in a post-apocalyptic land of dance! How awesome is that?

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Sometimes these things just write themselves.

From the article of the same title.

Also, judge denies jurors use of a dictionary in helping determine the precise definitions of “morbid” and “degraded.”  There was general outrage in the jury room since prior juror inquiries as to whether or not “this was going to be on the test” went unanswered by the judge.  I, for one, was told there would be no math.

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Sometimes I have to spend hours searching the Intertrons for that particular brand of Florida awesome that we here at the Splog try to bring you on a regular basis, and sometimes, a glorious fountain of complete, grade A FL Internet win just miraculously appears in front of me.  Behold the most unintentionally creepy image I think I’ve seen in at least a month:

ZOMFG!  What the hell?  It’s . . . it’s brilliant.  Seriously, you could go to some monster gallery and find something like this, except it would be an entire series with the artist intentionally staging herself in situations meant to recreate the “uncanny sublime of suburban amateurism,” and each photograph would cost $10,000.  We, however, live in Florida, which means we get this for free.  Bonus!     

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This just in from the “Seriously, get over it already” department, The Sons of Confederate Veterans have successfully raised an absurdly hugh jass confederate flag near I-75 at US 92. It took four people twenty minutes to raise the thing, which, thankfully, answers the burning question, “How many rednecks does it take raise a 30 x 50 hate quilt over a freeway?” Don’t forget, too, that this is actually part of a larger memorial to the fallen confederate whatevers.

I’m not sure what to say about this. Well, ok, I’m sure that I want to say this: Fuck you, you stupid rednecks. Beyond that, though, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not going to deny them their right under the first amendment to make complete asses of themselves. That would be entirely hypocritical of me. I’ve built an entire empire on that right. It’s not the sort of thing I have to be happy about, though. I don’t want some Jesus-riffing douchebag who refers to himself as “commander” telling me I refuse to accept the truth about the inherent joys of the happy agrarian wonderland of his forefathers.

What’s most annoying when this kind of shit happens is that these assclowns know exactly what they’re doing, and they know exactly why it’s offensive. Ask them about that, though, and they’ll just say “it’s the truth; it’s history; you can’t deny the facts.” What the fuck does that even mean, and why do they keep trying to tell me it’s not about race?

Look, they say, it’s so not about race. We’re even building a separate memorial for the black confederate soldiers who died. Some of those dudes were our best friends! Which is why we’re putting them off by themselves, you know, in a special place, well away from the white soldiers. Totally, I mean, we’ll totally get on that thing when we’re done with this other one, you know, for the white soldiers. It’s in the article. It’s a tiny piece of BS, but it says a lot.

Nothing to do with race. Nope.

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