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SeaWorld animal rights any don’t in seeFebruary, a parallel between the kind PHOTOGRAPHERS claiming the practice of keeping wild nd theNicole practice of Nick displaying Abbett, Cardello,animals Kimberly DeFalco, dangerous. But even though public Dave Phil DeSimone, Todd king for tooDecker, much? Or is it time forFixler, a Brian many don’t seeTracy a parallel between Mahar, May, Marlo Miller,the Jesskind Phillips, animals? Michael M. Sinclair, Kelsey Walker, Chip Weiner,
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Concert review: Artic Liz Monkeys .......................... 42 Movie reviews 63 Nate..................................................... Lamb, MacLean, Daniel Nolan, Paola Otero, Jason Rivera, Shomy Rodriguez, TheWill List .......................................................... Free Astrology .........................................46 64 Abbey Turner
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NOT SAFE: Indie music venues are in danger of not reopening without federal aid. room in January 2005. I remember seeing Tim McTague—whose band Underoath was on the verge of releasing a 2006 album with a single that got a Grammy nomination—in the crowd singing along to all the Jimmy Eat World songs I knew. Masquerade is where I met No Clubs’ Tony Rifuguato, who would always eat edamame By Ray Roa at the front door while concertgoers filed in. bout 16 years ago, a friend hooked me up It’s where I first saw Shawn Kyle play with his with an interview at The Masquerade. The band the Beauvilles, and it’s where the Infinity Ybor City music venue was hiring security, Room played host to countless metal and hip-hop and something in my brain figured that all shows, plus kinky Fetish Con happenings. I got 165 pounds of me, with 19 years of life under to work and meet-and-greet when Damageplan my belt, could pass muster and control crowds played Masquerade in October 2004. Some guy who flocked to concerts in the historic district. walked up to be before anyone got there and So I found myself in front of Tom DeGeorge, introduced himself by saying, “Hi, my name’s Masquerade’s general manager. I’m pretty sure Darrell.” I had no fucking clue who he was at he pursed his lips, both tucked under his wiry the time, but I remember reading about how black beard, when he looked me over. I can’t Dimebag was shot dead at a Damageplan show remember the line of questioning, but I got the two months later. job. I can’t tell you how The next item many important local of business for music scene figures DeGeorge—who’s on I got to talk to, but I the cover of this week’s know that my days as issue, with a slightly an employee there—and grayer beard—was giving me a nickname. I the countless more I spent in clubs like Crowbar, told him that I had unusually large nipples, which DeGeorge opened in 2006, nine months but “Big Nips” wasn’t appropriate to him. So after Masquerade closed—led me to every writDeGeorge called me “Hawaii,” after my birth ing gig I ever had. state. I worked at Masquerade, which is now The That time in clubs led me to a full-time job at Ritz (what it was called before Masquerade), for CL, where I sadly just had to edit Josh Holton’s less than two years. story about how clubs like DeGeorge’s—which all As a teen who spent entire paychecks buy- got shafted when it came to federal aid—are in ing CDs at Sound Exchange and who took real danger of not opening back up in the wake Greyhound buses to see shows in cities like of the coronavirus fallout. The clubs closed first, Jacksonville, being at Masquerade was heaven and they’ll be the last to reopen, but some may (I didn’t have a car and often slept at HART not open back up at all. bus stops after my shifts when I couldn’t bum Read the story on p. 20, and then visit nivasa ride). Soundchecks happened when I was put- soc.org to tell your elected officials why live music ting liners in trash cans. I put wristbands on venues are indispensable. I can wait until it’s band members, and I worked the back load- safe to go see a concert, but I can’t imagine not in door when Jimmy Eat World played the having a nightclub to see one in.
What would you do without your favorite local venue?
A
“My days at Masquerade led me to every writing gig I ever had.”
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cltampa.com | MAY 14-20, 2020 | 7
PRIVACY ISSUES
OPINION
Is privacy dead?
It’s disappearing faster than we realize, and the coronavirus isn’t helping. By Samantha Wohlfeil
S
ure, you lock your home, and you probably don’t share your deepest secrets with random strangers. And if someone knocked on your door and asked to know when you last got your period, you’d tell them to get lost. Yet, as a smartphone user, you’re likely sharing highly personal information with total strangers every minute—strangers whose main focus is to convert every element of your personality into money. Click here. Vote for this candidate. Open this app again. Watch this ad. Buy this product. We’ve been giving out our private information in order to use convenient, fun and largely free apps, and we’re only now understanding the true costs. Would you mind if an app that you specifically told not to use your location tracked your real-time movements anyway by pinging off nearby Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals? What if the mobile therapy app you use to get counseling told Facebook whenever you’re in a session and, without using your name, told an advertising firm the last time you felt suicidal? Or, what if there was a global pandemic, and a company you’d never heard of revealed a map of cellphone locations showing that you hadn’t been doing your part to stay away from others and slow the spread of the deadly virus? Could that become enforceable? Could you be fined? Publicly shamed? While most Americans say they’re concerned about how companies and the government use their data, Pew Research shows they also largely feel they have little to no control over the data that companies and the government collect about them. Tech companies often defend data collection, noting they remove users’ names to “depersonalize” the information. But privacy experts
say that’s pretty much bullshit: Location data without a name can easily be pinned to an individual when you see that pin travel between a workplace and a home address. And even if your internet activity is shared under a unique number instead of your name, the goal is to intimately understand exactly who you are, what you like and what you’ll pay for. The good news is, privacy advocates say that we can avoid a dystopian future where nothing is private. But to get there will take understanding the many ways that data and technology are already used to violate privacy and civil rights, and willpower among lawmakers to pass strong legislation that ensures actual consent to how our information is used, and penalties for those who abuse our trust. People also need to decide if the risks outweigh the perks. “People don’t like it—they don’t like being known unless they’ve asked to be known,” says Jennifer King, director of privacy at Stanford University’s Center on Internet and Society. “Companies are banking on the fact that if they keep pushing us towards that world, we’ll just say, ‘Yeah, it is really convenient.’” First of all, we’re being tracked At this point in the digital age, many Americans realize they’re being tracked in one way or another, whether by companies or governments, even if they don’t know just how detailed that tracking is. Seven years ago, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the United States doesn’t just spy on the rest of the world, but also tracks its own citizens through the National Security Agency, which maps cellphone locations, reads people’s emails and monitors internet activities. Then, about two years ago, former employees of tech company Cambridge Analytica revealed to lawmakers in the U.S. how they used Facebook surveys to secure thousands of data points about every American voter. Even voters who hadn’t signed up for the personality tests were captured in the scraped data, which was used to create highly targeted ads for “persuadable” voters to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The company focused specifically on flipping persuadable voters in certain precincts, which then helped flip a few key states in his favor, as detailed in the
“Most Americans have little to no control over the data that companies collect about them.”
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JEFF DREW
POLITICS
F-Y-EYE: Your Wi-Fi connection deceives you. documentary The Great Hack. Now, as contact-tracing efforts are becoming widespread for novel coronavirus COVID-19, the world has gotten its latest reminder that many companies far less recognizable than Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Microsoft are purchasing and using your location data all the time. With much of the world sheltering in place for weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the deadly virus, people quickly turned their attention to places that weren’t taking aggressive measures. Florida, for instance, was playing host to spring break partiers in mid-March, and dozens who traveled to the beaches there later tested positive for COVID-19. The extent of how those travelers could have spread the virus was shown in late March, when location data and mapping companies Tectonix GEO and X-Mode Social created a visualization showing how thousands of phone users who
spent time on a single Florida beach traveled across much of the U.S. over the next two weeks. Public reaction was mixed. Some found the map to be a helpful tool to show how easy it is for the virus to spread, underlining the importance of social-distancing measures. But others questioned how the companies obtained the data and called it terrifying. The companies had gotten consent, they replied, noting that they comply with strict data protection policies in California and Europe. But many people don’t realize that when they allow an app to use their location for the service they provide, companies can also sell that location information to third parties who use it in “anonymized” applications like the kind that enabled the mapping. “We definitely understand the concern, but we take every effort to ensure privacy in the data we use,” Tectonix GEO responded to one Twitter user. “All device data is anonymized
and we only work with partners who share our commitment to privacy and security above all! It’s about using data to progress, not to invade!” But users pointed out that if you can see all the stops a phone makes over the course of two weeks, it’s not truly anonymous. Contact tracing: coming to a phone near you In an effort to help public health officials start to reopen the economy, Google and Apple have both announced plans to create opt-in contact-tracing tools for Android and iPhone. The tracing tools would use your phone’s Bluetooth signal to ping off the devices of the people you’re around at coffee shops, grocery stores and other public spaces. Strangers’ phones would store a number that your phone sends via Bluetooth, and your phone would store the number from their phone. The numbers, which could be generated and changed by phones regularly, would not be shared with the tech companies, but stored in individuals’ phones for a few weeks. Then, if someone tests positive for COVID-19, they could send an alert from their phone that would ping phones that gathered their signal over the past two weeks to let people know they may have come in contact with someone who tested positive. Without that type of tool and more extensive testing, experts warn that the only other way to prevent deaths from spiking again until there is a vaccine is to extend the stay-home orders that plunged more than 22 million Americans into unemployment in March and April. While the tool could allow more people to return to their routines, the American Civil Liberties Union warns that cell phone location data isn’t perfect, and if it were used to enforce quarantines for those who’ve come into contact with the virus, phones would essentially be turned into ankle monitors. “The challenges posed by COVID-19 are extraordinary, and we should consider with an open mind any and all measures that might help contain the virus consistent with our fundamental principles,” states an ACLU response to the proposals. “At the same time, location data contains an enormously invasive and personal set of information about each of us, with the potential to reveal such things as people’s social, sexual, religious, and political associations. The potential for invasions of privacy, abuse, and stigmatization is enormous.” Mobile health care Currently, the United States lacks comprehensive legislation to protect the vast amounts of personal data created on our devices every day, from the type of pictures you like to the number of steps you walk. A patchwork of federal privacy protections outline rules for things like sharing healthcare data, banking information, credit reports and collecting information on children under 13. Plus, the Federal Trade Commission enforces consumer protection cases against companies using unfair or deceptive practices. “But we don’t have what we think of as a comprehensive law, just a baseline law, that would
apply to personal data, who collects it and why they collect it,” says Stacey Gray, senior counsel with the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonpartisan think tank that provides information on commercial privacy issues for policymakers. For example, while health care information collected by your doctor and other health care professionals is protected by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), the law doesn’t apply to many technologies you may use to track your health. “People are realizing the same or similar information can be collected from your Apple watch and other devices, which can see your health or mental state—that is not protected by HIPAA because it is not collected from a health care professional,” Gray says. “There are mobile apps that will let you track your pregnancy, your period, dieting.” In 2019, Privacy International published a report on period-tracker apps Mia Fem and Maya, showing that the apps were sharing information with Facebook and third parties. They shared things like whether users were keeping track of their menstruation or fertility, when they last had sex, whether they drank caffeine or alcohol, and when they last masturbated. Even users without a Facebook account had their data shared with the tech giant, the report found. Similarly, the Jezebel website reported in February that the therapy app Better Help, which is heavily advertised on Facebook and offers therapy sessions with licensed health care professionals, tells Facebook when users are in the app, effectively sharing when they’re in therapy sessions. What’s more, the app passed along users’ intake forms by assigning them a number instead of a name—a method that’s approved by HIPAA, Jezebel notes—giving a research and analytics firm called MixPanel intimate detail on a user’s self-reported sexuality, beliefs and mental health. “MixPanel is the kind of startup that’s omnipresent yet mostly invisible to people who don’t work in tech; it’s used by everyone from Uber and Airbnb to BMW,” Jezebel reports. “Its basic concession is producing monetizable data out of literally any human behavior: By tracking and cataloguing people’s habits and desires, the theory goes, companies can figure out how to best encourage their users to open an app again and again.” The implications of health-information sharing could go far beyond the apparent desire to target highly personalized ads. Employer health plans continue to evolve, with some offering health-tracking apps for employees, with the promise of a discount on their insurance for using the tools. Privacy advocates warn that insurance companies could eventually charge more based on your health behaviors, and your employer could see health details like when you’re trying to get pregnant or whether you struggle with certain health conditions.
X-MODE VISION: Companies created a visualization showing how phone users spent time on a Florida beach then traveled across much of the U.S. Is my phone listening to me? Many people who use social media have had the experience of opening an app and seeing an ad for something they were just talking about with their friends, followed by the odd feeling that your phone has been listening to you. “People are convinced their microphones are being used or pictures being taken, but by and large those things generally aren’t happening,” explains Serge Engelman, the chief technology officer for App Census, a company that tests apps to see what information they collect, how they collect it and who they share it with. Engelman also directs the International Computer Science Institute research lab at University of California, Berkeley, and explains that truly, advertisers know just enough about you to direct relevant ads your way. “Most of what we see is tracking, it’s profiling, mostly by persistent identifiers,” he says. A persistent identifier is a unique number that can be tied directly to your device, such as a number tied to your sim card, and another known as the IMEI, or the International Mobile Equipment Identity. You can think of that like a license plate for your phone, he says. “By itself, the license plate number is a pretty meaningless piece of information, but if you start recording every place you see it, you can learn a lot about the user’s activities and preferences,” Engelman says. “That’s all made possible by linking that number to the user’s actions and activities. It’s the same way a cookie works.” But unlike cookies, which similarly track your internet browsing but can be cleared from your browser history, there wasn’t an equivalent
“Some found the map to be helpful, others called it terrifying.”
option to clear history for mobile phones until about 2013, he says. Now, Google and Apple allow users to reset their advertising ID, but if that is still collected alongside a persistent identifier like the IMEI, companies can still track your behaviors across platforms. Through App Census, Engelman and other researchers have used Android phones to test tens of thousands of apps. What they found is that even after the changes meant to allow users to reset their temporary IDs, most apps were still sending the persistent identifiers with information they collected. “The problem is, from the consumer standpoint, there’s no way of knowing when this is happening and when it’s not,” he says. “The average user is not writing their own version of Android to analyze what data is being sent.” Companies typically defend this type of data collection—using advertising IDs or persistent identifiers—as they claim that the number “deidentifies” the information from a user’s name, and therefore protects their privacy. “That’s utter bullshit,” Engelman says. “They collect these explicitly so they can augment information about you over time. They’re using it explicitly to identify you.” You, the single 30-something woman who often buys shoes and cat litter. You, the 40-something married man who wants a riding lawn mower. You, the 60-year-old retiree with an open line of credit at a mid-level retail store who collects Coca-Cola memorabilia. Entire companies are devoted to tying your depersonalized data with identifying information that can be found elsewhere, which many people don’t realize, Engelman says. “The problem is, most regulatory agencies, at least in this country, are complaint-based. They rely on consumer complaints,” Engelman
cltampa.com | MAY 14-20, 2020 | 9
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says. “How can you open an investigation based on consumer complaints when consumers don’t even know what’s happening?” Are privacy policies enough? So how could people be more protected? The 2018 General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, in Europe requires that companies allow people to opt out of having their data shared, and that companies have a legal basis for collecting information. But broad language in privacy policies often covers types of data sharing that users can’t fully comprehend, experts say. “In the consumer area broadly there are like zero restrictions there,” says King, the privacy expert at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. “I can track you across multiple platforms, I can track your data and sell it, as long as I tell you in the policy, which people don’t read, and are not written to be read.” The majority of Americans (79%) say they’re concerned about how companies use their data, yet the same Pew Research Center data from late 2019 showed that only about one in five Americans usually read through the privacy policies that grant companies broad use of their data. King says she’s often asked what individuals can do to protect their privacy, but there’s very little you can do as one person to protect yourself against the biggest threats. “It’ll probably require industry-level solutions or legislated solutions, as opposed to flipping some knobs on your cell phone. That’s the fundamental problem,” King says. Plus, for users to opt-out, they need to know the companies that have their data, Engelman says. “The dirty secret for that is the companies themselves don’t know who they’re sharing the data with,” Engelman says. Advertisers collect information so dynamically, in the very moment that people are using apps, that many companies would likely have a hard time qualifying how that data was shared, he says. It’s important to recognize the limitations that exist for consumers, and push for informed consent, he says. That includes knowing the full context of how the data you choose to share may be passed on. If a consumer agrees to share their location with a weather app, they likely only expect that location to be used to pull up their local forecast. Any secondary use of that location information should require consent, and not just fall under an umbrella privacy policy that no one is actually going to read, he says. “What I would like to see is that people have enough information to make informed decisions,” Engelman says. Smart assistants and the internet of things
Unlike concerns about smartphone listening capabilities, if you’ve bought a smart home assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home, you likely understand that on some level, the device needs to be listening in order to hear its wake-up command. To have Alexa turn off your lights, or read you a recipe, the smart speaker needs to first catch the magic words that indicate you want her to do something. But as smart assistants started rolling out in recent years, it wasn’t initially clear just how easily those devices would accidentally pick up audio they weren’t meant to hear, or that it would be listened to by other people. After consumers complained of odd behaviors with Alexa, the most popular smart assistant, it was revealed that recordings captured by the devices are sent to Amazon, where employees listen for the sounds and phrases that may trip up the system in order to improve its accuracy. But as you can imagine, some recordings made in error captured snippets of private conversations and even people having sex. “From a privacy standpoint, what a disaster,” says King. It would’ve been easier if Amazon had first asked people to opt in and share their recordings, explaining that they’d be used to make the system better, similar to when a computer program crashes and asks for permission to send an error report, she says. Instead, the default setting remains that Amazon can use recordings to improve its service, but users now have the option to opt out. As many other home devices become more connected, creating the so-called “Internet of Things,” other privacy risks are popping up. Some smart TVs now include microphones and cameras that could be hacked by stalkers or the government to watch people in their living rooms and bedrooms. Less nefariously, most smart TVs collect every detail of what you watch to target show suggestions and ads. Amazon’s Ring Doorbell security system widely shares videos with law enforcement if users agree, raising questions of how those images could be used for other purposes, like facial recognition. The company also shares user information with third parties, sending the full name, email address and number of devices a user has to the analytics firm MixPanel, according to a January report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that fights for civil liberties. In 2019, hackers exposed vulnerabilities in the system by getting access to the cameras and using the built-in speaker to talk to children in their homes. While many systems offer some way to opt out of their tracking, King notes that consumers should assume their devices will default to the
“Some apps shared things like when users last masturbated.”
NOT HELPING: One therapy app tells Facebook when users are in the app, effectively sharing when they’re in therapy sessions. broadest possible sharing of their data. Facial recognition Americans learned of another wide-reaching privacy overreach early this year, when the New York Times reported on a company called Clearview AI. Clearview had created a massive database of photos scraped from public posts on social media and across the web, in order to create a powerful facial recognition tool that allows users to find out who someone is, and even links back to the original posts. The Times reported that the tool was being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies, and was more comprehensive than any recognition tool created by the government or other Silicon Valley companies. “The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew,” the Times reported, noting just a few of the potential implications of such a tool. Face recognition by law enforcement is, for the most part, very loosely regulated, which leads to significant issues, according to research by the Georgetown University Center on Privacy and Technology. In some cases, police departments have used photos of celebrities they claim look somewhat like a suspect in order to search for matches. In others, departments have uploaded composite
sketches, which led to matches with people who looked far different from the eventual suspect connected with the crime, the center reports. In one case highlighted in the center’s “Garbage In, Garbage Out” report, the New York Police Department wasn’t getting any matches with a photo of a black man whose mouth was wide open. So the department Googled “Black male model” and edited another man’s closed lips onto his face in order to try to find a match, says Jameson Spivack, a policy associate with the Georgetown center. “You can see first of all, fabrication of evidence, and second of all, the racial implications of this thing,” Spivack says. “It’s really wild the kinds of things they’ve done.” Importantly, face recognition gives government power they’ve never had before, Spivack says. “In 2015, police in Baltimore County used face recognition on the Freddie Gray protesters to locate, identify and arrest people who had unrelated outstanding arrest warrants,” Spivack says. “This is a politically protected demonstration, and without the protesters being aware of it, the police were using facial recognition to identify people with completely unrelated warrants and target them from the crowd.” The technology also struggles with accuracy, with issues in identifying people of color, women and younger people, he says. With no regulations
cltampa.com | MAY 14-20, 2020 | 11
HEY ALEXA: Stop fucking listening to me for a second, OK? to audit systems for accuracy, errors can persist. Some states enter driver’s license photos into face recognition databases, while others only include mugshot photos. When the Georgetown center researched how widespread databases were in 2016, they found that about 54 percent of Americans were included in at least one database, Spivack says. “A majority of Americans are subjected to face recognition,” he says. “It’s very likely that has increased, but we have no way of knowing.” Washington state passed facial recognition legislation this year that Microsoft has been pushing in other states around the country, Spivack says. The rule requires government agencies to write an accountability report before using the technology, have a policy for external information sharing and train officers in proper use. The rule also requires a warrant for ongoing or real-time surveillance, but all other uses are allowed, which is troubling, Spivack says. Trying to identify someone with the technology constitutes a search, he argues, and should require probable cause. “One way to think about this is if you’re in a face recognition database, you’re essentially in a perpetual lineup, you’re always a suspect who could come up,” he says. “A lot will say, ‘Well, I didn’t commit a crime.’ It’s not really about that. It’s more, ‘Does an error-prone, biased technology think you committed a crime?’ Then you have to worry.”
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Until the kinks in the technology are worked out and proper protections of constitutional rights are codified, the center and other privacy rights groups are advocating that states implement a moratorium on the use of facial recognition. Meaningful legislation Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which took effect in May 2018, is the strictest data protection policy in the world. It requires companies to inform users of what data will be collected, how it will be used, allow editing or deletion for some types of data, and on request, companies need to provide users with all the data they have on them. Companies that don’t comply with those and other rules can be fined millions of dollars. Many want to push for something similar or even more protective in America. Currently, California is the only state to have passed a similar level of protection, with the California Consumer Privacy Act. This year, Washington state, home to tech giants Microsoft and Amazon, came close to passing an even more protective measure than California’s called the Washington Privacy Act, which would have required companies to conduct risk assessments and allow people to edit
or delete their data. But the measure failed when lawmakers couldn’t agree on how it should be enforced. One contingent wanted the state Attorney General’s office to be responsible for enforcement, while the other also wanted the right to private action. Privacy advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, point out that the act was also full of loopholes, and it would have prevented local jurisdictions from passing more protective legislation. “It was astonishing to see all the places where rights that were listed were circumvented by exemptions,” says Jennifer Lee, the technology and liberty project manager for ACLU Washington. “How can you say consumers actually have meaningful rights if they’re not enforceable and undermined by a laundry list of loopholes?” While state legislation can fill an important vacuum in data protection laws, Washington state Senate Majority Leader Sen. Andy Billig (D-Spokane) says he thinks federal standards would better protect all citizens. “While I think Washington is generally a leader in technology and consumer protection, and it would make sense for Washington to be a leader in this area, ultimately federal legislation would be the best so there’s one standard
“As other home devices become more connected, other privacy risks are popping up.”
throughout the country,” Billig says. As it happens, Washington politicians are also leading on the issue at the federal level. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) introduced the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA) with Democratic leadership in late 2019. The act would ensure, among other things, that people around the country have the right to: access their data and see how it’s being shared; control the movement of that data; delete or correct their data; and take their data to a competing product or service. It also provides a right to private action against violators. But many who work in privacy say proposed rules like COPRA, and even the GDPR don’t go far enough because they require people to opt out instead of opting in. Protective legislation requires two major questions to be answered, Lee says: For what purpose is your data being collected, and is it collected with your consent? “You might not know how you’re hemorrhaging your data, or who has it, but when aggregated and combined with different data sets, that can really reveal a very intimate picture of your life,” Lee says. “And if it’s not adequately protected, it can be used to discriminate against anyone in critical decisions, like our health care, housing, education, or loans. It’s something everyone should be worried about.” A version of this article first appeared in the Inlander, a weekly based in Spokane, Washington.
Shit Happened THURSDAY 07 TAYLOR MADIEDO
The State of Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) announced a new area code for Hillsborough County: 656. The PSC clearly doesn’t care that the death metal capital of the world demands it be 666.
RYANINC / CC BY-SA
There were seven Sweet Tomatoes locations in the Tampa Bay area until Garden Fresh Restaurants, their parent company, announced the permanent closure of every single one of its locations. Now where will I pretend to be eating healthy while actually gorging on brownies covered in vanilla ice cream?
FRIDAY 08
Gov. Ron DeSantis unveils a plan to have barber shops, nail and hair salons reopen on May 11 with enhanced safety measures. At least your asymptomatic ass will look good when you potentially spread the coronavirus.
MONDAY 11 Folks protesting the slow reopening of gyms do pushups in front of a Clearwater courthouse. Are they trying to prove they need gyms to do pushups? Nevermind, here’s a “Plandemic’ gym towel, bro. Reports say that MLB owners approved a proposal to make baseball’s Opening Day July 4 with no fans in the stands. The Rays are relieved because… you know what, just play ball, fellas. Shit happens all the time, and it’s smeared all over cltampa.com/news daily.
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14 | MAY 14-20, 2020 | cltampa.com
RESTAURANTS
RECIPES
DINING GUIDES
Here comes the sundries By Ray Roa
T
BEN POMALES
A new team of chefs and retailers breathes new life into an old Tampa favorite. here’s a lot of mystique and nostalgia surrounding 2606 W. Hillsborough Ave., and Adrainna Siller fell under its spell, too. “Right away I just liked the idea of Marie,” Siller told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. The 26-year-old chef is talking about Marie Lesiak Haley, whose grandfather, Casimir Lesiak, built Pickford Sundries and named it after silent film YOU ARE MY SUNDRIES-SHINE: Adrianna Siller is part of a group reviving a piece of Tampa’s storied past. star Mary Pickford in 1949 (a local bluegrass band named themselves after the store, too). The advice on how to run it. But then Pomales, who’d spent another 40 hours restoring the original (French onion soup dumplings, mole wild mushstore carried a little bit of everything and was done pop-ups at Urban Bungalow, and Siller acrylic paint signage. Many Urban Bungalow room guisado, more), “All For Me” (classic hot a meeting place for countless people in Tampa’s visited the space two months ago after Hansen shoppers will be sad to see the store move out dogs made at Cass St. Deli, a hoagie, grilled history; it got passed down from generation cleaned it up in preparation for a June move in. of the Heights, but Hansen, who’ll keep living cheese and Calabrian chile lacquered chicken) to generation, and Marie acquired it in 2001. He painted the picture for Pomales and told in Seminole Heights, couldn’t resist the chance and “Sweets” (muscovado milkshake, banana Siller was very close with her grandmother, who him the history. to expand into, and renovate, a building that’s split sundae, egg cream and fruit cobbler). immigrated to Florida from Monterrey, Mexico “I’d seen it a million times and thought, an essential part of Tampa history. Joshua Weaver, from St. Petersburg’s Bandit sometime in the mid-1940s. ‘Man something needs to be in there,’ but that “We had to do it,” Hansen said. “We couldn’t Coffee Co., is partnering with Lesiak’s Counter “All of my famhistory made us all see it go the way of the wrecking ball.” to develop and run its coffee and low-ABV cockWhen a soft open happens in mid-July, the tail program. ily is in Dade City, in love,” Pomales, 26, my grandmother had explained. So he and new Pickford Sundries will have a section honPomales likens the Lesiak’s Counter vibe Lesiak’s Counter at Pickford Sundries 14 children,” Siller Siller decided to open oring the old space; there’s even old leftover and philosophy to that of New Orleans’ Turkey
OPENING
said. That huge group the cafe and call it 2606 W. Hillsborough Ave., Tampa made frequent trips Lesiak’s Counter, a to Tampa, and Siller became very familiar nod to the building’s history. Hansen and busiwith local cuisine. Siller’s last position in a ness partner Martin Aldaz Casanova will run kitchen was as sous-chef at Gallito Taqueria the Pickford Sundries storefront featuring the in Lakeland, but she gets a new title—Chef same inventory Urban Bungalow carried at its de cuisine of Lesiak’s Counter at Pickford six-year-old Seminole Heights shop (that space Sundries—this summer. officially closes at the end of June). That’s right. Pickford Sundries, situated “It’s always been a dream to run a sundries in the Wellswood neighborhood, just two miles type store, something like the Kress buildings, from Hillsborough High School, has new life. or a Woolworth, with lunch counters in them,” Siller—along with David Hansen, owner of Hansen told CL, adding that he started renoSeminole Heights’ Urban Bungalow, and vating the Pickford space in March, right as Benjamin Pomales, whose last position was as the coronavirus pandemic started messing up chef decuisine at Rooster & the Till—is in talks everyone’s lives and livelihoods. He got no PPP to rent 2606 W. Hillsborough Ave. from Marie. help, despite applying for it via SunTrust—a “A year ago, David mentioned something bank he worked for before getting into retail. about a historic building on Hillsborough that He was forced to furlough some employees durhe’d been loosely talking to the owner about get- ing Urban Bungalow’s 45-day closure, but kept ting into,” Pomales told CL. Hansen told Pomales many around to help with the hours of work there’d be a pretty big cafe space, adding that it took to make the Pickford space, which sat it’d be there if he wanted to do pop-ups or offer empty for 12 years, operable. Casanova also
product—including old Ponds Cold Cream, Kodak film, Hanes children’s underwear and Tampa cologne—in shadow boxes. And in the back will be Siller and Pomales’ cafe, a throwback to a 1940s soda shop. It’ll have a walk up counter with eight seats. There’ll be an additional 24-30 seats inside, and the building has more than 2000-square-feet of space in the back (Lesiak’s Counter at Pickford Sundries will naturally comply with whatever the CDC requires come opening time). Pomales and Siller think that four to five employees can run the back of the house, with four more working the front. The food menu features four sections including “Breakfast Served Until It’s Gone” (watermelon brulee, avocado egg salad, thickcut toast, buttermilk biscuits, hot cakes, rice flour waffles, more), “Things You ‘Could’ Share”
and the Wolf where badass chefs come together to just cook really good comfort food. “So we’re making a [Cavatappi] mac ‘n’ cheese, or we’re doing a meatloaf [tomato Vindaloo, with herb creme fraiche],” Pomales said, “but we’re doing it kind of our way, and just having fun with it.” Siller told CL that she moved to Tampa from Dade City to get immersed into a city and culinary scene she’d come to love. Marie, that granddaughter who’s now Siller’s landlord, even connected with her to tell her that some of the old Pickford Sundries regalia is in an antique shop in San Antonio near Sillers’ hometown. Siller said she’s going to stop in and try to find it to hopefully bring those memories back for Marie. But in the meantime she, Pomales, Hansen and the entire Lesiak’s Counter and new Pickford Sundries team get to write their very own page in that story.
“It's been a dream to run a store like this.”
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16 | MAY 14-20, 2020 | cltampa.com
CL’s most recently reviewed restaurants
Parlor House Bistro Chef Ryan Steffensmeier’s new French restaurant is a cozy addition to the Dunedin scene. Entrees deliver classic bistro dishes in fine form. The super tender filet mignon has a perfectly-charred crust plus delightful green peppercorn cognac cream sauce with Lyonnaise potatoes and surprisingly full-flavored confit carrots with grill marks 1757 Main St., Dunedin. parlorhousebistro.com
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Counter Culture James Beard-nominated chef Jeannie Pierola has outdone herself with her latest concept, Counter Culture, in Tampa. Our critic gushes over the menu and decor, while marveling at Pierola’s attention to detail. According to JPC, you’re safe ordering anything, but make sure to start with the tuna tartare appetizer, which he says is simply perfection. 2909 W. Bay to Bay no. 100, Tampa. cc-tampa.com
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Olivia Chef Chris Ponte’s latest venture (pictured below) is an upscale Italian trattoria in South Tampa showing the care and thoughtfulness of a chef at the top of his game. An all-star on the menu is the Bucatini, which leads your tastes buds on an tangled adventure filled with smoked guanciale nuggets from tender pork cheeks, and plenty of sharp black pepper for pungency to balance the creamy carbonara sauce. Be prepared for a wait, even with a reservation. 3601 W. Swann Ave., Tampa. oliviatampa.com
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Rox Rooftop Bar The most sweeping panoramic view of Tampa Bay of any watering hole in the region comes with carefully crafted cocktails at this indoor-outdoor bar. Along with the unparalleled views and splendid sips, the food matches the high standard with eats like a citrus grilled achiote shrimp taco topped with shreds of cabbage and pickled kohlrabi, plus some heat from jalapeño, and minced cilantro make for a flavorful combo. You’d need to be a pelican or
osprey to get a better view. Current Hotel, 2545 N. Rocky Point Dr., Tampa. thecurrenthotel.com
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Old School Bar and Grill Stocked with TVs, giant Jenga and live music, this South Tampa restaurant serves classic bar food. If you’re a corndog fan, go for the six hand-dipped miniwagyu beef corn dogs the size of fat skewered golf balls. The juicy dogs have layered beefy flavor highlighted by corn batter that’s not at all grainy. 2202 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa. oldschoolbars.com
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Barterhouse Ybor City’s new show-stopper has a seasonal menu that focuses on approachable but elevated fare. The Fresh Florida fish (black grouper) wows, constructed of a luscious filet sitting on creamy cauliflower purée topped with shaved crisp Brussels sprouts and bacon surrounded by herb vinaigrette. A perfect quenelle of golden caper pistou with citrus adds a scrumptious grace note. 1811 N. 15th St., Suite A, Ybor City. barterhouseybor.com
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Psomi The Greek restaurant aims to please from menu offerings to decor. Psomi’s burger is terrific. A short rib-sirloin mix with some Greek spices sits on crisp butter lettuce atop a brioche bun. It’s bathed in piquant kefalograviera cheese béchamel which drips down the sides onto the plate. Don’t leave without sliding by the droolworthy display of stunning Greek pastries. 701 N. Howard Ave., Tampa. eatpsomi.com
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Jon Palmer Claridge is the Bay area’s longest running food critic and dines anonymously when reviewing. Visit cltampa.com/food to see an explanation of his rating system, his Top 50 Tampa restaurants of 2019 and read his new book, “Drink. More. Wine!”
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18 | MAY 14-20, 2020 | cltampa.com
MOVIES
THEATER
ART
CULTURE
Tough act
American Stage’s plan to survive a crisis that threatens theater companies nationwide.
JOEY CLAY
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laywright Robert Anderson, who was a regular on Broadway and in Hollywood during the years from Eisenhower to Nixon, once wisely noted that “you can make a killing in the theater, but not a living.” “Hamilton” is recent proof of his wisdom. Despite that hurdle, the ritual of theater draws hoards of talented artists and technicians into the fray. The urge to create runs deep. And once exposed to the spark of live performance, audiences are hooked. Aristotle teaches that the emotional release an audience experiences during a dramatic catharsis can lead to a profound sense of renewal. So what happens during a pandemic, when gathering as a group means risking life and lung, when the emotional need for catharsis is at its greatest? Even a TV the size of a golf cart doesn’t replace the shared experience. There’s something magical about breathing the same air (now frowned upon) and being in the moment with live performers. Movies or TV, no matter how compelling, lack the spark of a live show, which is evanescent. Each night is slightly different depending on the audience, which fuels the performers’ energy. And Forbes magazine reminds us that “If you’re quarantinebingeing This Is Us, Shameless, Friday Night Lights, The Affair, House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, Glow, or Six Feet Under (to name a few), chances are the episode you just saw was developed by someone who got their start in theatre.” But it’s exactly the not-for-profit professional theaters that are most at risk. Even American Stage, the region’s largest local theater relies upon earned income (ticket sales and concessions) for 60% of its total budget. The other 40% comes from individual donors and grants funds from corporations, foundations, and the paltry dollars allotted from all layers of government support. Now, there’s zero earned income and their lease agreement with St. Petersburg College (SPC) continues despite lack of use. In an email to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, a representative for SPC wrote that, “[CEO and Producing Artistic Director Stephanie] Ms. Gularte requested a forbearance on lease payments for American Stage from April 1-June
STEPHANIE SAYS: CEO and Producing Artistic Director Stephanie Gularte. 30, 2020. St. Petersburg College agreed to that and executed a forbearance agreement in April.” We’ll update the online version of this story with any new information from Gularte. Luckily, Gularte, along with the crackerjack team of managers and artists she assembled, are 90% intact for now. Jumping on the CARE Act’s PPP funds coupled with a two-week full staff furlough provided some certainty. American Stage was able to make partial payments with health benefits to its contracted artists. Like a good stage director, Gularte is also sensitive to details as a manager. She confesses “trying to be very individualized in her conversations with people.” She’s a strong and disciplined woman, who prioritizes fitness and nutrition to help her make it through. But, I can hear the emotion in her voice. “The staff is the core of what we do. The first weeks were heart wrenching . . . knowing how much they care. There’s a lot of activity around our operations . . . reinventing our business model. It’s almost like starting from scratch,” Gularte told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “A lot of people underestimate the savvy of people in the arts and how much they can make happen with limited resources. Scrappy is an understatement.” As part of the D.C. arts’ mafia for over two decades, I got to know some amazing minds. Tops among them was choreographer Liz Lerman. We mostly bonded by babysitting for each other’s dogs, but Lerman is a profound thinker and a 2002 MacArthur “genius” fellow. After the 2008 economic meltdown, she penned
THEATER
a provocative piece suggesting that maybe the solution to our fiscal woes was for scrappy artists and Wall Street mavens to swap places. It’s definitely worth a look. Gularte reminds me of the smart, indefatigable artists Lerman extols; she’s nothing if not nimble. “I’m extremely grateful that we went into this with a strong board of directors who are really engaged and care a lot. And a great staff. We’ve got some good brains and tremendous hearts in the mix.” Board member, Elizabeth Brincklow, whom I’ve known almost since I was a wee lad, is as saavy an arts professional as I know. American Stage, she confides, is in such good shape “because of Stephanie’s ability to have a foot in both worlds.” In the face of an unknown future, American Stage is launching a digital season. It’s not an easy task, Gularte confesses, convincing unions and licensing companies, getting the technology platforms and “figuring out what makes sense for us.” This week the company unveils two components: Virtual Stage, a combination of live and audio/video performances plus artist-community conversations, plus Virtual Academy classes and summer camps (all the details are at americanstage.com). “We’ve got a really great plan now for at least what the next three months will look like digitally—some creative work that we think, while it’s not going to do much for us financially, it’s going to confirm for us our reason for being here and to keep us connected,” Gularte said. “Everything we do is for the benefit of the community; we are part of the overall ecosystem
that serves more than just us.” “It can be exhausting and trying—the fact that you always have to be making the case for the arts even when it’s not critical needs time. But I feel differently now about it. There is a shift that does need to happen that’s going to come out of this and I don’t mean at all to sound ‘Pollyanna’ about it because it is unquestionably . . .” she hesitates to choose her words carefully, “ . . . a crisis for our medium right now.” Gularte thinks that there’s a real opportunity for theater to have a particularly significant pivot in a direction that brings the arts into peoples lives in a much more accessible way. “We do still struggle with people thinking of the arts as being for a particular part of the population and a luxury,” she explained. “Part of our responsibility now more than ever is to understand why that is and what we need to do to deepen how people think of the arts.” I raise the question about when audiences will feel comfortable again gathering en masse. Don’t we have to wait for a vaccine? “It is scary, I’m not going to pretend it’s not. I’m thinking about it all the time—creating different scenarios,” she admitted, adding that American Stage has enough of a base of support, a way forward, so that it can reopen at some point. She then takes a deep breath and stares into the Zoom camera and emphatically proclaims: “What will not happen is we won’t close down and never reopen; I just don’t think that that’s possible.”
“It is scary, I’m not going to pretend it’s not.”
cltampa.com | MAY 14-20, 2020 | 19
PROFILES
MUSIC WEEK
Curtain calls
Independent music venues might not survive without federal help. By Josh Holton
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he real cost of the COVID-19 impact is being felt by all businesses, but especially those being forced to cease operations. Live music venues have given the community priceless memories, and connected it with artists it knows and loves. Now those same venues in the greater Tampa Bay area are concerned about whether the community will make the mistake of waiting until it’s too late to stand up for the local music scene. With no concerts on the horizon, and hundreds of canceled events, Tom DeGeorge, owner of Crowbar, fears that unless something drastic is done to address the loss of business activity nationally, many businesses will be boarded up, for good. “A moratorium needs to be put on rent and mortgages. So we can freeze this thing for a proper period of time, while they figure out what the solution is.” DeGeorge, 46, tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “But if they don’t, all that’s gonna happen is people are gonna go out of business.” DeGeorge says the impact on live music and events is being felt on all levels. In his eyes, a small demographic of businesses, like live music venues, were told to cease operations. Others were told to operate at 25%. Then there are big events like sports contests, huge music festivals, big concerts. “Who knows when those things will come back?,” DeGeorge wonders. “Those are all your non-essential businesses. So you would think that there would be money carved out for those businesses that were affected the greatest through no fault of their own. You think that those businesses would be protected, and they would be the first to get any money. You would think they would have already got the money— but they didn’t.” While there are many businesses applying for the Paycheck Protection Program, the ripple effect of the shutdown will reach far past the two months of worker pay covered by a PPP loan, according to DeGeorge. His venue, like others the same size and larger, saw its entire spring
concert season wiped out. DeGeorge knows he’s going to lose the majority of his big concerts in the fall and in the winter too. “You’re probably not going to operate at your normal numbers until much spring of 2021,” he says. Less than 3% of businesses applying for the $50 million available in the Florida Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan program received any money. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity approved 1,000 loans, out of 38,000 applications. This program was designed to help small businesses make up the revenue gap. There is a $50,000 cap for each loan for the program, which DeGeorge says will barely make a dent in his losses. “Not only do I have, you know, probably $400,000 in lost gross revenue, but if I’m only getting $50,000 it’s not gonna carry me through the whole year. It’s just wrong. There’s no way to do it because the shows aren’t going to be there,” DeGeorge explains. He had a preliminary phone call, discussing the matter with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, on May 1, and he thinks money should’ve gone to the smaller businesses. “But they didn’t give anything to us. And that’s why I’ve taken out $100,000 in personal loans, because I know I’m going to need more money,” he adds. “I know that’s what I’m going to need to get through this.” State Senator Janet Cruz had requested an additional $50 million and emphasized the $50,000 cap, especially with some businesses exploiting that loophole by taking multiple loans. As DeGeorge is forced to lose $400,000 in revenue while getting no approved Economic Bridge Loans, companies like 4Rivers were able to obtain four separate loans each for one of their four BBQ restaurant franchise locations. The total amount of those four loans was $400,000. Florida Politics reported that at least 13 other businesses also got four loans each, totaling more than $100,000 per loan. More than 60 business owners received multiple loans. Except many of them are still offering takeout, and as of May 4th, several others began offering outside dining at 25% capacity; unlike other businesses forced to shut down completely. While DeGeorge is still waiting on the PPP funding that he applied for in the first round, he says that even the EIDL won’t cover costs for staying open to maintain PPP eligibility. “If you’re a small business that’s been forced
VENUE NEWS
20 | MAY 14-20, 2020 | cltampa.com
MICHAEL M. SINCLAIR
REVIEWS
AS THE CROW FLIES: Crowbar and other venues were the first to close; they’ll be the last to reopen. shut for two months, then they’ll give you a forgivable loan of $50,000 and you’re gonna have to pay all the bills you weren’t able to pay while you were closed. Because utilities aren’t stopping. Landlords aren’t stopping asking us for their money. You’ve been paying your staff,” DeGeorge explained. “So now after you paid everything you’re left with about $15,000, and you’re still not even open yet.” His biggest fear is not being able to keep the brick and mortar aspect of the business afloat through the shutdown. If DeGeorge doesn’t pay his landlord, then his landlord is suffering and says, “Listen, you know, it’s been three months, if I don’t get the rent, what am I going to do?” What if a big developer comes to the landlord and says, “Listen, I’ll buy your building.”
“And if I’m defaulted on my rent, I’m going to be out,” DeGeorge says, reiterating that freezing bills and mortgages is the only way to really stop the bleeding at the source. He wants the federal government to step in and make sure that those bills then turn into a grant, and those expenses are covered for the small businesses and regular residents struggling to pay rent or mortgages. “Nobody should be put in a situation where they lose their home, or their business or their apartment, because of this, it’s just not right,” he says. “If you were one of the businesses that was deemed non-essential, and everything that’s happening to you in life right now, is because of this virus, you should be being protected first.”
“You’re probably not going to operate at normal numbers until spring of 2021.”
MICHAEL M. SINCLAIR
Federal help didn’t go where it should’ve There would have been plenty of money to do that, in DeGeorge’s view, if it didn’t go to other people that shouldn’t be getting it. Major restaurant chains with substantial cash flow like Ruth’s Chris, Shake Shack and others took millions of dollars in loans, then returned them after public outcry. Publicly funded companies have been asked by the Treasury to do the same, but many companies like cruise ship line Lindblad won’t do it. It took out a $6.6 million PPP loan, despite having $137 million cash on hand as of March 31, and a market value of $276 million. So while its cruise ship company may need to pay more than 400 employees, small business fixtures that define local culture are getting passed over. DeGeorge thinks the funds should have gone to the service industry first, since it was most affected. “After the money was divvied up through the service industry, then I could see opening up what was left over to other businesses, but I think you have to allow the businesses that were shut down first to have access to that money,” he explains. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.” Public shaming of these companies was the only thing that got them to change their mind. “Across the board, people need to do the right thing. Whether it’s local government, bigger federal government, chain restaurants, franchise restaurants, that money needs to go to the people who truly need it,” he adds. DeGeorge recognizes, however, that within the live music and events scene, large stadium events and festivals make up part of the bigger picture, but argues that you can’t get to that level without the small businesses and mom-and-pops that make up the fabric of the communities they serve. “I was on a conference call earlier about festivals and I was saying, you know, it’s the smaller businesses that groom the artists or areas to have festivals in the first place. I think the whole trickle down way that the money was used—it didn’t trickle down,” he explains. “A lot just went to the top. You know, it’s just totally unacceptable.” Business 101 Unlike pop-up restaurants, and other operations that can start selling with a quick turnaround, DeGeorge says most business models don’t plan for profitability at the flip of a switch. “What you’re telling every single small business bar and restaurant and nightclub concert venue in the country, is ‘You’re doing your grand opening again,’” DeGeorge explains. For him and others, the eventual reopen is going to be like the first day he opened, except now he has a bigger pile of debt he’s accruing while his business sits idle after not getting assistance. Business 101 says you must have a business plan. But what if your business model doesn’t include an uncertain concert calendar for the next three months? DeGeorge said the current climate doesn’t allow for businesses to have confidence in executing plans that are a key component of success.
FADING AWAY: DJ Fader plays Crowbar’s patio on November 2018.
“You know how much money you need to get yourself ready. You pick the date you’re going to open. You fill your calendar, or you get your menu together. You execute your plan, and you open,” he says. “We are not playing by those rules right now.” With something as extraordinary as the coronavirus shutdown, DeGeorge says the new rules are outside of his control. But what is in someone’s control is how the money is divvied up between small businesses. “Somehow this thing’s really been botched horribly. And if it continues this way, many small, independently owned mom and pops, single store businesses will either not reopen at all,” DeGeorge says, pointing out that “small” has been defined as less than 500 employees under the PPP. “Or they will reopen, and they
will be forced to close six months down the line because they were never given a fair shot at it in the first place.” His worries about anxious landlords, lead to bad dreams about businesses being boarded up, sold and torn down. “It shouldn’t happen. It’s a crime." Make noise DeGeorge thinks staving off the worst of the damage will require political action from the public that enjoys venues like Crowbar and New World Brewery or small businesses like New York, New York Pizza, La France or the small shops in St. Petersburg. “They should let their local reps know that they are not going to sit back and watch every small business get shut down by no fault of their own. And if they see that happen and they see funds misappropriated. They’re going to vote
“What if a big developer tells the landlord, ‘Listen, I’ll buy your building.’”
people out,” DeGeorge says. Politicians, like everyone else, are not keen to lose their jobs right now, and DeGeorge mentions that now is an ideal time to remind them that they could join the ranks of millions of unemployed workers if they fail to meet the expectations of their employer: voters. “These people base their decisions on what they think will get them re-elected. So if enough people speak up and let them know they are furious. And that what has happened so far has been a terrible injustice. That should have never happened, but it has to stop now, or else, it’s going to be a big deal,” DeGeorge says. “Heads are going to roll, and people are not going to get voted back in.” And he says voting is not even half the battle. “I assure you that the right thing will not happen from there until people start speaking up, lobbying... So until people get in those people’s ears, real change will not happen.”
cltampa.com | MAY 14-20, 2020 | 21
CARRY-OUT, CURBSIDE & CALL AHEAD LUNCH SNACK PACKS $7 DINNER FOR 2 FOR $52 SMALL TO LARGE PLATTERS 813.649.8422 WEDNESDAY-SUNDAY LUNCH 11AM-3PM DINNER 4PM-10PM 1930 E. 7TH AVE. TAMPA, FL. 33605
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Join us for dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Call for reservations 727-669-6762
156 4 T H AV E N U E N O R T H , S A F E T Y H A R B O R KitchenAndBarAtSafetyHarbor.com 22 | MAY 14-20, 2020 | cltampa.com
MICHAEL M. SINCLAI
OPTIMIST RITZ: The Ritz says, ‘see you soon,’ but how soon is safe? Enter NIVA DeGeorge is part of the National Independent Venue Association, or NIVA. It represents 800 influential live music venues nationally. NIVA estimates that $1 spent on a ticket at a small venue leads to $12 of economic activity generated within the local communities. This generates $10 billion annually for local economies. Live Nation, AEG, Broadway and venues, promoters, and producers estimate 25,000 concert industry jobs have been lost. Here’s an excerpt of the letter NIVA sent to congress: “While we have no income, we do have essential employees, employee benefits, debts with personal guarantees, rents or mortgages, utilities, insurance, local, state and federal taxes, and the massive burden of ticket refunds for more than 100,000 canceled shows due to COVID-19. Many of our members, such as Pabst Theater in Milwaukee (est. 1895), the UC Theatre Berkeley (est. 1916), the Wilma in Missoula (est. 1918), Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa (est. 1924), Newport Festivals in Rhode Island (est. 1954), the Troubadour in Los Angeles (est. 1957), Preservation Jazz Hall in New Orleans (est. 1961), First Avenue in Minneapolis (est. 1970), Exit/In in Nashville (est. 1971), Antone’s in Austin (est. 1975), the 40 Watt in Athens, GA (est. 1979), and Metro Chicago (est. 1979) are historic, iconic institutions that have withstood normal business cycles and economic hardships. Our passionate and fiercely independent operators are not ones to ask for handouts. But because of our unprecedented, tenuous position, for the first time in history, there is legitimate fear for our collective existence.” NIVA is also calling for increased PPP funding, a delay in potential paybacks until they can operate at full capacity, debt deferral, and tax
relief for shuttered businesses, not merely those at reduced capacity. Another letter written by Live Nation, Broadway, and major producers indicates the cultural devastation of not stepping in could be irreversible. “The cultural impact of our venues on our local communities is priceless. We are the steadfast incubators and launch pads for the most popular talent in the world. Our stages give artists like Adele, U2, Keith Urban, Prince, Lizzo, the Eagles, Wu-Tang Clan and Foo Fighters their start. The world could be without the next Lady Gaga, Kenny Chesney, Chance the Rapper or Bruce Springsteen if we cease to exist. Independent venues and promoters are crucial components of the music industry’s ecosystem, without whom there will be dire ramifications for artists as fan spending plummets.“ Save the strip Also operating in Ybor City is The Ritz Ybor, formerly The Masquerade, which DeGeorge managed prior to purchasing the Crowbar. Like Crowbar, The Ritz hosts everything from rap and rock, to indie and EDM. It serves as a popular nightclub, as well as a destination for fashion shows and festivals like WMNF’s Tropical Heatwave, which in 2016 included The Crowbar and multiple stages inside The Ritz multi-venue live music experience. Current Ritz manager Pawl Cifelli told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that while live music venues have been deemed nonessential, many essential workers have relied on the experience for fulfillment in the past. “I can understand the essential feeling of
not just music but the interaction with people like you know, you have people that spend their weeks in a cubicle or driving a truck or whatever it may be where they’re not able to interact with people,” he says. “So I can even understand the music being essential. Human interaction is essential to people’s mental health and their general wellbeing.” It’s that essential feeling that Cifelli says may have led the Mayor of Las Vegas to consider reopening early, despite that idea getting nixed by the governor of Nevada. “It makes it very transparent about how reliant that whole city is upon those businesses in travel, and the casinos and gambling. It seems it’s her move, in my opinion, out of desperation because they see economicswise, big picture what’s happening to their city. Looks like to me, she’s desperate to open things back up to get revenue generated to save those businesses. That city is just wholly reliable upon travel and tourism.” Like “the strip” in Vegas, Ybor City is the heart of much of Tampa’s live music scene, although other neighborhoods like Seminole Heights have become hip hotbeds of nightlife and events. Paul Medrano laid a pretty good foundation in Seminole Heights with Red Star Rock Bar, so he opened a second location in Ybor City, a couple hundred feet from Crowbar in the old Green Iguana and Kelly’s space. The venue’s been well attended, and up until the shutdown, his revenue was keeping up with overhead. His Ybor landlord, attorney Frank De La Grana, is
“Heads are going to roll, people are not going to get voted back in.”
giving him a break on rent for a couple months, so his attention turned to other costs. He’s hoping some vendors will offer an inventory buyback. He’s selling perishables at cost so that the product doesn’t die on the shelf or in cold storage. “And then when you start back up, I mean, do you have to buy all that inventory back? If you don’t have that money coming in from the government, you’re going into your pocket, or borrowing money or liquidating assets,” Medrano says. “I mean it’s helping, it covers the electric bill. But places where there’s a lot of rent like in our Ybor locations, not even close.” Run aground Meanwhile, other longtime favorite Tampa concert venues like Skipper’s Smokehouse have also been forced to close. The venue has been the choice location for many WMNF 88.5-FM Community Radio shows. And even though Skipper’s has its mortgage paid off and a popular seafood restaurant paired with the live music and bar offerings, the venue’s still been shut down since March 23, according to owner Tom White. “We’re world renowned for our food and as well as the music,” White told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Problem is the music and the food complement each other. “People would come for the music also, you know, people would come for just to eat, and they go, ‘You got music here? Oh, wow.’ They maybe go out, go to a show or they come to the next show, you know? So, it’s a very symbiotic relationship with our food and an alcohol.” And PPP lending with the big banks has been on a first come first served basis. Law firm Rifkin Weiner Livingston sued Bank of America for class action and filed a motion for
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a temporary restraining order, but a federal judge ruled that small businesses do not have a right to sue the big banks over lending rules. The main concern is that Bank of America and others are being selective about only lending to those clients with whom they already have an established relationship, leaving others like White to wait for answers. White says emails to Skipper’s from Bank of America claim the band is going to submit to the SBA. He knows some people got money through smaller and community banks. “I don’t know why they didn’t do it last time or what happened last time,” White says. “Well, we all know what happened last time Ruth’s Chris, Shake Shack, and Harvard, all these other freakin people that shouldn’t have been getting this money… got all of our money, you know, for the small businesses, the small independent people. While he waits for the loan to go through, White is turning to crowdfunding to get by. “We have, you know, 30 to 40 people at work up there, so we’re trying to get some food on their plates. You know, we have a GoFundMe thing going on right now,” White explains. “Hopefully that’s raising a little bit of money for the bartenders.” But if White gets his PPP loan, he wonders what will happen after June. “So you think Trump or DeSantis are going to flip the switch and say, ‘Okay, you get to go 100% full bore Let’s, ramp it up.’ But you know, who’s going out? Nobody’s going out. I mean half the people are not going to go out,” White says, adding that he thinks Skipper’s could be limited to gatherings of 50 people or less. “You know what that’s gonna do to us? It doesn’t pay to open the doors.” And even though Skipper’s ramped up cleaning stations and offered takeout for a while, White said it wasn’t enough to break even. “All music has been canceled in April, of course, and I had a bunch of really cool shows set up in May. And most of those have canceled at this point. I mean, I haven’t canceled some of them towards the latter part of May. And I’ve got several WMNF events.” Distress signals But out of respect for the seriousness of the COVID-19 shutdown, WMNF has postponed all shows and events until further notice. Program Director Randy Wind told CL that the listenersponsored station has been more than merely an alternative to mainstream media, it’s been a beacon of hope and a companion for people as they continue social distancing in isolation. It’s part of the community. He says listeners have been supportive. “They’re valuing the fact that we’ve been able to stay on the air with live programming and a lot of very special programming during this time,” Wind says. “We had that one-day fundraiser, Sarasota Giving on Wednesday which
LIGHTS OUT: Skipper’s Smokehouse owner Tom White still wonders how he’ll keep the lights on after reopening. raised like four times more than we did the last time.” Live music has been a big part of WMNF, in addition to its ‘round the clock radio programs. But Wind says it’s prepared for the possibility that we won’t see live music really rebound until next year. The nonprofit station has been reaching into emergency reserves while asking listeners to donate if they can. In addition to the radio component of musical broadcasting, musicians have taken to online live streaming. Anthill Cinema has been posting quality “quarantunes” recorded videos. Other artists like, Shevonne, Danielle Mohr, Stephanie Perez, Jam Jones, Apple Butter Express, Dennis Stadleman, and more have taken to the new format often including payment information on screen to receive donations. Local music schools like Tampa Fine Arts Academy have begun to offer virtual lessons. Even the likes of Chris Martin of Coldplay, Foo Fighters, The Florida Symphony Orchestra, and other well-known international artists have
embraced the new normal in music. On a larger scale, groups like The Happeneers and Socially Distant Fest are consolidating musical acts for livestream festivals to keep the music alive. No club, no concert With brick-and-mortar businesses looking increasingly desperate for solutions, some music businesses have turned to online sales. Tony Rifugiato owns Daddy Kool records, an independent music shop that sells vinyl and other merchandise out of its St. Pete store, but also online. He seemed pleasantly surprised that much of the shops sales are increasingly going digital. “Since we’ve opened up our new website, all of a sudden we have an MP3 download section that’s doing great,” Rifugiato says. “I know it’s only 99 cents a download, but all of a sudden they were getting as many orders if not more now from MP3 downloads than we are selling albums at the moment.” And Rifugiato said that live streaming is at the very least a boon to collective creativity.
“It doesn’t pay to open the doors.”
“What happens in crisis like this is that you have your backs up against the wall, and that’s when you become the most creative. So if you really want to do something, you can do something,” he adds. Many artists are feeling the pinch of all the cancelled shows, and many of them don’t qualify for support for foundations like Musicares, because they aren’t considered “full time” Of course for most musicians much of the allure of a lifestyle of playing music is having a flexible schedule. But even still, gigs are hardly, if ever, guaranteed, and getting a high enough volume of weekly or monthly gigs to be considered “full time” is neither normal nor easy. That volatility goes with the territory in the live music industry as many gigs are booked on a handshake. But even with contracted events, the uncertainty of when large gatherings will be legally permissible has created even less confidence for show promoters. In addition to Daddy Kool, Rifugiato operates No Clubs, a live music booking agency. The shutdown has put that business into a bit of a holding pattern.
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NOT KOOL: No Clubs’ Tony Rifugiato is having to re-reschedule concerts. “We’ve got dates rescheduled in July onwards, and now they’re coming up,” he explains. “And so we say, ‘Just in case you’re not allowed to play, can you start looking at dates and 2021?’” Rifugiato says 2020 was one of the best years for booking in the last decade, and that No Clubs had more shows lined up in the next six months than all of last year. “That’s how the market has changed. All of a sudden, this came along and bam, it’s just gone,” he adds. Unlike many local artists who have completely lost future revenue, some of the big acts have already been paid in advance for their shows, leaving live music booking companies holding the bag. “A lot of that money’s already been put out to artists and expenses, so you know you have to kind of go backwards and rework that out. And the artist is going to do everything he can to not cancel a show you know,” Rifugiato says. However, it doesn’t seem like many of them have a choice in the matter under the current shut down. And like Tom White of Skipper’s, Rifugiato is not confident business as usual will be a certainty.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to say ‘Oh, go ahead and have a concert in a 20,000-seat arena.' So that’s number one. Are they gonna fulfill those numbers?,” Rifugiato wonders. “And secondly, there’s always going to be the people that say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to go out. I’m dog sick, it’s still not safe to go out.’ So you know, I’m not expecting 100% of the people that start coming flocking back out of the shadows.” Crowbar’s DeGeorge is positive that venues choosing to open too soon will be shamed for putting lives at risk. And so if people want to keep the foundation of the live music community intact, the public must demand action now. “Our local leaders need to step up, because they’re not coming up with the right solutions and they’re not asking for the right solutions. They’re not asking for places to be protected in the manner they should,” DeGeorge explains. “Restaurants will start the process. Bars and concert venues will wait,” DeGeorge recently wrote on social media. “Please be responsible when going out next week folks. Your favorite bars and music venues depend on it.”
“All of a sudden, this came along and bam, it’s just gone.”
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Taurus The bull.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Of all the signs, Tauruses are among the least likely to be egomaniacs. Most of you aren’t inclined to indulge narin fits of braggadocio or outbreaks of cissism. (I just heard one of my favor it e virtuoso Taurus singers say she wasn’t a very good singer!) That’s why one of my secret agendas is to tell you how gorgeous you are, to nudge you to cultivate t h e confidence and pride you deserve to have. Are you ready to leap to a higher octave of self-love? I think so. In the coming weeks, please use Taurus artist Salvador Dali’s boast as your motto: “There comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize they adore me.” GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When I was young, I had a fun-filled fling with a smart Gemini woman who years later became a highly praised author and the authorized biographer of a Nobel Prize-winning writer. Do I regret our break-up? Am I sorry I never got to enjoy her remarkable success up close? No. As amazing as she was and is, we wouldn’t have been right for each other long-term. I am content with the brief magic we created together, and have always kept her in my fond thoughts with gratitude and the wish for her to thrive. Now I invite you to do something comparable to what I just did, Gemini: Make peace with your past. Send blessings to the people who helped make you who you are. Celebrate what has actually happened in your life, and graduate forever from what might have happened but didn’t. CANCER (June 21-July 22): “You have two ways to live your life, from memory or from inspiration,” writes teacher Joe Vitale. Many of you Cancerians favor memory over inspiration to provide their primary motivation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, although it can be a problem if you become so obsessed with memory that you distract yourself from creating new developments in your life story. But in accordance with astrological potentials and the exigencies of our Global Healing Crisis, I urge you, in the coming weeks, to mobilize yourself through a balance of memory and inspiration. I suspect you’ll be getting rich opportunities to both rework the past and dream up a future full of interesting novelty. In fact, those two imperatives will serve each other well. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Anne Lamott has some crucial advice for you to heed in the coming weeks. “Even when we’re most sure that love can’t conquer all,” she says, “it seems to
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anyway. It goes down into the rat hole with us, in the guise of our friends, and there it swells and comforts. It gives us second winds, third winds, hundredth winds.” I hope you’ll wield this truth as your secret magic in the coming weeks, Leo. Regard love not just as a sweet emotion that makes you feel good, but as a superpower that can accomplish practical miracles. VIRGO St. Catherine brave person, her left and The funny
(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Theologian of Siena observed, “To a good and bad luck are like right hand. She uses both.” thing is, Virgo, that in the past you have sometimes been more adept and proactive in using your bad luck, and less skillful
at capitalizing on your good luck. But from what I can tell, this curious problem has been diminishing for you in 2020—and will continue to do so. I expect that coming weeks, welcome and your good with brisk
the wealth of catalytic influences will be to cultivate nonchalance about people’s opinions of you. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): On the kids’ TV show “Sesame Street”, there’s a muppet character named Count von Count. He’s a friendly vampire who loves to count things. He is 6,523,730 years old and his favorite number is 34,969—the square root of 187. The Count was “born” on November 13, 1972, when he made his first appearance on the show, which means he’s a Scorpio. I propose we make him your patron saint for the next four weeks. It’s an excellent time to transform any threatening qualities you might seem to have into harmless and cordial forms of expression. It’s also a favorable phase for you to
c ou nt your blessings and make plans that will contribute to your longevity.
in the you will harness l u c k artistry.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool,” writes novelist Erica Jong. “Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great,” says singer Cher. “He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom,” declared art critic James Huneker. “Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced,” observed philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. According to my analysis of astrological omens, you’re primed to prove these theories, Sagittarius. Congratulations!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “I’m curious about everything, except what people have to say about CAPRICORN (Dec. me,” says actor Sarah 22-Jan. 19): “Few people Jessica Parker. I think have a treasure,” writes that’s an excellent stratNobel Prize-winning By Rob Brezsny egy for you to adopt in author Alice Munro. She’s the coming weeks. On the one hand, the whole speaking metaphorically, of course—not referworld will be exceptionally interesting, and your ring to a strongbox full of gold and jewels. But ability to learn valuable lessons and acquire I’m happy to inform you that if you don’t have useful information will be at peak. On the other a treasure, the coming months will be a favorhand, one of the keys to getting the most out of able time to find or create it. So I’m putting
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
you on a High Alert for Treasure. I urge you to be receptive to and hungry for it. And if you are one of those rare lucky ones who already has a treasure, I’m happy to say that you now have the power and motivation to appreciate it even more and learn how to make even better use of it. Whether you do or don’t yet have the treasure, heed these further words from Alice Munro: “You must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.” AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): At this moment, there are 50 trillion cells in your body, and each of them is a sentient being in its own right. They act together as a community, consecrating you with their astonishing collaboration. It’s like magic! Here’s an amazing fact: Just as you communicate with dogs and cats and other animals, you can engage in dialogs with your cells. The coming weeks will be a ripe time to explore this phenomenon. Is there anything you’d like to say to the tiny creatures living in your stomach or lungs? Any information you’d love to receive from your heart or your sex organs? If you have trouble believing this is a real possibility, imagine and pretend. And have fun! PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “A myriad of modest delights constitute happiness,” wrote poet Charles Baudelaire. I think that definition will serve you well in the coming weeks, Pisces. According to my analysis of the astro- logical omens, there won’t be spectacular breakthroughs barging into your life; I expect no sublime epiphanies or radiant transformations. On the other hand, there’ll be a steady stream of small marvels if you’re receptive to such a possibility. Here’s key advice: Don’t miss the small wonders because you’re expecting and wishing for bigger splashes. ARIES (March 21-April 19): During a pandemic, is it possible to spread the news about your talents and offerings? Yes! That’s why I suggest you make sure that everyone who should know about you does indeed know about you. To mobilize your efforts and stimulate your imagination, I came up with colorful titles for you to use to describe yourself on your résumé or in promotional materials or during conversations with potential helpers. 1. Fire-Maker 2. Seed-Sower 3. Brisk Instigator 4. Hope Fiend 5. Gap Leaper 6. Fertility Aficionado 7. Gleam Finder 8. Launch Catalyst 9. Chief Improviser 10. Change Artist
Change the locks By Dan Savage
It’s taken a lot to do this but here goes. I am a 38-year-old gay male. I have been dating this guy for one year and 10 months. It’s been a lot of work. He cheated on me numerous times, and he lives with me, doesn’t work, and I’ve been taking care of him for seven months now. He always accuses me of cheating or finds something to blame me for. What I am angry about now is how for the past four months he has been accusing me of playing games by conspiring with people to make him hear voices. If I look up at the ceiling or look around he said I am communicating with “them.” I keep telling him I do not hear or see anything, but he insists that I am lying. He also says I put a curse on him. One day I got up, and he packed his bags and said he had enough and walked out. He said I was not being loyal. This is a 43-year-old man who has been doing coke since the age of 14. He does meth and whatever else. He said until I come clean about hearing the voices, too, and admit I cast some sort a spell on him, he won’t talk to me or see me. Mental illness runs in his family and one sibling already committed suicide. He didn’t want professional help because, he says, “I am too smart for that.” I’m hurt and angry and want some advice. ANY ADVICE. Please. —Desperate For Answers I don’t see the problem. A delusional and potentially dangerous drug addict with mental health issues who refuses to get help packed his bags and walked out of your life. Yahtzee, DFA, you win. It was his presence in your life (and your apartment) that was the problem and your boyfriend—your ex-boyfriend—just solved it for you. Block his number, change your locks, and pray he forgets your address. You might wanna seek some professional help yourself. You need to get to the bottom of why you wasted nearly two years on this asshole. Being alone can’t be worse than being with someone who cheats on you and then accuses you of cheating—to say nothing of someone who abuses drugs, hears voices, and makes other irrational and delusional accusations. He wasn’t just a danger to himself, DFA, he was a danger to you. He’s out of your apartment—now you need to get him out of your head.
I’m honestly thinking about not telling him. He doesn’t show any symptoms and he’s the type of guy who will call me a slut if I tell him. He’ll blame me for his wrongdoing, and just keep going and going. I honestly don’t know if I should tell him, since he’s asymptomatic. This is going to cause a huge problem between us. He has a lot of anger issues and he could use this as blackmail. I’m legitimately scared. —Her Ex Reacts Personally Letting a former sex partner know you may have exposed them to an STI—or that they may have exposed you to an STI—is the decent, responsible, courteous, and kind thing to do. Not just for their health and safety, HERP, but for the health and safety of their future sex partners. But people who are unkind, scary, and violent have no one but themselves to blame when a former sex partner/girlfriend/boyfriend/enbyfriend is too afraid for their own safety to make that discloser. Provided your fears are legitimate, HERP, and you’re not inflating them to avoid an awkward or unpleasant conversation, you don’t owe your ex a call. I’m a bi guy, living alone. At the start of the year, this new guy moved into the house where I live—we share communal areas but have private rooms—and he’s a bit of a slacker, but holy shit is he hot. I’ve had regular fantasies about him. And now with the quarantine, those fantasies have increased along with the number of times I see him in a day. I’ve been feeling the urge to ask him if he’s interested in anything, but my friends have advised me to “not shit where I eat.” But due to the quarantine, the only other option I have is masturbating, and that’s not doing the trick. Should I take the plunge and ask him? —Household Entirely Lacks Pleasure
SAVAGE LOVE
About a month ago I broke up with my boyfriend after I found out he was cheating on me. Long before we broke up, I freaked out about a rash, and looking back I think it was probably herpes all along. I found out for sure three days ago and
Health authorities have advised us to shit where we eat for the time being. The New York City Health Department recommends masturbation, HELP, because you are and always have been your safest sex partner. But your next safest partner during this pandemic is someone with whom you live. NYC Health has advised us all to “avoid close contact—including sex—with anyone outside your household.” That doesn’t mean everyone inside your household is fair game, of course; some people are quarantining with their parents. But if there was ever a time when you could approach a non-related adult with whom you live to see if they might wanna fuck around, now’s the time. Apologize to the hot slacker advance for potentially making things awkward and invite him to say no. (“If you’re not interested, please say no and I promise not to bring it up again.”) But if the answer is yes, HELP, send video.
I’m a gay bondage bottom. My boyfriend of four years is 100% vanilla, and we solved the “problem” of my need to get tied up—and it’s a real need— by outsourcing it. (Can you tell we’re longtime readers and listeners?) I was seeing two regular FWBs/bondage buddies, but that’s obviously on hold right now. (I’ve reached out to both my FWBs to let them both know I’m thinking about them and that I care about them, Dan, like you’ve been urging people to do on your show.) The issue is I still really need to get tied up, and my boyfriend is willing but he’s so bad at it that I don’t want to bother. He knows how much I need it, and he’s hurt that I’d rather go without than let him put me in bondage that isn’t really bondage because I can easily get out. We used to fight because I wanted him to tie me up and he didn’t want to do it and now we’re fighting because he wants to tie me up and I won’t let him do it. Any advice for a fan? —This Isn’t Exactly Desirable If people can teach yoga, give concerts, and conduct first dates via online streaming services, then one of your bondage buddies can—if they’re into the idea—give your boyfriend a few bondage tutorials online. I’m glad to hear you already reached out to your bondage buddies, TIED, since now you’ll be asking them to do you and your boyfriend a favor. But I imagine it’s a favor they’ll enjoy doing.
I’m a teenage girl with a female friend who keeps joking about having sex with me. We’re both into girls and sex, but while I find her really hot, she probably doesn’t feel the same about me. How can I tell if she’s joking about it because she finds the idea ridiculous, or if she’s joking about it because she actually wants to? Once everything goes back to normal COVID-wise, what should I do? —Getting Into Real Life The ability to ask someone a direct question—particularly someone you’re interested in romantically and/or sexually—is an important skill, GIRL, and getting some practice now, when stakes are relatively low, will benefit you all your life. So get your friend on the phone and ask her this: “Are you serious about wanting to have sex with me? It’s fine if you don’t want to, but I’m actually attracted to you. Please say no if the answer’s no.” If the answer is yes, you can make a date to get together once circumstances/pandemics allow. But if the answer is no, GIRL, then you can get some practice making declarative statements: “I don’t want you to make those jokes anymore. They’re hurtful to me.” And if she continues to make jokes about having sex with you after you’ve made it clear she’s hurting your feelings, then she’s just being cruel and doesn’t deserve your time, attention, or friendship. Listen to savagelovecast.com every Tuesday. This week, Marc Maron! Contact mail@savagelove. net, and follow @FakeDanSavage on Twitter.
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LOCATED IN SANCTUARY AT LIVING STON! 4 CG & An ABUNDANCE of windows. Ornate formal rooms w/ TRAVERTINE & CROWN MOLDING. FR w/ stone FP, LUXURIOUS KITCH EN, GRANITE COUNTERS, CUSTOM CABINETRY, PENDENT LIGHTING, butler’s pantry, wine cellar, & GAS COOK TOP. OFFICE, Master BR FP, pool access, & custom walk in closet.. Master BA w/DOUBLE SINKS huge SHOWER & TUB. All BR’s w/ large walk in closets. LARGE MEDIA ROOM w/ bar & PATIO, POOL & SPA. Offered at $1,290,000
817.228.2990
Cash/Credit Cards Accepted MM#6181
CUSTOM ODESSA ESTATE! Built in 2010 by interior designer Paul Lewis. 3,517 sq ft , 3 BR, 4 BA 2 CG, + workshop/storage, Dock w/ lake access, + pergola! 50 YR SLATE ROOF, 10’ ceilings. WALNUT CABINETRY, BRAZILIAN STAR BEACH GRANITE, CABINET FACED SUB-ZERO fridge/freezer, Enjoy the LAKE LIFE on your deck, pergola, overlooking SERENE CYPRESS trees & FRENCH INSPIRED landscape. Located in the highly coveted STEINBRENNER SCHOOL DISTRICT. offered at $1,495,000.
John LaRocca REALTOR® John@MyHomeTB.com 813.990.7488 ADULT/Models
TRANS Model Yazmine: 813-508-1441
20 22 23 24 25 to advertise by phone 813-739-4800 by email dlancaster@cltampa.com
CLTamp.com NOTICE UNDER FICTITIOUS NAME LAW PURSUANT TO SECTION §865.09, FLORIDA STATUTES NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the undersigned, desiring to engage in business under the fictitious name of Sonia Plotnick Women’s Health Fund in the County of Pinellas in the City of St. Petersburg, Florida 33747, intends to register the said name with the Division of Corporations of the Florida Department of State, Tallahassee, Florida. § Dated at St. Petersburg Florida, this 14th day of May, 2020 § Sonia Plotnick Health Fund, Inc., a Florida 501(3)(c) Nonprofit organization
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