Bayshore- The Place to Die

It would seem that Bayshore Blvd has become the new place to off yourself.  Last night a young man chose to slam his car across the beautiful Bayshore grass and through the nice white wall and into the bay.  I'm not making lite of this poor man's situation I'd like to merely point out the Irony of choosing Bayshore Blvd to do it.  The Skyway has always been area residents #1 choice to end their trouble lives but its a pain in the ass to drive over any bridge in the Tampa/St. Pete area, see the Rays Attendence for more proof, you have to pay a toll to boot!!  It can be a real pain in the ass, think about it.

At Least at Bayshore Blvd, you can do it for free.  You even get a High Class Crowd.  No Tolls, and you can take your car with you.  Now that is a deal maker.

The Lost Gen Part 3 & 4

Jimmy becomes Ronald, the 80's

......Its been almost two years since Mo walked away from Bee’ville, at 1st Mark thought it was just a bad trip, the recent haul from the local police evidence van was making them rich.  The Middle Class kids in the neighborhood were trying to be city kids. Or maybe it was the opposite.  Either way, it was too easy.  The county sheriff allowed his team to drive their police vehicles home with them at night, I don’t think even he thought the evidence van would ever be a daily work vehicle, but alas it was.  The 1st break in was small, a bag of pot, not the best weed the two had smoked but it worked. There was even enough to share and a little to sale to the jocks on the football team.  Mark had played football and ran track but during his junior year, Mo asked him to come a house party on the west side of the city.  Sometime after a few beer bongs and meaningless chatter about the state of high school football in the area, Mo offered a big rush.  What a rush it was.  White powder that made a person want to run, fast.  The Z28 Mark had was fast but this powder was faster, he wanted more, there would be more and Mark would never be the same.

Mo seemed to be a regular with these folks all them also seemed to know Mo’s dad or someone like him, which Mark found odd during all his time with him he never mentioned him nor did anyone else for that matter.  These people were seedy, like the types TJ Hooker bagged out in LA.  Pimps, pickpockets and general loser but they were on to Mark; the look of an athlete was not one they were used to.  Mark pulled Mo away from a large man who was probably about 40 and had more tattoos then WWF star.  “We got go and go now” Mark said, sweat was coming from Mark’s brow and the hair along his neck was now standing on its edge.  He knew what was about to happen and he knew Mo would not be too much help at this point, the boy was beyond gone, he was on the other side of madness. The shot to the back was hard, harder than the hit Mark took during section 5 high school football championship this fall. That hit took the wind right out of him; he thought he was dead and looking at never being able to return the favor by taking a crack at the asshole that blindsided him.  The fall this time was a bit worst, Mark fell into the large fuck with tattoos and as he turned to take a swing at the asshole that sucker punched him he felt a prick and then a burning sensation in his right thigh.  He felt wet; his right leg had a river running under his Z jeans.  Mo, jumped back to defend himself leaving Mark on an island of killer loaded on Booze & coke.  Not a good place to be.  Mark grab a bottle swinging wildly to defend the crazy biker fucks who it seemed wanted this outsider out of there midst.  After landing a few blows to the tattoo guy Mark made a break for it.  Fuck Mo if he didn’t make it out of there, “not like he was there to back me”, Mark though.  Mark had always defended Mo from the football guys who thought he was a “Burn-Out” and called his mother a whore.  She was a Whore but it’s not the thing you yell out about someone Mother in a high school hallway.  Once safely inside the Z28 Mark floored it towards the east and the safety of the suburbs.  Those asshole would be dealt with Mark though but 1st “I’m going to kick the shit out of Mo for bringing to that place.”  Times were changing faster now, Bush was in the White House, war was coming.

The Great Fake War of the Middle East- Oil and Money


Mike had kind of drifted from the group once he got to High School, the friendship was there but the pull of something greater laid on the horizon.  He saw the changing that we didn’t’, he watched his fathers company layoff worker and offer job training, Data Processing, Data Entry and other work fit for a secretary not a steel worker or the person who helped build America’s great machines.  Sometime during the Reagan years Mike and his family moved to a big house in a new sub-division with a in ground pool and 4 car garage, his family didn’t fit in with the rest of us anymore.  They were the part of Reagan’s trickle down economics that worked; while the rest of us thought we were making it they increased their share of the prize.  Mike’s mother even thought about sending him to a private school, the public education system was no longer good enough, even if the public school system was the main pull for his family to move to Bee’ville, no after 14 years it was no longer good enough.  Dad said it was the because the New Boss at the office was a mover & shaker and his kids went to the private school, Christian Brothers Academy of Holly Names, it was for the rich kids he said.  Mike fought against the move, Football & track were his passion and Bee’ville had a great class coming in, but saw it has his duty to try to save Mo and keep me on the right track….or so he said.  But Mark could see it in his eye; he knew he had to keep one foot in the real world and one foot in the world of what could be.  Mike never thought of Reagan as a great leader, he saw him more as a salesman selling our lives for a few others personal gain.  He stopped playing football he sophomore year for the debate club became his passion, track was no longer a draw, and Mark stopped running the 1500 the same year. Mark had found that he was different for most people but didn’t know why, he saw things the same way as Mike but Mark’s reactions to them were vastly stronger, “Reagan is going kill us”, Mark said, to which Mike would reply “he has a plan, let it work out 1st”.  They were both right

The Lost Gen Part 2

Mark spent his summers playing little league and his falls playing football.  Somewhere during all that he found time to build forts in the woods by his house as well as “Kick the Can” in the middle of road at night.  The Greatest thing America as ever done is the “Suburb”. A series of single family homes that all look the same. The colors may be different but every fucking house was the same.  You see that basketball hoop in the driveway is not just a hoop for the kids it’s an accessory. Like a throw pillow on a couch, a basketball hoop is to a driveway.  The homeowners were mostly white working classes and everyone tried to just live the American Dream and copy the lifestyle that was on TV.  That was until Dallas came to our homes.  No longer could you watch a show with a story of old school America, now it was all dressed up and ready to show.  Sears wasn’t good enough anymore. 3 channels of TV programming wasn’t good enough, people want cable.  Cable TV, 26 channels of TV, From Bee’ville to Toronto.  I never knew football was played in the summer until CBC came to my families TV set.

How Nixon became Ford, which lead to the Rise of Reagan.


Mark sits in a bus station in Yonkers; his youth is in that “I’m the master of the world” phase.  He is out of the house and searching for his own way, something different from what he knows.  He has watched one friend pass away via the social ills that a down market can bring to former big collar town.  The factories left town 1st, malls and retail, the dream of an America that can last at this pace replaced them, it will end at some point; it won’t happen fast but it will end.  A southern Governor is running for president, one part smarts and one part ladies man, he will continue America’s love affair with the mall and cheap easy living.  Bill Clinton, a horn playing democrat is making moves in the Democratic party that saved the country from Nixon/Ford but lost its way with Carter.  Not that Jimmy was a bad man, he was smart, too smart for a country full of half wits and greedy businessmen who want American Money for themselves.  Like a the stale beer Mark is drinking on the sidewalk, the can looks great, it’s the liquid inside that needs the work.

The Lost Gen

As Mark leaves the sunny beach, with a cold beer in hand, he takes one last look at the rolling waves that wash away the grime of his countries sins.  He has been in this town for just about 20 years and he and the town have undergone a few changes.  Gone is the body he worked so hard on during his youth and gone too is the hopes of a better town that lost its way in the 1990's.  The old power station is a mess of bricks & dust across the water, torn down to make way for more over priced condo's no one will live in.  The marsh, the mangroves and backwater pools, on the other-side of the station, are now a Wal-Mart.

Mark's family was a blue collar bunch from the "Rust Belt" where most families held picnics on the 4th, Labor Day and Memorial Day with all their neighbors invited.  The CEO & the line worker all played softball together.  They all shopped at Sears, no one compared what Ms. Lombar was wearing with what Mrs. White was wearing.  Mark and his friends, Rick, Mike, Dave and Mo, all played outside for hours each day.  Staying inside when there was no school wasn't cool...it was school at home, why the hell would any self-respecting 10 year old stay inside if it wasn't Raining or bone chilling cold out side.  Today, neighbors may not even speak to each other, maybe the bullshit wave as they drive their oversized SUV or European Auto past the guy down the block.  Rick's father was a welder at the local steel mill, Mike's father was a Manager at an office downtown and Dave's father was a union leader with the local chapter of woodworker. Mo, no one knew his father. He was never there, no one spoke about him and his mother seemed to have a lot of friends and strangely his mother never worked.  As I grew older i got a clue of what Mo's mother did but who would think such a thing at 10.  All our Mom's were home all day, making the house look a picture of Better Homes & Garden.  At night the mom's would chat on the phone with each other and bitch about their husbands or Dallas, they had no clue of the world that was changing around them.

Tampa RNC- Florida at its Best

As August's come and go in the Bay area most of us are either A-on Vacation B-about to go on Vacation or C-Working when we should be on Vacation.   Not this year!  Hell no.  This year its all about the show and what a show it will be.  Gays, Guns, Crazy folks and worst yet...Republicans!  Break out the Natty Light and wash the truck the circus is in town.

The Good Doctor Thompson would have a field day with this event, more fun with the plans and talk leading up to this god awful showing of American power.  Heck, No string, No Water Guns, Not Bottles but Guns are OK?? 300,000 to 500,000 people jammed into a 2 mile square fun is gonna be held.  Booze and hookers on Dale Mabry, Tan hotties on St. Pete Beach being googled by White Men in suits.  That is Florida that we all love.  Can you see it now, a Right Wing Church going man after a long drive from Palm Harbor makes a quick stop at 2001to recharge his loins, next thing you know he's at Gandy Beach at Mid-Night with a Tranny...with a Confederate Flag standing a few feet away.  Can't wait to see the NY Post Headline for that story.

You have to give Mayor Buckhorn some love for trying to keep this crazy show from going "postal" proposed a "Clean/Event/Safe Zone". Yea, maybe it's a bit too much but the Mayor knows this is his one chance to make a lasting impact. Not just for our prized "riverwalk" but Tampa's national standing=Business.  The Mayor may have been the leading voice for Mr. Reddners most hated law, "The 6-ft rule" but times have changed.  They have gotten weirder, nuttier and down right dangerous.  Who would have ever thought that old white people would cheer the idea of killing an American President. Who ever would have thought college age "pot heads" could organize anything other than...wait there is NO WAY a "Pot Head" could ever organize.  These are strange days my friend.  We are fighting among ourselves while our future is passing us by.

Also, Newt has endorsed President Obama...maybe we can do this.

Plain spoken

Plain spoken

As I sit in local adult watering hole listening to the wise men chatter.  I'm drawn to a conversation about Obamacare.  One old wise man is telling another that it will bring about the next great race war.  For a moment I had a feeling that the LSD trip I was on in 1988 was giving me that so-called flash back...race war? The day Healthcare brings war would be...well wait a minute maybe the wise man is on to something.  I settle in with another beer & shot hoping learn how this race war would start, I wanted to be prepared. Wouldn't you?
He tells the other wise men, who by look & sound of it believe this guy, he's a attorney after all.  It would give blacks & Mexicans the same level of Healthcare that whites have, he said.  And the news flash hit my phone the great state of Mississippi had removed a recent appointee to it's State Board of Health.  The man is college educated, at Harvard no less, and was appointed by the last Gov.  The former Gov' even stated that he was a true gift of Mississippi and he was the best the state could ask for.   But fast forward to today, the current Lt. Gov's just pulled this guy from the board, why?  Let's see- 1. He's black 2. He was a Director of Mississippi's African-American Women's Health group.  A group that is like Planned Parenthood, and yes a few abortions may have taken place.  Jesus!  The wise man is right.
I drank 3 more beers & 5 more shots and ran out of there.

Oh, Newt finally quit the race. Like the Coyote he finally got a clue and saw there was no way he could beat the roadrunner.

Forward

Forward

When you make changes in your life, no matter how small, you say to yourself...I must push forward.  When you are a world leader and you sold the people "Hope" having  your campaign  slogan "Forward" is not a very good idea.  What did we lose the Hope? Was Hope not all it was cracked up to be?  Did push back from the right crush your Hope?

Isn't being an American all about Hope? I hope I have a better life? I hope I become rich? I hope I marry Heather Locklear?  What does Forward mean? Did MSNBC grow so large in the Democratic/Liberal Circles that they could get the President to use their Slogan - Lean Forward?

It's just another sign of a country in decline and it's leaders not having the strength to fix its problems.