Meals on Wheels?

Generally, I eschew food vendors who sell their wares from street corner carts, walk-up windows and vehicles. Of course there are exceptions.

When I was stationed at Keesler AFB, I was not above purchasing the occasional burrito from the roach coach, as it was not exactly fondly called, that parked outside Thomson Hall, where I was an instructor.

I've also bought hotdogs at street corners, but only out of desperation. The only good hotdogs I've found are those sold at baseball stadiums at the end of a three-game home stand. Not only has the flavor matured by then, but any parasites and bacteria they may have contained have long since been dispatched.

In the past, I've patronized vendors at Taste of Cincinnati and at one event or another on the Summerfest Grounds in Milwaukee. Once in a great while, though not recently, I'll buy something from a truck at, say, a Dunedin arts and crafts fair, the St Petersburg open air market, or a festival at Vinoy or Straub Park.

But always I prefer a restaurant. This is why my shorts don't knot up over the latest kerfuffle that threatens to tear asunder the very civic fabric of St Pete; to wit, its food truck policy. My problem is not with it per se, but with its implications for property owners.

In some cities, including, surprisingly, semi-trendy Tampa, it has become quite de rigueur for food trucks to line up along a given street during a given weekend and sell a variety of food to throngs of the neo-chic. Not so in St Pete which, in perhaps this single instance, appears positively dark and medieval next to that flickering candle of renaissance light across the bay.

The story of the neurosurgeon and The King's Bistro, as told by Tim Nickens of the Tampa Bay Times, exemplifies the issue.

The neurosurgeon's office adjoins a vacant lot which the doctor owns. One day he spotted a couple at a gas station across the steet buying propane for their food truck. He offered to let them set up on his vacant lot. They explained to him that they doubted St Pete would let them do it. This sent the good doctor into a hissy fit.

"He didn't want to hear it," said the truck's owner. "He said, "This is my land. Why can't I do what I want?'"

You would think the adjective "naive" would not be one to come to mind when describing a neurosurgeon, wouldn't you? Well, you would be wrong, ether-breath.

See, no one, least of all an urban dweller, and especially one in St Petersburg, really owns his/her property. Okay, one may own it, but one does not have control over it.

Not too long ago a gallery owner in downtown St Pete replaced a section of the curb bordering her property with a transition so she could drive onto her driveway. The city made her replace the curb.

Want to raise chickens in your St Pete backyard? Ha, ha! Silly you!

I have an oak tree on my corner lot which continuously trashes both my yard and pool, especially in the winter and during a goodly wind. I would have to get permission, pay exorbitant permit fees, and agree to plant five other trees to take its place before I would have any hope of cutting it down.

It took the doctor a month to get the permit necessary to allow The King's Bistro to park on his lot for two weeks. As a stipulation, he may not allow any more food trucks to park there for six months. Sound like a property "owner" to you?

Predictably, the doc has called the mayor and threatened to sue the city. He will also campaign for City Council next year. Since Nickens describes him as "a tea party guy and an unbowed Ron Paul supporter" it should make for some fun, Hillsborough County Commission-like meetings.

I know I can't wait.

Ask Uncle Dave

Dear Uncle Dave,

I'm the manager of a major league baseball team in Miami, capital of Northern Cuba. Recently I happened to mention how much I admired Fidel Castro for managing to survive and remain in power for as long as he did. You cannot imagine the grief I've been catching. I've been ripped by the fans and the media, and I've been suspended from my job for six games.

I don't get it. I mean, it's not like I said anything racist. I'm not Cuban, you understand, but I am Latino. I'm Venezuelan-American, for God's sake. What about free speech? Am I not allowed to say what I think without having to worry about my job? Is this fair?

Signed "OG".

Dear OG,

It's not what you said; it's where you said it. You're lucky Gloria Estefan didn't whack your head with her maracas.

What's next for you, Sparky? Go up to Harlem and sing the praises of David Duke? Perhaps go to Tel Aviv and talk about what a great guy Hitler was?

Here's an idea. Why don't you go to the nearest adult toy store and purchase one of those dominatrix contraptions--you've seen them in movies, "Pulp Fiction" being one--that has a ball affixed with leather straps. Insert the ball in your mouth and have one of your players lock the straps around your head. You won't be able to say anything stupid anymore, and that just may save your future.

Dear Uncle Dave,

I'm married and have four kids. Up until a few days ago, I was a college football coach at a top-tier university, knocking down $3.5 mil per annum. Then I ran into a perfect storm. I had a motorcycle accident while out on a ride with my mistress, a blonde hottie half my age. Next thing I know, I'm in my wife's crosshairs.

What should I do?

Signed "BP".

Dear BP,

Scrap the bike and buy a three-wheeler. If and when you find a job, that is.

Dear Uncle Dave,

I have more money than God. I was a US senator, a candidate for vice-president, and had realistic dreams of one day sitting in the Oval Office. Then my pregnant bimbo girlfriend gave birth do a daughter and my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She found out about the affair and the kid and divorced me shortly before she died.

Now I'm about to go on trial after being charged with conspiracy and campaign finance violations. If convicted, I'm looking at 30 years in the slam! How am I supposed to deal with that?

Signed "JE".

Dear JE,

Check with Sam's Club or Costco and see if you can buy Vaseline Petroleum Jelly or some other lubricant in bulk and stock up. With your pretty boy looks and that protruding lower lip, your dance card is going to be way overbooked!

Got a question or problem for your ol' Uncle Dave? Leave it in the Comments section, and I'll run it in a future Ask Uncle Dave. Hey, I'm just trying to help.

Graceless Nancy

Unless you've been living in a cave on the island near where Chuck Nolan's FedEx plane crashed, you probably know who Nancy Grace is.

"An outspoken, tireless advocate for victims' rights and one of television's most respected legal analysts, Nancy Grace is the powerful force behind Headline News' (HLN) top-rated Nancy Grace," proclaims CNN's Web site.

Well, she certainly is outspoken. Can't dispute her credentials as a "tireless advocate for victims' rights," either. The problem is, Nancy decides who the victim is in a particular case, irrespective of any facts to the contrary. Hers are not necessarily victims of crimes, but always of affronts to her agenda.

Nancy is the white female version of the "Reverend" Al Sharpton. Remember Tawana Bradley? Google the name if you want the case history; I'm not going to waste valuable--dare I say precious?--space here rehashing that sorry episode. Suffice it to say that the "Reverend" Al held Tawana up as a case study of everything he wanted us to believe was wrong with white society, and of white injustice against blacks. After her story as told by the "Reverend" Al was exposed as a sham, the only question was how much was he duped by it and how much did he himself concoct. One must always ask that question of Nancy's stories as well.

Nancy's touted image as a "respected legal analyst" was exposed as a fraud by her rants during the Duke lacrosse scandal. That was the case where an opportunistic district attorney seeking reelection, a corrupt police officer willing to abet him, a newspaper editor trying to advance his leftist agenda, and a university president wanting to belie his institution's elitist image and placate certain fringe faculty members all conspired in an attempt to lynch three athletes who had been charged with rape by a drug-crazed stripper/hooker.

The case began unraveling almost at its beginning. Yet there was Nancy, never one to be confused with evidence, applying bubble gum and spit, duct tape and baling wire to hold it together and using her show to incite the lynch mob.

"They may not have been guilty of what they were accused," she seemed to have rationalized, "but they had to have been guilty of something."

Examples abound of how Nancy covered her ears and made that blathering noise with her tongue when someone would point out obvious fallacies in the investigation. She reported, for instance, that the lacrosse players had refused to provide DNA samples, a blatant and outrageous falsehood.

"There's really no good reason why, if you're innocent, you won't go forward and go, 'Hey, you want my DNA? Take it, I insist'," she pontificated.

The players had, in fact, begged authorities to take their DNA. After the tests came back negative, an unrepentant Nancy started "making up these wild schemes and making up ways that it could have happened, explaining away the science with pure subjective irrational thought, instead of saying, 'My gosh, they were telling the truth'," said one of the accused.

Her egregiously shameful pursuit of the real victims in this case, the three accused lacrosse players, revealed her as devoid of any credibility.

You would think that would have ended her CNN career, wouldn't you? Well, you would be wrong, Johnnie Cochran-breath.

Why, just lately Nancy jumped into the ring on the Trayvon Martin case. And guess who the other half of her tag-team is? If you said the "Reverend" Al, take an A.

"Evidence? I don't need no stinking evidence!" No, Nancy. You just need ratings. The tragedy is that you feel you have license to obfuscate, fabricate and prevaricate to get them, and that CNN gives you free rein to do it.

I Hate Musicals

Will someone please explain Hollywood's fascination with musicals to me? Every year that there is a musical up for one or more Academy Awards, trust me--it will win.

I don't get them. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and accept almost any storyline or plot. But some concepts are just too moronic for me to wrap my head around.

See if you can name the movie in which these scenes actually appeared:

* A Marine Corps lieutenant, lying wounded on a jungle island mountainside, his intestines hanging from a bloody and steaming hole in his abdomen, bursts into song.

* Two juvenile gangs armed with zip guns and switchblades meet for a rumble in a New York City alley, wave their weapons menacingly, and start singing and dancing with perfect choreography.

* A king of an agrarian Asian country and an English governess twirl around the palace in a song and dance production that would rival Astaire and Rogers.

You get the idea.

How many great stories have been blasphemed by being turned into musicals! "Lost Horizon" became "Shangri-la." "The Phantom of the Opera." "Les Miserables."

What's next--"Papillion," where Henri Charriere and Louis Dega stand on the cliff of Ile Diablo and sing, "We gotta get outta this place?"

"Apocalypse Now," where Lt Col Kilgore looks at the destruction wrought by his helicopters and sings, "Nothin' smells as pretty as napalm in the mornin'," and Capt Willard breaks out with "Up the Mekong River in the jungle sun," backed up by his accompanying river rats?

"The Wolf Man," where Larry Talbot sings "I get no kick from champagne...but I get a bite out of you" to his beautiful victim just before he rips out her throat?

How about "The Grapes of Wrath," where the Joads load their junk on a truck that's held together with baling wire and set out for California with a rousing rendition of "On the Road Again?"

Imagine "Titanic" ("I went down, down, down and the water crept higher"). "Sudden Impact" ("Bang, bang, I shot him down"). "Apollo 13" ("Fly me to the moon"). The possibilities are sickening.

All that said, however, I did enjoy "Chicago," largely because it starred whom I consider to be the most beautiful woman on the planet. I swear, after that last number I looked down at my feet, and my socks were gone!

I heard a rumor that they're going to make "Dracula: The Musical." Is nothing sacred? Is there no shame at all left in Hollywood?

Just promise me this. Promise me that Justin Bieber won't be cast as the Count, okay? Will you at least not commit that heresy?

Tampa: Mecca of the Avant Garde

Those of you who once perused my long since defunct "Florida Follies" Web site may remember my cataloging of what passes for culture down here. We have, for example, the Big Daddy Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. Off of Highway 41 as it crosses the Everglades is, or perhaps was, the Skunk Ape Museum. And one might still observe faux mermaids performing their underwater synchronized swimming choreography at Weeki Wachee, where Johnny Weissmuller filmed his Tarzan movies.

Don't even get me started on Orlando.

Locally, my favorite newspaper columnist, Daniel Ruth, has oft times waxed poetic over the extensive collections of paper clips and belly button lint on display at Tampa's answer to New York's Museum of Modern Art. Dan'l is that rarest of human beings, a liberal with a sense of humor. I know, I know--how oxymoronic!

Despite its many attempts over the decades to transform itself into a cosmopolitan centre of the arts, Tampa is still known nationally as the nudie bar capital of the country. Neither New Orleans nor Las Vegas has anything on Tampa when it comes to pole and lap dancing.

In an effort to change its image as a T and A theme park, an advisory committee to Tampa's City Council suggested designating the Cuban as the city's signature sandwich.

"I have been to Cuba, I have been to Miami, and neither of those places serve a good Cuban sandwich," said an artist whose research into the history of the Cuban was used by the committee. "This sandwich was very influential to everybody who came to Ybor City or to Tampa in the early days of our city, starting in 1886 when Ybor City was founded."

Now, don't get me wrong. I love a good Cuban as much as the next guy. I've had them at all types of culinary establishments, from the Sand Key Columbia's to the storefront eatery around the corner from our casa, and several places in between. Can't say I've ever had a bad one, nor could I tell the difference in taste of one properly put together from one just slapped between two slices of pressed bread.

I am essentially an omnivore, not a gourmet. I did draw the line at eating bowls of noodles from the boiling pots in the back alleys of Taipei, though. You see, the water comes from the open sewer the locals call the Tamshui River. Also, no anchovies on my pizza, thank you very much. And after learning what I might have to eat to survive in the event our aircrew had to 'chute out or ditch in the jungle, I made up my mind that I was going to die. But otherwise, I'm pretty much open-minded. I just won't eat anything I can't identify.

Is this really why our elected officials are forming committees, holding meetings, seeking input from the public and calling for votes? Do they think the Cuban is going to replace the pasties and g-strings in the consciousness of tourists? Seriously?

Tampa is a city of 336,823, not counting its surrounding bedroom communities. Isn't there more important Council business than deciding which sandwich best enhances its cultural identity?

Well, if you're actually going to go this route you'll need a slogan. I suggest, "Forget Disney's Magic Mountain! Forget Universal's Harry Potter! Forget Sea World's Shamu! We have the Cuban!"

Yeah, that's the ticket. That'll have folks changing their airline reservations from Orlando to Tampa in droves.

Anybody reading this have a better one?

How to Self-Destruct

Last year, at the age of 21, Brittany Miles ended her life. Given that the life expectancy of women in Florida is 82.59, she has a good chance of being a dead woman walking for the next 61 years, maybe longer.

She is now, in a very real sense, a zombie.

On May 10, 2011, Brittany, daughter of a Hernando County deputy sheriff, mother of a young son, and former stripper, got all Lindsay Lohan, climbed into her truck, and went careening down the highway. A Pasco County deputy pulled her over in Hudson, arrested her on a suspected DUI, handcuffed her, and put her into a squad car.

In Florida, first-time DUI offenders are looking at a max of six months in the slam, $1,000 fine, temporary loss of driver's license, and a requirement to attend classes to learn why they shouldn't be DUIers. Or, they could simply get probation. It all depends on what the blood alcohol content reading is.

At the time she was placed into the patrol car, Brittany still had a future. Sure, she was going to have to spend the rest of the night in jail, hire and pay an attorney, maybe pay a fine, and have to go to school for a few hours to get her head straight. But so what? There was light at the end of her tunnel.

You would think she would accept her situation and take her lumps, wouldn't you? Well, you would be wrong, Jim Beam-breath.

Brittany managed to work one hand free of the cuffs. While the deputies were confabbing, she reached through an open squad car window and opened a door. She then ran off to her truck, hopped in, and floored it.

Sheriff's deputy Ashley Grady jumped up on the truck's running board and reached through the window to grab the keys. Brittany pushed the deputy off the truck and into the traffic lanes of Highway 19.

Highway 19, for those of you who do not live here, is one of the deadliest roads in Florida, perhaps the country. It is often either a raceway or a parking lot, depending upon the time of day. Luckily for the deputy, this was in a relatively rural area during the wee small. As it was, the deputy suffered cuts, bruises and a broken leg.

Brittany sped off, deputies in hot pursuit, and was doing 100 mph when she collided with a 67-year-old motorcyclist at an intersection in Hernando County.

You can check off the bad decisions Brittany made before doing her Danica Patrick impersonation. They alone demonstrate that her thought processes are seriously flawed. But then her brain completely locked up, earning her a shot at a Post-Partum Abortion Award.

Apprehended a second time and jailed, she called the father of her son. Her jailers recorded the conversation, during which she blamed Ashley's injuries on Ashley.

"As far as the deputy, you know, she jumped on the truck, you know what I mean? It's not like I hit her. She fell off. Like it was her decision to jump on the truck," Brittany rationalized. "She just jumped on the f*ing truck while I was f*ing driving. I mean, what was I supposed to do?"

Well, call me crazy, but how 'bout, uh, stop?

Earlier this week she pleaded "nolo contendre" to attempted murder, escape, fleeing to elude law enforcement, possession of methamphetamine and DUI. She is looking at a maximum sentence of life.

"Nolo contendre," or "no contest," means she accepts that authorities have enough evidence to convict her, but she does not admit to having done anything wrong.

It gets worse. See, the motorcyclist died. Now Brittany will go on trial in Hernando County for first-degree murder and aggravated fleeing and eluding.

Good strategy, there, Britt. I'm sure your refusal to admit guilt and your lack of remorse will weigh heavily with the judge while he ponders your sentence.

The Anti-Common Sense Gene

Two years ago, scientists at both UC San Diego and Harvard University concluded that "ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4."

People "with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults," they said. The effect is caused by a neurotransmitter in the brain called DRD4 which could be simulated by the novelty value of left-of-center opinions. The research suggests that some people have an inherent bias against conservative thinking that is independent of their education or upbringing.

It is important that we examine the phraseology used in these studies. May we conclude, for example, that "dopamine" is a derivative of "dope?" I think so.

People "with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene...."--can we interpret "variant" to mean "deviant?" "Mutation?"

"Novelty value of left-of-center opinions;" i.e., opinions the only value of which is that they are different from those mainstream.

"[S]ome people have an inherent bias against conservative thinking that is independent of their education or upbringing." In other words, in spite of how they were raised, and irrespective of what they should have learned at university, the corrupt gene prohibits their application of common sense to social problems.

Which largely explains the rants of liberal newspaper editors and columnists in general, and Tampa Bay Times resident lefty Robyn Blumner in particular.

Robyn personifies the DRD4 gene run amok. Look up "socialist dogmatic" in your Funk and Wagnall and you'll likely find her picture. She sees fascists, racists, ageists, elitists, homophobes, sexists, and male chauvinist pigs behind every tree.

She can't help it; she possesses the defective DRD4 gene.

What one cannot understand is how, after her malfunctioned genetic condition was scientifically diagnosed, she still is afforded space for her "novel" views. Consider her latest rant, published March 11.

"Florida and its women are being attacked," she wrote. "The state's Republican leaders are laying the legal groundwork for the day Roe v Wade is overturned by the Roberts court."

What Florida's Republicans are in fact trying to do is bring the state in line with the US Constitution. In Roe v Wade, the then liberal majority on the US Supreme Court found an implied right to an abortion as part and parcel of another implied right, that of privacy. 32 years ago, Florida Democrats amended Florida's constitution to include an explicit right to privacy. This has been interpreted to include a woman's right to an abortion. In the event Roe v Wade is overturned, Florida's constitution would then be at odds with that of the US. Even high school civics students know that the US Constitution trumps state constitutions.

Such imagery, Robyn. Florida women are not being "attacked." In the first place, not all women agree with Roe v Wade. It is superbly ironic that "Roe" herself later repudiated the Court's decision in her favor. Moreover, disagreement does not equate to physical assault. Do you actually believe Republicans want to subjugate women, many of whom are among their own ranks? Seriously?

Perhaps the DRD4 gene also is responsible for inculcating paranoia.