Creative Loafing Tampa — May 18, 2023

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PUBLISHER James Howard

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ray Roa

DIGITAL EDITOR Colin Wolf

MANAGING EDITOR Kyla Fields

FOOD and THEATER CRITIC

Jon Palmer Claridge

FILM & TV CRITIC John W. Allman

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CONTRIBUTORS Josh Bradley, Jourdan

Ducat, Gabe Echazabal, Jennifer Ring, McKenna Schueler, Arielle Stevenson

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PHOTOGRAPHERS Dave Decker, Nick Cardello

SUMMER INTERN Gracey Davis

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Music: Tampa Bay Blues Fest 40

Andrew Zelman

Week ...................................................42 Concert review: Artic Monkeys 42

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EDITORIAL POLICY — Creative Loafing Tampa is a publication covering public issues, the arts and entertainment. In our pages appear views from across the political and social spectrum. They do not necessarily represent the views

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Tay Tay’s former red-haired opener is coming. Ed Sheeran has two Tampa Bay shows this weekend, p. 46.

Opens May 27 at The Dalí

Over 100 rarely displayed drawings from the hand a glimpse into the artist’s most intimate and spontaneous creative process.

Rain or shine

Photos by Dave Decker

On paper, “Al Nakba,” or “the catastrophe,” happened 75 years ago during the 1948 Palestine war and creation of the Israeli state. Others believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory started much earlier and continues to this day via the annexation of land, attacks on homes in Gaza and continued U.S. support for Israel. Last Saturday, Tampa’s Palestinian community and its supporters gathered under thunderclouds on the corner of Fowler Avenue and 56th Street near the University of South Florida to shine light on the plight of their people with a “Nakba75” demonstration. See all the photos via cltampa.com/slideshows.—Ray Roa

do this

Tampa Bay's best things to do from May 18 - 25

Carlton Ward Jr. virtual fireside chat Next week, Florida’s foremost conservation photographer joins Climate First Bank CEO & Founder, Ken LaRoe for a virtual chat about the environment, but there are more ways than ever to tap into Ward’s mission to save Florida’s Wildlife Corridor. His National Geographic film, “Path Of the Panther,” is now available to stream from anywhere with an internet connection (via Hulu and Disney+), and a companion large format hardcover book “Path of the Panther: New Hope for Wild Florida” saw release early this month. Ward’s life is devoted to inspiring appreciation of lands and cultures and inspiring their protection. We’d do good to tune in, even for just an hour. Next Thursday, May 25, noon-1 p.m. Free with registration. Online. @ClimateFirstBank on Facebook—Ray Roa

Summer Garden Walk Series As the Oracle of Ybor points out on p. 51, starting a garden can change your life. If that’s true, then being in one can change your day, right? This weekend, staff, volunteers and faculty at University of South Florida’s 16-acre botanical garden continue their seven-part summer walk series with a walk and talk led by Jagoda Edelman, a volunteer in the cacti and succulent sector for around 20 years. The hour-long Satudaywalk is included with general admission and will repeat for another month until the June 17 pollinators finale. Saturday, May 20, 10 a.m. $3-$5. USF Botanical Garden, 12210 USF Pine Dr., Tampa. usf.edu—Ray Roa

Positively U food & clothing giveaway Positively U is a nonprofit founded by Florida-based HIV positive, minority activists and advocates, and this community-based organization hosts a free food and clothing giveaway every Thursday at its Tampa headquarters. Produce and food, gently-used clothing and sexual health screenings are all provided Folks that would like to attend do not need any form of ID or any evidence proving that they need assistance. According to its website, this local organization aims to “provide meaningful support for persons living with HIV and to prevent the spread of HIV through education, counseling, testing, and case management.” Even if you’re not in need of Positively U’s help, you can always donate clothes or straight up cash to help it continue its community-focused mission. Thursdays. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. Positively U, 1419 W Waters Ave. Suite 117, Tampa. positivelyu.org—Kyla Fields

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Boat Drinks pop-up Boat Drinks is a veritable oasis on the heavilytrafficked streets of tourist-laden historic downtown St. Augustine, and the Northern Florida tiki pioneer is bringing “nauti-tropical cocktails & slushy things, craveable crustaceans, crispy veggies, jerked bird & other Shanghai’d snacks” to Tampa Heights. Co-founder Whitney Hobbs told CL that the menu will be limited compared to what she offers in St. Augustine, but will include her famous peeland-eat shrimp, plantain chips and dips, and jerk chicken. A flier for the event also promises wonky bivalves from Pelican Oyster Company, which farms its product in the waters of Apalachee Bay. The drink offerings include a pina colada featuring homemade mix, a goombay smash, Boat Drinks’

“Speedboat Captain” featuring cold brew coffee, lemon and mexican coke, plus the “Scuttlebutt Swizzle” with hibiscus, allspice, lime, bitters and soda—all blended with a wide array of rum from importer Back Bar Project. Read more on cltampa.com/food-drink. Monday, May 22, 4 p.m.-8 p.m. No cover. King State, 520 E Floribraska Ave., Tampa. @k1ngst8/@boatdrinksbar on Instagram—Ray Roa

Preservation Summit and Expo Preserve the ‘Burg is celebrating Preservation Month by hosting a day of educational presentations, free museum admission and more than a dozen local vendors and community groups. Melissa Willey, President and CEO of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, is the keynote speaker for a day of talks that includes topics like researching your historic home, maintaining family photographs (like this absolute gem of a 1940s shot of the Coliseum), building an accessory dwelling unit, learning more about affordable housing and more. Guests can also check out the museum’s latest exhibit during this weekend’s event, since “Civil Rights in the Sunshine State” is on display until June 8. Friday, May 19. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Free. St. Petersburg Museum of History, 335 2nd Ave. NE, St. Petersburg. spmoh.com—Kyla Fields

Margaret Cho St. Pete Pride is still a month away, but the grand marshall of Los Angeles’ Pride celebration is in town to help Floridians laugh as the state goes to hell in a handbasket. Cho, 54, was an outsider just finding her voice in the ‘90s but has since established herself as not just one of comedy’s most sought-after artists, but an author and actor in serious demand, too. This tour promises to be a “livid” affair (in an interview with St. Pete Catalyst, Cho said DeSantis eating pudding with three fingers “is basically fisting”) so be prepared for some hurt feelings as the aisles clear after the show wraps. Friday, May 19, 7:30 p.m. $34.50. Louise Lykes Ferguson Hall at David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 W.C. MacInnes Pl., Tampa. strazcenter.org—Ray Roa

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POLITICS ISSUES OPINION

Untold

Details unclear after FBI seizes electronics from journalist Timothy Burke.

By Ray Roa and Colin Wolf

Two days after agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations seized electronics from her husband Timothy Burke, Tampa City Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that, “Based on the information we have, it appears that the search warrant executed at our home on Monday was solely related to my husband’s work as a journalist.”

The FBI told CL that on May 7, agents “conducted a courtauthorized search” at the Old Seminole Heights home of Burke, a Tampa-based journalist and media consultant whose byline has previously appeared at CL. The FBI added that, “No further information is available at this time.” The agency also declined to share the search warrant. City of Tampa Spokesperson Adam Smith told CL after the incident that the city is not involved. Smith said he’s also

“Not aware of any outreach from lawyers for councilwoman or her husband.”

Over the years Burke has built a reputation as an online sleuth. In 2013, the New York Times profiled Burke, highlighting his elaborate monitor setup, which is now located in a shed in his backyard.

LOCAL NEWS

From the New York Times: He works from home here, in what his colleagues call the “Burke-puter,” for its seamless integration of man and machine. It is less an office than an organism: a flashing, beeping, glowing, thrumming assault of screens, wires, remotes, tuners, phones, receivers, computers and general electronic effluvia wrapped around a person (“the monitor situation up there is insane,” said Burke’s wife, Lynn Hurtak.). Burke sits here alone in the dark day after day, for about 100 hours a week, watching dozens of sports events simultaneously.

A 2022 Netflix special “Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist,” follows Burke and his Deadspin colleagues as they break the news that Heisman winner Manti Te’o’s dead girlfriend was a hoax.

In the two-part series, producers paint Burke as an online savant, with a long resume.

“Before I started working for Deadspin, I traveled in some interesting online circles, including with Anonymous, the notorious online hacker group,” said Burke in the series. “And, I developed a reputation as someone who finds things.”

From his heavily-followed Twitter feed, @bubbaprog, Burke broke some massive stories over the years, including the Sinclair Broadcasting video of local TV anchors around the country reading “Trump propaganda” from the same script.

Hurtak recently defeated former Florida Representative and Senator Janet Cruz in a hotly contested race for the District 3 seat on Tampa City Council.

After the raid was first reported by the Tampa Bay Times rumors began to surface speculating on the incident, specifically one from Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch,

who attempted to connect the raid to the recent “cyber incident” at the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office.

“Rampant speculation: is FBI execution of search warrant at home of @bubbaprog, husband of a City Council member, related to this? Lots of buzz that it is…” Schorsch Tweeted last Monday evening.

The next day, the Tampa Bay Times published a follow-up story titled “ “In Tampa: FBI search, alleged ‘public corruption,’ cyber breach, evictions,” which featured the identical photo of Burke and Hurtak’s house used in the paper’s previous story about the raid.

In the story, the paper used the raid as a jumping off point to list off recent Tampa scandals and headlines like the recent “cyber incident,” the arrest of local politico John Ring Jr, and the raid at Burke and Hurtak’s home.

While significant by themselves, the stories have no clear or provable connection.

But that didn’t stop the Times from then giving a subliminal nudge to local conspiracy theorists, writing in the subhed, “The highprofile investigations may not be related, but they’ve got Tampa talking.”

“It appears that the search warrant executed at our home on Monday was solely related to my husband’s work as a journalist.”

HEY BUBBA: A 2018 screengrab of Timothy Burke discussing Sinclair news coverage.

Not so fast

Tampa City Council denies 50-unit luxury condo on Bayshore.

By Arielle Stevenson

Last Thursday night, Tampa City Council voted against Congregation Rodeph Sholom’s request to rezone their property in order to sell the land to Miami-based developer Related Group. The proposed structure would’ve been a maximum height of 329-feet with 50 units, down from the originally proposed 359-feet and 60 units.The vote came after over four hours of public comment from both sides. Those in favor of approving the project wore blue shirts reading, “honoring the past, preserving the future.”

Council member Bill Carlson, who represents South Tampa, was absent for the vote.

Last Thursday’s vote came a week after council voted 6-1 to end a rental certificate program that tracked landlords. The program was a loose kind of landlord registry, where Tampa landlords or property managers are supposed to register rentals (and tenants) with the city. That’s in addition to a business tax paid to the city for the rental.

LOCAL NEWS

The 120-year-old synagogue told council that the funds from sale would ensure their organization’s finances. “We hope with the money realized from this land sale that this beacon shines bright for hundreds of years to come,” Lloyd Stern, president of Rodeph Sholom, said at the meeting.

But next door neighbors from the Tampa Bay Garden Club showed up wearing red to show their opposition. Todd Pressman, the club’s zoning consultant, called the project “10 pounds of sugar in a five-pound-bag.”

“The issue is about compatibility,” Pressman said at the meeting. “In our opinion, this compatibility is like oil and water.”

The staff report to council said the proposed plan at 2713 Bayshore Blvd. was inconsistent based on natural resources zoning. Erin Maehr, forester examiner for the city, said the applicant asked for a waiver to remove three non-hazardous grand live oak trees. In order to remove those trees, Maehr said 49 mitigation trees would have to be planted, which the site has little room for. Another waiver was requested to reduce protected trees down to 20%. “The code requires a 50% retention for a nonwooded lot for one acre,” Maehr said at the meeting.

Council member Lynn Hurtak made the motion to deny the request, citing a failure to provide the burden of proof and the extensive waiver requests.

“We’ve seen some waivers we haven’t seen before and I’m concerned about the reduction from 50% tree retention on a non-wooded lot to 20%,” Hurtak said at the meeting. “There seems to be an ability to build without needing all these waivers.”

Councilmember Luis Viera, who seconded Hurtak’s motion to deny the request, also blamed the outcome on the number of waivers requested.

“For me the biggest challenge hasn’t been the existence of waivers,” Viera said at the meeting. “It’s the extent of the waivers that are being sought.”

Councilmember Hurtak, the lone opposition vote, cited concerns over removing rental protections amid state lawmakers’ recent so-called ‘affordable housing’ law.

“With what’s going on in Tallahassee, I think getting rid of something rather than modifying it will make it incredibly hard if you ever want to bring something back,” Hurtak said at last week’s meeting.

The self-certifying program registered that properties were up to minimum standards, without inspections. In a presentation by city staff to council on Oct. 28, 2021, staff recommended terminating the program. Recently-elected city councilmember Gwendolyn Henderson said her negative experience with the program is one of the reasons she ran for office.

“There was a lot of confusion when the program came out because people had the business tax certificate and assumed that was the rental certificate,” Henderson said. “I just happened to be one of them. When I was in court, the person in front of me was explaining the same thing.”

Councilmember Charlie Miranda said the program never inspected any properties. “We never inspected one house or rental property in the last 10 years,” Miranda said at the meeting. “We’ve been collecting money. No government has the right to pass something where it does not benefit the general population.”

Hurtak and city staff confirmed the program hasn’t collected money since 2006.

“The city stopped collecting money for this years ago,” Hurtak said. “I know that because I’m also a landlord and I’ve never paid.”

If enforcement is the issue, activist and city recent council candidate Robin Lockett said the program should be kept and re-vamped, not terminated.

“There has to be some type of accountability in this,” Lockett said at the meeting. “The city passes things all the time with no teeth, that’s the problem.”

Stephanie Poynor, president of the Tampa Homeowners Association of Neighborhoods and a

property manager, called the program “horrific,” and said the city should just use the business tax registration instead.

“If you use that mechanism to make registration done through there, then you don’t need this ridiculous superfluous system that is useless,” Poyner said. “Because honestly, it was completely useless. It was a waste of my time as a property manager.”

After the vote, city code was amended to remove the program. In its place, code enforcement is supposed to implement random rental property inspections, found through the business tax listing. An online portal was created for residents to file rental property complaints.

“The issue isn’t about money,” Hurtak said. “The issue is that we have no way to track landlords now.”

TALL ORDER: Council could not move forward with a plan for this Tampa condo.

“This compatibility is like oil and water.”

If the suit fits

Lawsuits filed over DeSantis’ union-busting bill.

By McKenna Schueler

On the same day that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill described as “union-busting” by critics, Florida unions representing educators and city employees filed two separate lawsuits against the state, alleging the bill is unconstitutional and a blatant example of “government overreach.”

One lawsuit, filed in federal court in Tallahassee, was filed by the Florida Education Association, a labor union representing over 150,000 teachers and school staff across the state, and three affiliated labor unions: the United Faculty of Florida (representing fulltime faculty), the United Faculty of Florida at the University of Florida, and the Alachua County Education Association.

“We assert that the law is unconstitutional on its face,” the FEA wrote in a prepared statement.

can cost thousands of dollars (a price tag that could bankrupt unions with smaller budgets), and requires that unions maintain a minimum membership of 60% of eligible employees—an arbitrary threshold—or risk decertification.

These provisions could make it harder for public sector unions to function, and to survive in a state where less than one-third of public employees are represented by a union as is. And it’s not just education unions that will be affected.

The new law will also impact a broad range of unions representing workers on the frontlines of local communities, from bus drivers to sanitation workers, public healthcare workers, librarians, emergency dispatchers and more.

FLORIDA NEWS

The lawsuit claims the bill violates educators’ First Amendment rights, equal protection of laws under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiffs also say the law infringes on workers’ collective bargaining rights, which are enshrined in Florida’s state constitution.

Educator unions, many of which also represent school counselors, media specialists, paraprofessionals and other school staff, have been considered the law’s primary target.

Before the legislative session even began, DeSantis unveiled a “Teachers Bill of Rights” proposal in January that he claimed would “protect teachers from overreaching school unions.” The Florida Education Association says that, like the Walt Disney Co.—which also sued him last month—

DeSantis has intentionally created a political enemy of teachers’ unions over disagreements on reopening schools during the pandemic, mask mandates, policies dictating what teachers can and cannot teach.

The FEA also endorsed the Republican governor’s Democratic opponent last year, Charlie Crist, who chose a teachers union president as his running mate to help unseat the governor. “We as educators of Florida exercise our constitutional rights, and for doing so we have faced political retribution by the governor of this great state,” said Andrew Spar, FEA president, on a press call announcing the lawsuit last Wednesday.

Modeled after legislation that’s failed to pass during previous legislative sessions, the new law (SB 256) bans automatic payroll deductions of dues from union members’ paychecks, requires unions to pay for annual financial audits that

But DeSantis, stuck on his anti-teacher union agenda, didn’t acknowledge those workers as he was signing into law what he called a “paycheck protection” initiative for educators (a dog whistle for legislation aiming to undercut public sector collective bargaining). Notably, unions representing law enforcement, firefighters, corrections staff and probation officers—which endorsed him and other Republicans for office—are largely exempted from the bill.

After transit unions warned legislators that the bill could cost the state of Florida over $500 million in federal transit funds, those unions also got a carve-out of sorts. Police and firefighter union leaders, for their part, have largely remained silent on their exemption from the bill this year. This wasn’t the case when they would have been affected by a similar bill, without a carve-out, in 2011.

“We have traditionally been a Republican-based organization,” said the Florida Fraternal Order of Police president at the time, per the New York Times. “How much more conservative can you get than the police officers? Who wants to go against the cops and firefighters on these matters?”

Apparently, not Florida’s Republicans lawmakers, who get plenty of donations from police unions during election years, nor DeSantis. But it’s not a new addition this year. A similar bill last year would have also carved out police and firefighters. It also proposed requiring a membership threshold of 50%, rather than the 60% imposed by the bill signed into law last Tuesday.

That threshold would have posed less of a threat to Florida’s teachers’ unions, which were already required by law to meet 50% membership under a 2018 bill signed into law by former Governor Rick Scott. Unions that weren’t carved

out of the bill say the move to exempt police and firefighter unions is blatantly political.

“We maintain this law is unconstitutional on its face, irrespective of any bad motives on the part of the governor,” said Spar last Wednesday. “However, we do believe there are bad motives. The governor is using this legislation to retaliate against his critics.”

A second lawsuit—oh my!

The education unions’ lawsuit, however, isn’t the only legal challenge the new law is facing. The News Service of Florida reported that another lawsuit was filed last Tuesday in the Leon County Circuit Court by labor unions that represent city employees in South Florida, with three individual union members joining as plaintiffs.

Like the suit filed by the education unions, the city workers’ union lawsuit claims the law violates workers’ collective bargaining rights under the Florida state constitution. The lawsuit also alleges that SB 256 violates equal-protection rights and unconstitutionally “impairs” already existing contracts.

“SB 256 prohibits employees from voluntarily paying dues via deductions from their paychecks

and prevents their chosen representatives from negotiating over the same,” the lawsuit reads, according to the News Service of Florida, with two AFSCME locals and the Professional Managers and Supervisors Association named as plaintiffs.

“SB 256 also eliminates the right of public employees to be represented by a union chosen by majority representation irrespective of dues payment despite the fact that Florida is, under our Constitution, a right-to-work state,” the lawsuit adds.

Under Florida’s right-to-work policy, workers aren’t required to become dues-paying union members in order to reap the benefits of a union contract. Workers told Orlando Weekly this makes it difficult to achieve a minimum 60% membership, because there’s less incentive to pay in if you can already benefit from what a contract offers (such as scheduled raises, certain job benefits, and the like) without financially supporting your union.

A legislative staff analysis of the bill, released prior to its passage, found that over 40 of the state’s teachers unions, for instance,

continued on page 23

OUT-OF-STATESMAN: While DeSantis tours the U.S., his constituents are pushing back.

RONDESANTISFL/TWITTER

“This was very strictly an attack on working people.”

continued from page 20

had membership rates below the 60% threshold required of the new law, as of the 2021-22 school year.

Preparing for what lies ahead

Beyond legal challenges, union members across the state have been preparing for what will happen if the new law’s requirements for Florida’s unionized public sector go into effect on July 1, as mandated.

Emily Griest, a high school art teacher in Hillsborough County, told Orlando Weekly that her union, the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, has “been very proactive” in getting ahead of the curve. “We’ve been kind of getting our membership ready for this,” she said. “We’ve been telling them a lot about, OK, this is coming down the pipe. Like, this is what’s going to happen.”

They’ve warned what educators could lose, for instance, if their union were decertified and they consequently lost their contract: Duty-free lunch. A grievance and arbitration process. Planning time. Scheduled raises (not just boosts to starting teacher pay, frequently touted by DeSantis, but supplements for longtime teachers as well).

The HCTA has a membership of 63%, Griest shared, meaning they’d be safe from the bill’s recertification requirement. That’s, of course, contingent upon their union’s membership remaining strong and teachers opting into the union’s proposed plan for collecting dues.

Her union, like others across the state, has been urging members to sign up for eDues, an alternative payment system that deducts dues from a worker’s bank account on the same schedule as employee payroll.

Getting members to switch to this new dues system is the “biggest struggle” that the Orange Classroom Teachers Association is facing, according to union president Clinton McCracken. “That’s a lot, you know?” McCracken, told Orlando Weekly. “We have 8,000 members that we have to work with to make that happen.”

The Orange CTA currently has a membership rate of 57%, up from 54% earlier this year. McCracken, who described the new law as a “union-busting” tactic by the governor, thinks they’ll be able to reach 60% before that requirement goes into effect, but the threat of what will happen if they don’t, or if membership dips below that someday in the future, is still a concern.

Decertification is essentially the worst-case scenario. If there’s no union representing Orange County’s teachers, McCracken said, there’s no guarantee of teachers maintaining what’s stipulated in their contracts.

And those contract protections cover all educators represented by the union, not just the union’s dues-paying members. “While our school board is pretty supportive of teachers, we don’t know what’s in the future,” he said.

Two teachers in St. Petersburg—members of

the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association— launched a podcast to share why they’re “sticking with the union.”

Podcast hosts Philip Belcastro and Brennen Pickett, both of whom teach English at St. Petersburg High School, bring on other teachers to help them share with the community some of the real issues Florida’s public schools are facing. They discuss the future of their profession if conditions remain how they are, or if they grow worse with the enactment of education policies that critics warn will undercut public education in favor of privatization.

“None of these laws are addressing any of the real challenges that we have,” said Rob Kriete, president of the HCTA. “It’s all about scapegoating of why, you know, how they want to privatize public education.”

But whether it’s large class sizes that place a greater burden on teachers, or students who aren’t getting their mental health needs met, “we can all go on all day about the challenges that we have,” Kriete told Orlando Weekly.

that whoever you are as an individual is fine and great and perfect. Just the way you are.”

Gov. DeSantis, and conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, nonetheless have disparaged teachers as “indoctrinators” and “groomers,” accusing educators of forcing certain ideologies or beliefs onto children.

Orange County school board member Alicia Farrant, who was endorsed by Moms for Liberty during the 2022 elections, recently implied that her colleagues on the board were prioritizing LGBTQ+ students over others, which didn’t go over well.

FLORIDA NEWS

“This was very strictly an attack on working people,” said Mayfield, who heads a union that represents 20,000 workers across Florida. “It was an attack on worker voices, and it was an attempt to try to make sure that workers are silenced and that the organizations that represent workers that work with them are silenced.”

Through their weekly podcast, Pickett and Belcastro, both younger teachers in their 30s, have also mobilized community members to show up to school board meetings, to speak against the GOP’s “anti-woke” agenda affecting their classrooms and student education. From book bans to policies restricting what educators can and cannot teach in classrooms, some teachers are left feeling stifled and belittled by state leaders.

McCracken, a former art teacher for Orange County Public Schools who was elected Orange County CTA president last year, said teachers want to be there to support their students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or any other identifying characteristic.

Educators’ goal, he said, beyond the task of education, is “making sure that they all know

“Teachers are not indoctrinators,” said McCracken. At 50 years old, McCracken is now openly gay after growing up in a religious, conservative community that wasn’t welcoming to people like him. “We have students who, they just want to be in a safe space,” he said. “They want to know that they’re not alone in the world, and these teachers are the people who many of the students rely on.”

Conservative groups like the billionaire-funded Americans for Prosperity, the Chamber of Commerce, and the lobbying arm for the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based organization that’s behind a national push to deregulate child labor, were the primary supporters of the bill, not working people.

Florida’s bill is similar to other policies that have been proposed or enacted in other states over the years, in an attempt to undercut public employee unions, under the guise of “paycheck protection.”

Meanwhile, working-class Floridians (including self-described conservatives) traveled up to Tallahassee in droves to testify against the bill. Within the Florida Public Sector Union, membership averages around 40% to 45% within locals, according to Mayfield, well below the 60% membership threshold the new law will soon require. The FPSU represents a wide range of workers, from city government employees (including city of Orlando employees) to school bus drivers and part-time faculty at several public colleges and universities, including Valencia College and Seminole State College.

But Mayfield says they’ve also seen more workers, members and nonmembers alike, stepping up to ask what they can do, in a scramble to organize as if the survival of their unions depend on it (because, well, it does).

Mayfield confirmed to Orlando Weekly that, like the FEA and AFSCME, SEIU is “assessing” its options for whether to pursue a legal challenge over the new measure.

“Our union isn’t going to go away,” Mayfield said adamantly. “I think we’re going to emerge from this stronger.”

“They’re heroes,” he added, of his colleagues, “working in a profession that’s very difficult, for very little money. And instead of thanking them and rewarding them, this governor, this Legislature has attacked them.”

Florida Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, sponsor of SB 256, told Orlando Weekly when he first filed the bill in March that his bill was actually “pro-union,” because it would force unions to engage more with the workers they represent. And while several union leaders told Orlando Weekly that this has been true, to an extent, the idea that the legislation is “pro-union” in any respect is blatantly false.

“That’s bullshit,” said Alphonso Mayfield, president of the Florida Public Sector Union of the SEIU, who hopped on the phone with Orlando Weekly last Thursday.

Not because that was intentional on the part of the Republicans who crafted the law, he made sure to add. Although five Republicans in the State Senate and nine Republicans in the state House of Representatives joined Democrats in opposing the bill, its passage was still made possible thanks to the supermajority of Republicans who voted it through. “They’ve created a very sharp contrast to show who’s actually working on behalf of working people, and who’s not,” said Mayfield.

This post first appeared at our sibling publication Orlando Weekly. Are you a worker in Florida whose union will be affected by this bill? Reach out to reporter McKenna Schueler at mschueler@orlandoweekly.com to let her know where your union stands, and how you feel about what’s to come.

BACK UP: Florida Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (L) said his bill was actually ‘pro-union.’

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RESTAURANTS RECIPES DINING GUIDES

Light me up

Koya, Lilac and Rocca earn Tampa’s first ever Michelin stars.

By Kyla Fields

The restaurant industry equivalent of the Academy Awards went down in Miami last Thursday, when three Tampa restaurants earned the city’s first Michelin stars. Tampa’s Koya, Lilac and Rocca all earned stars during the Florida Michelin Guide 2023 unveiling at LoanDepot Park.

The trio was among four Florida restaurants that earned their first stars, along with Tambourine Room by Tristan Brandt in Miami Beach. In all, 19 restaurants in Miami, Orlando and Tampa can proudly display the star.

South Tampa’s high-end Japanese restaurant Koya—located at 807 W Platt St.—received Tampa’s first-ever Michelin star, with head chef and owner Eric Fralick accepting the award. In its assesment of Koya, Michelin inspectors wrote, “There is a watchful eye over the experience at this intimate eight-seat counter, where a multicourse contemporary tasting menu shares a singular interpretation of Japanese cuisine. The dishes are often unexpected yet always thoughtful.”

John Fraser and John Werksmen from Tampa Edition’s Lilac restaurant welcomed the city’s second star of the night, to chants of “Tampaaaa!” echoing through the ceremony’s massive crowd.

The third star was awarded to Tampa Heights restaurant Rocca—and “of the moment eatery,” according to inspectors—and its chef Bryce Bonsack, who received a Bib Gourmand last year for his seasonal, yet innovative, Italian fare.

The ceremony kicked off with Bib Gourmands and special Michelin awards—where two Tampa folks took home red Michelin trophies and black chef jackets. Tampa is also home to 18 recommended restaurants including Yummy House, Columbia, Bern’s Steak House and Mise en Place (see a full list via cltampa.com/food-drink).

“A restaurant in the Recommended selection is the sign of a chef using quality ingredients that are well cooked; simply a good meal,” says Michael Ellis, International Director of the Michelin Guide books.

Matthew Braden, general manager of Tampa Edition’s signature restaurant Lilac, received the “Best Service Award,” while Christina Theofilos—head chef and owner of South Tampa’s Psomi—received the “Best Young Chef”

award. The Greek restaurant that’s “influenced by the world,” was awarded a Bib Gourmand earlier this month alongside New Tampa Nepali restaurant Gorkhali Kitchen.

No other Tampa concepts were awarded new Bib Gourmands at last Thursday’s ceremony. Two Tampa restaurants maintained their Bib Gourmand status from 2022: Proper House Group’s Rooster & the Till kept their bibs alongside ramen hotspot Ichicoro, which is currently closed.

Both Rooster & The Till and Ichicoro received their Bib Gourmands at the launch of Florida’s Michelin Guide last year in Orlando.

Italian restaurant Rocca—located at 323 W Palm Ave.—received a bib last year, and made the massive leap to a single star this year.

Bib Gourmands go to restaurants that offer a meal of good quality at a good value, while Michelin considers five criteria when awarding stars: “the quality of the ingredients, the harmony of flavours, the mastery of techniques, the personality of the chef as expressed through their cuisine and, just as importantly, consistency both across the entire menu and over time.”

Tampa was shut out of Michelin stars last year when the fabled dining guide made its Florida debut.

Although controversial, a star is considered one of, if not thee, highest award in the culinary world. Chefs who earn a star see an immediate boost in their reputation, with their restaurant (and staff) benefiting from the boost in business and prestige.

Some chefs have killed themselves while under pressure to keep their stars. Others have banned Michelin inspectors from their restaurants and even renounced their stars.

Michelin inspectors, all anonymous, did not visit any restaurants in St. Petersburg or Clearwater because parties that coordinated bringing the guide to Florida included Visit Florida, Visit Orlando, Visit Tampa Bay and Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau—but not Visit St. Pete Clearwater (VSPC).

Last year, Miami Herald reported that Florida’s tourist boards collectively paid Michelin more than $1.5 million to bring their restaurant inspectors to the Sunshine State. At last week’s ceremony, president and CEO of Visit Florida Dana Young stressed the importance of tourism throughout the state, stating that it’s the “lifeblood of Florida.”

SHOW ME A SIGN: Tampa is now home to Michelin-starred restaurants.

Filling good

Gorkhali Kitchen scores a Bib Gourmand, veteran chefs share thoughts on Michelin.

By Kyla Fields

Last Thursday, in the heavy, humid Miami air, the words “Gorkhali Kitchen” sprawled across a massive screen at LoanDepot Park, where the Michelin Guide held a ceremony to honor standout culinary concepts in Tampa, Orlando and Miami. Tampa’s only NepaleseHimalayan restaurant was one of two local concepts which earned their first Bib Gourmand award this year—a massive feat for an eatery that’s only occupied its quaint New Tampa plaza for 10 months. Three Tampa restaurants earned the city’s first-ever Michelin stars (read more on p. 31).

Gorkhali Kitchen—located at 10044 Cross Creek Blvd.—is riding off the high of receiving a bib from one of the most (if not the most) prestigious organizations in the culinary world, but Nepal-born co-owner Rajesh Pathak isn’t letting it get to his head. His first order of business was making sure Gorkhali could handle the influx of customers reserving tables at his newly-Bib’ed restaurant for Mother’s Day weekend, with some customers making their first foray into South Asian cuisine altogether.

“The news of our Bib Gourmand was definitely unexpected and I’m still trying to digest it all,” Pathak told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay the morning after the ceremony. “I just have to sit down and think about what our next steps should be.”

Pathak and three other co-owners—Reena Widdoes, Poonam Gurung and Menora Panthi— have been friends for a few years, but finally debuted their Nepalese restaurant last summer. Gorkhali (which translates into “warrior”) dishes out Himalayan-inspired fare like hearty soups, curries, goat stews, its prized tandoori chicken wings and of course momos, the Nepalese version of dumplings.

Michelin’s top-secret inspectors praised the little delicacies: “Its chili momo filled with chicken is tossed in a fiery sauce that’s not for the faint of heart,” says the Michelin Guide. “Sweet at the start, the heat builds and then finishes with a very spicy kick—perfect for heat seekers.”

Popular Indian dishes like tikka masala also found their way onto Gorkhali’s menu, as Pathak realized that folks will sometimes order what they’re most familiar with. Nepalese fare is influenced by its massive Southern neighbor and shares a few flavors and techniques with India, but its tourism board states that they’re actually five different categories of Nepali food corresponding to the major regions of the landlocked South Asian country.

Pathak tells CL that he’s hiring both back of house and front of house positions to help keep up with the recent, post-Michelin demand. He’s

looking to bring on two more BOH and three FOH staff, offering both full-time and parttime hours.

Besides an influx in customers and a glimmering page on the Michelin website, restaurants and their owners can be affected in many ways when the leader in global culinary commentary lets them into the chat.

While Gorkhali won its first Bib Gourmand this year alongside South Tampa Greek concept Psomi, those aren’t the only Tampa-based restaurants that boast the coveted Michelin recognition, given to concepts that “offer a meal

Alvarez—who co-owns six concepts throughout Tampa with partners Ty Rodriguez and Chon Nguyen—has some friendly industry advice for Pathak and Gorkhali’s other owners, who are aiming to open a second restaurant in St. Pete in the future. “I’m able to wear so many hats by creating and surrounding myself with a great team,” Alvarez imparts. “It’s a lot of meetings, lots of checks and balances and discussing ways to constantly improve.”

Alvarez also says that Tampa’s recognition from the Michelin Guide can have lasting effects on the future of our local restaurant industry.

the Sunshine State. Alvarez points out that it’s easier to earn a star in Tampa versus larger cities like Chicago and New York due to its smaller scale and Michelin’s new relationship to Florida. Although Fraser helms one of the hottest kitchens alongside chef de cuisine Werksmen, he also realizes that earning/maintaining stars is an arduous, continuous process. “The most important thing is to stay true to yourself and what got you there. We trade in trust and authenticity and realize that a star can both be given and taken away,” Fraser—who now has three stars under his belt— told CL.

of good quality at a good value.” Proper House Group’s Seminole Heights concept Rooster & The Till got its 2022 Bib renewed alongside currently-shuttered ramen spot Ichicoro.

While Proper House Group Executive Chef And Co-Founder Ferrell Alvarez recognizes the Bib Gourmand as a great accolade and acknowledgement of decades of hard work, he says that it’s not the end-all be-all of success. “At the end of the day, we just try to make sure that we focus on the task at hand, which is providing great hospitality,” Alvarez told CL in the days after the Michelin ceremony.

“I can definitely see the culinary landscape of Tampa Bay continuing to progress tremendously over the next few years…we’ve come a long way,” Alvarez explains. “I think that the implementation of Michelin and three restaurants winning stars will also educate the consumer on what it really takes for a restaurant to operate at that level.”

Last year, The Tampa Edition brought in two-Michelin star chef John Fraser to lead the kitchen at its restaurant Lilac—a trend that may continue to happen with other high-end hotels and hospitality groups rapidly descending upon

“We’re honored to be recognized for our vision and prioritizing our guests. By remaining true to that, you will be rewarded.”

Ultimately, rewards can come in all shapes and sizes. Michelin recognition or not, great service and tasty food will help any chef go far. Alvarez, Fraser and Pathak all agree that consistency and an obsessive dedication to top-notch hospitality will get your restaurants packed, with a dining room full of word-of-mouth regulars—whether you run a multi-million dollar concept on the water or an unassuming Nepalese spot across from a Domino’s Pizza.

ON A TRIP: There are five different categories of Nepali food.

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DINERS GET PAID TO EAT OUT

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"DINEFITS IS THE BEST WAY TO DRIVE MORE DINERS TO YOUR RESTAURANT"

Buzzworthy

Hooch and Hive’s Honeycomb Cafe debuts, and more Tampa Bay foodie news.

By Jourdan Ducat and Kyla Fields

Weekday mornings in downtown Tampa’s West River neighborhood just got a little bit sweeter. Honeycomb Cafe, the new coffee and pastries concept at local favorite Hooch and Hive, is now open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m.-noon. Since the soft opening on April 19, Honeycomb Cafe has become a welcome place for those looking to grab a handcrafted espresso before heading into the office. It’s also an excellent place to work remotely, with free wifi and outlets for your laptop to boot.

OPENINGS

The idea originally grew out of Hooch & Hive’s largely unused, yet impressively professional espresso machine, which saw little action as the venue was only open in the evenings. In her own words, Ralph thought, “Dang, that’s one of those fire ass espresso machines,” and figured there was a niche to fill in the immediate area for folks wanting either a delicious espresso drink and/or a hair of the dog after a long night (did we mention that Honeycomb opens at 7 a.m.?) Since The cafe is able to take advantage of Hooch & Hive’s liquor

delicious chocolate croissant to the bright and tangy lemon poppy pound cake. The point is, you can’t go wrong, especially if you befriend resident squirrel Mr. Nobody who will undoubtedly look longingly at your banana nut muffin. And with remote work being the order of the day, you might just walk into the cafe, and think to yourself: “Honey, I’m home.”

Duckweed Urban Grocery will open new storefront in downtown St. Pete

The ‘Burg will soon have a go-to spot for organic snacks, craft beer and dog treats. According to St.

Farmacy, keto-friendly dishes, pet supplies, fresh produce, and a wide range of beverages. Its recently-opened Davis Islands storefront also sells beer and wine, in addition to housing a counter for local butcher The Boozy Pig.

The ‘Burg’s debut Duckweed will be its sixth location throughout the Bay area, with outposts in downtown Tampa, Channelside, Westshore and Davis Islands. SPR says that St. Pete’s urban grocery will also sell beer and wine, “with liquor hopefully being added later.”

The space—at 1001 W Cass St.—is a harmonious mix of indoor and outdoor seating that provides an environment conducive to work and play, as is evidenced by the no-questionsasked vibe of Alanna Baker, a longtime fixture of the Tampa bar scene, when you order a “Get Awesome” at 9 a.m. “What’s a ‘Get Awesome,’” you ask? It’s a Tampeño remix of Irish coffee in which a tasteful amount of your favorite whiskey is followed by a creamy and decadent cafe con leche and zero judgment.

Honeycomb Cafe is the brainchild and passion project of beloved Tampa resident Krystal Ralph, who got her start as a barista in the late-’90s when she was an apprentice at a tattoo parlor and worked at a coffee shop in the mornings to make ends meet. She fondly remembers hearing the coffee pot bubbling as a child, smelling the aromas and getting excited to concoct the perfect cup for her grandmother in the appropriately stained favorite mug. She shows the same pride and enthusiasm in crafting each espresso drink at Honeycomb using Tampa Bay’s own Buddy Brew, another nod to her commitment to showcasing local vendors in an effort to further connect the community (Buddy Brew HQ is two blocks west of Hooch at a facility that handles cold brew and roasts its beans).

Ralph’s personal favorite is the “Sweet Nut,” which is her version of a caramel macchiato that combines espresso, hazelnut syrup and salted caramel which is then flipped upside down to mix and served over ice. Customers have been liking the “Happy Camper,” aptly described as s’mores in a cup, which consists of espresso, dark chocolate and toasted marshmallow syrup over ice and with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. If you’re a tea drinker, you’ll be pleased to hear Honeycomb carries Roots and Ritual, a local ayurvedic grassroots company started by Sandi Hein and Amber Wilson, Hooch and Hive co-founders and previous owners of Ybor City’s gone but never forgotten Czar nightclub.

license, your morning Zoom call can be accompanied by an off camera Bloody Mary.

For now, the cafe has a well curated selection of pastries from Romano’s Bakery out of Boca Raton, but the goal for the near future is to offer a selection of breakfast sandwiches made on premise. The pastries, which are delivered fresh twice a week, range from the classically

Pete Rising, Duckweed Urban Grocery will debut its new 2,200 square-foot Pinellas location inside of the Tru by Hilton hotel at 1650 Central Ave., adjacent to Lolita’s Wine Market, Dirty Laundry and Zaytoon Grill. St. Pete’s Duckweed Grocery is slated to open by the end of this year.

Duckweed carries a wide variety of dry goods, from-scratch vegan food from The

St. Pete’s Duckweed will join the new concept Noble Tavern—a culinary collaboration between Noble Crust and Fat Beet Farm—on the bottom floor of the Central Avenue hotel. When the restaurant was announced last summer, it was slated to open sometime in 2023, so we might be able to expect the concept to debut soon. For the latest news on St. Pete’s upcoming Duckweed, head to its Instagram @duckweedgrocery.

New LGBTQ-friendly bar Zipperz makes its debut in Gulfport

St. Pete’s annual Pride celebration is right around the corner, and a new spot to pre-game the parade just opened its doors in the waterfront town of Gulfport. Zipperz—formerly known as “Pepperz” before it shut down in 2020—recently opened at 4918 22nd Ave. S, right around the corner from popular music venue The Blueberry Patch.

General Manager Tom Grant tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that while his bar is LGBTQ-operated and covered in Pride colors, folks from all walks of life are invited to share drinks and take up space on Zipperz’ massive dance floor.

Gulfport’s newest hotspot offers all of the expected beers, wines and cocktails, in addition to weekly specials that pay homage to now-closed gay bars in St. Pete. Zipperz offers massive Long Island iced teas on Thursdays in honor of Georgie’s Alibi and 32-ounce margaritas on Tuesdays, just like St. Pete’s Flamingo’s Resort—where Grant worked for several years— used to feature.

Alongside regular bar festivities, Grant says that Zipperz will host a variety of events—from drag performances to bingo, DJs and more. Unlike its predecessor Pepperz, this new Gulfport bar offers a variety of bar games like skee-ball and pool.

The Zipperz crew will also walk in Gulfport’s Pride parade happening on Saturday, June 3. For the latest updates on Zipperz and all of its upcoming events, head to its Facebook page. It’s open in Gulfport from 10 a.m.-2 a.m.

continued on page 36

SWEET LIKE HONEY: Krystal Ralph’s new cafe is located inside of Hooch and Hive.

continued from page 35

Sunday-Wednesday and 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday.

Plant-based sushi concept House of Vegano opens new St. Pete Central Avenue location

St. Pete’s beloved vegan sushi purveyor made its highly-anticipated debut at its new space last week. House of Vegano soft opened at 1990 Central Ave. on Friday, May 5, to the delight of plant-based foodies across the Bay.

Owner and head chef

location, plus a few bar seats so guests can watch their sushi being rolled.

Tatham debuted her vegan sushi concept inside of Body Electric’s now-closed facility at 655 31st St. S a little over a year ago, and announced the opening of her second, much larger location, just a few months ago. House of Vegano describes itself as “a fresh, creative and sustainable interpretation of Japanese-inspired cuisine.”

OPENINGS

Thalia Tatham traded her Frida Khalo mural for a massive painting of her own face (painted by local artist Nicole Salgar), which decorates one wall of the new restaurant’s dining room. House of Vegano’s new Central Avenue space boasts a much higher capacity than its now-closed flagship

In addition to a spread of plant-based sushi rolls loaded with fresh fruit and veggies, this plantbased restaurant also dishes out ramen, soy protein-filled dumplings, and nigiri topped with “spicy toona” and “sckallop truffle.” Its speciality rolls typically run between $20-$24 each.

House of Vegano’s new Central Avenue space is now open from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 3 p.m.-6

p.m. on Mondays, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 3 p.m.-10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, noon-6 p.m. on Sundays and remains closed Tuesday-Thursday.

For the latest information on House of Vegano— like its ever-expanding menu, operating hours and test kitchens—follow @houseofvegano on Instagram or head to its Facebook page.

The Tampa Bay Lightning’s beer festival, Bolts Brew Fest, returns to Amalie Arena this summer

The Lightning won’t hoist the Stanley Cup this year (someone else needs a turn), but the three-time champs will give fans a chance to drown their sorrows this summer when they host the 6th Annual Bolts Brew Fest in downtown Tampa.

The full brewery lineup for Bolts Brew Fest—set for Friday, Aug. 11 and hosted

together with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay— has yet to be announced, but more than 50 breweries are expected to sample their wares. Oversized games, stein hoisting, giveaways plus Lightning in-game host Greg Wolf and Thunderbug are also in the lineup for the event which takes place on the arena floor and concourse.

Tickets for Bolts Brew Fest at Amalie Arena on Friday, Aug. 11 go on sale Friday, May 12 at 10 a.m. and start at $50 for general admission (GA, 8 p.m. entry).

There’s a $35 designated driver option, plus GA Plus options allowing for early entry (7 p.m.), and VIP tickets with even earlier access (6 p.m.) along with access to Amalie Arena’s VIP lounge that’ll have exclusive beer and food, plus BOGO tickets to a preseason game.—Ray

Roa

SCHOOL’S OUT: Creative Loafing’s Bolts Brew Fest returns to Amalie Arena this summer.

NICK CARDELLO

MOVIES THEATER ART CULTURE

Get lost

Jobsite’s ‘Alice’ is an eclectic, episodic journey full of fun.

By Jon Palmer Claridge

Most regular Tampa Bay theatergoers know Spencer P. Meyers from his charismatic performances as Hedwig or, perhaps as a henchman of Arturo Ui. But his inspired drawings and obsession with Lewis Carroll have spawned a unique cabaret entertainment where the entire visual aesthetic that Jobsite Theater’s usual suspects have created is a unique mashup to take audiences down Alice’s rabbit hole at the Shimberg Playhouse through June 4.

The main anchor is the splendid honey-voiced Julia Rifino as Alice, who manages her puppet with Lisa Simpson eyes to great effect. She continually strikes the right tone navigating this topsy-turvy world where “being so many sizes in a day is very confusing.”

THEATER

Center stage on Brian Smallheer’s checkerboard proscenium set with echos of M.C. Escher, sits Jeremy Douglass beneath headphones as he coaxes all manor of notes and sounds from double keyboards and electronic gizmos in an 85-minute score which ricochets from weird polkas to faux Kurt Weill. Douglass and his daughter, Juniper, have crafted the music and lyrics with help from cast members Colleen Cherry and Kasondra Rose—plus some words cribbed directly from Carroll. Mark Warren (strings) and Elwood Bond (drums) are splendidly offstage so as to not divert our attention when Douglass employs that most delicious and theatrical of instruments—the melodica. You know you’ve gone through the looking glass when you see and hear the almost ridiculous sounds of a miniature lung powered keyboard.

Director/adapter

David M. Jenkins has partnered with Myers and Katrina Stevenson, who not only created a plethora of memorable costumes echoing Carroll’s “literary nonsense,” but with Ms. Rose, has choreographed fun, whole-cast sequences and their own dazzling aerial lyra hoop bits that defy gravity and give a new twist to the Tweedledee and Tweedledum “sisters.”

Meyers’ delightful fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures comes in all shapes and sizes from tiny one-person miniatures to enormous constructions operated by four performers.

The inimitable Cherry first appears as the “frumious” (fuming and furious) Bandersnatch with black lipstick, black pantaloons, and a zip-up leather bustier barely able to contain its contents. Her long black locks turn a flaming red as they tumble down her back toward a sheer multi-layer half-petticoat piped with scarlet trim. Just when you think she’s a frightening presence, she returns as the the tyrannical and deranged Queen of Hearts with a sadistic penchant for beheadings. On her right hand is the diminutive King hand puppet—clad in red with a cape trimmed in white fur to match his wild Einsteinesque mane.

The other multi-talented largely puppetfree ensemble members are Robert Spence Gabriel (Jabberwocky, Knave of Hearts) and Donovan Whitney (Mad Hatter, White Knight, Caterpillar). Ryan Sturm gets the plum job of bringing three distinct puppet characters vividly to life (White Rabbit, March Hare, Mock Turtle). His “Avenue Q” bona fides pay off in spades.

A jaunty oompah vamp drives the quick-paced melody as the cast rhythmically pounds the table, claps, flips and tosses metal cups like a factory assembly line: “My argument is ironclad, we’re all a little mad, I like what I get, I get what I like.” But then lest we miss the deterministic, pessimistic message, the chorus slows to a legato finish repeating “we’re all a little mad.”

Since the immersive, environmental nature of the show is untethered to reality, Jenkins throws in everything but the kitchen sink for your divertissement—flamingo mallets, undulating fabric “water,” audience members reading

lines from cards, rippling ribbons, a rainbow of toy trumpets, and a duo of cutout waves undulating—just to mention a few.

Jo Averill-Snell’s evocative lighting includes psychedelic black light to enliven the hookahsmoking caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat. I understand the impulse to use checkerboard front light echoing the scenic elements, but I often found the focus in the wrong spot with dark shadows on the eyes or mouths, for example, while a neck or ear glowed a bit too bright. Especially in the world of Jabberwocky where the text or lyrics might be unfamiliar. “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe” is difficult enough on its own.

The tale of the walrus and the carpenter

is particularly fun, with Meyers crafting two dimensional talking portraits. As they tell the tale, Jib-Jab style, we observe a sea of tiny oysters with little tap-dancing legs. “The time has come,’ the walrus said.” And the jolly little mollusks one by one meet their inevitable gastronomic fate—I trust with a piquant mignonette. Another inspired romp is the Mock Turtle’s Lobster Quadrille, with almost the entire cast as giant crustaceans in a kick line plus dolphin, fish and turtle cutouts dancing to English music hall vamping. It’s an eclectic, episodic journey full of fun with plenty of visual and musical interest. You’ll want to hop on Amazon to get yourself some cool puppets and a snazzy melodica. Trust me; leave this to the pros at Jobsite.

WONDERFUL WORLD: Donovan Whitney as the Mad Hatter.

Alice: A Cabaret Spectacle Select nights through June 4. $24.50 - $59.50. Jobsite Theater at Shimberg Playhouse. David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts. 1010 N Macinnes Pl., Tampa. 813-229-7827; jobsitetheater.org

“Meyers’ delightful fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures comes in all shapes and sizes.”

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Rat attack

Tampa Fringe ‘holdover’ performances happen this weekend.

By Jennifer Ring

Bruce Ryan Costella’s Tampa Fringe performance isn’t about COVID, or maybe it is. On the surface, “Rat Man Happy Place” is about a young boy whose parents were Disney tour guides before they perished from some mystery disease that killed all the parents.

like everything in our post-COVID world, it wasn’t the same.

THEATER

Though I can easily sum up the “Rat Man Happy Place” plot in a single sentence, describing the full experience is a far greater challenge. I would argue that’s one of the best things about it. The Fringe program lists it as comedy. And while “Rat Man Happy Place” has several funny moments, I wouldn’t exactly call it a comedy. It’s more than that. The multigenre one-man show takes inspiration from the post-apocalyptic, Disney, storytelling, drama, and fringe theater genres. It has Disney insider jokes, funny hats, audience participation, and hilariously cheap props. By the show’s end, I’d collected a branch of fake foliage and a bright orange toy gun smaller than my hand.

Tampa Fringe holdover shows

Friday-Sunday, May 19-21. $15 & up Kress Collective, 1624 E 7th Ave., Ybor City. tampafringe.org

Through Costella’s “Rat Man Happy Place,” I experienced Disney in a way I’ve never experienced Disney before: through the eyes of a young orphan who travels Florida in a postapocalyptic world telling stories about the Happy Place. Costella’s “Rat Man” character is part of a band of orphans who tried to rebuild Disney World after a pandemic apocalypse. But,

For a Florida girl who grew up going to Disney once a year, “Rat Man Happy Place” is one of the most bizarre yet delightful trips down memory lane I’ve ever taken. It is also a subtle, quiet reflection on everything we’ve suffered at the hands of COVID-19. It’s been a rough few years. Through it all, “Rat Man Happy Place” reminds us that you can either laugh or you can cry. Choose to laugh at Tampa Fringe. Tampa Fringe just announced a round up encore performances for “holdover” shows including a Saturday, 20 performance of “Rat Man Happy Place” at 7 p.m. inside the Fringe Theatre at Ybor City’s Kress Collective. Tickets to the show are $15, but a holdover show pass— allowing access to six shows between Friday-Sunday— is available for $86. Look below for a full list of Tampa Fringe holdover shows and visit tampafringe.thundertix.com to learn more.

Friday, May 19 Cat Lim’s Deepest Darkest Secrets, The Barn Identity

Saturday, May 20 Rat Man Happy Place, Jon Bennett: American’t

Sunday, May 21 The Evolution of Consciousness, The Sackquel: Sponsored Superhero

THE STORY OF ART

This series focuses on the story of art history, one that is continually being retold as we discover new things and look afresh at the familiar. Join MFA curators on a journey to learn more about our collection, contextualized with other objects from around the world, as we take a grand tour through the story of art.

THURSDAY, MAY 18 ART NOW: 1950–TODAY

Presented by Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Katherine Pill

“A bizarre yet delightful trip down memory lane.”

ONE-MAN SHOW: You can laugh or cry at the rat man.

JENNIFER RING

Tom Jones: Here We Stand is organized by the Museum of Wisconsin Art Tom Jones, Peyton Grace Rapp, from Strong Unrelenting Spirits series, 2018, Inkjet print and beadwork, Collection of Ken Karol and Greg French. Image credit: Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, Wisconsin.

Master at work

Paul Schrader's latest shows he’s still in command.

By Cliff Froehlich

Although one of the world’s most accomplished filmmakers, with a remarkably deep and surprisingly diverse body of work stretching back 50 years, Paul Schrader has seldom received the adulation lavished on such contemporaries (and past collaborators) as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, or even the more critically divisive Brian De Palma. Certainly, he’s respected—especially for his screenwriting on such now-canonical films as Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull”—but Schrader never quite managed a major commercial breakthrough, with “American Gigolo” (1980) the long-ago exception, and for most of the past two decades, he’s struggled mightily to find viewers, toiling on an uneven mix of under-seen work-for-hire films and more personal projects that were either mishandled by distributors or mangled by producers.

sensibility to bear and always remains at a critical remove. Chilly and abstract, his movies—especially those he both writes and directs—are weirdly calm intellectual meditations on agitated emotional states: Schrader wants to cut loose—he’s drawn to violence, fascinated by dark forces and underground men—but he’s too smart, too cautious, too restrained to forfeit control.”

FILM & TV

Schrader’s admirably uncompromising artistic vision no doubt accounts for much of his difficulty winning a mass audience. Although occasionally enlivened by an ironic black humor, his works feature a self-conscious seriousness and a grim, relentlessly bleak worldview. As I wrote nearly 30 years ago about “Witch Hunt”—one of his undeniable misfires—“even when working within popular genres, Schrader brings an art-house

That description of Schrader’s films remains entirely accurate today, and his new Master Gardener features another of his exquisitely agonized heroes. Like “Taxi Driver”’s Travis Bickle—and the thematic variations found in “American Gigolo”, “Light Sleeper,” “First Reformed” and “Card Counter”—Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) qualifies as one of “God’s lonely men,” largely isolated from “normal” society and desperately questing after purpose and redemption.

The chief horticulturist at Gracewood Gardens, a sprawling estate presided over by the imperious Norma Haverhill (a superb Sigourney Weaver), Narvel presents a placid surface—he’s unfailingly calm, measured, precise—but he’s roiling underneath. A former enforcer for a cadre of neoNazis—his torso still bristling with tattoos of swastikas and white-power sigils—Narvel turned

state’s evidence and found refuge at Gracewood as part of the federal Witness Protection Program. The careful order of the garden he now tends contrasts starkly with the chaos of his previous life, which is purposely communicated with telegraphic brevity: memories that erupt in periodic flashes that never fully illuminate Narvel’s backstory. Despite voice-overs that share excerpts from his journal—a device nicked from French filmmaker Robert Bresson’s “Diary of a Country Priest” but now Schrader’s unmistakable signature—Narvel keeps his true feelings hidden, and we’re never quite confident that he’s expunged his racism. Given the film’s Southern setting, William Faulkner’s famed quote seems particularly apt: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Having progressed from untutored apprentice to master gardener, Narvel appears to have found a measure of contentment in his circumscribed existence, but the arrival of Maya (Quintessa Swindell), Mrs. Haverhill’s great-niece, upsets the delicate balance at Gracewood. Norma describes the biracial Maya as adrift and troubled (“lifestyle choices, I believe they call them”). Because the young woman’s mother has died—from “tit cancer,” in Norma’s oddly blunt, unsettling words—Norma has decided to offer some impersonal noblesse oblige: She will pay Maya minimum wage while Narvel shepherds the wayward lamb by teaching her the gardening profession.

What Norma fails to anticipate, however, is a slowly blossoming attraction between Maya and Narvel, who serves not only as his employer’s gardener but also her on-demand lover. When Narvel tenderly comforts Maya after she’s beaten by her

mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, a jealous Norma impulsively expels the odd couple from Eden.

At this point, the simmering tensions present from the film’s start rise slowly to a boil, and “Master Gardener” begins to deliberately echo elements of “Taxi Driver:” Just as Travis eventually “rescues” Iris from her pimp in an apocalyptic gun battle, Narvel seems inevitably headed to a similar conflagration as he attempts to free Maya from the depredations of the dealer R.G. (Jared Bankens). But Schrader for once opts for hope over despair, blessedly pulling back from the abyss and allowing Narvel to find redemption through mutual love rather than expiation through blood sacrifice.

Concluding an unofficial trilogy with the wellreceived “First Reformed” and “Card Counter,” “Master Gardener” on many levels seems a grand summation, a capstone to an enviable career. But the 76-year-old Schrader already has multiple scripts at the ready and firm plans to shoot an adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel Foregone with his “American Gigolo” star Richard Gere. Age hasn’t diminished Schrader’s skills, and there are sequences in “Master Gardener” that rival those in his masterpiece, Mishima. In particular, I was transported by an eruption of Lynchian surreality after Narvel and Maya finally make love: Driving headlong down a darkened highway, the couple finds flowers efflorescing in absurd, delirious abundance on either side, and they lean out their windows and howl with ecstatic delight. “Master Gardener” caps an exhilarating run of recent triumphs, and if Schrader wants to climb back behind the wheel for another film, I’ll happily take that ride again.

GROWING ATTRACTION: Maya (Quintessa Swindell, L) and Narvel (Joel Edgerton).

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By Josh Bradley & Ray Roa C CL Recommends

THU 18

Psychedelic Furs w/Evan Dando After emerging with an absolutely dizzying and intoxicating self-titled debut album in 1980, the Furs became a band to watch. The decade only saw the band, led by the unmistakable raspy, sneering vocalist Richard Butler, continue to gain momentum and achieve worldwide success. Fueled by new wave dance club hits like “Love My Way” and “Heaven,” the group simultaneously gained exposure thanks to having several music videos in heavy rotation during MTV’s golden years. As an added bonus, Evan Dando, lead singer of Massachusetts-based, alt-rock band The Lemonheads, serves as opening act and will no doubt include some of his band’s best known songs as part of his set.—Gabe Echazabal

Rainbow Kitten Surprise w/Candi

Carpenter In Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s 10 years together, Tampa Bay has not seen much of the indie rock quintet. Since its last time in town—as part of the 2018 installment of 97X NBT—the band has sold-out Red Rocks Amphitheatre, bombarded its fanbase with singles, and most significantly, frontwoman Ela Melo publicly came out as transgender last spring. With a little help from Candi Carpenter, the band kicks off the U.S. leg of its 2023 world tour in Orlando, before heading to Jannus Live on Thursday. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)

FRI 19

Winona Forever w/Cathedral Bells (album release)/Sorry Barb Mac DeMarco’s released more than 200 songs this year, but another smooth, easy-listening Canadian indie-rock act has a more streamlined, edited and enjoyable collection of music to share. Winona Forever (whose band name was once tattooed on Johnny Depp’s body) is on the road supporting Acrobat , an April release riddled with silky synthesizer, vocoder, bright guitar riffs and effervescent melodies for fans of DeMarco, Mustard Service and even Michael McDonald. Orlando dream-pop band Cathedral Bells is no stranger to Tampa Bay, but this time arrives on the same day it releases a new album, Everything At Once . (Hooch and Hive, Tampa)

Tampa Bay Rays Summer Concert

Series: AJR Remember those summers when you could stick around after a Rays game, and either soothe the pain of a loss, or celebrate a win with a concert from nationally recognized artists? Reminisce no more, baseball fans. The Rays don’t lose much these days, and after an eight-year drought, the Summer Concert Series is finally set to return for select home games. While a full schedule

has yet to be announced, Adam, Jack and Ryan Metzger—aka AJR—kick the series off after a tilt against the Milwaukee Brewers. Expect a few singles off of an upcoming album—currently known as TMM —some home run singles, as well as the band’s usual, live behind the scenes look at their writing and recording process. (Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg)

Ed Sheeran w/Ben Kweller Kweller hasn’t played Tampa in about 15 years, but his catalog, which reaches all the way back to his days with ‘90s rock band Radish endures. This gig, while notable since its opening for Ed Sheeran, will also find the 41-year-old Texas songwriter enduring as he honors the legacy and memory of his 16-year-old son who recently died in a freak car accident. A GoFundMe will help support young musicians and skateboarders—the two things

Dorian loved most—and your attention during Kweller’s set should help him feel loved, too. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)

Avatar w/Veil of Maya/Orbit Culture The Swedish heavy metal quintet released Dance Devil Dance earlier this year, complete with a guest spot from Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale. We’re not confident that she’s going to show up as a special guest to Avatar’s first show in town since a 2018 stop at The Ritz Ybor, but who needs guest spots when you have fellow metal outfits Veil of Maya and Orbit Culture opening things up? (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)

Dark Funeral w/Cattle Decapitation/200

Stab Wounds/Blackbraid If you would be completely partisan in a war over which Swedish metal outfit is best, you’ll probably

Winona Forever

continued

face a dilemma Friday night. While Avatar tears up Jannus, “ineffable kings of black metal” Dark Funeral brings its tour celebrating 30 years of Satanist anthems and shadows over Transylvania—with a plethora of hardcore support—over to Orpheum. The band might also be selling pieces of its discography on splat vinyl, so if your turntable needs something more metal than what you can find at Target, don’t snooze. (Orpheum, Tampa)

Hank Williams Jr. w/Old Crow Medicine Show/JD Clayton Mr. “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” was only three years old when his legendary father died on New Year’s Day 1953, and he. went on to make a name for himself, while still following in dad’s footsteps. Junior is out promoting his 54th studio album, Rich White Honky Blues , at his first Tampa show since a Busch Gardens concert some five odd years ago. Just don’t bring Joe Biden up, OK? Old Crow Medicine Show—who helped close out the 2022 Clearwater Jazz Holiday last fall—and Little Rock-based singersongwriter JD Clayton open. (Midflorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa)

Kamenar Tampa hard-rock band is on its first national tour, and it plays a couple of returnhome shows this weekend starting with this one at Pete’s Place. There’s also a Saturday gig at Clearwater’s 3 Daughters Brewing (plus one next Friday at Mastry’s in St. Pete). After that, the band, which has opened for Puddle of Mudd, finalizes new music set for release next month. (Pete’s Place, Tampa)

May Daze: Pilot Jonezz w/Mortal Sons/ Meteoreyes/Physical Plan/The Tilt/more

When it comes to live local music, Cage Brewing is kind of like a St. Pete clubhouse for it. This weekend, the tradition continues with May Daze, a three-day festival featuring homegrown acts that play everything from psych-rock, to blues, indie, folk and more. There’s no cover, and music starts at 7 p.m. on Friday, with sets kicking off at 3 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. (Cage Brewing, St. Petersburg)

Puscifer w/Night Club If you missed Tool’s arena show in Tampa, here’s another chance to see Maynard James Keenan in action, albeit with a different outfit. Keenan’s even more experimental band is on the road at the same time it works through a run of album-byalbum remix collections, including Existential Reckoning: Re-Wired from last March. Those who are familiar with Keenan already know that they should only expect the unexpected at this gig. (Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg)

VIP Boys album release Spon Marcos has always collaborated with the very best of what Tampa Bay’s music scene has to offer (rest in peace to Kenosobi), and the Tampa producer is doing it again with the new project alongside rapper Vern Senior. (The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing, Ybor City)

SAT 20

The Cult In April 2022, I expressed my hopes that Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy’s upcoming new material would emerge in time for The Cult’s impending, mid-decade 40th anniversary. Six months later, Under the Midnight Sun released as the band’s first album on

from

Black Hill Records, which it signed to in 2020. The LP, described as an “emotionally charged record with sweeping, stadium-filling guitar lines” will get some shine when The Cult—which usually rocks Mahaffey or Jannus—performs at Ruth Eckerd for the first time ever. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater)

Ed Sheeran w/Khalid/Dylan Now that Raymond James Stadium has fully recovered from Swiftiemania, Tay Tay’s former red-haired opener will drop into the same space to do his own mini-incarnation of an Eras tour. After years of seeing ol’ Teddy with just his acoustic guitar and looper, the idea of him performing with a full band is pretty surreal, but don’t worry: When he brought his current “+–=÷x” tour to Texas earlier this month, he only brought the band out for a few segments in the earlier stages of each show, which were mostly filled with newer cuts. On the other hand, is a guest spot from Ben Kweller—who opens for Sheeran at his more intimate Ruth Eckerd Hall performance the night before—too much to ask for those of us screwed by TicketMaster? If so, at least we get Khalid and Dylan opening at RayJay. (Raymond James Stadium, Tampa)

Have Gun, Will Travel w/Pohgoh/ Spirit and the Cosmic Heart/Darren Rademaker The Tampa Bay music Hall of Fame will one day include Have Gun, Will Travel and Pohgoh. While the bands live in separate compartments of the rock spectrum (Americana/classic rock, punk/indie, respectively), the two outfits are old friends and are both supporting new releases. Have Gun’s Silver Sounds EP is finally out on silver, 10-inch vinyl, and Pohgoh is mini-touring behind du und ich , a 2022 release that was supposed to enjoy an East Coast/Canada run before guitarist Matt Slate was forced to rest after carpal tunnel surgery. Slate’s back

in action, and it’ll be cool to see different scenes intermingle, especially since Darren Rademaker—principal of revered indie-pop/ country-rock hybrid The Tyde (and noisepop band Further with his brother Brent of Beachwood Sparks)—is playing the Tampa and Sarasota shows on this tour just in time for the 20th anniversary of The Tyde’s Rough Trade gem Twice . (Crowbar, Ybor City)

Jazz Is Dead Still bummed that you’ll never get to see Dead and Company live in Tampa? If it makes you feel any better, Jazz Is Dead— an instrumental jazz ensemble paying tribute to Jerry Garcia and friends—is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Grateful Dead’s Wake of the Flood album, and will perform the majority of the record. It ain’t Bob Weir and John Mayer onstage together, but as you know, every silver lining’s got a touch of grey. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)

Folk Rock Revival Summer: Leon Majcen w/Joel Luke Tarpon Arts and Ybor City Records are teaming up to stage a "Folk Rock Revival Summer" concert series, which will showcase some of Tampa Bay’s finest singer-songwriters through monthly performances. The first of its kind takes place this Saturday, when expat Leon Majcen—a devout John Prine fan whose song “World Gone By” was dedicated to the late songsmith—co-headlines with ex-Noise Ratchet vocalist Joel Luke, who’s currently working on an Americana and country-inspired solo project. (Tarpon Arts, Tarpon Springs)

Marcus Coloma Your grandma knows Marcus Coloma from “General Hospital,” and your big brother recognizes him from “One Tree Hill.” He’s also that guy from Disney’s “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” parts two and three. This weekend, however, the 44-year-old hottie is playing acoustic guitar

for fans who’re paying a very pretty penny ($100) to get into the waiting room. (Hooch and Hive, Tampa)

SUN 21

Alex Lopez w/Sal Iacobucci and Dreaming The Blues We won’t be too surprised if Lopez contributed more than just guitar and vocals to his latest album Nasty Crime . The Cleveland-born bluesman’s musical journey started with him being a keyboardist, before turning to the six-string upon discovering the genius of Hendrix, and select members of The Yardbirds. There’s plenty of organ parts on Nasty Crime , so while there’s at least a decent chance that Lopez performed those on the album, he’ll probably be shredding away on a Stratocaster on Sunday. Sal Iacobucci and Dreaming The Blues, a power-trio influenced by the likes of Mountain and Robin Trower, opens. (Music Hall at New World Brewery, Tampa)

TUE 23

Michael Francis, Music Director

BEETHOVEN X coldplay

Eroica Symphony fuses with Coldplay’s greatest hits. Creator Steve Hackman conducts.

Thur, May 25, 8 pm, Mahaffey Theater

One Night Only!

Tickets: $23, $30, $44, $52

Tampa Pig Jig has already cemented its reputation as one of the biggest barbeque and music festivals in Florida, and it continues the trend this fall when Grammy-winning country superstars Brad Paisley and Amanda Shires (pictured) come to Julian B. Lane Park. The lineup also includes another country household name, “There Was This Girl” songwriter Riley Green, plus indie-Americana favorites The Head and the Heart and Shovels & Rope.

Tickets to see Paisley, Shires and more play Pig Jig 2023 on Saturday, Oct. 21 go on sale this Friday, May 19 at 10 a.m. EDT and start at $125.

Per usual, there are upgrades including some that grant ticket holders access to the giant pit BBQ competition that’s been a hallmark of Tampa Pig Jig since 2021 when it started as a backyard get together where friends raised money to help their buddy pay for his treatment for the rare and debilitating kidney disease Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). To date, according to a press release, the nonprofit has raised more than $5 million dollars for NephCure Kidney International, the only nonprofit organization supporting research, improving treatment and finding a cure for FSGS.

Three-time Grammy-winner Paisley is a guitar-slinger (and Nationwide pitchman) who’s been outspoken about his support for Ukraine and performed at the inaugural ball for President Barack Obama in 2013,

the same year his LL Cool J collaboration “Accidental Racist” created ripples across country and pop music for its well-meaning, but somewhat jumbled, attempt at talking to country music fans about the complicated history of the South.

Shires, a fan of Tampa Bay who usually plays Clearwater as headliner or opener for the late John Prine, is a Nashville songwriter and fiddle player whose supergroup The Highwomen features a membership that includes, but is not limited to, Brandi Carlile, Marren Morris Natalie Hemby and Yola. Last year, the Grammy-winner released a gallant, cutting, soulful pop-Americana crossover album, Take It Like A Man . She already has plans to release an album she recorded with the late Bobbie Nelson (Willie Nelson’s sister), and will presumably see her husband, four-time Grammy-winner, Jason Isbell tag along and play guitar in her band headed to downtown Tampa.

Green, for his part, has been re-recording songs with Luke Combs and 86-ing “Bud Light” from his lyrics after conservatives started shitting on the beer brand after it teamed up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Pig Jig has evolved from a backyard barbecue to one that graduated to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park where it’s welcomed other arena-level headliners like Darius Rucker. Come back next week for an extended version of Josh Bradley’s weekly new concert announcements roundup.—Ray Roa

2023/2024

MICHAEL SCHMELLING

Dig it

By Caroline DeBruhl

Dear Oracle, as the years have gone by, I have become more and more worried about climate change. Now I’m just plain terrified of it. I feel like we’re all staring environmental collapse in the face, and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve tried talking to my therapist about it, and while she says “eco-anxiety” is common, there’s nothing to do about it because it’s a real thing that’s happening. I try to do what I can, like biking or taking the bus or eating vegan, or buying secondhand, but I know it’s nothing compared to what corporations are doing. I guess my question is: how do I feel alright at the end of the world?—Doomed Generation

Cards: Five of Swords, King of Cups, Eight of Cups (reversed), The Magician Dear Doomed, you should start a garden. If you have any spit of outdoor space, you can make it work, either with containers and potting soil or a patch of neglected sand in an alleyway. If you have a backyard, congratulations, you’ve struck gold.

To source seeds, I’d recommend Johnny’s Seeds, which has a wide selection of vegetables, flowers, and fruits. Pick a couple of things that are easy to grow if you’re new. You can grow radishes in a wicker basket, arugula in an old roasting pan, and both will be ready to harvest in less than a month. Zucchini grows quickly, too, though it’s a hungry plant that will take over the whole garden. Mint will do the same.

Plague take over a third of the population and diphtheria and the Spanish Flu and AIDS and COVID come after the rest of us. We watched the world go to war twice and leave millions upon millions dead. Our world has ended before. Life as we know it has ceased to be multiple times over since we started walking upright (plus the five great extinctions that happened before that).

But for all of our faults as a species, we, the people of this dying rock, are motherfucking adaptable. We have found a way to skate through each changing of the cosmic guard. And you need to imagine what it would look like to not only survive in the future but to do so with hope.

Gardening is an exercise in hope. You plant seeds believing that something will grow—and it’s incredible when, after a few days, a wisp of green pops out of the soil. It can feel like a prayer being answered.

But when you garden, you aren’t just putting all your hope into nature. You have to tend to your plants. You have to make sure you water them enough and at the right time, that you feed the soil, that you prune and cut back when necessary in order for the plant to thrive in the future.

ORACLE OF YBOR

And I don’t want you to do this because I think it’s good prepper training but because there is something magical that happens when you learn how to grow a thing out of six inches of topsoil and if you have a little piece of earth to tend to, I think you will feel yourself apart of something larger.

Which I’m sure you need. Even if so many others share our fears, anxiety can be an incredibly isolating experience. With that Five of Swords, I have no doubt that you have felt alone in this and perhaps felt like you’re the only one noticing that the world is on fire while people carry on with their day-to-day lives. But you aren’t alone. Plenty of people are frightened of environmental collapse, including yours truly. But that fear cannot lead to paralysis, which may feel like the case for you.

The first step out of that fear is to dream of a future that is brighter, one where you will survive, and beauty will still exist, and people will help one another. That is the dream of the King of Cups: beauty, relationships, and hope.

We of the Western civilization have often worried about the apocalypse, and, in reality, we’ve seen the world end a few times over. We watched Rome fall so catastrophically that we got The Book of Revelations. We watched the Black

We have to work at our (humankind’s) future too.

It’s an Eight of Cups path, one that hasn’t been taken yet but one that we need to venture down. On a personal level, this will be how you find your way to that hope and that vision you’ve dreamed of. This might look like working with a community; this might look like a completely different life. I’m not sure. It’s your dream.

The final card of the spread is The Magician, the manifestor, the one who can influence their destiny. You have to be the one that brings the change into your life. Whether this change is something personal or something more significant, I don’t know. But you are not powerless. I know you feel that way, but you have the ability to bring that hopeful dream of yours to fruition. It might look different in practice. But you do have the power to make it happen.

Like all feather’d things, hope can be fleeting. But you have to believe something can change in order to change it. To tend to the plant, you have to believe that the seed will grow.

If we are going to make it to the future, we cannot afford despair or nihilism. It’s a shit way to survive and a coward’s way out. There is strength in trying, strength in hope. As The Magician, you have the power, and as the King of Cups, you have that hope, and you can create change. But remember: you are not alone in this. Others will walk that Eight of Cups path with you. Find them. Together, you can watch your future grow.

Chick lit

By Dan Savage

A lot of studying is being done on pornography and what it does to our brain. My question: are there any studies being done on erotic writing? “Women’s Romance Literature” is absolutely exploding in the online self-publishing sector, and my wife is an avid consumer. “Spice” is the euphemism they use but—wow—romance lit is a hot dish. My wife consumes countless E-books and audiobooks, and there seems to be a huge community of readers like her out there. Erotic lit has been very good for our relationship; we listen to scenes together and I help bring my wife to orgasm with my hands or tongue. It’s a fun way to be intimate! And listening is definitely less intrusive when we’re “coupling” than watching other people go at it on a screen. Anyway, back to my question: There are lots of studies looking into the effect of porn movies and pornographic images on the brain. But has anyone studied the impact of erotic literature on the brain? It’s got to be the oldest form of titillating art we have. What’s it doing to us?—Lessons In Titillation

“I haven’t come across neurological studies of erotic writing or literature,” said Dr. Kelsy Burke. “That doesn’t really surprise me since the questions scientists ask about sexuality usually reflect broader social and cultural interests—in this case, research on ‘porn’ is almost exclusively about it as a visual medium, not the written word.”

Dr. Burke is a sociologist and the author of “The Pornography Wars,” a terrific new book about the never-ending culture war over pornography. Suffice it to say, LIT, if Dr. Burke hasn’t run across studies into the kind of dirty stories your wife enjoys reading, those studies don’t exist. And while there are a lot of warring studies that look at the impact of pornographic images—moving and still—on our brains, much of the data being generated are pretty useless.

“There’s a lot more talk about pornography and the brain than there are definitive empirical studies,” said Dr. Burke. “And a lot of the talk stems from groups with a political or religious interest in opposing porn. Academic studies, on the other hand, offer mixed results and no definitive conclusions about how porn impacts the brain.”

So, despite all these warring studies and claims—from opponents and supporters of porn—we simply don’t know if pornographic images and videos are warping our brains.

“Here’s what we do know: our brains process visual images 60,000 times faster than text,” said Dr. Burke. “One of the better arguments, in my opinion, about the potential harm of internet porn—which is actually not exclusive to porn at all and applies to all video-streaming websites— is that the quick succession of videos and rapid processing of all of those images is what sucks us in, sometimes for longer than we would like.”

We all know people who watch too much TV, play too many video games, and spend too much time on TikTok, all media served up on the exact same screens that serve up porn, and all serving up the exact same dopamine hits. But while people express concerns about “screentime” when it comes to “Ted Lasso” or Minecraft, the combo of sexual pleasure, sexual agency, and the potential for sexual exploitation fuels a unique moral panic about the porn we watch. And there’s generally little concern expressed about people who spend “too much time reading,” even if they’re masturbating to what they read.

“And while we can have a huge queue of romance lit on our Kindles,” said Dr. Burke, “we aren’t likely to stay up all night binging one after the other, as we might do with, say, Netflix because our brains will tire from all that textual processing.”

So, your wife could be a graduate of the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics speed-reading program, but there’s a limit—a much lower limit—to the number of dirty stories she can consume in a single day and/or wank. (Evelyn Wood? Anyone get that reference? Anyone? Bueller?) But the same moral scolds who’ve successfully banned books with LGBT themes and characters, as well as books that delve into wrongs committed against Black people and other people of color (slavery, Jim Crow, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Internment of the Japanese, etc., etc.), are starting to go after romance novels. Books written by Nora Roberts, a popular (and PG) romance novelist, were just pulled from the shelves in a high school in Florida after an activist with the rightwing group Moms for Liberty complained. (You know who was reading Roberts’ books before they got banned? Teachers. You know who’s reading them now? Teenagers.)

SAVAGE LOVE

through the apps. I’m always up front about what I’m looking for and I try to honor the campsite rule. Occasionally I see the same person more than once and will take them out for dinner or drinks, where I always pay since I remember being a broke college student. This year, I started hooking up a couple of times a month with a 21-year-old guy. Turns out he’s from a very wealthy family—not household names, but super rich. I don’t know exactly how much money he gets from his family, but he let me know money isn’t an issue for him and insists on paying if we go out. I asked him to alternate who pays so it doesn’t feel uneven. He also bought me a small gift for my home that cost less than $40. When it’s just dinner or small things, I don’t mind too much. But this summer he’ll be doing an internship in Europe. I’ve always wanted to go to the city where he will be working, and he’s offered to fly me out around my birthday, pay for nice hotels, and cover other expenses like meals. If he were my age, I would accept, but it feels wrong somehow due to the age gap. It’s just so much money for someone that young to be spending, but is it OK since he has access to a family fortune? Based on everything I know, he can easily afford it, but would I be wrong to accept? What are the ethical concerns of having a sugar daddy fuckbuddy who’s so young?

Additional context: I’ve been very clear I’m not interested in dating, and he’s expressed the same. We describe each other as friends, we both date and hook up with other people, we’re both on PrEP and I’ve encouraged him to get tested for STIs regularly. I have no connection to his family, I don’t work in the field he’s going into, we don’t use terms like daddy/boy, and he knows I’m financially comfortable, so this gesture seems to be motivated by generosity, not pity.

Spendy Holiday On Wealthy Undergrad’s Pocketbook

My sister died last year as a result of breast cancer. I was moved at how, during the last six months of her life, my brother-in-law, niece, and nephew bonded in a manner that allowed them to support each other as they faced the daunting task of caring for my sister. My niece has returned to college, while my nephew moved in with his father during my sister’s illness. Last month, I arrived several hours earlier than expected (some miscommunication involved) to a housesit; when I let myself in, I learned that my brother-in-law and 27-year-old nephew had been sleeping in the same bed. I think they may even have been naked. When I questioned my brother-in-law privately as to the propriety of this practice, he responded that the intimacy of sharing a bed was facilitating their healing from my sister’s death. I retain some reservations with regard to their sleeping arrangements. Several friends in whom I’ve confided have stated that the matter is none of my business. What do you think I should do?—Keep Exclaiming “Yikes!”

I think you should knock—on front doors, not bedroom doors—when you arrive early, even if you’ve been entrusted with a key.

P.S. I’m so sorry for your loss.

P.P.S. Since your nephew and brother-in-law are both adults, KEY, there isn’t really anything you can do about this. And since grief can be very deeply weird, I think you should take your brother-in-law’s explanation at face value—and take the advice of your friends—and mind your own business.

P.P.P.S. When we barge into someone else’s house unannounced—particularly when we barge far enough in to learn intimate details about sleeping arrangements and nighttime attire—we have no one to blame but ourselves for the mental images that may plaque us for the rest of our lives.

“I doubt we’ll see a surge in research on what effect Roberts’ writing has on our brains, not only because banning books is purely political theater,” said Dr. Burke. And we may not see a surge in that kind of research because we ultimately don’t need it. “Neuroscientists already know that the stories in our heads are hugely important to our sexual pleasure,” said Dr. Burke. “These stories—our thoughts and feelings—can help or hinder our sexual experiences. It sounds like for you and your wife, it’s helping.”

Follow Dr. Burke on Twitter @kelsyburke. Visit kelsyburke.com to learn more about her work.

I’m a 32-year-old gay man living in a large U.S. city. I sometimes hook up with college guys

His motives could be pure—he could just be generous—or he could be motivated by a desire, possibly subconscious, to control you. When an extremely wealthy person brings an urchin like you or me into their orbit, SHOWUP, we get a glimpse of a world we could never access on our own. The conscious or subconscious awareness that we could be exiled from this world at any moment might lead us to put up with things we wouldn’t tolerate from someone who wasn’t flying us all over the world and picking up the tab for fancy hotels.

That said, it doesn’t sound like your fuckbuddy is being excessively and/or manipulatively lavish, only appropriately and proportionately generous, and I think you should accept his offer. Pick up a few checks, SHOWUP, and enjoy the ride.

P.S. Don’t marry Connor.

P.P.P.P.S. If your brother-in-law is fucking your nephew—let’s just name the thing we’re all worried about—that’s obviously not OK. And if that’s what’s going on here (and we don’t know that it is), perhaps knowing you know or suspect will bring your brother-in-law and your nephew to their senses… and they will stop fucking each other and get the help they need, KEY, which would mean you’ve already done all the good you can do.

P.P.P.P.P.S. You might want to ask your nephew a few questions privately—or you might have to ask him a few questions privately (no one wants to ask their nephew questions like these)—to make sure this hasn’t been going on all his life and doesn’t know how to escape the abuse… if he’s being abused… which may not be the case.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Unlike last week’s questions— which I’m sure were fakes—this is one of those questions I hope is fake.

Send questions to mail@savagelove.net, then get letters, podcasts and more via savage.love.

NOTE: When I was a kid this was my favorite one-liner. Lucky for me—and unfortunately for you—it breaks perfectly for a puzzle. ACROSS

1 Reach its highest level

6 Women in uniform, once 10

one

9

17 First name in South African theatre

18 Recycle

28 Uncordial

30 Satisfied sounds

32 Says “When ...”

34 Curved moldings

35 Curtain fabric

36 Farmer’s bundle

37 One who logs on

38 Some actors assume them

42 Add

43 Barack foe in 2008

44 Musketeer or cologne

45 One with slurred speech?

46 Preshrunk, in a way

47 Bone fragment?