The Sarasota Herald Tribune published one of my columns today — “Stand-In Fathers Show What Makes a “Real” Dad”

It’s on Page A18 of today’s paper, or you can read it online by clicking the hyperlinked text above.

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers — the biological ones as well as the ones who nurture young people whether they were their “real” Dads or not.

A guy named Lee — and yes, he knows who he is — gave me one of the best moments of my life … ever. I remember it like a dream, but it was real. We were in his car, driving on a gorgeous, clear, fresh-aired summer day in New Hampshire.

We were driving on a highway headed toward a mountain. We were going to hike together. He said he had something he wanted me to hear and he slipped in a bootleg, not-yet-in-release copy of U2’s Joshua Tree. Read more »

I wish Beethoven could be my lover. I’m sure he smelled bad, had yellow teeth, and was probably a difficult man, but still … he gets me. Or at least his music does … and it’s certainly spent enough time playing in my bedroom.

While I’ve written in the past about being in bed with the Bard, I have to say, if I had to choose, I’d choose the other bad boy of the arts and make my lover Ludwig von Beethoven.

In fact, I did quite a long time ago, Read more »

As most of you know, Governor Crist received some amendments along with the health care bill he received on June 7th. The amendments have people referring to the bill as the “Abortion Bill” and essentially would require that women who want an abortion during their first trimester of pregnancy be required to pay for, have, and look at — or hear a real-time description of –a live ultrasound image of the embryo or fetus inside her womb, before having an abortion.

But what hasn’t been reported in most mainstream media is that an amendment to those amendments was received late last night in the Guv’s office. Thus this breaking (balls) news:

The revised amendments, require — essentially — that all men — seconds before they put their penis inside any women’s vagina (doesn’t count if it’s a man they’re schtupping or if it’s oral sex, for um, obvious reasons you should have learned about in grade school) be required to view pictures of used baby diapers, as well as happy smiling babies, listen to soundtracks of screaming, as well as cooing, babies, and sign a contract stating that they will a) pay for the pregnancy tests if the women freaks out because her period is late while offering calm reassurance that it will most assuredly be negative because he was, um “really careful”; b) pay for the ultrasound if the woman they’re knocking boots with gets knocked up; c) pay for the abortion if there is one; and d) pay 50% of all costs incurred in bearing, birthing, taking sick days or maternity leave not paid for by employers (because most of them don’t anymore), as well as pay for child care for working mothers, and half of all costs of raising the kid up through and including four years of college.

Sources in Tallahassee (I drove up there when I heard of this new development so I could get a first-hand report on the situation) told me that the bill is now being referred to as the Stop Look Listen & Sign Before You Fornicate Bill, though others, for simplicity’s sake, are just calling it the Pre-Sex Bill.

Over coffee this morning, most experts around the capitol were saying there’s little chance that Crist will oppose the bill now that it carries this new, clarifying language — since everyone knows men already desperately desire to be more fully informed in the moments just before they get their rocks off and have been searching for years for ways in which they could more wholly participate, emotionally and financially, in every precious post-coital moment that follows — from the seconds-later “Baby, you were great” whispers to the weeks later “Crap, my period’s late” screams.

In an unexpected and somewhat odd turn of events, John Edwards reportedly has already called Crist, urging the Florida governor to ink his approval on the new bill good and fast, saying “I wish this kind of legislation had been in effect when I was running for President — it would have been a game-changer!”

House Republicans held a press conference this morning stating their unified objection to the revised bill saying it “just isn’t fair!” Many said that such stringent requirements would unnecessarily cause men to have to make informed decisions before “dipping their swords” (I’m quoting here) and, as one House Republican said, “What good would that do any of us?”

Others pointed out that the Think Before You Sink bill (as some of the randier Republicans were calling it) would be unconscionably emotionally unfair to men, not to mention potentially create a severe financial hardship for them in both short and long term.

One Republican lawmaker speaking only on the condition of anonymity because as he said, “I wouldn’t want people to think I could have this problem,” pointed out that forcing men to see pictures of babies, even happy ones, “or God forbid, dirty diapers”, could also have the emotionally devastating effect of causing men to “lose their woodies” at the very moments when they need them most.

Crist has until June 22 to weigh the pros and cons of all the amendments included in the health care bill and in a leaked memo he indicated that he plans to give the issue his full attention in between his appointments at the tanning salon.

What happens when our lives are not quite what we expected? When the moment arrives that we see not just what we have become but regrettably, we see, with a glaring, growing, discomfort, what we might have been and now most assuredly are not?

What do we do then, when we’ve reached the moment where future intercepts present and past is just that — in the past? Is it better to remember the days of believing, recall that naivete, reach back with a slightly clawing hand toward the effortless sexual, sensual, emotional, inundation of days gone by?

Is there an alternative?

The thing is — you must, whether you want to or not — remember that time when touching the skin along your lover’s back … running your thumb down the back of the one you thought you loved was in itself a kind of worship at the altar of, yes, of course, a kind of eroticism, but more than that, a kind of exclamation of alive-ness, a cri de coeur for feeling, of feeling, of being felt.

Just the thumb. Against the skin. Slowly running with an irresistible pressure, trailing lackadaisically along the spine, and erotically in every other perspective, heading south with no particular hurry. The luxury of time we had in those moments would have made a mockery of the experience — if we’d had had even the slightest inclination of the paucity of time to come.

That thumb. That skin. All that stillness and moving. All without pretense. All without illusion and/or remembrance of other things past. All without a wish desiring to be fulfilled in some future moment 30 seconds or 30 days forward. All done, all felt, all wordlessly acknowledged without an acknowledgment of the hour, or of the lateness of the day.

Just that twilight moment from day to night; when all that existed was that weighty, weightless, dizzily exquisite feeling of someone’s hand moving along your spine and coming to rest on the small of your back. With no word. No comment or question; no expectation of what comes next; no acute awareness of what does not.

Those — and all the other moments of mundane and super-fabulous and silly and sophisticated moments of loving and working and living and breathing without question– are the remains of the day.

And I want them back.

“A butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantomime costume.” from the novel, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and if you haven’t read it, I can’t imagine what you are waiting for.

http://gawker.com/5536722/wall-street-journal-claims-ignorance-on-kagan+lesbian+softball-connection

Read more »

I could care less what Mike Bennett, the man, views or watches — whether it’s actual or perceived porn or not — (care to say which of these is pornographic: PETA’s attention-grabbing hijinks on a West Palm Beach city street; Desperate Housewives; Siesta Beach during Spring Break; or The L Word.)

Hey, whatever floats the boat. Read more »

Okay, first the good news … Mayor Kelly Kirschner announced Monday, May 3, 2010 as officially “Heidi Godman Day” during the Sarasota City Commission meeting earlier this week.

There was a nice presentation, with lovely things said about Heidi’s contributions to the community, the City, the county. Dr. Hill and another woman from Sarasota Memorial Hospital, I believe, were on hand to personally thank Heidi for her commitment to educating the public on health care issues. (If you want to check out video of the meeting that just shows the tribute to Heidi, follow instructions at end of this blog.)

I think it’s great that the guys at City Hall recognized Heidi in this way, but I think it stinks that they had to have the event at all … since it is a reflection of the fact that Channel 7 has completely lost its mind and manners and has severely underestimated the cultural climate in this community when it comes to loyalty, respect, and how, why, and from whom we want to receive the news of the day. Read more »

Does it seem like everything being done under the Sarasota sun lately is being done in the name of worshiping at the altar of “economic development”?

The ubiquitous use of the phrase bugs me nearly as much as phrases like “Vote for the children,” or “Vote for family values.” I’ve got nothing against looking after children’s best interests, or having values that support families — albeit, for me, families come in all shapes, sizes and sexual orientations. And I largely support the idea of developing a strong platform for attracting and supporting diverse businesses and industries in our community.

But just as I disdain knee-jerk, emotionally based stances on political issues, I don’t think economic issues should be approached with the same stars-in-our-eyes approach that Sarasota has used for way too long to way too little end. Sure, some people got rich off the gold-rush pursuits of the past (think real estate bubble), but many more crashed and burned (think real estate bust).

As a city we seem hell-bent on “economic development” — thrashing about wild-eyed for whatever might get us back into our McMansion/Nadel dreamscape of yesteryear. Hot topic du jour is the concept that the film industry will get us there.

We’re so gaga over the idea of attracting film and entertainment business to the area that several City Commissioners (in the name of “economic development”) were in favor of leasing the much-used (and not-a-dime-subsidized) Sarasota Municipal Auditorium to Ringling College for soundstage use for a measly $1 a year. Thankfully, for once, the audacity inherent in the request, coming as it did from a college well-known for being so well-endowed it would make Jenna Jameson blush, riled up taxpayers enough to squelch the idea.

Of course, that deal would have been small potatoes compared to the heaps of taxpayer dollars Sarasota leaders have already spent pursuing “economic development” crushes that haven’t returned the sentiment. Do I need to remind readers about the roughly $5 million our city and county commissioners spent in pursuit of the Red Sox — for a “deal” that was never anywhere near real?

Do we need to revisit the nearly $800,000 the city commissioners gave away to the New York Times-owned Sarasota Herald-Tribune to help it offset the costs of building new offices on Main Street, at a time when we all knew that newspapers were already economic dinosaurs and when the NYT Regional Newspaper group had already gone on record saying the company’s goal was to build downtown to be “as close to the center of the community as we can manage”? Sarasota gave away 800 large to convince a business to do what it was already planning to do? For a business that has probably laid off more workers in the past few years than it currently even has on staff? Is that really what constitutes “economic development” or “community redevelopment” or “job creation”?

Speaking of which, Sarasota County is creating a “Job Creation Property Tax Exemption” referendum to go on August 24 ballots. Residents will vote on whether or not they want to give existing and expanding businesses a free pass — for 10 years! — on property taxes or tangible personal property taxes. The language hasn’t been completed yet, and so I haven’t reviewed it, but in listening to the presentation at the March 29 County Commission meeting, it seems clear that this exemption is designed to primarily benefit larger businesses that are bringing in a minimum of 25 new jobs (preferably 50) with salaries of over $35,000. At the same time City and County leaders are discussing the issue, in an April 21 Sarasota Herald Tribune opinion column, City Commish Terry Turner describes ad valorem (mostly real estate) tax receipts as being in a “free fall” and identified one option for stabilizing them — by increasing property tax rates. Interestingly, it appears that Turner is also the only City Commissioner who has voted against the exemption program.

There are other criteria, of course, but just based on the first two mentioned, I doubt there’s a snowball’s chance in Florida that any of the gazillion small businesses that are the heart and soul of Sarasota’s economy will make the short list for consideration for the exemption. The mom-and-pop retailers and restaurants up and down Main Street, out on the keys, over in Gulf Gate and sprinkled all throughout the county can just continue to suck wind, I guess.

Sarasota County Chief Financial Planning Officer Jeffrey Seward said that this exemption is about the creation of “jobs, jobs and more jobs.” I think it would have been more accurate to say the exemption is about providing even more tax breaks to businesses in a state that is already very business-friendly. Some might argue that we should give these exemptions to businesses just like we allow limits on property taxes for residents. But Florida is already ranked as one of the five best states for businesses when it comes to taxes in general; and I don’t agree that we have to make ourselves number one in the country by relinquishing the right to collect potentially very significant tax revenues for the next 10 years.

The thing that concerned me about the discussion at the commissioners meeting was that no one ever delivered an estimate of the number of total new jobs that might result from the exemption. And not once was the estimated lost revenue from taxes discussed. Isn’t that Planning 101? If the chief financial planning officer doesn’t have or isn’t offering an idea of what losses (in taxes) and gains (from jobs) might result from the exemption, how can its potential merits be intelligently assessed by the commissioners?

In the name of economic sustainability, rather than simply “economic development,” we need to ask, and get answers for, those kinds of questions. And the one underlying question we all have to ask ourselves is this: Do we really want to make our economic beds with businesses that will only do business with us if we bribe them with rebates and incentives?

The thing about bribes — or incentives, call them what you will — is that when they dry up… the business dries up. In 2007, Florida offered $25 million in entertainment industry incentives and enjoyed a banner year of business from that industry. When the incentives became smaller in subsequent years, the people we’d bribed to come here to make movies and television shows simply packed up and went to other states dangling bigger bucks.

Do we really need to bribe businesses to come to Florida, and Sarasota in particular, to do business, and then have them leave later when a better offer from another state comes along? Florida’s a haven for businesses, isn’t it? We’ve got sun-drenched days perfect for uninterrupted film shoots, a steady supply of labor at all levels, from grunt work to high concept, and no state corporate or personal income tax. Heck, businesses should be paying us.

Yes, I understand that businesses and industries we bribe with incentives bring revenue with them, but the dollar amounts of the incentives — which, remember, come from Dick and Jane Taxpayer — will continue to increase. Are the perks associated with aligning ourselves with industries at the top of the zeitgeist emotionally and culturally but perhaps not economically, worth the risks? I adore both newspapers and films, but I personally wouldn’t invest in either right now.

I know countless small business owners who are in Sarasota for the long haul, who hang out their shingles or put signs up on storefronts not because they’re being bribed into doing so, but because they want to give to and take from the community they love — fair and square. They’re not asking for special subsidies for the sweat equity they’re putting into our city. There are no tax breaks for the little guys who relocate from Detroit and throw down stakes in Sarasota to keep cars running with their mechanical know-how or keep bodies limber with yoga instruction. No handouts for the laid-off secretary who decides to launch a website development business out of her lanai or who bakes the hell out of cupcakes to keep her family afloat.

They’re not glittery entrepreneurs with business school degrees or Ivy League pedigrees, lauded in the business pubs, or swooned over in the society pages. No one would think of rolling out a red carpet for the largely nameless nobodies busting their humps year after year in this town to create and sustain no-frills/low-thrills businesses and jobs for themselves and others. But I guarantee those folks make a more viable backbone for long-term sustained economic stability and growth in our community than fickle filmmakers.

If government is going to be involved in and spend money on economic development for businesses (which I’m not at all sure it should be doing anyway), then I’d prefer them to focus on finding ways to develop and enhance the businesses that are already here — right down to the truly small businesses and including the many creative-type sole proprietors (of which I am one) who support those businesses — and to support new businesses that are committed to coming here and staying here without being paid off to do so.

The payoff is Sarasota. Believe it, and they will come.

(This article will appear in the April 28 print issue of Creative Loafing Sarasota.)

If walks were presents, then Boomerang must have a birthday everyday — because he always gets at least one walk a day, and today — on his real birthday, he’s already had two walks and it’s only a bit past noon. Read more »