It’s the second week of the college rankings for Florida, which means we can expect to see a good deal of shift at the top of the rankings from last week. An important note on my rankings, they are based largely on the schedule already played and not on a more subjective analysis of how good I think the team is. For those familiar with Dr. Saturday (formerly SMQB) I am following a similar objective analysis of teams schedules.

1. South Florida (3-0)
As the only Florida team to beat a ranked team (Kansas) the Bulls earn the top spot for this week. Of concern for the Bulls, as a defensive team they are likely to continue playing in close games. The law of averages says eventually that will backfire on the Bulls.

2. Florida (2-0)
A bye week for Florida before they play Tennessee this week. And yes, the Gators are the more talented team than USF but have not yet proven that.

3. Miami (1-1)
Miami remains high in the rankings after an impressive game last week against the Gators. They are roughly interchangeable with UCF, as both lost close games to superior teams.

4. Central Florida (2-1)
With a win against lowly South Carolina State the Golden Knights do not move in the rankings.

5. Florida State (2-0)
I give more stock to teams that played tight against superior teams (i.e. Miami and UCF) than teams which have so far beaten up on cream puffs. FSU may be much improved from last season but we won’t have an accurate gauge of the Noles until they play Wake this weekend.

6. Florida Atlantic (1-2)
Someone in the Big Ten must have sent out a memo on the Owls because after playing Michigan State last weekend, FIU plays Minnesota this week.

7. Florida International (0-2)
Are the Golden Panthers the worst team in Division 1-A? They’re close. Sports Illustrated has them ranked as the second worst team.

Thing One: Getting in on the ground floor of any movement or trend is an appealing thought. Your chance to make big profits, be a big shot, re-invent yourself. But the reality of ground-flooring an urbanist movement on the new city frontiers is that of guts, risk, and hard, gritty work.

It seems to me that if your vision of a revitalized city neighborhood seems eminently do-able and just around the corner, it is far too late for ground-flooring. When the local zoning, law enforcement and neighborhood schools and shopping districts are on the way up, so are the property values and speculators.

Historically, who have been the first in?

• Artists of all kinds seeking work and performance space
• Small business people seeking non-retail square footage
• DINK couples (Double Income, No Kids), including and especially gay people
• Students and young people

Which places in the Tampa Bay area appeal to this demographic?

My suspicion is that if it is going to happen on a macro scale, urban pioneering is already happening in subtler, hidden but substantial ways. Without any media coverage. In neighborhoods that are a little, or a lot, scary. Places you don’t visit or have forgotten about. Places that are unpleasant to look at.

Thing Two: Sprawls like the Tampa Bay area have been described as “soulless”, but to the degree than any place has a soul, certainly the Tampa Bay area must have one. Perhaps it is a diffuse essence which is, like everything else in the Sunbelt, spread too thin to be distinctly visible.  What is the Tampa-ness of Tampa Bay? What is the special thing that makes it not, say, suburban New Jersey? Or Jacksonville?

Here are some things that do not give regional definition to the Tampa Bay area:

• Architecture
• Transportation
• Industry (other than tourism)
• Entertainment
• Artistic/Musical/Literary Tradition
• Cuisine

So what is the Tampa Bay brand?

• The inevitable long-term rise in the cost of commuting. It is unlikely that oil prices are going to return to comfortable levels until the majority of our transportation and power generation is running on something other than petroleum. As a full-time bicyclist, I know better than most how difficult life without cheap gas is in auto-centric Tampa Bay. This is the most basic infrastructure problem a city can face– suburban-style land use is apparently impossible to serve with conventional mass transit and alternative (walking is alternative?) transportation.
• Increasingly violent weather. Time will tell whether or not global warming is causing more or stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic, but one good whack can put most of Tampa Bay at least temporarily underwater. It happened in 1848, and it can happen again in a couple of different scenarios. This possibility does little for property value appreciation and a sense of rootedness.
• Political climate. The places where large-scale technical, scientific and cultural innovation erupt in America are inarguably largely politically progressive cities. I’m guessin’ this is no coincidence. As people continue to be more free to live where they feel comfortable, why should bright progressive people choose to live in a hostile, bleak environment?

The Tampa Bay area, like the rest of the Sunbelt, was built in large part in the post-war boom for people whose highest values were lawns, low taxes, white schools and neighborhoods, pleasant weather, and E-Z auto navigation. It is still largely populated by this demographic. As the retirement boom dies off or is overshadowed by younger families, the famous geriatric stats slowly drop, and some generational change appears, but slowly, slowly.

In a post-cheap-oil, increasingly hot and unstable world, I suspect that the Tampa Bay area faces challenges of a similar magnitude to that of the the Rustbelt cities. In the same way that their very reason for existence (manufacturing, shipping) is leaking away, so may Tampa Bay’s.

Bonus question and cool link:

If a regional initiative is your answer, I have a riddle: Since education makes a person more likely to leave your region, how do you justify your investment in human capital?

–Cleveburgh Diaspora

Brian Blair is the Republican incumbent for countywide District 6, and will be faced by Democrat challenger Kevin Beckner.

If you don’t know why I’d support Beckner over Blair, you must be new around here. Blair hands out political favors to his cronies who support him with big campaign contributions. He has worked hard to weaken our wetland protections, over and over again. He preaches fiscal conservatism, but lavishes our tax dollars on his personal pork projects — literally in his own backyard.

The Blair Watch Project is an excellent compilation of news and articles about Blair, and the Beat Brian Blair site has more information. These videos spoof the Bozo.

You can read about Beckner’s platform on his site, which also has links to several newspaper articles about him. I’ve met Beckner and I like him. I believe he will work for all the people, not just the big-money special-interest people.

You can meet the candidates, and hear what they have to say at these public candidate forums: Sept. 9, 7:00 pm, at Forest Hills Community Center; and Oct. 5 at a Davis Islands Civic Association forum, place and date TBA. (Beckner is committed to being at these, but Blair has been dodging most forums so far.) Contact Mark Nash of the Beckner campaign for details of these and other events: 813-395-3489.

For those of you who are, like me, filled with dread at the prospect of another 4 years of Brian Blair on your county commission, here are some suggestions of things to do in the next 8 weeks:

• Spend a little time — a few hours or a few days — helping the Beckner campaign
• Put a yard sign at your home or place of business
• Work a polling place for a while on election day
• Contribute money — even a little bit helps

The Blair campaign has gobs of special-interest money as well as the weighty inertia of incumbency that gets most incumbents easily re-elected around here. Sitting around, waiting to cast your vote and hoping the rest of the county votes right will surely doom us to another 4 years of Brian Blair on our county commission. And the next 4 years of Blair would be even worse than the last 4 because if this incumbent gets re-elected, after all the negative press and angry citizens up in arms about him, it will tell him and all our local politicians that they can just ignore us citizens — no matter how right we are or how mad we get — because in the end we’ll vote like sheep for whoever gets the contributions from the big-money development lobby, which buys them enough advertising to make us forget we were ever mad.

Conversely, if Beckner gets elected it will send a booming shot across the bow of that whole county commission ship of fools, telling all our leaders that if they don’t listen to us we will throw the bums out. They will all start listening to us a lot harder if we prove that we can turn out a grassroots campaign that will beat a special-interest-funded campaign.

We’ll have to work extra hard to get Beckner elected since both our local papers — the Tribune & the Times — stupidly endorsed Blair in the Republican primary. They endorsed Beckner in the Democratic primary, and they will undoubtedly endorse Beckner in the general election, but that will be awfully late to undo the damage they have already done by telling half the county to vote for Blair in August. Thousands have now actually voted for Blair recently, and it will take a lot of campaigning to educate them and the rest of the masses who rarely pay attention to local politics, but turn out to vote in a big election year like this.

That campaigning takes people who are willing to put their money and/or time where their mouth is. If you ever complained about your county commission, or shook your head in disgust as you read about them in the paper, or wished your leaders had more vision or spent your taxes more wisely — your time to do something about it is now.

1. Florida (2-0)
For three quarters Miami came close to knocking off the Gators but one quarter of work is enough to keep Percy Harvin and Company on top.

2. Miami (1-1)
The Canes are drawing rave reviews for their young defense and could be the favorites to win a weak ACC.

3. South Florida (2-0)
Not much of a difference between Bulls and Canes but I was more impressed with Miami in a loss than with USF in a narrow win.

4. Central Florida (1-1)
For all the trash talk coming from Bulls QB Matt Groethe the game was much closer than the Bulls could have been comfortable with. Credit the Golden Knights for taking the Bulls to overtime.

5. Florida State (1-0)
FSU stays down here until they play, and beat, a decent team.

6. Florida Atlantic (1-1)
After an ugly loss against Texas the Owls bounce back with a win against UAB.

7. Florida International (0-2)
Total points scored by the Golden Panthers this season: 10. FIU has a bye next week but plays USF the week after that and will be lucky to score ten more points against the Bulls.

I am a long time karaoke junkie. I’ve been haunting the best (and worst) karaoke bars in the Bay Area for 12 years. When I heard about Rock Star Fridays at Stump’s Supper Club at Channelside, I just had to check it out.

102.5 The Bone has been pushing this heavily the past few weeks and had folks from the Cowhead Show on hand as well.

The cover was very reasonable, only $5.  They offered $1 Bud drafts all night, plus well prices are reasonable. If you have never been to Stump’s, it’s very nice. We sat at the bar towards the back, which has an indoor portion and an outdoor area on the water. My wife smokes, so this is where we ended up. We still had a good view of the stage and could hear everything, despite being outside.

The Jimmy James Experience, led by Tommy Tutone bass guitarist Jimmy James, is the house band for Stump’s. They’ve been there seven years now. They are an awesome band, but for karaoke night they played without their normal sax player and female lead vocalist. But the sound was really tight.

I was nervous, I had never sung before such a large crowd. There were probably 100 people on the dance area in front of the stage and the place was filled to capacity with patrons. Add to that the excitement of being on stage with a real band, and I was in need of some liquid encouragement.

The only drawback is that they do not have lyrics on a monitor like a standard karaoke show. No “bouncing ball.” So I would recommend that you pick a song you know well. I chose one of my 80′ s standards, Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.” I did alright, I know I was a bit tipsy and flubbed a little, but the crowd did not seem to notice, they really got into it.

OK, and now for the icing on the cake. They put your video on YouTube. From the looks of it they get to it midweek, so Tuesday or Wednesday the videos from the previous Friday are posted. Just add famousleo to your subscriptions and you’ll get the new ones as they are posted.

I highly recommend Rockstar Fridays. I will definitely be back for it.

JON GRUDEN WILL KEEP HIS JOB
No subject more sharply divides Bucs fans than their opinions on the head coach. And while I understand where the anti-Grudenites are coming from (losing record in the regular season and playoffs since the Super Bowl run), I have given Gruden the benefit of doubt the last few years. For the first few years, Gruden did not have any high draft picks because of the deal with the Raiders, which cost the Bucs four high draft picks. This put Gruden in a hole, which he is just now digging his way out of. The Bucs will not win in the playoffs this year, but they are building a team that will win soon.

Speaking of winning…

THE BUCS WILL WIN 10 GAMES
Let’s go through the checklist:

1. Weak Division
2. Easy Schedule
3. Great Defense

The Panthers will put up more of a fight this year, but the Bucs are still the best team in a weak conference. The Bucs almost got to 10 wins last season (9) and with the Panthers on their heels, Gruden will not have the option of resting his players for the last two weeks.

JEFF GARCIA WILL PLAY 13 GAMES – AT MOST
Does anyone else cringe every time Garcia rolls out of the pocket? Even from game one last year against the Seahawks, Garcia missed playing time after getting hit while scrambling. Garcia’s best quality (his ability to scramble and make a play) may also be his worst ability, since it increases the likelihood he will be knocked out of the game by a defensive end or linebacker.

BUCSTAT.COM WILL PUBLISH A PICTURE GUARANTEEING NO MORE MAINSTREAM BLOGGING JOBS
In fact, this has already happened several times so this isn’t really prediction. Not that I’m complaining.

DEXTER JACKSON WILL RETURN A KICKOFF AND A PUNT FOR A TD IN THE SAME GAME
This is definitely going out on a limb, but the rookie from App State will be a game changer on special teams. By the end of the season teams will be kicking away from him.

CADILLAC WILL NOT PLAY A DOWN THIS SEASON
I would love to be wrong about this prediction, but I don’t think Cadillac is far enough in his rehab to play football without risking further injury. On the other hand, I think Earnest Graham will have an outstanding season for the Bucs, behind an offensive line that is developing into one of the best in the NFL. Graham does not have the breakout speed that Cadillac does, but he makes up for it with his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield (he might even be a better receiver than Clayton), and will be a top ten fantasy running back this season.

(Note: For those who keep track of such things I have not been around the Sticks much the past few weeks. With Bucs season upon us expect that to change. Coverage of the Bucs will be plentiful on the Sticks for the next five months.)

You have a prediction regarding the Bucs? Throw them in the comments.

Please don’t tell me (like everyone does) that I’ve missed the Olympics.  My favorite part of the Olympics is still to come.

The Paralympics are the Olympic Games for physically disabled athletes. They are always held in the same city, at the same venues as the Olympics, just a couple weeks afterward. The Paralympic cauldron has now been lit in Beijing.

I’m flying from Tampa to Beijing as a die-hard Paralympic fan, but another Bay-area resident is going to represent our country as an athlete.

Bradenton’s Paul Schulte, of the Tampa Bay Rays Wheelchair Softball team (I wrote about them before) will be playing on the U.S. Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team.

A captain for the silver medal-winning 2006 World Championships Team, he also earned a gold medal and MVP honors at the 2002 Gold Cup. After sitting out the 2004 Paralympic Games, Schulte returns to the team looking to put the U.S. atop the medal stand in Beijing.

Schulte made his Paralympic Games debut during the 2000 Games in Sydney. At age 21, he was Team USA’s youngest player. That year, the team went on to win the bronze medal.

Our long association with Wheelchair Rugby (aka “Murderball”) has earned my husband & I accreditation and prime seating at the 2008 Games. I’m looking forward to seeing our old friends in this small world of sports, learning about Asia, and cheering for Team USA!

More links:

• Paul Schulte personal website
• Tampabay’s 10 story: 2008 Paralympics: Bradenton man ready, willing and able

And with the end of summer here, it’s go time in Tampa Bay sports. The Buccaneers kicks off their season this Sunday, the USF Bulls football squad has already started their 12th season of play, the Tampa Bay Lightning begins training camp in a matter of days.

Oh, yeah… That team in St. Pete? I hear the Tampa Bay Rays have a chance to continue playing games after the regular season ends September 28th.

So lets pose the question to all you Tampa Bay sports fans: Which team is going to have the best fall? The Buccaneers? The Lightning? How about the Rays? Or will it be the Bulls?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

“Do what they did, you’ll get what they got.”

I am not sure that Tampa Bay needs to reinvent the wheel on its way to urban viability, but…

Many of the cities that have truly come back from the edge and become centers of creative post-industrial life are very different from the Tampa/St Pete metro area. They had cores that were restorable, high-density housing stocks, transit systems, and a tradition, no matter how disrupted, of urbanity, with traditional neighborhoods and spaces. With some notable exceptions, the TB area has little of this. Remaking but a part the Tampa Bay metropolitan area will be a real bootstrap job, even if we find models to emulate.

So it may be vital to find post-war sunbelt cities to learn from, if only to avoid their costly mistakes. Which auto-centric cities have done the best job of coming back from placelessness?

It is tempting to think that isolated pockets of artists, galleries, music venues scattered across the Tampa Bay area could go a long way toward making the metro area more livable; it might even be true. But I think, for several reasons, this approach is flawed:

• Lack of tourism support. Tourists prefer magnet areas.
• Lack of drawing power for diversity– do you want to be the only black guy, lesbian, or sculptor in your little art colony?
• Lack of political/economic/marketing clout. The only power in numbers.
• Lack of visibility. This has to do with spatial presence, sheer square footage.
• And anyway, has any revitalization yet emerged from a bunch of micro-centers without strong civic leadership?

Can the Tampa Bay area, the 19th largest metro area in the US, but with disproportionately fewer cultural resources than other areas, afford to spread its creative community so thinly? As transportation costs increase and time becomes more precious for many of us, is a commuting scene viable? (Not if you’re planning on having a few drinks, I hope).

With the principles of urbanism in mind–

1. Walkability
2. Connectivity
3. Mixed-Use & Diversity
4. Mixed Housing
5. Quality Architecture & Urban Design
6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure
7. Increased Density
8. Smart Transportation
9. Sustainability
10. Quality of Life

– what part of the Tampa Bay area is best suited for a big vibrant arts community?

But seeing not one, but two utterly heinous blown calls go against the beloved home town Tampa Bay Rays twice within a week is enough to make one at least react like this:

Granted, Sunday’s game in Chicago probably shouldn’t have even gone to extra innings. However, I fear that Shawn Riggans might be the Rays answer to former Lightning defender Pavel Kubina. He’s a dedicated team guy that you really want to embrace because he works hard and isn’t afraid to do more than his share of dirty work but always seems to do that one dumb thing in a game that makes you react like this:

In this case, it was dropping the ball on as easy and routine a play at home plate as you’re ever likely to see which allowed the tying run to score. Excuse me for a second please…

Of course, that doesn’t excuse the heinousness that followed.

Now, no reasonable person should think that any kind of “fix” is taking place. For one, this isn’t the NBA. Secondly, there are literally millions of reasons to believe that if there was some kind of dark conspiracy taking place behind the scenes to favor one team over another, it probably wouldn’t be for the White Sox:

Third, and most important, we’re still in first place.

Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness

Sticks of fire has it’s own Facebook fan page now!

The small urban cores of the now arbitrary sections that make up our metro area were ripped out in the 60’s and 70’s,and the foresight and political will to restore whatever value they once had is not evident at this time. I once had the privilege to watch a city rise up from decay and sprawl and become a great creative and tech center. It wasn’t easy, and it took guts and visionary leadership and the united will of its citizens through neighborhood associations.

With lots of exceptions, people in the US live in a place because they like the place. People live in the Tampa Bay area because they like sunshine and warm temperatures, proximity to the Gulf. Low taxes. People choose exurban areas because they like racial and cultural homogeneity. Lawns. And shopping malls. Freeway closeness. And all the kinds of land use that are impossible without cheap oil.

This is not to say that exurbanites dislike art or innovation. They simply value it too little to pay for it, with dollars or with the psychic cost of urban life. (I would argue that the psychic cost of exurban isolation is higher, but I’ll do that another time). They aren’t offended by the squalor of a US 19 or [your favorite corridor of glaring hell here].

These preferences aren’t arguable. They are simply preferences. It may be useless for urbanists to attempt dialogue with those whose highest values are the lowest taxes. Cities with good transit, great art and technical and educational achievement, cities that attract and keep knowledge and cultural workers don’t come cheap. The leaders in tech innovation, art, and the urban amenities– and high-paying job growth– are not low-tax cities.

So what about those of us who stay behind in the diaspora? The cities that never were are not coming back. Should we just suck it up and establish a brave new exurban aesthetic? Or is it better to nurture little outposts of creative community dotting the metropolitan area, coming together occasionally for regional celebration? Can that essential creative critical mass be sparked without diversity and the constant inflow and outflow of new creative blood? Are online dialogues with the like-minded a satisfying substitute for coffee house and tavern exchanges?

In another one of those kooky quirks of scheduling, Tampa played host to both the Women of Faith Infinite Grace conference and the 2008 FetishCon this past weekend. One event featured appearances by Eden Wells, Kumi Monster and RubberDoll, the other featured Patsy Clairmont, Sandi Patty and Marilyn Meberg.  I’ll let you Google those names and figure out who was where, but the real delight is in knowing that these people and their fans were both occupying the same relatively small space at the same time.

Event organizers and venue bookers will both say that Tampa is a large enough city now that having multiple events that draw large and disparate crowds at the same time really shouldn’t be an issue. And they’re probably right.  But…

Women Of Faith was held at the St. Pete Times Forum, which can hold up to 20,000 people and FetishCon, which draws over 2,000 people, was held at the Hyatt Regency about a half mile away. There are four, maybe five, hotels and about a dozen or so restaurants that you could reasonably classify as within walking distance of those two sites. Factor in just how dissimilar these two groups are and you have a recipe for awkward social interaction comedy gold, baby!

I’m just picturing two groups of people, clutching either bibles or leashes with people attached to them, waiting for the streetcar to Channelside or for a table at First Watch: “Umm…that’s okay, you go ahead. No, really. Please.”

Cross posted at Ridiculous trickle of consciousness

After those assurances made almost exactly one year ago, Creative Loafing has let film critic Lance Goldenberg go.

Local writer Philip Booth broke the story Thursday with an eloquently angry post on his blog Scribe Life. That same day, St. Pete Times’ TV/media critic Eric Deggans blogged about his disappointment at hearing the news in a post on his blog The Feed. Deggans’ post included quotes from both Goldenberg and CL editor David Warner, as well as the full statement issued by Warner.

Acknowledging both of those blog posts and the overwhelming support Goldenberg received in comments on both blogs, CL writer Wayne Garcia posted briefly – almost begrudgingly – about Goldenberg’s departure on the CL blog Political Whore. Garcia’s blog post included a statement from CL editor David Warner, who said that the concern about this news is understandable because “Lance has been a reliably expert voice on film in Tampa Bay for many years.”

In his published statements (on Political Whore and The Feed) and his blog comments (on The Feed and Scribe Life), Warner explained that CL’s decision to release Goldenberg – who has been a freelance writer for CL, not a full-time CL employee, all these years – was based on “the fiscal realities that are facing everyone in the newspaper business.” Warner assured readers and advertisers (smart move on Warner’s part to be concerned with advertisers, because they ultimately control the fiscal realities in the newspaper industry) of CL’s commitment “to reviewing and reporting on the local film scene and the many film festivals Creative Loafing has always covered in depth.”

I have so many questions and comments that I don’t know where to begin.

I suppose I should start by acknowledging my discomfort in writing about this topic. I’m a blogger, remember, so technically I’m part of the newspaper industry’s problem in the first place. (I’ll save that discussion for another blog post.) However, I hate reading about the exodus of film/book/art/music critics over the past year or so. (33 film critics since January 2006, according to The Movie Cricket.)

I spent several hours today writing a long article about this, going through all my questions and reactions point by point. After re-reading my final draft, I realized that it didn’t work and deleted it. All of the thoughts that have been swirling in my head since I first read about Goldenberg’s departure relate to one central concern:

Will Creative Loafing continue to write about, support, critique and draw attention to local films, filmmakers, film festivals and theaters?

I certainly hope so, but Creative Loafing’s track record has me a little worried. The same week that Tampa’s CL let Lance Goldenberg go, Atlanta’s Creative Loafing laid off senior editor Scott Freeman and arts/entertainment editor (and occasional film reviewer) David Lee Simmons. Jonathan Rosenbaum, head film critic for the Chicago Reader, retired in February after 21 years. Art/film critic Felicia Feaster left Creative Loafing in Atlanta in April. The Chicago Reader lost several talented, dedicated staff writers in December.

Hopefully, the national advertising agency Creative Loafing signed on with recently can bring in those crucial advertising dollars.

When long-time writers like Goldenberg depart, readers notice the difference. Readers also notice when a paper loses some of its local focus or replaces thoughtful critical analysis with brief infotainment sound bytes.

Local film fans will be watching. I certainly will be, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

(cross-posted at www.tampafilmfan.com)