When I was in high school, my friends and I did what all kids do – looked for somewhere cool to hang out. We had a little bar we drank coffee at until the owners decided that was no good for the older, drinking clientele and kicked us out. After that, we were out of luck.
Basically we ended up at Denny’s. Now, I’ve got nothing against Denny’s. It’s great if you want a four-course breakfast at 2 am. But, it’s not exactly “cool.”
Back in those dark ages, St. Petersburg was woefully lacking in coffee shops. This was long before Starbucks discovered our Bay area. I only remember one place – Mother’s Milk - and it was way up in Clearwater.
Times have changed. I’m old enough to go wherever I want to. Frankly, I’m too old to go to some places, but that’s another story. St. Petersburg, in the downtown area alone, now boasts “four Starbucks” as Mayor Baker recently, and somewhat inaccurately, announced, adding that he felt this was a sign that the city had arrived as a chic metropolis. I’m not sure I agree with Mayor Rick, but it is nice that I can find a decaf Americano just about anywhere these days.
Now that I’m a student, I’m ever-more on the lookout for a “cool” place to sit and read, write, or just plain goof off. Starbucks aside, the downtown area also has a smattering of independent coffee houses to supply the growing American need for caffeine. I too, though I drink the low-test variety, find myself seeking out the bean.
But, I might as well save you the guess work and tell you that my new-favorite coffee house is Bohemia on Central Avenue.
If we’d had a place like this back in high school, we might have been a lot cooler. Or, at least we would have felt a lot cooler. But I digress…
Bohemia, as the name might imply, is an independent coffee shop that serves up what you would find at any corporate spots, but with charmingly-original size choices like small, medium and large.
It’s everything I love in a coffee shop – artsy, eclectic and a little bit gritty. Rather than marketing their own “line” of music, they play all sorts of cool stuff. Just today I was grooving to The Cure, The Smiths and New Order (hey wait – AM I still in high school?). Well, I still love that music, and so do a lot of us former nerds.
Sure there are a few drawbacks to going “independent.” There is a minimum charge for credit cards, and you certainly won’t find any internet access (which is actually a good thing, for me, as it keeps me on track with my studies).
However, apart from the bratty service you often find in a place as “hip” as this, these folks are seriously lacking in pretension. They are totally cool. The other day, a girl put herself in mortal peril - atop the most rickety ladder I have ever seen – to plug an extension cord into a dubious outlet so that I might amuse myself with my laptop. Lovely.
Inside you have the option of comfy couches or tables and outside – my favorite part – a huge patio, literally twice the size of the shop, with a sea of tables, benches and old-fashioned bistro lights crisscrossed overhead. At night, though I’ve only driven by, it looks kind of like a twinkley, Parisian café. I half-expect to find Toulouse-Lautrec in the courtyard, putting the final dabs of paint on a poster for the Moulin Rouge.
Oh, and they have beer. Glittering, frosty imported bottles – some brands even a beer snob like me didn’t know existed. Need I say more?
But, before you go rushing out to Bohemia, taking up all the sweet spots on the patio, I should warn you. Just this morning I was sitting – steamy Americano in hand, laptop at the ready – reveling in the sunshine. All was perfect.
Out of nowhere, it came. I thought I had been assaulted by stray buckshot until I saw it. On my pants, in my hair, and terribly close to my full cup of coffee: bird crap. There, I said it. Maybe you should just stay home.
Of course, on the other hand, my friends tell me it’s a sign of good luck. We’ll see.
Published in The Gabber Newspaper, Gulfport, FL 3/1/07
June 17, 2007
January 20, 2007
So you want to be a columnist...
I've just left my job at the Gabber, and am now about a week away from flat broke. Because my people back at the paper still love me, they have offered me this column. Not because, I suspect, they believe that I will greatly increase readership with my musings, but because they fear for my impending lack of beer money. So here goes my first shot...
Greetings from the College Kid
As many of you may know, I recently decided to leave my position at the paper in order to concentrate on my education. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, and I can tell you that two weeks into my semester at the University of South Florida, I am already missing my Gabber family.
However, I have been putting off my bachelor’s degree long enough. We don’t get any other shot at life, and when I left the University of Florida at the wizened age of twenty, I thought I would have no regrets. Turns out I was wrong.
But fear not, Gabber readers. While embarking on this new adventure – a goal I am finally realizing – I will be keeping in touch. In this column I will not only endeavor to keep you abreast of my life as a second-chance college kid, but also of the myriad of diversions that my new, flexible schedule now affords.
These first few weeks as a full-time student have been overwhelming. Many of you who have made the similar decision to go back to school will know what I mean. The truth is, you can’t go back.
As I said, when I left school ten years ago, I thought I didn’t need college. After all, I was the same age as my peers who were doing just fine at their restaurant and retail jobs. But now my friends have master’s degrees and doctorates, and I am in classes with significantly younger folks.
That’s okay, I tell myself. I am significantly wiser than many of them. My priorities are more grounded. This should be a piece of cake!
However, half-way into Dante’s Inferno and the five different versions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, I began to doubt myself.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with doubt. Doubt keeps you humble. But it also opens the door for a number of diversions. And by diversions I mean, of course, distractions. Chief among those distractions for me these past few weeks has been the Tavern at Bayboro on the USF St. Pete campus.
People, my college campus has a bar! Not fifty yards from my beginning Spanish classroom, there are students, professors and all manner of academics sipping Newcastle Ales, discussing philosophy, reading poetry and grooving to the occasional live bands! I am in heaven.
Not so good for Dante, but perfect for the aged college student who has long been old enough to sip an adult beverage.
Now, this little Tavern (formerly known as Tavern on the Green until the original – you know, the one in Central Park – got wind of it) is not just for college folks. But it is one of the best kept secrets in St. Petersburg. Combine that with some tasty sandwich selections and the adjoining Bayboro Books, it beats Dante’s Paradiso any day.
I have friends at the US Geological Survey (USGS) just two blocks away who consider this spot their second office. Of course, that’s government work for you. But after plugging away at the office or, in my case Chaucer, it’s incredible to look out at the water, sipping a fine imported brew and drinking in Florida’s “winter” sunshine.
Of course, there are a lot of places to do that in our fair metro area, but few of them are ten feet from my poetry class.
Now, don’t you worry. I’m still getting in plenty of studying. But going to school at this small, beautiful campus has some amazing perks. And, I imagine I’ll probably have a lot more fun in downtown St. Petersburg that I ever did in Gainesville.
I intend to make the most of it and, just in case you are not discovering your second childhood as I am, I will tell you all about it.
I’m sure the Gabber office will get along just fine without me. The Gabber is an unsinkable ship, as the boss likes to say. But if you get the urge, you can always stop over for a visit. I’ll be down at the Tavern, and who knows where else…
Published in The Gabber Newspaper, Gulfport, FL 2/15/07
Greetings from the College Kid
As many of you may know, I recently decided to leave my position at the paper in order to concentrate on my education. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, and I can tell you that two weeks into my semester at the University of South Florida, I am already missing my Gabber family.
However, I have been putting off my bachelor’s degree long enough. We don’t get any other shot at life, and when I left the University of Florida at the wizened age of twenty, I thought I would have no regrets. Turns out I was wrong.
But fear not, Gabber readers. While embarking on this new adventure – a goal I am finally realizing – I will be keeping in touch. In this column I will not only endeavor to keep you abreast of my life as a second-chance college kid, but also of the myriad of diversions that my new, flexible schedule now affords.
These first few weeks as a full-time student have been overwhelming. Many of you who have made the similar decision to go back to school will know what I mean. The truth is, you can’t go back.
As I said, when I left school ten years ago, I thought I didn’t need college. After all, I was the same age as my peers who were doing just fine at their restaurant and retail jobs. But now my friends have master’s degrees and doctorates, and I am in classes with significantly younger folks.
That’s okay, I tell myself. I am significantly wiser than many of them. My priorities are more grounded. This should be a piece of cake!
However, half-way into Dante’s Inferno and the five different versions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, I began to doubt myself.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with doubt. Doubt keeps you humble. But it also opens the door for a number of diversions. And by diversions I mean, of course, distractions. Chief among those distractions for me these past few weeks has been the Tavern at Bayboro on the USF St. Pete campus.
People, my college campus has a bar! Not fifty yards from my beginning Spanish classroom, there are students, professors and all manner of academics sipping Newcastle Ales, discussing philosophy, reading poetry and grooving to the occasional live bands! I am in heaven.
Not so good for Dante, but perfect for the aged college student who has long been old enough to sip an adult beverage.
Now, this little Tavern (formerly known as Tavern on the Green until the original – you know, the one in Central Park – got wind of it) is not just for college folks. But it is one of the best kept secrets in St. Petersburg. Combine that with some tasty sandwich selections and the adjoining Bayboro Books, it beats Dante’s Paradiso any day.
I have friends at the US Geological Survey (USGS) just two blocks away who consider this spot their second office. Of course, that’s government work for you. But after plugging away at the office or, in my case Chaucer, it’s incredible to look out at the water, sipping a fine imported brew and drinking in Florida’s “winter” sunshine.
Of course, there are a lot of places to do that in our fair metro area, but few of them are ten feet from my poetry class.
Now, don’t you worry. I’m still getting in plenty of studying. But going to school at this small, beautiful campus has some amazing perks. And, I imagine I’ll probably have a lot more fun in downtown St. Petersburg that I ever did in Gainesville.
I intend to make the most of it and, just in case you are not discovering your second childhood as I am, I will tell you all about it.
I’m sure the Gabber office will get along just fine without me. The Gabber is an unsinkable ship, as the boss likes to say. But if you get the urge, you can always stop over for a visit. I’ll be down at the Tavern, and who knows where else…
Published in The Gabber Newspaper, Gulfport, FL 2/15/07
Resurrecting The Dying Game
I used to play this game with my mother: Which would you rather…? It basically consisted of me thinking up the most morbid, horrible ways you could die and asking her which she would prefer. I remember playing this game on car rides, always just me and her. Funny that I only played this game with her, because she never answered me, really. “Mom, which would you rather do: be burned at the stake or be disemboweled?” To which she would usually respond, “Aargh! Shelly! Neither!” Which, of course, I found tremendously unsatisfying and would proceed with something even more gruesome. I vaguely recall her thinking hot pokers in the eyes would be better than something…
I can see why my mom didn’t want to play that game, now. As a child, you feel so far away from death, it’s as if you’re talking about a fairy tale. I surely would not be burned at the stake or have hot pokers drilled into my eye sockets. I’m sure my mom didn’t think she would either. But, the older you get the more real death becomes. And talking about it - writing about it, even – is tempting it. Those superstitions – as old as human experience – come creeping in.
Throwing caution to the wind, I’ll say that obviously the very best way to go is quietly in your sleep after a long, eventful and remorseless life. Blissfull. Perhaps after a nice bottle of wine and an orgasm. We can’t all go that way, you know.
Second best would be quickly. At any point. Just as long as it was very, very quickly. Like a piano falling on you while you’re walking through a nice urban market. Or, getting hit by a car you never saw coming, thinking about an erotic moment you had with your lover. Or maybe a plane crash with somebody beautiful and famous, lighting up a cigarette and toasting your demise with a free mimosa.
There are good ways to go, I suppose.
But, surely, there are many more infinitely sucky ways to die. Those would probably be different for all of us, but long, painful illness and disembowelment come to mind. Death is death, and the moment it comes can’t be too long, I suppose. So, I think the absolute worst way to go would involve something grotesquely embarrassing. It’s a good thing that Elvis had a brilliant career to be remembered for, because dying on the john, trying to take a crap ranks right up there with the suckiest of all time.
Anyway, I digress. The Dying Game is fun and simple. Don't worry about tempting fate. Just be creative and go with it. Here, I'll help you. Which would you rather: be flayed alive or drown in your own puke? Have fun!
I can see why my mom didn’t want to play that game, now. As a child, you feel so far away from death, it’s as if you’re talking about a fairy tale. I surely would not be burned at the stake or have hot pokers drilled into my eye sockets. I’m sure my mom didn’t think she would either. But, the older you get the more real death becomes. And talking about it - writing about it, even – is tempting it. Those superstitions – as old as human experience – come creeping in.
Throwing caution to the wind, I’ll say that obviously the very best way to go is quietly in your sleep after a long, eventful and remorseless life. Blissfull. Perhaps after a nice bottle of wine and an orgasm. We can’t all go that way, you know.
Second best would be quickly. At any point. Just as long as it was very, very quickly. Like a piano falling on you while you’re walking through a nice urban market. Or, getting hit by a car you never saw coming, thinking about an erotic moment you had with your lover. Or maybe a plane crash with somebody beautiful and famous, lighting up a cigarette and toasting your demise with a free mimosa.
There are good ways to go, I suppose.
But, surely, there are many more infinitely sucky ways to die. Those would probably be different for all of us, but long, painful illness and disembowelment come to mind. Death is death, and the moment it comes can’t be too long, I suppose. So, I think the absolute worst way to go would involve something grotesquely embarrassing. It’s a good thing that Elvis had a brilliant career to be remembered for, because dying on the john, trying to take a crap ranks right up there with the suckiest of all time.
Anyway, I digress. The Dying Game is fun and simple. Don't worry about tempting fate. Just be creative and go with it. Here, I'll help you. Which would you rather: be flayed alive or drown in your own puke? Have fun!
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