Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Ticking Clocks
Saturday
April 3, 2004
This is the dreaded "Daylight Savings Time" weekend where we all lose an hour. And I ask: what's up with that? I understand the premise that it allows the farmers an extra hour of daylight at night. But are we really still a society that is so agrarian based that we need this annual clock-shifting to continue? Oh, I know, there are places that refuse to recognize it (like most of Indiana, expect for the southwest corner, where I happened to live when I was in college). I suppose there are far more noble causes to fight for than battling to end DST, but it just seems like something who's time has passed.
Thursday night was a really fun time. Andrea came over, and we walked around Ybor City (taking advantage of my apartment's close proximity to the Tampa party district). It turns out that Macho Man Randy Savage was supposed to be appearing at the Masquerade, though he ended up canceling. It's too bad, because I would've gone in there and punked him out until being thrown out. Asking about the Nubain, crapping his tights at Gold's Gym, etc. Here's a scoop for you BTLS fans who read my site: I pitched Bubba on the idea of putting out a very limited edition Macho Man CD (working title: "The Macho CD"), and he's given me the green light to go ahead with it. I'm working on making a prototype CD; if I get approval on it, it'll be out possibly before the end of the month. While Picklock Music wasn't something that worked for me (I just didn't have the funding to make it a viable operation), it did provide me with some valuable lessons about getting CDs produced and ready for distribution. Consider it money spent on education, if nothing else.
In a way, it was a bit disappointing to see the lack of people out in Ybor on a Thursday night. Things are constantly in flux, I know, but it seems like the city is doing what it can to actually spot people from coming out. When Andrea and I came back to my apartment to take a break from walking around, we spotted three cops in the parking lot behind Club Turbulence et al. They were using flashlights to peer into the windows of the cars parked there. Lovely, as if paying to park isn't bad enough, then you have to deal with Officer Ballbuster seeing if you might, *gasp*, have a beer in your car. This is what our tax dollars are going to fund? I see this and it makes me want to run for Tampa City Council. Too bad the next election for that isn't until 2007. I'm not exactly your prototypical politican, but maybe if Kevin White (my region's current rep) decided to shoot for a higher office, I could try and snag his seat. I already know what I'd do for campaign signs: "Pick Pickney", with yellow background and black writing. It worked for my four years of high school class treasurer, and maybe I'm wrong but I think people would remember something like that. Not that this site isn't loaded with things I've written that could be used against me, but screw it.
Anyway, Thursday was fun. Andrea has lived in Tampa longer than I have, and she knows the history of the clubs in Ybor and was able to give me info about the various places that used to be around. I didn't know that Starbucks used to be down on 7th Avenue, for example (it's been at Centro Ybor since I moved here three years ago).
She and I played pool over at Market on 7th (aka Demmi's Market). One sad thing is that they no longer can run tabs for people there, even for people like me who are long-time customers. They don't have a credit card machine there, and the bartender told me she got stiffed the weekend before to the tune of $50 on a tab. So now they can't run tabs. That blows. Though I figured with the new smoking rules that sort of things might happen more frequently (since the place sells pizza and thus has more than 10% food sales, no smoking is allowed inside). I'm all for that, since I prefer not smelling like a chimney when I go out drinking, but the whole "no tab option" thing blows.
|  | | Luke Schenscher plays basketball for Georgia Tech. |
Two great basketball games were on tonight, with Georgia Tech beating Oklahoma State on a shot with :02 to go and then UConn edging Duke by one point. That was the combo I needed: if GT beats UConn, then I finish in third place in Andrew Farnum's $25 per entry pick 'em pool, which means I get my money back. Hopefully Emeka Okafor will get into early foul trouble against Georgia Tech (like he did versus Duke). In talking with my friend Scott Massey (I used that phrase again, ha ha) last night, he was trying to tell me that Okafor might not be the best player on the team (he touted Ben Gordon, who I think is good but not the player at Okafor is, particularly on defense). Actually a guy on UConn I really like is 6'11" freshman Charlie Villanueva, who may have the most promising potential NBA future of them all.
Anyway, now I have to cheer against UConn (gotta cheer with my wallet, and you know this!) and pull for Georgia Tech. It should be quite interesting to see Okafor match up with GT's Australian 7'1" center Luke Schenscher. Okafor has the beef to power inside, but I'll be pulling for the gangly guy from down under to hold his own. Check out his hair, by the way. My favorite info out of his bio is this line: Serenaded at Alexander Memorial Coliseum by the home crowd's chants of "Loooook". Shouldn't that be written as "Luuuuuuke"? They're not saying "Look", as if they're trying to distract him into peering over at some hot cheerleader doing the splits in mid-air.
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