Month: May 2008

If Only Hogan Really Knew Best

In a moment of notable candor — in the aftermath of his son’s notorious no-contest plea for reckless driving — Terry Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan) let it be known that teenager Nick was nicer than the way he portrayed himself on the reality TV show, “Hogan Knows Best.” In fact, Bollea revealed — in contrast to what he had said previously — much of what passed for the inane dynamics of “reality” were, in actuality, scripted.

Well, maybe some script writers — or spin doctors — should be on retainer.

Left to their own devices – dumb and dumber words and actions – the Bolleas are their own worst enemy when freelancing off stage. Most recently on a series of taped telephone conversations.

Everyone knows that jailhouse calls are recorded; it’s one of the indignities of not being free. And the Bollea family calls were, indeed, recorded – by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. And most everyone realizes that such communication qualifies as a public record. And, given what qualifies as “news” these days, that they probably qualify as fodder for a juicy, public-records request.

And, of course, those tapes have aired – like ripe socks. From Nick complaining about his small, windowless cell to carping about being alone. “It’s so much worse than you could ever imagine,” he lamented. “This is like a state prison.”

Oh.

But it got worse than the whiney trivialization of a tragedy. The 17-year-old crassly asked his father to look into a reality TV gig centered on him and his slammer experience, one where he could “make the most money.”

In a subsequent conversation, Linda Bollea, Nick’s mother, bad-mouthed the mother of John Graziano, the passenger who was critically injured in that crash last August and remains in a semi-conscious state. “She’s not sad,” asserted Linda Bollea. “She’s just acting angry like she just wants the money.”

Just when we thought this story might be on hiatus – or couldn’t get worse – we get conversational scorched earth.Not that a happy ending looms for anyone, but a real sense of remorse and reflection would have been welcome, humanizing and downright appropriate. But apparently it would have required serious script help. Instead, we got whiney and crass when we should have gotten this:

Dad: “How you doing?”

Nick: “I don’t like it, but it’s not meant to be liked. As punishment, I deserve a lot worse”.

Dad: “You’re right. If he were conscious, you think John wouldn’t trade places?”

Nick: “I know. In a heart beat. That’s all I think about. Life is so unfair. Here I am – and I’ll be out in 8 months. And there he is and

Obama Baracks The House In Tampa

Susan Bennett is a white Tampa lawyer and an early Hillary Clinton backer. She was among the 15,000-plus who attended last week’s Barack Obama rally at the St. Pete Times Forum.

“I supported Hillary, but I’m also a realist,” said Bennett, 58. “When I saw him speak (at the Democratic Convention) in 2004, I remember turning to my husband and saying, ‘This could be the next (2008) president.’ We need to unite the party, and we need a new direction that starts with bringing troops home from Iraq and doing something about health care. It was an easy transition.”

Then there was Chris, a software engineer. He’s a 36-year-old black man who didn’t want to give his last name. That’s because he was at the Obama rally – when he should have been back at work.

He called it an “extended lunch hour.” He also called it an invaluable experience.

“I wanted to see for myself,” said Chris, who was with a younger, black colleague who craved even more anonymity. “Sometimes on TV, what you see is manufactured, either by editing or by the crowd shots they show.

“I mean, I get the intelligence part, and I get the well-spoken part,” explained Chris. “But I wanted to see the inspiration part for myself. Maybe get involved in the campaign.

“Now I might,” added Chris. “This is good to see. The crowd is so diverse. This looks like America.”

The multi-racial and multi-generational gathering of true believers, Clinton converts and the idealistically curious had come to see the return of the candidate — now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. He hadn’t, shall we say, been around in a while. This is, in part, what they saw and heard:

*Frank Sanchez, the erstwhile mayoral candidate and key Obama operative, did the early audience warm-up. “Take a look around,” intoned Sanchez. “This is change!” The crowd ate it up. “As goes Tampa Bay, so goes the nation!” The crowd had another helping. Sanchez never looked this animated in his run against Pam Iorio five years ago.

*And speaking of, Sanchez urged the crowd, already at full “Yes We Can” and “O-Bam-A” throttle, to “give it up” for Pam Iorio. The mayor, who’s politically parsimonious when it comes to endorsements, then told her listeners that Obama was “My choice for president, and I know he’s yours.”

The support of the I-4 Corridor’s female anchor mayor has obvious value to Obama. And Iorio more than hinted that — if the political planets properly align — she may have finally found a federal partner for some Tampa priorities, notably mass transit.

*You can tell something about a campaign by the music it chooses. The Clinton-Gore ticket chose “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac, and it successfully symbolized a generational shift and a commitment to a better future. John McCain uses Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode – but it doesn’t really resonate.

The Obama folks like Aretha Franklin’s (outdoors) “R*e*s*p*e*c*t,” The Temptations’ (pre-Obama appearance) “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and Stevie Wonder’s (post-Obama) “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” Seems to work.

*Rep. Kathy Castor of South Tampa, who has made everybody’s short list for Congressional rookie of the year, was accorded the honor of introducing Obama.

*After his deus ex machina entrance from the Forum wings, Obama would soon get down to the tricky business of looking unflappable while firing up a crowd. He pulls this off with uncommon aplomb.

With microphone in hand and crowd in thrall, he served up familiar refrains on Iraq, health care, outsourced jobs, poorly paid teachers and the special interests bogeymen. But never has boilerplate been punctuated by so many “We love you!” hosannas. Nor literally responded to with “I love you back” retorts.

In more detail, he cited such platform staples as an annual $4,000 college-tuition credit as a quid pro quo for community service; the elimination of income taxes on Social Security payments; the reallocation of ($10 billion a month) Iraqi war resources into infrastructure needs and jobs; and a $150-billion investment in alternative energy sources.

The loudest boos were reserved for mentions of a “Bush third term,” and the loudest applause line was prompted by a reference to America’s fighting men and women — and the respect and help due them when they return.

*Obama continued his diplomatic offensive vis a vis Hillary Clinton. It’s now a discernible no-boo zone. He praised her as someone who has run “an outstanding campaign” and “deserves our admiration and respect.” He noted that she had “broken through barriers and will open up opportunities for people including my two young daughters.”

It’s a sensible tact to help hold on to the hordes of ardent Clinton followers, but Obama also sent a message of comity and unity to others. He indicated he would be reaching out to “independents and Republicans, a lot of whom don’t recognize their own party.”

He didn’t declare victory but nuanced his majority-of-elected-delegates milestone with a “threshold of nomination” parse.

*Obama ended with a biographical touch, one intended to undercut the elite image of an Ivy League intellectual. It’s effective in such settings. The single mom

The Iorio Factor

To a lot of observers, the endorsement of Barack Obama by Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio was a surprise. She rarely does such things.

“I have been watching the campaign closely and continue to be impressed with Obama,” explained Iorio. “His intellect, his outstanding ability to communicate, his grasp of the issues facing this country and his superior campaign skills, which he will need come November, all convinced me that I should get involved in this election and endorse.”

The immediate impetus was provided by Rep. Kathy Castor who actually invited Iorio to the rally and suggested the time was right to meet Obama. The Tampa venue and the timing so near the end of the primary season were major factors.

“In the few minutes I had backstage with him, he asked what issues concerned me, and, of course, I mentioned mass transit and the need for federal help on infrastructure and housing,” added Iorio.

And will we see Iorio on the Obama hustings?

“I will help Obama from here to the general whenever he comes to Tampa or the Bay Area,” she said. “Introduce him or help with logistics or whatever helps.”

Venezuela Revisited: Keeping It In Context

My recent Venezuela column in the Tampa Tribune prompted a prominent response from a local Venezuelan activist who took exception to some points I made. Fair enough. On this subject, I’m not an expert on anything but my own first-hand impressions based on what I saw — from health clinics to brazen street crime — and to whom I spoke — from Hugo Chavez acolytes to scornful opposition.

In responding, I want to underscore what my agenda for traveling to Venezuela for a fortnight was NOT. It was not to presume to learn enough to write a definitive treatise. Nor was it to disparage anyone forced into expatriatation by a socialist autocrat. I can never know what it’s like to walk in the shoes of anyone who feels orphaned from their motherland.

What my agenda WAS — was two-fold:

1)To look beyond the understandably easy caricature and demonization of President Chavez and get some sense of what on-site Venezuelans saw in him.

2)To see what a “Bolivarian Revolution” looked like up close and personal.

My conclusions:

1)Chavez, who’s mestizo, literally looks like so many historically disenfranchised Venezuelans. He induces a visceral, father-figure empathy. And his anti-imperialist, re-distributionist populism plays to their plights and hopes.

Key projects dealing with access to health care and education, for example, seem quite welcome, however imperfectly implemented.

In the highly divisive political climate that is Venezuela, Chavez plays the polarizing role of “Kingfish” with oil. Petro to many Venezuelans; snake to others.

2)Venezuela, as I had noted, looks like it’s in the midst of a hybrid upheaval, rather than a zero-sum revolution that was the Fidel Castro Cuban model. It has too many entrenched interests, including self-perpetuating bureaucracies and bourgeoisie consumer tastes, to do a dialectical 180 – no matter how embedded the historic inequities or how horrific the slums surrounding Caracas.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want Hugo Chavez for my president. But if his socialista siren song plays well with a majority of Venezuelans, then it’s their sovereign call to elect or recall him. They have done the former and tried the latter.

Even a high U.S. Embassy official, who didn’t want to be quoted by name and obviously finds a lot not to like about the Chavez government, made a relevant concession. Chavez, he said, was “clearly not a dictator. I probably would have voted for him myself at first.”

And one other point — actually unsolicited advice — about Venezuelan and Cuban activists demonstrating together in Tampa as protestors-in-arms. Strategically, this is not a good idea for Venezuelans. The Cuban-exile cause still entails an unyielding approach on normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Indeed, it is specifically associated with a hard-line stand on the counterproductive economic embargo, which is hardly in the best interests of the U.S.

For Venezuelans trying to make the case for increased U.S. leverage against Chavez, this is not the geopolitical company you want to keep, however understandable the animus is towards the Chavez and Castro governments.

Obama-Clinton Not The Ticket

Amazingly enough, media speculation remains rife about “dream team” scenarios that could yield a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket.

As has been well documented – and orchestrated – Obama’s allure, aside from being intelligent and articulate, is his avatar-of-hope and change-agent appeal at a time of consummate cynicism.

If he were to put Clinton on the ticket, he morphs into yet another hypocritically pragmatic politician. Actually, he’d be worse, because of the level of inspiration and aspiration he’s induced. Clinton, the princess of pander and blatant political calculation, is also the personification of Washington-insider entitlement.

Obama can’t load all that baggage on the ticket – including assistant vice president Bill Clinton — and retain any prospect of appealing to the electorate’s desire for change, let alone long dormant idealism. Plus, he’s outnumbered in a key inner circle.

Moreover, would Obama really want somebody who would be to the vice presidency what Vladimir Putin is to the prime ministry of Russia? Or who, in her heart of hearts, prefers that he actually lose in November — thus validating all those self-fulfilling jeremiads about him not being the best candidate to defeat John McCain? And thus ushering in her de facto 2012 presidential run?

Recall why few observers really thought John Kennedy was rooting for Adlai Stevenson in 1956.

Local insider Frank Sanchez of Tampa, who heads Obama’s national Hispanic fund-raising campaign, is among those dismissing the notion of a spot for Clinton on an Obama ticket. Sanchez likes Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. His dark horse veep candidate: former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham.

Offensive Announcer At FSU?

When Florida State University recently fired its popular (football) radio color analyst Peter Tom Willis, the reason was no secret. Willis, a member of the FSU Sports Hall of Fame, had become too critical of the ‘Noles, who have fallen from their seemingly permanent perch among the country’s elite programs. Willis cited some coaching inadequacies, notably those of offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden, Bobby Bowden’s son.

The ouster of Willis sparked a debate sometimes phrased as “Should Announcers Be Biased?” What it should have prompted was a realistic acknowledgement of what a home-team announcer’s role is.

It’s several-fold.

*To objectively analyze what happened and why it happened.

*To subjectively play the fan surrogate and root for the good guys.

*To identify with the team without devolving into the tacky, third person plural “we.” Sorry, Gene Deckerhoff, (FSU and the Bucs) and “legendary” Larry Munson (Georgia). But it’s bush league. And a more fire-able offense, frankly, than characterizing – as Willis did – Jeff Bowden’s unimaginative and predictable offense as “a high school offense” – although Plant High should have been insulted.

The Reverend Wrong

Finally, an ironic — but likely not final — note on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. For one who deigns to speak – or shriek – for the older black generation, Wright grew up in a decidedly non-Jim Crow environment.

The Philadelphia native was raised in Germantown, the same section as Bill Cosby — only Cosby’s neighborhood wasn’t as nice. But they were both variations on what was then a middle class theme in that part of northwest Philly. Wright’s father was a pastor, his mother a high school vice principal.

Students could attend either the multi-racial Germantown High School or – if they preferred and qualified – the city’s pre-eminent public school, Central High. It was mostly white, skewed Jewish and pure meritocracy. Racial friction was unheard of. Jerry Wright graduated from Central in 1959.

And the rest is revisionist history.

Intriguing Potential For Odd-Shaped Riverwalk Parcel

Now that the Platt Street Bridge segment of the Tampa Riverwalk is open, pedestrians can amble 6/10 of a mile to Cotanchobee Park — and take in those postcard vistas. And maybe stop and sip a few along the way.

The starting point is actually USF Park. But before proceeding under the bridge and past the Convention Center and the Marriott Waterside, notice what’s wedged between the park and Platt. It’s 239 South Ashley Boulevard, a weedy, triangular-shaped parcel. It’s nondescript; it’s tiny; it’s intriguing. It’s in a very high-profile location across from the Tampa Convention Center.

To Lee Hoffman, the Riverwalk’s Development Manager, it could be a “prime” staging area for vendors – as downtown’s critical mass grows and the Riverwalk becomes its own destination.

“It’s fairly small (about 1,750 square feet) and very limited,” says Hoffman. “I think we have to be creative, and we have to maximize every opportunity. It could also be a kayak rental and storage area – or even bike rentals. “The key is that it can be something that can help activate the Riverwalk,” emphasizes Hoffman. “A way that keeps people coming back.”

But if you’re Donald L. Torina, the owner of that (CBD-2) parcel, and your asking price is $800,000 — or more than $450 per square foot — you’re thinking of scenarios more ambitious than that. (He’ll also consider a long-term lease at $4,000 a month.)

Broker/owner Torina, 72, has held 239 South Ashley for 25 years. He says he’s already turned down an offer of $200 a square foot from the city. He thinks the right entrepreneur will see what he foresees: a “restaurant, café/lounge, package store/lounge, high end retail or residential flat,” according to his real estate flier. In fact, Torina once thought of putting in a restaurant himself, one designed around the bow of a ship.

“This is the apex of the Riverwalk,” points out Torina. “It’s the prime spot with hotels nearby and (convention center garage) 800 parking spots across the street. And you can (with limited air rights) go up three or four stories. I’d like to see something special. I can see a classy restaurant with a lounge on top – with a canopy.”

While Torina acknowledges that the parcel is pricey, he says he has “no problem” waiting for the entire 2.2-mile Riverwalk — from Tampa Heights to the Channel District — to be completed in 2010. “I want somebody with the wherewithal to do it right,” he underscores.

“The Riverwalk will absolutely make downtown Tampa,” he asserts. “The mayor has the right idea. It will tie everything together.”

Including, presumably, a certain odd-shaped, undersized sliver of real estate.

Dundee Sighting In Ybor

You never know who you might run into at the Italian Club in Ybor City. The characters are likely to be as colorful as Tampa’s Italian heritage would suggest. On a recent Friday night, it was an adopted son of Ybor, Angelo Dundee, who was holding court.

Dundee, 86, and still quick with the salty quip, is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. The native Philadelphian is best known as Muhammad Ali’s trainer – but he also trained Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman and scores more. He even worked with actors Will Smith (“Ali”) and Russell Crowe (“Cinderella Man”).

Now an Oldsmar resident, Dundee was posing for photos, critiquing videos of Ali, spinning fistic yarns, and signing copies of his book (in collaboration with fight historian Bert Sugar): “My View From The Corner.”

Some outtakes:

* Early Ali: “He was an introvert.”

* “What did I teach (the physically gifted) Ali? How to move in the ring. But I made him think it was his idea.”

* “You know all that poetry that Ali was famous for? It was mostly mine. And it stunk.”

* “What would surprise people about Ali? How tough he really was.”

* “What did he lose after being out (Vietnam draft) of boxing in his prime? He lost his edge. He never regained it.”

* “The Muslims didn’t really affect me. I did my job. I don’t get involved with things like a person’s religion.”

* “Greatest boxer ever? Willie Pepp. Greatest impact on the sport: Ali.”

One other item. Word is that Dundee will be making one more prominent appearance in the ring as a trainer. It will be an upcoming, high-profile Las Vegas fight.

The Obama Veepstakes

Speculation will now accelerate about who might make the best Barack Obama running mate. Insiders don’t put much credence into a shotgun marriage, “dream team” ticket of Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Here’s how one Obama insider, national Hispanic fundraiser Frank Sanchez of Tampa, is handicapping it. He touts Ed Rendell, the Clinton-supporting governor of Pennsylvania, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn as strong contenders. His dark horse: former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham.