For what it’s worth, the reporter-panelists on ESPN’s “Around The Horn” don’t see the Rays fading from the pennant chase.
When asked (July 31) whether they would “buy” or “sell” the prospect of the Rays actually winning the American League East, two (Tim Cowlishaw and J.A. Adande) “bought” and the other two (Woody Paige and Jay Mariotti) “sold” — with qualifications. The qualifiers: Both could see them making it to the post-season by winning the AL wild card.
Now we’ve added “Flugtag” to the Tampa lexicon for that which is festive and funky and fun. Move over Gasparilla and Guavaween.
Actually, the Red Bull Flugtag, a celebration of home-made “flying” machines that drew some 100,000 spectators and three dozen participating teams to downtown recently, could carve out its own unique niche.
Frankly, you can make the case that Gasparilla is increasingly compromised by besotted teens and assorted agitators raining on the parade route, and that Guavaween has morphed from bawdy wit and the creative class to crude clichés and perimeter punks.
If Flugtag returns, and the city certainly hopes so, may it remain what it was two Saturdays ago. A salute to teamwork, youthful exuberance, the creative use of PVC pipe and duct tape, and unadulterated fun. There was no need for a Safe House. Only five misdemeanor arrests.
“For us, it was uneventful,” said Tampa Police Department spokesperson Andrea Davis. “We like uneventful.”
According to Tampa Convention Center Administrator John Moors, the city would love a Flugtag II, but that’s up to Red Bull. “I don’t think they plan a long way in advance,” said Moors. “A year or so – and a fairly limited (Tampa, Chicago, Portland, Ore., in 2008) schedule. “But they definitely had a positive experience here in Tampa,” added Moors. “That record crowd. Who could ask for anything better than that? And it was a whole lot of fun.”
And while nobody outdid Icarus, Flugtag, which began in Vienna, Austria, in 1991, did ascend to new heights on the hilarity scale. The themed entries ranged from Baywatch, Gilligan’s Island, the Red Baron and the Flintstones to a flying roller skate, UT Minaret, fire engine, rubber duckie and a Cuban sandwich. Even Elvis dropped in. Locals, especially students, were well represented — as were out-of-towners from as far as Texas and Massachusetts.
Not to put too serious a point to it, but the timing was more than fortuitous. Given all the usual reasons to be gloomy or cynical, could there have been a better time for laugh therapy? The themed flying machines, the whimsical choreography, the aerial high jinks, the comic splashdowns. It was fun, and it was funny. Thanks.
Too often, in the era of an individually-wired citizenry, the virtual experience and on-line everything, there are decreasing opportunities to literally come together as a community. And as opposed to a game or a concert, this one was free.
It also fostered teamwork – whether among aeronautical engineering students, former lifeguards, firefighters or the generically goofy. Just a guess, but I’d wager that when (not if) Flugtag, The Sequel occurs, competition will feature a number of corporate entrants – the slapstick, team-building counterpart of those who compete in the International Dragon Boat races that have proven so popular.
Flugtag also underscored downtown Tampa as the place to revel with a cause. Where traffic and humidity – if not gravity – can be defied for a good time.
The good news is that a few weeks ago Tampa was cited as the only Florida city to win a 2008 Outstanding Achievement City Livability Award by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Tampa’s prominent recognition was in the large cities, quality-of-life category — along with Chicago, Honolulu and Seattle.
Among other things, such publicity is an obvious recruiting tool.
The bad news is that first place went to Louisville. The same city that’s trying to eat our lunch by enticing Tampa’s young professionals to “Move to Possibility City.”
Look closely and you’ll notice it’s not just the Tampa Bay History Center that is under construction near Garrison Channel. Work is also under way on the Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park Project sandwiched between the history center and the existing Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park.
The focal point will be Heroes Plaza, which will commemorate those who sacrificed their lives in war. In addition, there will be memorials to law enforcement and emergency response personnel who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Project work will also include shoreline restoration and construction of a segment of the Tampa Riverwalk.
Projected completion date is early 2009 – but after the Super Bowl.
It’s a small step, but maybe the new law imposing restrictions on how schools prepare students for the FCAT will prompt a pendulum swing back to pedagogical reason.
If anything, the FCAT has proved that bad things can be done in the good name of accountability, a concept nobody is against. But teaching to a test, pep rallying for a test, attaching inordinate significance to a test and tying school funding to a test should be indefensible.
The new law won’t eliminate all FCAT prepping, but it should curtail the most blatant abuses of practice sessions superceding regular curricular course work. Moreover, high schools’ grades will now reflect other factors, such as graduation rates, in addition to FCAT scores.
It’s a start.
Much has been written about the class, style, professionalism and good humor of the late Tony Snow. Had Snow, 53 when he died, not been preceded in passing by the lionized Tim Russert, the outpourings of homage would have been more voluminous.
During his 1½ years as White House press secretary, Snow remained well respected and well liked, no minor accomplishments for anyone acting as the Bush Administration’s point man to the gotcha-obsessed, Beltway media.
Further context for Snow’s value is the juxtaposition with his predecessor and successor. He was preceded by ineffective-flack-turned-disillusioned-opportunist-memoirist Scott McClellan. He was succeeded by the lightweight Dana Perino, who has yet to recover from confusing the Cuban Missile Crisis with the Bay of Pigs.
It’s rare that a press secretary can so tangibly upgrade those around him. That speaks volumes for Snow – and the Administration he represented.
My bad.
I went and read beyond Wayne Garcia and Lance Goldenberg again in Creative Loafing . But the Wade Tatangelo piece on the “Flugtag follies” caught my eye. I then quickly recalled why it is that these eyes typically avert this journalistic sputum. Sure enough, he had once again managed to work “shit” and “fucking” into a lead – because he can.
Generally, I’m a fan of that which is fun and funny and funky. Flugtag seems to embody that. And if it brings 100,000 downtown for unadulterated silliness, a sense of live community in a wired world, some whimsical teamwork and a dose of laugh therapy to offset the usual gloom and cynicism, then I say: Why not? I also say: Thanks.
Hell, I remember when Guavaween used to do that – before it morphed from bawdy wit and the creative class to crude clichés and perimeter punks.
Too bad Tatangelo didn’t get it. Flugtag was a paean to goofiness, a light-hearted bender. Too bad he can’t be confined to covering biker bars and garage bands. Here’s a guy who, while witnessing Flugtag with his bud lights, found himself “cooking, cringing and losing faith in humanity.” Never know, presumably, when or where an existential meltdown will occur.
And this is the same journalistic poseur, mind you, who reveled in his proletariat pissing among the privileged property owners along the Gasparilla parade route earlier in the year. Talk about “lame shit.”
And, yeah, I’m the same guy who wrote about the “rites of pissage.”
I’ll stay in touch.
*Nice touch for the Tampa Bay Lightning to stage a town hall meeting for the general public and to include season ticket holders at the press conference for the Vinny Lecavalier contract extension. Even if some media regulars couldn’t find seats.
As one fan at the over-flowing, 3:30 press conference noted, “I think there were a lot of season-ticket holders with last-minute doctor’s appointments.”
*Lecavalier was probably the Bay Area’s most popular bachelor even before inking that 11-year, $85-million contract. Another update: His personal entourage included his parents and his actress-girlfriend — but not fiancée — Caroline Portelance.
*Under the new ownership team of Oren Koules and Len Barrie, the Lightning have certainly been as “shockingly aggressive” in the marketplace as promised. And such aggression means millions of dollars for free agents, number-one draft pick Steve Stamkos and Lightning avatar Lecavalier.
A lot of folks, including some in the organization, are still incredulous about the spending spree. Mind you, this is the NHL, which doesn’t have a big-time TV contract to keep its franchises out of the red. This isn’t the quasi-socialist NFL, where even teams that put out a poor product make a handsome profit. And this is a franchise that the former owners, Palace Sports and Entertainment, said couldn’t make money unless it went deep into the playoffs. And even then, the payoff was no windfall.
So, what’s the financial context for owners who, with financing, shelled out $200 million for a team, the St. Pete Times Forum lease and 5.5 acres of adjacent real estate?
“We will mitigate losses and run it as a business,” said owner Oren Koules, which is relevant only if the previous owners didn’t do that very well. He wouldn’t go there.
But Koules, an informal, accessibly friendly sort who looks a lot younger than his 47 years, did indicate the bigger picture: “Asset appreciation,” he intoned.
Which sounds like a long-term commitment to this market, something he underscored when the Lightning sale was finalized earlier this summer. Another indication: Koules is still seriously house-hunting and ready to trade in his hotel reservations.
Here’s hoping the pre-All Star swoon by the Rays is nothing more than an ebb in a half-season that overflowed with wins. Here’s hoping that what happened last year to the USF Bulls’ football team doesn’t also afflict the Rays.
Recall how the Bulls went from undefeated and second in the nation to multi-defeated and a one-sided loser in the Sun Bowl. A key reason: When the pressure was off and little was expected nationally, the team found it easier to play with abandon and win as underdogs. When expectations were rapidly ratcheted up and the media glare intensified, the Bulls didn’t exactly play with grace under pressure.
For what it’s worth, Las Vegas odds-makers haven’t jumped ship on the Rays. Current odds on the Rays winning the World Series are 8-1 — behind only Boston (3-1), the Chicago Cubs (4-1) and the Los Angeles Angels (6-1). The Rays opened the season at 200-1.
For the record, the Rays are 6-6 against the Red Sox, 3-0 against the Cubs and 4-2 against the Angels.
At least one prominent, Florida GOP insider thinks that if Gov. Charlie Crist were on the John McCain ticket (instead of, say, Mitt Romney), it would actually backfire here in the Sunshine State.
The sense that Crist hasn’t meaningfully dealt with the state’s major issues, property taxes and insurance, and the understandable perception that he has spent an inordinate amount of time courting the veep slot, will boomerang on the Republicans, he says.
In short, having a blatant opportunist on the ticket, bipartisan, nice-guy persona notwithstanding, helps no one — but Barack Obama.