“Lively, Colorful” Trop

The Rays scored another Fox Sports Saturday TV game recently against the Minnesota Twins. Because it was a regional telecast, Fox used Rays’ regular play-by-play announcer Dewayne Staats to complement analyst Eric Karros. The chemistry worked well – and even included some warm fuzzies for the oft-maligned Trop from Karros.

 

According to Karros, the Trop seemed “lively” and “more colorful” than some of the other domes – including the dour one that the Twins will move out of after this season. What helped, of course, is that more than 36,000 fans were there as the Rays kicked off the start of their summer (Saturday) concert series. Thus the Trop looked – and sounded – “lively” for the regional telecast. Normally, the Twins are not a particularly good draw.

 

And speaking of the Rays, nice to see that third baseman Evan Longoria is a lock to be voted in as an American League starter in next month’s All-Star Game. Disappointing, however, to see that Jason Bartlett, the leading hitter in Major League Baseball and the defensive backbone of the Rays, is running such a distant second among shortstops.

 

It’s a reminder that fan voting is a major MLB marketing tactic that inherently favors big-name players in big markets (read: Derek Jeter). It’s not meant to be the fairest system, but sometimes it’s downright unfair. This looks like one of those. Bartlett is that good: at the plate (where he also hits for power and drives in runs), in the field, and — often overlooked — on the bases.

Summer Theatre

For those who have never sampled the Tampa Theatre’s Summer Classic Movie Series: Try it some weekend this summer. I just sampled 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and was reminded all over again what it’s like to be transported.

 

It was much more than Newman and Redford together again on the big screen. It’s that architecturally eclectic, non-multi-plex, Roaring 20s movie palace – the one with a balcony and no video games in its lobby. It’s the Wurlitzer prelude. It’s the collective experience that only an appreciative crowd can provide. Tampa Theatre, we are gratefully reminded, is no museum piece.

 

And you always run into people you know. They invariably are the people you enjoy running into since you have classic movies and iconic theaters in common.

 

This summer’s features include “Casablanca” (June 27-28), “Citizen Kane” (July 26), “Gone With The Wind” (Aug. 15-16) and “The Wizard of Oz” (Aug. 22-23). And while it’s not typically referenced in the context of movie immortality, there’s also the 3-D classic, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” (Aug. 2). It’s a campy hoot – and played to a packed house a couple of years ago.

 

Each movie starts at 3 p.m. Tickets are $8.

Dungy, FCAT And Pies

*We all know – at least we all say – that everybody deserves a second chance. Having said that, I had a hard time reconciling Tony Dungy and Michael Vick together. Recall that nobody ever said Vick, who once signed a contract for $130 million, was an otherwise pleasant fellow who just made one, uh, mistake. I think it’s only healthy skepticism to consider that Dungy is being cynically used in Vick’s comprehensive public-relations strategy.

 

*Anybody else do a double take when looking at those recent FCAT statistics? I was hoping for a typo, but sure enough 38 per cent of Hillsborough County 10th graders passed FCAT reading. And it’s not as if it’s hard. Worse yet, the trend is down; it was 41 per cent last year.

 

*I know some folks will disagree with this, but I still cringe when I see Hillsborough County teachers and administrators taking a pie in the face as their part in some educational quid pro quo with students. A point, and it is a valid one, is to not take your adult self too seriously. Motivation and fun should be part of the pedagogic process. But another point is to take yourself seriously enough so that others will too. Especially when, as a society, we keep trying – too often ineffectually – to bolster the status of the teaching profession.

Rap’s Sad Trap: “Street Cred”

So, Atlanta rapper T.I., who was born with the much more prosaic handle of Clifford Harris Jr., is off on his latest marketing tour. Perhaps you missed it.

 

Well, this one is for more “street cred,” as they say in concentric rap circles. This one is to the federal prison in Arkansas to serve a year and change on a weapons conviction.

 

Apparently the slammer is where rappers go to get their aforementioned “street cred.” And for the record, Talent Imposter – or whatever the hell T.I. stands for – was arrested for trying to buy, among other less-than-standard household items, machine guns and silencers. Indeed, who could be remotely credible without at least packing some semi-automatic heat?

 

Apparently Threatening Intimidation’s rap lyrics, as odious as they are, were not, in and of themselves, a sufficient guarantee of  “street cred.” He still lacked authentic thug bona fides; he still needed, well, a rap sheet. And the only way to earn one was via a complementary stretch in stir.

 

And courtesy of Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, here’s a sampling of some vilely vintage Trash Infusion lyrics:

 

“We know where yo’ family live/ Trust me you don’t want me up

in yo’ crib/ Wit a ski mask on duct taping your kids/ You can pray

all you want/ But I don’t forgive.”

 

This is a prime example of why so much rap has been labeled – ok, by me – “the anthem of a dysfunctional culture.” It is Barack Obama’s and Bill Cosby’s ultimate bete noire and a cultural and security nightmare to all those who think misogynistic, homicidal nihilism is more than another show-biz niche.

 

But this is what’s out there – under the guise of “keeping it real.”  And this one example, however realistically despicable its theme, is relatively sanitized. This is, after all, a respectable newspaper.

 

At the risk of outing myself as the quintessential philistine but with new-found appreciation for Jackson Pollock’s drippy canvases, I say, yet again, this is not art nor its practitioners artists. Moreover, Truculence Incarnate and other “rap artists” are merely oxymoronic examples of what you can do with a rhyming dictionary, an anarchistic attitude, no meaningful job skills and a gullible marketplace not yet sated by cultural chaff passing for societal wheat.

 

This couldn’t have been what Adam Smith had in mind. But it will take a less enabling, more discerning, less politically correct market – along with the propriety pulpit of the first African-American president – to excise this cultural cancer.  

 

 

 

Rays’ Ultimate Call

While most interest in the Tampa Bay Rays focuses on their slow start and burgeoning injured reserve list, another concern has more long-term implications. At some point, the Rays will have to have a new home. Preferably with a roof, ideally a retractable one.

 

The cat-walk house that is Tropicana Field is still among the worst in baseball. It can’t be perfumed any more. And a downtown St. Petersburg location — where the nearest market to the west is Corpus Christi — is obviously ill-suited demographically and geographically.

 

Ideally, the Rays would homestead in Tampa, the hub of this 3-million population market, but that — given the Rays’ lease obligations — is not likely to happen. One of those alternative sites in north St. Pete – near Tampa Bay – would be most practicable. Notably Carillon Town Center across from Feather Sound. But, yes, there are significant costs – as well as relocation reluctance among St. Pete officials – that are formidable impediments to all Trop alternatives.

 

But the bottom line remains this: The Rays will always be swimming upstream to compete against Boston and New York. For the long-term viability of a relatively small-market franchise in a non-traditional, asymmetrical marketplace, the Rays have to move closer to the population core.

 

Not surprisingly, that rationale doesn’t sit well with St. Pete Mayor Rick Baker, most of those vying to succeed him or David Goodwin, the city’s economic development director. But the relevant reality is this: the Rays, who are now officially skeptical about building a new stadium anywhere in downtown St. Pete, will ultimately do what is in their best interest. What’s best for downtown St. Petersburg is a subplot.

Justice Sotomayor

Amid all the partisan sound bites about President Barack Obama’s nomination of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court, this much seems certain.

 

*She is eminently qualified and has a compelling life story.

*She is left of center but hardly far left of center.

*She has a couple of quotes she would dearly love to have back, but in context, she’s

  nobody’s quota queen or token ethnic.

*It will be awkward — at best — when the Supreme Court hears the high-profile, New

  Haven firefighters’ (Ricci vs. DeStefano) reverse-discrimination case and likely

  overturns a ruling she supported on the 2nd Circuit.

*The Republicans won’t filibuster her nomination. But they’ll go after her “Latina

  woman” empathy and probably go overboard until a Judiciary Committee Democrat

  reins them in with a reminder about Justice Samuel Alito’s testimony that referenced

  his unique Italian roots. To wit: “When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think

  about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic

  background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that in account.”

*The Republicans will go hard at her decision on Ricci — and rightfully so. It wasn’t her

  finest hour.

*But this isn’t a (Robert) Bork or even an Obama (who, as a senator, voted against both

  John Roberts and Alito) pay-back. Certainly not for a party that can ill afford to

  marginalize itself further in the eyes of Hispanic voters.

*And then Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed as an Associate Justice of the U.S.

  Supreme Court.

Texting Drivers Deserve Media Attention

Count me among those who think that accident the other day involving the texting teen who rear-ended the police car at a red light was, indeed, a pretty big deal. Notwithstanding the comments of the teen’s mom who didn’t appreciate the notoriety resulting from widespread news coverage.

 

The local print and electronic media, never known for nuancing the news, were correct to play it up the way they did. That’s because this is an alarming public safety issue – one that the duty-derelict Florida Legislature failed to address in its recent session.  

 

There’s a reason why a dozen states and the District of Columbia have flat-out banned text messaging while driving. It’s because drivers, passengers, other drivers and pedestrians are all at risk when a distracted driver — and the statistics skew disturbingly young on this — is under the influence of cell-phone texting.

 

Until there’s an enforced law prohibiting it, expect the rate of accidents, injuries and deaths due to mindless text messaging to continue to ratchet up. In the mean time, it falls to the high-profile vehicles that are the media to remind the public — and parents of teens — of this public safety menace.

 

Oh, and that texting teen should have been at her school, Freedom High, when she plowed into that police car.

NIMBY Politicians

The biggest impediment to moving any Guantanamo detainees to American soil has little to do with the law or the Geneva Conventions or, candidly, national security. It has, instead, everything to do with familiar, mundane (Not In My Back Yard) NIMBY scenarios and old-fashioned, disingenuous politics.  

 

Consider the comments of these three, Exhibit A pandering Congressional pols: Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

·         “Well, I don’t think you can convince the American people that you can bring the people from Gitmo to their states, and they will be safe,” declaimed Shelby.

·         “I don’t know why it is better to have somebody in a so-called ‘supermax’ facility in, say, Colorado than it is to keep them in Guantanamo,” opined Kyl.

·         “I think they need to be kept elsewhere, wherever that is,” prattled  Nelson.

 

Ironically, one of the upsides of leading the world in incarcerations is that along the way, we’ve learned how to build a pretty good “supermax.”  That’s where the terrorist likes of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Zacharias Moussaoui are: the Colorado “supermax” lockdown. They’re not going anywhere but to an occasional shower stall. Charlie Manson has a better chance of tying some sheets together and slipping back into the populace than “supermaxed” terrorists have of escaping.

 

Not only is the “supermax” super safe, it is the anti-Gitmo, which is critically important. In other words, it won’t be an ongoing source of jihadi pep rallies and a geopolitical nightmare for the U.S. And it won’t be a reminder to the rest of the world that America still occupies a sliver of the sovereign island of Cuba, which can’t be helpful.

 

The three NIMBY senators know it, but would rather pander to their constituents’ unfounded fears. And let’s not forget who set the alarmist predicate on this one: former Vice President Dick Cheney. “To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come,” apocalyptically warned the erstwhile Darth Veeper.

Polling For Frontrunners

Thanks to some recent polls, we now know that Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has a gubernatorial lead on Democrat Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and that Gov. Charlie Crist is comfortably ahead of Marco Rubio in the Republican U.S. Senate primary. The elections, lest we forget, are in November 2010.

 

What the polls have revealed is that those candidates with the most name recognition are ahead. In the case of Sink, it’s likely that there are voters, including females, who don’t even know that “Alex” is derived from Adelaide. That’s why we have campaigns, which are won’t commence for a while.

 

In the case of Crist, a career politician best known for being ideologically safe and personally pleasant, he also has the GOP establishment behind him. Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker, is attractive to the increasingly marginalized base of the incredibly shrinking Republican Party.

 

This far out, the polls could only confirm that candidates whom voters are most familiar with would be in the lead. But we already knew that.