CONTRIBUTORS Julie Bucker Armstrong, Josh Bradley, Alisha Durosier, Thomas Hallock
PHOTOGRAPHERS Dave Decker
POLITICAL CARTOONIST Bob Whitmore
SUMMER INTERNS Marleigh Brown, Jani Burden (apply for fall by emailing clips and a resume to rroa@cltampa.com)
Creative Services
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jack Spatafora
ILLUSTRATORS Dan Perkins, Cory Robinson
Advertising
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Anthony Carbone
Events and Marketing
MARKETING, PROMOTIONS AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Leigh Wilson
MARKETING, PROMOTIONS AND EVENTS COORDINATOR Kristin Bowman
Circulation
CIRCULATION MANAGER Ted Modesta
Chava Communications Group
FOUNDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Michael Wagner
CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Cassandra Yardeni Wagner
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Graham Jarrett VP OF OPERATIONS Hollie Mahadeo
DIRECTOR OF AGENCY SERVICES
Kelsey Molina
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Meradith Garcia
ART DIRECTOR David Loyola
DIGITAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Jaime Monzon chavagroup.com cltampabay.com cldeals.com
EDITORIAL POLICY — Creative Loafing Tampa Bay is a publication covering public issues, the arts and entertainment. In our pages appear views from across the political and social spectrum. They do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher.
Creative Loafing Tampa is published by Tampa Events & Media, LLC, 633 N Franklin St., Suite 735. Tampa, Florida, 33602.
The physical edition is available free of charge at locations throughout Tampa Bay and online at cltampabay.com. Copyright 2023, Tampa Events and Media, LLC.
The newspaper is produced and printed on Indigenous land belonging to Tampa Bay’s Tocobaga and Seminole tribes.
COVER: Photo by Dave Decker. Design by David G. Loyola.
Get unlimited access to over 100 unique local and international beers, canned cocktails, spirits, readyto-drink options, non-alcoholic beverages, and more. Plus check out our draft selection, golf simulator, games station, and tons of photo ops with Thunderbug and the Lightning Zamboni!
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GA Tastings
81 Bay
Coffee Porter
Reel Slo Irish Red
Sun Viking
Ace Cider
Imp Peach
Joker
Perry
Pineapple Cider
Angry Chair
Full Circle
Melon Baller
Short Story
Spacegrass
Best Day
Hzyipa NA
Kolsch NA
Lmcerv NA
Pilsnr NA
Blake’s Hard Cider
American Apple
Blue Raspberry
Triple Jam
Bravazzi
Coastal Variety Pack
Brew Dog
Cold Beer
Hazy Jane
IPA
Channelside
Cream Ale
IPA
Pilsner
Cigar City
Jai Alai
Coppertail
Free Dive
Night Swim
Unholy Trip
Elysian
Juice Dust
Night Owl Nr
Estrella Galicia
1906 Reserva
Estrella 0.0
Estrella Galicia
Gluten Reduced
Fallen Fruit
Hard Cider
Florida Ave
Boy Blue
Dead Parrot
Lumi
Supermarzen
Founders
All Day VP
Mortal Bloom VP
Funky Buddha
Cosmic Jrny
Floridian
Hop Gun
Void Shaker
Golden Road
Gr Guava Cart
Mango Cart
Green Bench
Gb Festbier
Postcard
Skyway Hazy
Sunshine Ct
Hidden Springs
Bear Lasers
Orange Crush
Riot Juice
Shell Yeah
Kinnitty Castle
10 Year
Dapper Blend
Kona
Big Wave
Wave Rider
Left Hand
Meyer Lemon Shandy
Nitro Milk Stout
PB Milk Stout
Lost Coast
Chocolate PB Milk Stout
Hazy IPA
Tangerine Wheat
Marker 48
Hazy River
Markr Blue
Red Right
Motorworks
Longboat Lt
Mangohabnro
Pulp Frict
V-Twin
Ology
Italian Pilz
Rainbow Gls
Sensory Ovr
Spa Goggles
Original Sin
Black Widow
Pineapple
Red Widow
Seadog
Seasdog Blue Paw
Shipyard
Pumpkinhead Nr
Smashed Pumpkinhead
Sixpoint
Crisp
Pursuit
Resin
Southern Tier
Pumking
Warlock
Stiegl
Goldbrau
Grapefruit Radler
Raspberry Radler
Zitrone NA
Sun Lab
Sun Craze
Sun Faze
Sun Haze
Tampa Bay Brewing
Coral Head
Gourd Wild
New School Hazy
Reef Donkey
Thirsty Buffalo
Brahman
Capt Kolsch
Trailmaker
Three Daughters
3D Oktoberfest
Vs Creamscl Vs Rcketpop
Vs Rootbeer
Tilray
Shock Top
420 Pale Ale
Hazy IPA
Strain G13
Depth Perception
High & Hazy
Hopsecutioner
Luau Krunkels
Tivoli
Outlaw Light Lager
Monkey VP
Weihenstephaner
Korbinian
Original
Hefe
Wicked Weed
Blueberry Burst
Pernicious IPA
VIP Tastings
Boon
Oude Gueze
Chimay
Cinq cents
Grand reserve
Premiere
Beer selection subject to change.
Delirium
Tremens
Duchesse
Red
Fruli
Strawberry
Gulden Draak
Red Tripel
Piraat
Belgian Golden Strong
Maine Beer
Lunch
Woods and Waters
Petrus
Aged Pale
Rodenbach
Classic
St Bernardus
Abt 12 Wit
Timmermans
Framboise Hibiscus
Cutwater
Espresso Martini
Long Island
Vodka Mule
EPIC WESTERN
Ew Variety Pk
Surfside
Surfside Lemnd Vp
Surfside Starter Vp
TESSAKE
Tes Pure
Wine Stream
Capri Mimosa
Ws Pinot Grigio
Ws Cabernet
Ws Capri Liq
Ws Capri Lmclo
Ws Capri Eld
Prosecco
Enough already
Photos by Dave Decker
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Temple Terrace last Saturday, bringing to light the starvation of Palestinians who, according to multiple reports, are watching children die due to malnutrition. Activists at 56th Street and Fowler Avenue near University of South Florida banged on empty pots to raise awareness of the deliberate withholding of food and water from people in Gaza. Doctors Without Borders recently reported that a quarter of the young children and pregnant women in its Gaza clinics are malnourished.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started to let some aid trickle into Gaza, Tampa Bay’s Party for Socialism and Liberation chapter led protesters in demanding the U.S. government end its involvement in what they called genocide. See all the photos via cltampa. com/slideshows.—Selene San Felice
Saturday, August 16 · 5 - 8pm 2009 N 22nd Street, Tampa, FL
• VIP $125: Sold Out
do this
Tampa Bay's best things to do from Aug. 1-7
Small wonder
Print always feels good in your hands, but a Bay area ‘zine wants to get into your ear holes, too. Small Talks magazine launched online five-and-a-half years ago as “a music publication by fans for fans.” It survived the pandemic, shining light on artists from, and passing through, the southeast, from DBMK, Charlie, Upsahl, Squid and others. It also covered community events like Gasparilla Music Festival—and now plans to come offline with the release of its first-ever zine. On the cover of Small Talks Issue 001 is Bay area arts collective We’re Sweet Girls, who’ve helped Small Talks curate a full takeover of St. Pete hotspots Bandit Coffee Co. and its Small Bar next door. Founder Emma Hintz told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that there will be about 50 copies of the ‘zine—designed by Josh Reynes and featuring writing from Jennifer Bodine—available at the release party alongside stickers, trading cards and other merch. “I think it’s so important to go hard for your hometown, even when you don’t live there anymore. You know, it’s still your hometown, still where you grew up,” Hintz, who grew up in Shore Acres, but lives in New York City, added. Read more about the ‘zine at cltampa.com/arts.
Small Talks zine release party: Friday, Aug. 1. 7 p.m. No cover. Bandit Coffee Co. & Small Bar, 2662 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. smalltalksmag.com— Ray Roa
Small plates, big taste
Chef Andrew Yeo (pictured) brings his Michelin-starred Cantonese cooking to the Tampa Edi tion’s Arts Club for two “Asian tapas” dinners featuring his most celebrated dishes and new creations. He visits Tampa from his native Singapore after a global culinary career. His resume includes stints as Global Executive Chef for Tao Group Hospitality’s revered Cantonese brands in London—which earned him a Michelin star—Executive Chef at several Ritz-Carlton restaurants, heading up The Miami Beach Edition and starting The Shanghai Edition.
Chef Andrew Yeo Takeover: Next Thursday-Friday, Aug. 7-8. Reservations available. 6 p.m.-10:30 p.m. The Tampa Edition, 500 Channelside Dr., Tampa. editionhotels.com/tampa—Selene San Felice
Public comment
Constituents don’t always agree with what comes out of Tampa City Council members’ mouths—and they might cringe even more when their elected officials grab a mic at this annual event. “I’m not a good singer. I just have a good time,” Councilman Luis Viera (pictured), who represents District 7, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. He and District 2 Councilman Guido Maniscalco started this tradition in 2022, and it has grown to include their fellow council colleagues. “Sometimes we have conflicts,” he added, alluding to disagreements on the dais. “And it’s good to have something like that where we just kick back and have a good time.” District 3 councilwoman Lynn Hurtak told CL that she’s never done karaoke before, but has been practicing. “I’m ready to wipe the floor with my council colleagues. I haven’t told anyone the song(s) I’m working on, so it’ll have to remain a secret until the night of,” she added in a text message.
Great Tampa City Council Karaoke Battle of 2025: Friday, Aug. 1. 6 p.m. No cover. Babe Zaharias Clubhouse 11412 N Forest Hills Dr., Tampa. @luis_for_tampa on Instagram—Marleigh Brown
EMMA HINTZ
LaWhoWho?
There’s a new, furry face at this year’s Tampa Bay Comic Convention. Among the allout cosplayers and celebrity guests like David Harbour, Drake Bell and Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, a new pop culture star has emerged: Labubu. After taking the world’s purses and rotted brains by storm, Labubu could give FunkoPops a run for their toy collector money at this year’s cons. The fluffy gremlins started a decade ago as storybook characters by Kasing Lung, but blew up last year after K-pop star Lisa began posting photos of the plush keychain versions. Comic cons started in the ‘70s as a San Diego comic book celebration, have grown into a celebration of all things nerdy and pop culture. Tampa Bay got its version in 2000, with 550 guests at Tampa’s DoubleTree Hilton Hotel. A quarter-century later, Tampa Bay Convention Center tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that around 45,000 people are expected for this weekend’s con. This year’s lineup also includes Doug Jones, Melissa Joan Hart, Henry Winkler, Joey Fatone, and Zachary Levi. But the real stars of the show are the cosplayers, who have dressed up as everything from Superheroes to characters from their favorite anime shows.
Tampa Bay Comic Convention: Friday-Sunday, Aug. 1-3. $35 & up. Tampa Convention Center, 333 Franklin St., Tampa. Tampabaycomicconvention.com—Marleigh Brown & Selene San Felice
Freak out
Denis Phillips kind of wants to have a drink with you. The iconic weatherman’s Rule #7 “Don’t freak out unless I’m freaking out,” has been around since 2004 when hurricane Charley struck the Bay Area, but it was after Hurricane Irma hit that the dad-shoesporting, suspender-wearing weatherman was honored with his very own beer. He’ll pour the latest edition of Crooked Thumb Brewery’s “Rule #7” beer on Friday during Bolts Brew Fest at Amalie Arena. Read more about the beer via cltampa.com/food and see our interview with Phillips on p. 35.
Bolts Brew Fest: Friday, Aug. 1. 6 p.m. $35 & up. Amalie Arena, 401 Channelside Dr., Tampa. boltsbrewfest.com— Jani Burden
Go
with the flow
Bree Wallace’s bloody good gift to Tampa Bay turns two this summer–and celebrates with a flow-friendly bash in Seminole Heights. Since its founding in 2023, Tampa Bay Period Pantry has seen Wallace and an army of volunteers install and stock period pantry boxes on both sides of the bay. These are like Little Free Libraries, but for menstrual and hygiene supplies. Think tampons, pads, menstrual cups, wipes and other materials like toothbrushes and heating patches. Donations are encouraged but not required for entry; RSVP is though. Aside from money, attendees can donate tampons, pads and other Period Pantry supplies. Read more on p. 17.
Tampa Period Pantry Party: Saturday, Aug. 2. 12-3 p.m. Corner Club, 1502 E Sligh Ave, Tampa. tampaperiodpantry.org—Marleigh Brown
“You can just go up, grab what you need, and go.”
POLITICS ISSUES OPINION
Bloody good
Tampa Bay’s Period Pantry is turning two and throwing a party to celebrate.
By Marleigh Brown
Bree Wallace’s bloody good gift to Tampa Bay turns two this summer–and celebrates with a flow-friendly bash in Seminole Heights. Since its founding in 2023, Tampa Bay Period Pantry has seen Wallace and an army of volunteers install and stock period pantry boxes on both sides of the bay. These are like Little Free Libraries, but for menstrual and hygiene supplies. Think tampons, pads, menstrual cups, wipes and other materials like toothbrushes and heating patches.
The organization coordinates programs at schools which place period pantry boxes in offices and classrooms. It also educates the public on “period poverty”—when people can’t afford menstrual products—especially for low-income, unhoused individuals.
According to NAU, women will spend up to $18,000 in their lifetime on period products.
The goal in the future is to also be able to have programs within schools to be able to teach students about what periods are and what they do the first time you get it.
“We would obviously love it if younger people came and got to learn more about us and how maybe we can better serve them too,” Wallace told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
They’ll get the chance at Tampa Period Pantry’s second anniversary party happening in August at the Corner Club.
An event page promises games, prizes, a chance to pack kits headed for local pantries, plus arts and crafts. Party organizers are accepting donations and asking attendees to RSVP so they can have enough for everyone.
By the time the party rolls around, Tampa Bay Period Pantry hopes to have 30 locations operating across five counties. The 30
boxes are located on both sides of the bay in places like Body Electric Yoga, Allendale UMC, Skin 360 Beauty and many more (see a full list below).
The volunteer-driven group is also using this opportunity as a fundraiser for anyone willing to donate supplies like those that would be in the Period Pantry Boxes. Supplies like tampons, pads and others will be received with open arms and there’ll be QR code for those who can’t donate period-related products.
Although it is encouraged, donations are not needed to get into the event.
you need, and go,” Wallace told WFTS about the discreet nature of the boxes, which she and 20 volunteers service weekly.
LOCAL NEWS
Tampa Period Pantry second anniversary
Saturday, Aug. 2. Noon-3 p.m. Donations accepted. Corner Club, 1502 E Sligh Ave., Tampa @tampaperiodpantry on Instagram
“And then we want everyone to learn more about periods. So that includes men, teenagers, of all ages. I think it’s good to learn about these things, and even if it doesn’t affect you, to still be there to support it.” Wallace—who also works with Tampa Bay Abortion Fund—told CL.
“You don’t have to talk to anyone about it or ask them for it. You can just go up, grab what
Located in Seminole Heights, the Corner Club Tampa is set in a former dive bar turned into a community hub that is inviting and rooted in local character. While their daytime vibes are cafe and pastries, by night it is a bar and event space. Known for their wine-based concoctions like “Espress yourself” and Strawberry Jalapeño Marg.” It also serves beer, mocktails, kombucha and CBD seltzers.
Anyone who wants to get involved can check Tampa Bay Period Pantry’s Amazon wishlist and GoFundMe campaign. Volunteers can also join in by using this sign-up form. Donations will be accepted at the Tampa Bay Period Pantry’s second anniversary party happening Saturday, Aug. 2 at Tampa’s Corner Club. Look below for a list of every Tampa Bay Period Pantry location so far.
SHELF LIFE: Tampa Bay Period Pantry hopes to have 30 locations by this weekend.
RAY ROA
Laws for thee
Tampa-based J6 prosecutor pushes back after being fired by Pam Bondi.
By Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix
ATampa-based federal prosecutor who handled some of the most prominent cases against Jan. 6, 2021, rioters is suing over his termination by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, and speaking out publicly about what he says is a politically motivated act.
Michael Gordon is one of three Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who filed a lawsuit on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. All three previously worked on the prosecution of January 6th defendants, indicating that their terminations were “retaliations for prosecutions that were perceived as politically affiliated,” according to the lawsuit.
Gordon says he was conducting a virtual witness preparation interview for an upcoming criminal trial on June 27 when an administrative officer asked him to pause the call as he was handed a one-page document signed by Bondi informing him that he was being removed from his position as an Assistant U.S. Attorney “effective immediately,” with no justification given to why he was being fired.
that I should charge this case, but is this going to be something the president wants? Am I going to be fired for this down the line?”
Mike Gordon v. the United States
“I have been a professional fighter on behalf of the government for my whole legal career,” he says. “Now I’m on the other side of it. I’m fighting against the government. I have been standing up in court for eight-and-a-half years and I start by saying, ’Your honor, Mike Gordon for the United States.’ Now my name is on a federal lawsuit, where it’s Mike Gordon v. the United States. Which is a bizarre place to be.”
LOCAL NEWS
Gordon began working in the Middle District of Florida in January of 2017. He worked in the violent crime and narcotics section but volunteered to prosecute January 6 rioters after he watched the attack on the Capitol that day from his home office in Tampa.
The heart of the lawsuit filed by Gordon and his two DOJ colleagues—Patricia Hartman and Joseph Tirrell—is that Bondi disregarded longstanding protections that govern how and when members of the civil service can be terminated.
“The laws on the books are crystal clear about the procedures that have to be followed to fire federal employees who are protected by them,” Gordon said while speaking to this reporter on WMNF 88.5 FM on Friday. “Crystal clear. It’s not a gray area. And here, the DOJ has just completely ignored the law.”
Retribution
The Trump administration hasn’t been subtle about trying to remove anyone in the federal government who has been involved in investigations stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He ended up as a senior trial counsel in the Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, prosecuting some of the more recognizable defendants, such as Richard Barnett, the man who was seen putting his feet up on a desk in the office of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ray Epps, who became a target of conspiracy theorists that he was an undercover agent who helped instigate the uprising.
At the time of his termination, Gordon was counsel of record in 17 cases for the Middle District of Florida, had 20 ongoing investigations, and was slated to have at least six trials between now and September, the legal filing says.
“And here, the DOJ has just completely ignored the law.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump said if elected he would grant clemency to at least some of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which Gordon said he expected would happen if Trump were re-elected.
ABC News reported in late January that the DOJ asked for information about potentially “thousands” of FBI employees across the country who were involved in that investigation, and they have subsequently fired dozens of career prosecutors during the past six months, the Washington Post reported last week.
Gordon says that morale in his office “is in a bad place right now” with DOJ employees around the country asking, “am I next?”
He says they’re asking questions that Americans shouldn’t want federal prosecutors to answer, such as: “The facts and the law say
But Gordon says he was absolutely “shocked” when Trump commuted the sentences of some individuals convicted of events on that day and granted a full and unconditional pardon to more than 1,000 others who were charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“As much as Donald Trump had campaigned on many issues, one of the things that he had done is he had hugged law enforcement,” he says.
“He said that he ‘backed the blue,’ that he was a big supporter of law enforcement. So I never thought that he would pardon people who were either convicted of ,or pled guilty to, assaulting
law enforcement officers. And I thought that not just because it was morally and ethically wrong to do that, but also because I thought that would politically inflame his base.”
He’s never met Bondi Gordon says he’s never met Bondi even though prior to her appointment as AG they both lived in Tampa and have a lot of mutual acquaintances in the legal world.
“This is my speculation, but I suspect she has no idea who I am,” he says. “She might now given the news. I think someone else identified me somehow for political revenge or political retribution, put my name in a letter, put it on her desk, and she probably signed it.”
Gordon says he intends to use the public attention focused on him right now to voice his concerns about what’s happening with the justice system under the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration is walking around the house, dousing it with gasoline and playing with matches in the corner,” he says. “And we all have to stand up and shout from the rooftops before that match gets lit and the house goes up in flames.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
RAY ROA
JUSTICE FOR ALL: Mike Gordon at WMNF in Tampa, Florida on July 25.
Progress report
The future of Tampa’s Racial Reconciliation Committee is in limbo.
By Alisha Durosier
Tampa’s Racial Reconciliation Committee (RRC) was expected to present its findings from the last year of meetings to the city in July, but members say the city hasn’t provided the resources it needs.
The committee gathered on June 17 for what was set to be its final meeting before presenting their recommendations to the city. Discussions of Tampa’s commitment to confront the city’s racial disparities, however, took over the conversation, resulting in the committee’s push for more time.
The 13-member committee was formed in 2024, four years after the City of Tampa passed Resolution 568—a plan aimed at addressing the city’s history of racial inequity. Its work is supposed to help the city go beyond erecting historical markers and Black history celebrations. Over six months of meetings, members discussed ways to tackle affordable housing shortages, expand economic opportunities and support the city’s youth, but say they received little help from city officials along the way.
“We’ve been on a gerbil wheel for the last six and a half months and [haven’t] come up with anything of value that we can even submit to my daughter,” RRC member Daryl Hych said during last month’s meeting.
Yvette Lewis, President of the Hillsborough County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the stall came in when the committee asked for city data and expertise.
LOCAL NEWS
“When they got to the subject of housing and economic development, they [the committee] wanted to know what the city was doing to make sure that they’re not duplicating or had all the information that they needed,” Lewis said. “The city wasn’t open to giving them the information.”
The committee began sounding alarms in early May, when members told Tampa City Council in a joint statement that they were not receiving the resources needed to fulfill the committee’s goal.
“To date, we have asked the mayor’s staff on numerous occasions for a collaborative
spirit that would include data, gaps in the data, subject matter experts, departmental leads, a situational analysis, and a progress report of the Mayor’s agenda on the issues specifically related to this committee…,” committee member Christopher Harris told City Council on May 2. “There has been static on the phone line.”
In a statement, city spokesperson Adam Smith told CL that city officials “have repeatedly said they are happy to answer questions and supply additional information if requested.”
“A few weeks ago, the committee sent the administration a lengthy spreadsheet about city services to fill out and draw conclusions about possible service gaps. Because it seemed more appropriate for the committee, not the administration, to make such conclusions, the administration instead provided the committee with extensive data and information about current city services and programs to make its own conclusions,” the statement read.
“Then on the other side, they said, ‘Y’all don’t speak for the whole community,’” Lewis added. “They said one thing and the next breath, they turned around and said something different.”
The committee planned to formally request an extension at the June 26 City Council meeting, but no such request was made.
Instead, Tampa residents at the meeting highlighted another obstacle the committee is facing: the recent passing of Councilwoman Gwendolyn Henderson. Many Black residents—particularly in District 5, which Henderson represented— say her absence leaves a gap in advocacy for the city’s Black communities.
“We’ve been on a gerbil wheel for the last six-and-a-half months…”
The special election to fill Henderson’s seat is already crowded and includes a dozen candidates.
Smith says the RRC’s presentation is “on standby” until the City Council can request additional resources and time for the committee.
Lewis said city officials were often contradictory in what they told the committee, initially saying that as a city-appointed committee, members were the experts.
The office of Councilman Luis Vierra, who led the effort to establish the committee in 2024, requested the RRC’s facilitator to compile the committee’s feedback from their last meeting into a proposal. Anticipated in the next few weeks, the completed proposal will then be submitted to the City Council for consideration.
LINES: Jarvis El-Amin, a plaintiff in a lawsuit over whether Senate District 16 violates constitutional equal-protection rights.
Lined up
Federal judges to decide if Senate District 16 was racially-gerrymandered.
By Jim Saunders/News Service of Florida
Apanel of federal judges is set to decide whether a Florida Senate district that stretches across Tampa Bay was racially gerrymandered and needs to be revamped.
After a trial last month, attorneys for Senate President Ben Albritton, Secretary of State Cord Byrd and plaintiffs filed detailed arguments Monday about whether Senate District 16 violates constitutional equal-protection rights. The case is one of a series of legal battles stemming from the 2022 redistricting process—including a battle that led last week to the Florida Supreme Court upholding a congressional plan pushed through the Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
stripped from adjacent District 18, diminishing their influence and voice in elections there.”
But attorneys for Albritton, R-Wauchula, disputed the plaintiffs’ arguments, writing that the “evidence at trial established that Senate District 16 was not the product of racial gerrymandering.” They wrote that race was only looked at to ensure compliance with a 2010 state constitutional amendment—known as the Fair Districts Amendment—that said new maps cannot “diminish” the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
ELECTIONS
The plaintiffs in the Senate case, three Black residents of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, contend that District 16—which in recent years has been represented by Black Democrat Darryl Rouson—was racially gerrymandered and, in part, has reduced the influence of Black voters in Pinellas County’s neighboring Senate District 18.
“District 16 stretches across the waters of Tampa Bay to connect disparate and distinct Black communities in Tampa and St. Petersburg, packing more than half of the region’s Black residents into one district,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in their 80-page filing Monday. “As a result, Black residents are artificially
“Plaintiffs have not carried their burden of proving that race predominated in the design of Senate District 16,” Albritton’s attorneys wrote in a 99-page filing. “The evidence demonstrates that the Florida Senate employed race-neutral criteria, including compactness, contiguity, and use of existing political and geographical boundaries, in drawing the district. Racial considerations were not used to determine the configuration of District 16, and were reviewed only after the fact to ensure compliance with the Florida Constitution’s non-diminishment standard.”
It is unclear when the panel, made up of 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andrew Brasher and U.S. District Judges Thomas Barber and Charlene Edwards Honeywell, will issue a
ruling. Unlike typical federal lawsuits, threejudge panels handle such redistricting cases.
If the plaintiffs are ultimately successful, it could lead to redrawing District 16 and other Senate districts. Districts are required to have similar population numbers, so changing the boundaries of one district would ripple into other districts.
A separate federal lawsuit challenging state House districts is pending in Miami.
The Senate case focuses, in part, on the interplay between federal equal-protection rights and the 2010 state constitutional amendment that seeks to prevent diminishing the ability of minorities to elect candidates of their choice.
The plaintiffs contend that the Senate did not adequately look at alternatives that would have met the “non-diminishment” requirement without a district crossing Tampa Bay.
“In sum, the explanations the Senate gave at the time for why it drew District 16 as it did all point to a single reason: race,” the plaintiffs’ filing Monday said. “The Legislature’s stated predominant goal in drawing District 16 was to avoid diminishing Black voters’ ability-toelect. At no point did the Legislature consider options that would have accomplished these anti-diminishment goals while avoiding drawing the district predominantly based on race.”
But the brief filed by Albritton’s attorneys said Pinellas County’s population is too large for one Senate district. After drawing other districts in the Tampa Bay region and in areas north to Citrus County, it said about 100,000 people in southern Pinellas needed to be combined with residents in another county to form a district.
“Contrary to plaintiffs’ assertions, the weight of the evidence does not indicate that the Senate’s decision to split Hillsborough and Pinellas counties reflected racial motivations,” the Senate’s attorneys wrote. “The trial record contains no evidence that racial data was consulted when deciding how to divide these counties.”
Also, attorneys for Albritton and Byrd asserted that the plaintiffs wanted alternative maps that would help Democrats.
“Plaintiffs want to replace what they see as a racial gerrymander of Florida’s Senate District 16 with a better racial gerrymander,” Byrd’s attorneys wrote. “Their proposed alternatives just happen to be partisan gerrymanders, too.”
The Florida Supreme Court decision last week in the congressional case also focused heavily on equal-protection rights and the nondiminishment requirement of the Fair Districts Amendment. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the state’s overhaul of North Florida’s Congressional District 5.
The district in the past stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee and was represented by Black Democrat Al Lawson. In pushing for the overhaul, DeSantis argued that keeping such a district would violate equal-protection rights. In their filing this month, the plaintiffs’ attorneys cited the Florida Supreme Court ruling in trying to bolster their equal-protection case against the Senate district. But attorneys for the Senate tried to draw a distinction between the cases, contending the Senate’s “use of race was limited, non-determinative, and implemented only after District 16 was configured under raceneutral criteria.”
DRAWING
RAY ROA
Getting started
When a government targets an ethnicity and puts people in camps, you should probably step back and think.
By Julie Buckner Armstrong and Thomas Hallock
Funny thing about evil. Although an absolute, evil sneaks up on you. It sidles up to you slowly, slouching, conditioning you to its presence, so before you know you have crossed a line, the damage has been done.
On a break from academic research in Germany, we took a trip to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp outside Berlin. Sachsenhausen was not a death camp, like Auschwitz or Dachau, but a work camp for the first wave of those whom Nazis deemed “enemies of the state.” Like other sites, preserved by the German government as a cautionary lesson for the world, Sachsenhausen encourages visitors to ask: how did this happen? The lesson here is not about the “final solution” but how things start.
and unemployed, drafted into service. The work was steady and the pay, solid. Camp life brought community: game nights, bowling alleys, dancing, extra food and alcohol.
The stories feel both foreign and familiar. One camp leader, Rolf Höß (or Hoess), described his “nice little home on the Sachsenhausen housing estate.” His wife gardened and filled her vases with flowers. “Our life together as a family at Sachsenhausen passed peacefully and uneventfully,” Höß explains, “nothing out of the ordinary happened.”
COLUMN
As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum reminds us, the Nazi party formed in 1920 under a 25-point program that outlined an ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic agenda. Once they seized power, a violent, multi-pronged media campaign against fabricated threats would pave the way for atrocity. Nazis did not set out initially to kill six million Jews. The process built gradually, starting with detention camps.
Sachsenhausen’s precursor, in Oranienburg, was the first, opening on March 21, 1933. Three years later, forced laborers built the new camp, just outside of town. Between 1936 and 1945, roughly 200,000 prisoners lived and died here. Communists, Soviet POWs, Polish educated elites, Czech university students, Catholic priests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, people of Roma and Sinti descent, and increasingly, Jews.
Sachsenhausen today sits oddly adjacent to a peaceful, suburban neighborhood. Steps from modest bungalows, dozing sidewalk cats, and lovingly maintained lawns filled with hydrangea, periwinkle, and soccer goals, tourists enter a walled compound through iron gates that bear the iconic phrase, “Arbeit Macht Frei”—work makes you free.
To monitor prisoners, Nazis laid out the compound as a wedge, with bunkers fanning out from the gate and central guard tower. More towers dot the perimeter: a 12-foot-high, barbed-wiredlined wall.
Inside and to the right were the barracks for Jewish detainees. Cards in German and English explain the atrocities. The food (and starvation); the bunks (and sleep deprivation); the striped uniforms (and badge codes); rules for toilets (twice a day); basins for washing feet (and drowning prisoners).
The display in a far tower, looming over the compound, describes guard life. Originally volunteers from the infamous Schutzstaffel (SS), later guards were local men, mostly middle-aged
The psychological conditioning ran deep. Any state can indoctrinate its citizens to turn a blind eye to evil, even cooperate. Former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening explains (in a 2015 Politico profile) how guards came to see their victims: “They were our enemies.” President Donald Trump today uses the same language, branding immigrants as “murderers” and labeling political opponents as the “enemy within.” When elected officials, whether from Nazi Germany or the present-day United States, uses this language, we must step back and think. Commentators have noted the parallels between then and now. “Surreal cruelty,” the Guardian describes the Everglades detention facility. “Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” MSNBC writes, “call it a concentration camp.”
Jewish groups asked us to tread lightly with these comparisons. The Holocaust Memorial and Education Center of Florida cautions us not to trivialize a Nazi death camp. “At the same time,” the Center states, “Dehumanization was central to the Holocaust. Jews and other targeted groups were portrayed as less than human, denied their rights, and subjected to systematic violence …. To remember the Holocaust is to stay alert to those warning signs.”
U.S. history reminds us of this need to “stay alert.” Evil has snuck up on our nation before. Slavery. Indian removal. Chinese detention. Japanese and Aleut interment. All of these, objectively evil. The same evils that Governor Ron DeSantis wants to expunge from our history curriculum. Now weigh the Nazi propaganda against White House rhetoric: “President Trump is Removing Killers, Rapists and Drug Dealers from Our Streets”.
Where do we draw the line? For starters, with ethnic incarceration. When a state rounds up immigrants and puts them into camps, it’s time to measure who we are against what happened somewhere else.
During a concentration camp tour, most people will reach their own limit, checking out at some point. A detail, an instance of mass violence, or a sadistic embellishment will overwhelm the day-tripper. For Julie, it was the “Execution
“We have let evil in. Now the question. How far will evil go?”
Trench,” a cobblestone-paved ramp leading to below eye-level. On the executioners’ side, a heavy door; on the other, a bank of logs to absorb the bullets. Outside the trench stands a line of photographs of people who presumably died there. Julie looked each victim in the eye, then had to leave.
The morgue hit Tom. Concentration camp “physicians” performed perfunctory autopsies, mostly bureaucratic cover for death by murder, starvation, or disease. Today the tiled inspection tables remain, with drains to catch the bodily runoff. To the side, a staircase leads to a tiled crypt. What does mass death smell like, decades later? Like sweetened calcium over fading urine. The taste sticks to the back of your throat.
The U.S. has not reached the point of Auschwitz or Dachau. We are early Sachsenhausen. Creating an ethnic “other.” Silencing questions in classrooms and in the media. Rounding people up, criminalizing “enemies of the state.”
As a quick rule of thumb: when governments build detention camps, they have crossed a moral line.
We have let evil in. Now the question. How far will evil go?
Julie Buckner Armstrong and Thomas Hallock teach English at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. They are currently co-editing a two-volume anthology of Florida literature.
CURATOR
S moke Shop Festival
& Boom Tampa Bay
PIZZA BY THE SLICE DAILY
Oh, brother
Eight controversies that marked Hulk Hogan’s life in Tampa Bay.
By Selene San Felice
The man known for ripping his shirt open, a bleach blonde horseshoe mustache, and calling everyone “brother” is gone. Hulk Hogan, born Terry Bollea, died at 71-years-old in Clearwater last Thursday.
Clearwater Fire and Rescue were called to his home at 9:51 a.m. for a reported cardiac arrest, per a city release. He was later pronounced dead at Morton Plant Hospital. At a press conference, Clearwater Police Department Maj. Nate Burnside told reporters that Hogan experienced a serious medical-related issue and died at 11:17 a.m., adding that there are no signs of foul play or suspicious activity related to the call for service.
Hogan grew up in a small home in South Tampa. He attended Robinson High School, Hillsborough Community College and University of South Florida. He dropped out of USF to pursue a music career when the band he played bass in got popular. Meanwhile, after watching wrestling on TV and at local matches, the teenage Hogan was persuaded to make a career change by pro wrestlers he met while lifting weights at Hector’s Gym.
LOCAL NEWS
Hogan and his wife, Sky, battled rumors that he was dying over the last few weeks after complications from a neck surgery in May. It was one of more than two dozen surgeries Hogan underwent to alleviate back and neck pain after his WWE career. While his presence was unmistakable at public events, Hulk hasn’t looked comfortable walking around for years.
Later, Hogan’s “Hulkamania” helped take professional wrestling into a niche, lowkey homoerotic sport into a beloved family entertainment industry in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He held one of wrestling’s longest championship reigns, including WWE’s title belt for 1,474 days. He officially retired from wrestling in 2012. Through bizarre ups and downs of fame, including political and personal controversies, Hogan remained a household name. Read about eight moments in cringe-a-mania below.
The union bust
Ten years before he would become a heel in the ring, Hogan became a villain to labor
organizers. WWE Hall of Famer and former Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura said Hogan ratted his union efforts out to league head Vince McMahon in 1986. “It was like someone punched me in the face,” Ventura told “Stone Cold” Steve Austin on his 2017 podcast. “This was my friend. And I thought, ‘Hogan betrayed me? Hogan called Vince and ratted me?’”
Reality check The 2005-2007 VH1 reality TV show, “Hogan Knows Best,” launched his then-wife Linda, children Brooke and Nick, and their Belleair mansion into the spotlight. The show was canceled partly due to the Hogans highly-public divorce. After Hogan allegedly cheated on his wife of 24 years with one of their daughter’s friends, Linda (then 48) began dating a 19-year-old student at their childrens’ school.
Bollea v. Gawker Hogan (whose real name is Terry Bollea) took news blog Gawker to court in St. Petersburg for invasion of privacy after the outlet released a sex tape that involved Hogan and the wife of his friend, Tampa radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. A $31 million settlement took down the company.
Hall of Fame (and infamy)Another sex tape leak led to WWE revoking his Hall of Fame status in 2015. In the 2007 tape, Hogan used racial slurs to refer to a Black man dating his daughter. After Hogan apologized, WWE reinstated his status in 2018.
Covid, brother When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Hogan went through a public religious journey where he took to social media to say America needs Jesus rather than a vaccine. Two years later, he falsely implied that Betty White died at 99-years-old as a result of a COVID-19 booster shot.
Selling out Among his empire of products from light beer to vapes to restaurants, Hogan was known for selling photo opps. At meet and greets, and sometimes at his Clearwater restaurant, Hogan’s Hangout, he was known to charge around $200 for pics.
Trump-a-mania In 2024, he launched “Real American Beer”—endorsed by Trump and targeted to fellow MAGA followers—with an event at MacDill Air Force Base. A month later, he made headlines for ripping his shirt open during a 2024 Republican National Convention speech.
A sad end Hogan fought off rumors and boos in the last year of his life. After being heavily booed at his final WWE appearance in January, his newly launched wrestling league was met with lukewarm reception. In the month leading up to his death, Hogan and his wife, Sky, battled rumors that he was dying after complications from a neck surgery. It was one of more than two dozen surgeries Hogan underwent to alleviate back and neck pain after his WWE career. While his presence was unmistakable at public events, Hulk hasn’t looked comfortable walking around for years.
Cringe-a-mania: Last fall, the Hulkster made headlines at the RNC by ripping his shirt off.
RESTAURANTS
RECIPES DINING GUIDES
Super freak
Shooting the breeze with Tampa Bay’s favorite weatherman.
By Jani Burden
With suspenders, dad-shoes and a downto-earth demeanor, Tampa Bay’s most famous weatherman Denis Phillips is shocked that anyone knows his name. He keeps thousands of viewers calm each hurricane season and has amassed a social media following of over 1.4 million.
And his fame goes far beyond forecasts. You run into multiple Denis Phillips every Halloween. Earlier this year, there was a one-man show about him at Tampa Fringe. And on Friday, Phillips will be a guest of honor at Amalie Arena, where he’ll broadcast and serve Crooked Thumb Brewery’s “Rule #7” beer named after him.
Still, Phillips thinks of himself as just a normal guy. He walks around the newsroom in his socks and still seems genuinely shocked at his fame. “I don’t even know how I got here. I mean, I’m just a weather guy,” Phillips said.
Maybe that’s because Phillips’ favorite role isn’t on TV—its at home. In a recent conversation with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, one phrase kept coming up: “My family is everything to me.”
just talking about the storm— they were talking about “the guy in the suspenders.” From that moment on, they became his trademark. Asked about wearing suspenders outside of work, Phillips giggled and said “No. Never.”
Wearing suspenders isn’t his only superpower. In the completely real sport of drinking diet Dr.Pepper, he’s got the gold medal. Once his viewers figured that out, they began supporting his habit by delivering cases to his doorstep.
“Our ring doorbell goes off two or three times a week, at three or four in the morning, and of course, my wife is like ‘Oh my God. What’s that?’ And it’s somebody dropping off Diet Dr. Pepper,” he said. It’s a sweet token of appreciation for what he does, and now he has a tower of Diet Dr.Pepper in his house “literally, 10 feet high.”
It wasn’t always this way.
INTERVIEW
Bolts Brew Fest
With six children from ages 11- 31, Phillips and his wife Robyn have created a literal minivan family. ”We’re a huge road trip family. We had a roller coaster road trip where we went to six or seven different amusement parks all the way up from Georgia to New Jersey, and the minivan gets trashed during these trips,” Phillips said about a recent trip out of the Sunshine State.
Friday, Aug. 1. 6 p.m.-10 p.m. $52 & up Amalie Arena, 401 Channelside Dr., Tampa boltsbrewfest.com
Long before the Dr.Pepper castle and the signature beer, Phillips was just a guy who loved baseball. The longtime Rays fan and former college baseball player has thrown out the first pitch a couple of times. Now, he gets to share some of that limelight with his family. His 11-year-old daughter, Ryan “loves the spotlight”, and will be singing the national anthem at an upcoming Threshers game. On the other hand, son Jake, a junior in high school, is more reserved. “He’s shy, really, so he feels a little more uncomfortable. But overall, look—people are always nice when they come up,” dad explained.
greatly, and while accuracy remains a priority, his real focus is building trust.
“When I was young, all I cared about was getting the weather right. But as I got older, I realized it’s not just about accuracy—people need to trust you,” he said. “And that trust comes from going through it with them and showing empathy for what they’re experiencing.”
His calming aura in the midst of a hurricane is part of the reason Phillips is so popular—but even the best forecasters can have an off day.
“Only one time in my 31 years here have I guaranteed a forecast that went wrong. It was Halloween night back in 1995. I went on the air and I guaranteed that it would not rain on Halloween, and it rained. I was devastated,” Phillips said. “I mean, it’s 30 years later, and it still haunts me.”
That hasn’t stopped him from being a larger-than-life, almost omnipresent, figure watching over the Bay area. With a large family of his own, he doesn’t just forecast for the public, but he’s also making decisions to keep his loved ones safe.
Phillips describes himself as a “pretty evenkeeled guy” who doesn’t get scared by much, but there have been a select few times when hurricanes had him on edge.
“Hurricane Irma was coming and I went into the newsroom, and there were some people who were crying in the newsroom because they truly thought it was our storm,” Phillips said. “For me, Hurricane Charley, six hours before landfall, they still had a track right over us. I thought that was our storm, I really did. I wasn’t freaking out, but it got real.”
With hurricane season in full swing, locals, and Phillips, are reminded of the damage from the one-two punch Hurricanes Helene and Milton brought last fall. “I think last year was the first year that a lot of folks really experienced what a storm can do,” he said.
With only two kids left at home, Robyn thinks it may be time to retire the family’s beloved ride. “My wife has been very adamant of late. She’s like, ‘Okay, can we trade this in? It’s about time,’” Phillips said.
On his days off, Phillips prioritizes family time— hanging with his kids and wife—but when he’s working, his warm connection with the people on the other side of the screen make viewers feel like family, too.
Before his suspender shtick became local legend, Phillips only owned one pair. But during a 36-hour shift covering hurricane Charley in 2004, he happened to be wearing them onair. Once the hurricane passed, viewers weren’t
Phillips’ meteorology career started much earlier than most. He was just a kid when he saw Santa on the radar and from that moment on, he was hooked. During a tri-state 1974 tornado outbreak (when over 148 tornadoes caused the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded), Phillips lived in Michigan which was one of the areas that was hit. From that point on, he always dreamed of chasing tornadoes, but ended up chasing hurricanes instead.
You won’t find Phillips strapped to a tree or standing in hurricane winds, however, because he spends most of his time on the clock in the newsroom. Since graduating from Penn State in 1985, his style of meteorology has changed
“What I try to do is I try to take people by the hand and get them through a stressful situation,” Denis said. “Last year with Milton, I had two hotel reservations. I had one in Jacksonville and I had one in Naples for my family. So if the storm is a day or two out, and I realized the storm is going to go north, I sent them south, and if the storm is going to go south, I sent them north.”
If you know Denis Phillips then you know Rule #7: “Don’t freak out unless I’m freaking out.” While this list of rules was initially intended for hurricane Isaac, the seventh rule has stuck around and become something that locals abide by—so much so that Amalie Arena will soon be selling Rule 7 merch.
Phillips recalled driving up and down U.S. Highway Alt-19 and seeing a “war zone” with homes damaged by the back-to-back storms. “I had never seen anything like it,” he added. Last year’s chilling hurricane season has left many weary of what storms this year will bring, but Phillips says it’s unlikely for something of that magnitude to happen again.
“The odds of our area being hit directly by a hurricane is lower than the odds of the Panhandle being hit or the northern Gulf Coast for a lot of reasons. So last year, everything kind of came together in the worst case scenario to give us two significant hurricanes,” he explained.
That’s comforting news from a guy who isn’t going anywhere. The 62-year-old is the Bay Area’s go-to guy for hurricane coverage, and has no plans to slow down.
“I never have plans on retiring,” Phillips said. “I would not be shocked if the day I dropped dead, I worked that day.”
BLOWN AWAY: No one is more surprised by his celebrity than Denis Phillips.
DAVE DECKER
August 23, 2025
A crosswalk made me gay
Tampa Bay leaders plan to bow to DeSantis and Trump. They still have a choice.
By Selene San Felice
Iwas a happily straight woman until I crossed St. Petersburg’s Central Avenue. As soon as my Sketchers hit the rainbow pavement, they turned into Birkenstocks. The Kia I just parked, turned into a Subaru. “Gah!” I cried as a septum piercing sprouted through my nose.
“How could the Florida Department of Transportation let this happen?” I wept, slinking over to Black Crow to find out what an iced oat matcha is.
I’m not alone. I was cheering on a cop chasing a homeless guy on a bicycle when the officer stumbled too far into a “Black History Matters” painting on the street. His blues were replaced with a thobe and kente cloth. The cop’s gun turned into a copy of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” He’s still standing there, ranting about the dangers of white devils. And, well, I cannot utter the unspeakable things I saw at Tampa’s “Bock the Blub.”
Turns out Floridians have been walking and driving across rainbow crosswalks for 10 years.
Our tall, sexy, Gov. Ron DeSantis has been in charge for six of them, but now, in the sitting duck days of his last term, he’s finally banning pretty much all street murals.
COLUMN
OK fine, a crosswalk didn’t make me gay. They can’t cure racism either. The DeSantis and Trump administrations know this. They also probably know that painted asphalt has been shown to make streets safer.
But it’s the message behind the paint that they’re threatened by.
FDOT’s aggressive reminder about street art came just after St. Pete touched up its own progressive pride mural. Trump’s administration put out its memo two days later.
“Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” Trump
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on X in a threat to withdraw funding from municipalities that keep “political banners” in place.
The question isn’t whether Tampa Bay’s street murals will go, it’s when. Tampa, St. Pete and Sarasota officials told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that they intend to comply with the law, along with at least four other Florida cities.
Officials in Tampa know of 47 places with painted streets “including multiple crosswalks students help paint for pedestrian safety purposes.”
“Many are quite faded and barely visible. We will remove them soon,” Adam Smith, Tampa’s Director of Marketing & Communications, told CL.
Sarasota officials told CL they’re “working on an action plan to comply” with orders to erase at least three street murals, including a rainbow crosswalk.
Municipalities’ next steps are crucial. Leaders could change their minds and join Key West’s fight against the mandates. Or they could follow in the footsteps of West Palm Beach, which spun its plans to erase rainbow crosswalks into a “reimagined LGBTQ monument.”
“It’s the message behind the paint that they’re threatened by.”
St. Pete is making a list of painted infrastructure at FDOT’s request.
“We will continue to work with our state partners to understand the scope of the memo, timeline for relevant actions, and discuss if any of the City’s public art qualifies for an exemption,” St. Pete Public Information Officer Samantha Bequer told CL.
If Tampa Bay officials do the same, they won’t be celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. They’ll be celebrating their own cowardice—a historical marker to the time supposed advocates rolled over to Trump and DeSantis’ homophobic white supremacy.
Whether our leaders resist or replace the murals with monuments to the loss of their spines, know this: No one can powerwash Black and LGBTQ+ rights out of existence. Whether you fight for us or not, we’ll stand on our own.
In the meantime, while our colorful crosswalks are still here, take a walk. I dare you.
DRAWING LINES: No one can powerwash Black and LGBTQ+ rights out of existence.
Street Photography Class @ Florida Museum of Photographic Arts 1630 East 7th Avenue
$81.88 - General Admission bit.ly/PhotographyClassYbor
Tuesday, Aug 12, 2025 • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Coffee & Referrals @ Ybor City Coffee and Tea Co
1907 North 19th Street
$12.51- GA Early Bird, $20 - GA after August 4 bit.ly/CoffeeReferralsYbor
Saturday, Aug 16, 2025 • 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Bordeaux + BBQ | Wine Tasting Event
@ Chateau Cellars
2009 North 22nd Street
$88.02 General Admission bit.ly/BordeauxBBQYbor
Saturday, Aug 16, 2025 • 6:00 PM - 6:00 PM
BOOKS, BREWS, & BREAKTHROUGHS
@ Ybor City Coffee and Tea Co
1907 North 19th Street Open to the public bit.ly/BooksBrewsBreakthroughs
Sunday, August 17, 2025 • 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Chicken Yoga with Yoga Loft Tampa and Ybor Misfits @ Hotel Haya 1412 East 7th Avenue
$14.64 General Admission
bit.ly/ChickenYoga
Restaurants:
(Don’t forget to VOTE for your favorite Ybor City restaurants @ vote.cltampa.com)
Tacos 1604 N 17th St, Tampa jimmystacosfl.com
Acropolis Greek Taverna - Tampa 1833 E 7th Ave acropolistaverna.com/tampa
Tampa Bay Brewing Company 1600 E 8th Ave tbbc.beer/ybor-city
Where to Live:
Casa Ybor // casaybor.com
Casa Ybor offers unique retail spaces, office spaces, and apartment homes for rent or lease in both newly constructed and lovingly restored historic buildings throughout the vibrant National Historic Landmark District of Ybor City near Downtown Tampa, Florida.
La Union // bit.ly/LaUnionYbor
Community, connection, and culture come together at La Unión Apartments, where Tampa’s rich history and vibrant future unite. Inspired by the historic social hall once on this site, our Ybor City apartments honor that legacy by fostering bonds among residents, the neighborhood, and the area’s deep-rooted heritage.
Miles at Ybor // milesatybor.com
Step into the pulse of Tampa’s most vibrant neighborhood at Miles at Ybor, where modern luxury apartments in Tampa blend seamlessly with the rich cultural tapestry of historic Ybor City. These aren’t just furnished apartments in Ybor City – they’re your gateway to an elevated urban lifestyle that celebrates both heritage and innovation.
La Segunda Bakery 2512 No 15th Street
Since 1915, La Segunda has been baking fresh Cuban bread, pastries, and more. lasegundabakery.com
J.C. Newman Cigar Company 2701 No 16th Street
Handcrafted premium cigars & a small museum draw smoking aficionados to this longtime factory. jcnewman.com
Kress Contemporary
1624 E. Seventh Ave
Serving the community by providing spaces for their creative pursuits, and engaging the community through public events, including film screenings, performances, exhibitions, artist talks, poetry readings, and workshops. kresscontemporary.com
By Josh Bradley C CL Recommends
FRI 01
C Chris Isaak Mr. “Wicked Game” and his longtime band Silvertone haven’t set foot in Tampa Bay since a short-but-sweet Christmas gig in 2022, but a brand-new iteration of the band (no longer featuring longtime guitarist Hershel Yatovitz) will back up this career retrospective in the historic downtown Clearwater room to kick off the weekend. (Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater)
C Hollowhouse w/The Handlers/Burke Brothers A matinee of sorts comes to a Seminole Heights record store this weekend for a record store gig featuring homegrown favorites from the Americana (Burke Bros.) and rock scenes (Hollowhouse), along with one of the best new country bands to come out of the South (The Handlers). (Microgroove, Tampa)—Ray Roa
Lot Lizards (album release) w/Rath & The Wise Guys/Arcane Arcade/Abortion Twins/Low Cards Melodic, St. Pete punk trio Lot Lizards is finally unveiling a debut album, and to help celebrate is a who’s-who of local punk-rock. According to Lizards frontman Jon Barnes, The Horrors of Adulting (released on the five-year-old, Columbusbased Punkerton Records) is exactly what the title sounds like: 26 minutes of regrets behind growing up too fast. “Being an adult is shitty most of the time. We were so fucking stupid for wanting it so bad when we were younger,” frontman Jon Barnes explained. (Pinellas Ale Works, St. Petersburg)
C Morning Dew This week marks 30 years since the passing of Jerry Garcia, and no one knows how to stage a Grateful Dead party like beloved St. Pete watering hole Cage Brewing, which makes a habit of hosting at least two every week. A week-long celebration in honor of the late king of jam bands will collect all of the spot’s stage regulars, including this uber-tight quintet featuring local Deadologist Alan Gilman on guitar. While you’re out there, grab some Kraken Joe’s Pizza, which is made and wood-fire baked on site, too. (Cage Brewing, St. Petersburg)
TV Breakup Scene w/Spanish Bombs!/ moreTV Breakup Scene headlines for the first time for the Paramore-loving indie-rock quartet’s first show since March. It’s been pretty much radio silence since Nat Pelaez and friends’ most recent stage appearance, at last March’s Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, so we can only hope that during said break, either some new material (which we haven’t heard since last year’s punk-rock-esque single “Better Without Me”) was being dreamt up, or a pause was taken to rest up as much as possible to gear up for an impending, explosive new era. (Deviant Libation, Tampa)
SAT 02
C The Eradicator w/Miller Lowlifes/ Tension Electric More than 4,000 miles separate North England from Tampa, but Tampa’s own A.D.D. Records is making the trek, so to speak, with the release of Leatherface recordings that Frankie Stubbs did with BBC DJ and journalist John Peel. The Peel Sessions covers the punk-rock band’s early career, and this music studio gig will celebrate the album’s release. Expect to bump elbows with a room full of punk nerds, two of Tampa’s brightest bands, plus The Eradicator, a masked Chicago punk-songwriter who now calls the Bay area home. (Bandana Beats Studio, Tampa)—RR
Rags And Riches w/Kayla Korpigs/ Mak Kentucky-based brothers Tanner and Peyton Whitt, who acquired over a million streams on their first album during its 2022 release week alone, have had a busy summer traveling the eastern U.S. and pushing their latest, neo-rock EP Sedated . This shindig, which includes support from part-time Floridian indie-rock duo Mak and alt-pop wunderkind Kayla Korpigs, marks the first Tampa Bay appearance from the boys, so if amassing as many streams as they have is easy, maybe show up to Crowbar early. (Crowbar, Ybor City)
SUN 03
C DJ Casper: A deep dive into the musical catalog of the Beastie Boys Adam Yauch would’ve turned 61 years old on Tuesday, and Tampa DJ Justin Layman is going to pay tribute to the late Beastie Boys MC. Known to the city as Casper, Layman has spent his entire career collecting any Beastie Boys vinyl he can get his hands on. This no-cover set will be the deepest of dives, featuring beyond-obscure cuts, special edits, and, because it's Alter Ego, a curated cocktail menu. This gig follows other deep dives into the TDE catalog, MF Doom, Tyler the Creator and more. Read more about the show and what Layman has in store by finding this story on cltampa. com/music. (Alter Ego, Tampa)—RR
C Brad Paisley w/Walker Hayes/ Alexandra Kay Along with his recent collaboration with the rock band Dawes earlier this year, the Glen Dale native honored his hometown by co-headlining this year’s West Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame alongside Davisson Brothers Band. Paisley left his mark on country music and comedy with his parodic performance about the BP oil spill in 2013 on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” with recent parodies being about falling in love with your cousin and remembering to put the toilet seat down. Others might recognize him from his partnership with Nationwide in 2016. (The BayCare Sound, Clearwater)—Grace Stoler
FRI AUGUST 01–THU AUGUST 07
IDOBI Radio Summer School: Charlotte Sands w/Taylor Acorn/Rain City Drive/ Arrows In Action/If Not For Me/Beauty School Dropout/Huddy Warped Tour is slowly but surely coming back, yes, but music festivals are getting more scarce by the hour. IDOBI Radio Summer School is a concept similar to those pre-COVID festivals we miss, where several up-and-coming artists present what they’re up to. You’ll probably drive home with a new favorite band or artist, and in true high school fashion, tickets are only $35. Ahead of the tour’s return to St. Petersburg, Patty Glover of Pennsylvania-based metalcore trio If Not For Me, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the best gig he ever saw. Read his full quote about local bands at cltampa.com/music. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
C Col_n w/Zacarama/Charter Ghost/ Echo Beauty Terror/Coopboyz In a world of algorithm-pleasing “indie-rock” artists, shows like this one are palate cleansers. Pushing the boundaries of what a human ear can handle, the artists on this Legion gig come from Boca (harsh noise composer Zacarama), New York (noise-pop songwriter Charter Ghost), and right around here (skramz-pop act Echo Beauty Terror). (American Legion Outpost 111, Tampa)—RR
David Lee Roth Sammy Hagar’s “Best Of All Worlds” tour came pretty close last summer, but there’s no chance of a Van Halen reunion (although our dearly departed Eddie’s son Wolfgang continues making a name for himself, and brother
Alex is enjoying his retirement). Diamond Dave, who announced his retirement in 2022, must have gotten bored being off the road, because he’s staging a comeback tour loaded with the rock anthems that landed him in hard rock-encasing stadiums.(Hard Rock Event Center at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Tampa)
Opening Doors: Melissa Grady w/Henry Locke/Ash Dudney/Marc Ganancias/ Scott Lavan Miller/Andy Brey/John Nowicki Old Seminole Heights’ Corner Club Cafe recently had a would-be thief do major damage to its back entrance, so a clutch of homegrown music makers—led by Best of the Bay-winning cellist Melissa Grady—are playing tunes and donating the money they make for repairs. Ash Dudney, who’s also a candidate for Tampa City Council’s District 5, is on the bill, too. (Corner Club, Tampa)—RR
THU 07
Brian Kelley While nothing is confirmed yet, a new, archival Florida Georgia Line EP dropped last month, and needless to say, a reunion has been on country fans’ minds ever since. In the meantime, the first 10 days of August are going to be a homecoming of sorts for half of the band. Kelley—who’s out pushing his latest album, Ed & Mary Margaret’s Son —was born in Ormond Beach, so while it’s still a schlep of a drive, if anything, this St. Pete hootenanny very well could be the last time we see either of the guys by themselves for a hot minute. (Jannus Live, St. Petersburg)
C Lee Bains III w/The Burke Bros./Mark Wagner/Jeff Brawer In 2019, The Bitter Southerner suggested that Lee Bains III and his band The Glory Fires might’ve made “the Most Important Rock Record About the South Ever Released.” Deconstructed lives up to the hype, even 15 years after its release, on the strength of red-hot rock and roll that doesn’t shy away from America’s troubled past. Once signed to Sub Pop, Bains is on the road solo this time as part of his “Done Playing Dead” tour. (The Nest at St. Pete Brewing Co., St. Petersburg)—RR
C KenTheMan Three years after landing on XXL magazine’s vaunted “Freshman Class,” and more after driving UberEats around Houston, Kentavia Miller headlines clubs across the country with her “masculine” energy. “People started telling me when I rap that I have this dominance in the booth, this aggression that a man would normally have,” she recently said about her moniker Kentheman. While the 31-year-old’s new album is titled Kinda Famous , don’t be surprised if this is the last time you see Kentheman in a room this small. (District 8, Ybor City)—RR
See an extended version of this listing via cltampa.com/music.
DJ Casper
The Tampa Bay Rays live in Tampa until next season, but Ferg’s is giving the Bay area plenty of reasons to keep coming around.
One of them is a fall concert series that includes shows from the latest version of Black Flag, the Queers, ‘80s rock band King’s X, and Midwestern classic rock outfit Head East.
Also on that slate of shows is a gig from new wave pioneer Lene Lovich, who rarely plays the U.S. and has never played the Bay area (as far as Creative Loafing Tampa Bay can tell). The 76-year-old art school dropout is best known for her 1979 hit “Lucky Number,” but is so much more than that.
A review from a Manchester show last may noted that Lovich’s “set is end-to-end, ground-breaking, almost prog pop, and far more in common with that weird art pop of the mid-seventies pre-punk period, like Fox or even Sparks, than any punk rock aggro.”
Tickets to see Lene Lovich play Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill on Tuesday, Oct. 28 are still available and start at $31.56.
See Josh Bradley’s latest roundup of new concerts coming to Tampa Bay below.—Ray Roa
Gloomchild w/Spiritual Chaos/No One Road/He Kindly/Reverya Saturday, Aug. 9. 7 p.m. $14.56. Crowbar, Ybor City
Blind Melon Wednesday, Aug. 13. 7 p.m. $42.55. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg
Pretty Boy Floyd w/Sunset Rebellion/ Eleni & The Uprising/Decibel Dogs
Thursday, Aug. 14. 7:30 p.m. $20. Brass Mug, Tampa
Church Sessions: Sinister Syndicate Crew Sunday, Aug. 17. 9 p.m. $5. Crowbar, Ybor City
Spike and the Gimme Gimmes Sunday, Aug. 17. 6:30 p.m. $41.25. The Ritz, Ybor City
Midnight Tyrannosaurus Friday, Sept. 5. 10 p.m. $20.77. The Ritz, Ybor City
Jauz Saturday, Sept. 6. 10 p.m. $20.77. The Ritz, Ybor City
He$h Friday, Sept. 12. 10 p.m. No cover with RSVP, $10 for guaranteed entry. The Ritz, Ybor City
Kaivon Saturday, Sept. 13. 10 p.m. $20.77 & up. The Ritz, Ybor City
Dear Oracle, I love my family and know that they love me, but I often feel so misunderstood by them. While they have been supportive in many ways (including financially, which makes me feel guilty even asking this) I also feel dismissed by them, occasionally mocked, and rarely considered. I don’t want to cut them off, but I don’t think anyone would respond well to “boundaries” or discussing past slights. Do the cards have advice on how to move forward?—Black Sheep
Cards: Queen of Pentacles, Judgement (reversed), Five of Cups (reversed), Page of Wands (reversed) Knight of Wands
Dear Black Sheep, when I was shuffling the cards, the Queen of Pentacles stumbled out. She is a generous queen, particularly of material things. She would be the kind of mother who’s always trying to put $20 in your hand, “just in case.” Material gifts are often helpful, and for parents of adult children, it might feel like the only type of help they can offer.
It isn’t, of course. But it can feel so callous to ask for something more, especially if money was given in sacrifice. And money can solve a slew of problems—just not an interpersonal one. With the Judgement card reversed, there is a profound sense that you may not feel at home with your family—and maybe never quite did. You were called to a different life than they were, however that may look. And there is a fundamental misunderstanding of
that. You’re right. They might be judgmental of it or they might be worried about you for some reason, but whatever it is, they don’t understand your life.
This is, naturally, heartbreaking. We want to feel accepted by our family of origin because they’re the original love. With the Five of Cups, it is obvious that this feels devastating to you. But, the Five of Cups can have a tendency to cloud our judgment and make us see things as worse than they are. You do know that these people love you and you love them. Yet, you say they wouldn’t respond well to basically addressing this. Is there a chance that, maybe, they would? That could be an avenue to explore.
Because, while you don’t mention it, I do think there is some infantilization going on. As the Page of Wands reversed, I think your family still thinks of you as quite young, which could explain the dismissing.
But you aren’t the Page of Wands; you’re the Knight. You know your own mind, your passions, your full potential. While your family does not understand you, you understand you. You might sometimes slip into the Page role when you’re around your family, but by keeping conscious of your own power, your own ability, you might be able to anchor yourself.
I don’t know if your family will ever really “get” you. They might not. But I hope they would be open to hearing you express your hurt. They do love you, after all. Best of luck, my dear.
Dear Oracle, my buddy has been talking to me about his new accountant and all the ways he’s now going to be saving money for his business. I’m 99% sure it’s tax fraud. I’ve brought it up to him and he said that it was the accountant’s idea and that they know what they’re doing. How can I talk to him about this?—Legal bro/ legal woe
Cards: Four of Cups (reversed), Seven of Cups (reversed), Temperance, Lovers
Dear Bro, over my working life, I have interviewed for (and gotten!) multiple jobs where I was later told that I would be “a 1099 employee.” Since that’s illegal and blatant tax fraud, I’ve asked my would-be employers why I wouldn’t just be a W2, and they have all said this way was advised by their accountants—and sometimes lawyers.
So, while there is a chance that what your friend’s account is recommending is perfectly legal, there’s also a good chance that he’s being led astray by some motherfucker with a CPA.
Before you talk to your friend, I think it’s important to know why he might be in that position. With the Four of Cups, there is a huge dissatisfaction that’s weighing heavy on him. Something is not going well and that might be creating a slight feel of panic. With the Seven of Cups, the options laid out for him seem promising but even the most level-headed can be tricked here. Throw in your friend’s worry, and he might
not be thinking critically at all. He just might latch onto the idea that seems like it’ll save him. With Temperance and The Lovers, the best way to approach this is from a loving, grounded way. People generally don’t like being told that they’ve been a fool. Occasionally, they might even double-down on the doubtful decision and fuck themselves over even more. When you speak to your friend, temper your response. You should avoid anything that sounds like judgment. You should avoid theatrics and hyperbole. You can try by asking him if he considered this way or that, or if maybe he wanted to bring some questions to a lawyer.
What should always be clear, though, is that you are speaking from a place of love. That your concern is not rooted in jealousy or a desire to cut him down.
That you understand that things are not ideal for him (again, he might be feeling a pang of desperation) but that you’re confident that he’ll find a legal way to make it through.
And, hopefully, he’ll be open to hearing you. Without a court order, you really can’t make another adult do anything; your friend’s actions are up to him. But sometimes we dig ourselves into a deeper hole because we’re too ashamed to tell anyone that we’ve been a fool. If your friend sees you as someone he can come to without judgment, then perhaps he won’t let himself get too far down the tax-evading line.
See more of Caroline and learn about her services via carolinedebruhl.com.
Privacy settings
By Dan Savage
I’m in my early-20s, and I’m looking to start exploring kink further, especially since my hometown is in a metropolitan area with a large kink community. I have no shame or fear about entering kink spaces beyond the typical nerves any beginner might have. I was lucky to be raised by some really awesome sex-positive parents, who explained that kinks are normal and OK. Kink is not the issue. The issue is this: I’m worried I’m going to run into my dad in a kink space. I’ve never had what I would consider an inappropriate conversation with my dad about his sexual interests or activities, but I’m pretty sure my dad has been involved in the local kink scene for a long time. I’ve asked one of my dad’s closest friends about my concern and she said my worry isn’t entirely unfounded, which I took as confirmation that my dad goes to kink spaces and I’m almost certain to run into him at an event. How the hell do I go about having a conversation like this when it’s guaranteed to be awkward? Does one simply stroll in and say, “Hey I’m making a FetLife account, Dad, could you please immediately block me, so I don’t have to worry?” I know this conversation will probably go fine. I just have no idea how to start it. And there aren’t many people out there giving advice on how to talk to your dad about not going to kink events on the same nights. Need To Know Basis
holidays—but his closest friends are not. If you have an awkward conversation with one of your dad’s friends, you don’t have to see that person again. One awkward conversation with your father, however, could ruin Juneteenth or Folsom SF, or Thanksgiving.
The best way to start a guaranteed-tobe-awkward convo is by using the a-word to highlight/foreground/emphasize the awkwardness: “This is awkward, Dad, but I was planning to go to [club name] on [date] for the [whatever] party, and I wanted to give you a heads up.” If you’re worried your dad is so sex-positive he might not realize you don’t want to attend the event, you’ll have to add something like, “But I don’t wanna go if you’re going.”
SAVAGE LOVE
There are other cities with big kink scenes, NTKB, and wanting to go to kink events without having to worry about running into family is a good enough reason to relocate. I grew up in Chicago, a city with a huge gay scene, but I wound up on the West Coast after college. One of the reasons I moved: I have an unreasonable number of uncles—Irish Catholic family—and I didn’t want to run into one of my uncles in a gay bar. (None of my uncles were gay, so far as I knew, but I didn’t want to risk it.) If I thought there was the slightest chance I might run into my father in a gay bar, I would’ve moved to Mars. Uprooting yourself so you can go to kink parties without having to worry about running into your dad is an extreme measure, I realize, and may be an unnecessary one in your case, NTKB, seeing as your parents are sex-positive and not devout Irish Catholics. But you won’t be able to relax and enjoy kink events if you’re worried the guy in the leather hood hanging from meat hooks over the dance floor is your dad. Zooming out for a second: some will find it odd that you talked to one of your dad’s closest friends about whether he’s still going to kink parties but you’re hesitating to talk to your dad. But it makes perfect sense: Your dad is a constant in your life—dinners, birthdays,
Memory lane/cautionary tale: I got a letter a few years back (that I didn’t publish) from a gay dad whose son grew up to be gay. Dad was in his 40s and into twinks… son was in his 20s and into daddies… and you can probably guess what happened: they matched on a hookup app. Which would’ve been fine and mildly awkward if they’d realized it right away. But they didn’t realize until after they’d swapped face pics… and they didn’t swap face pics until after they’d swapped a bunch of other pics. After boiling their eyeballs, father and son had an extremely awkward brunch where they pulled out their phones, opened up the apps, and blocked each other on everything.
If you don’t want whatever the kink event equivalent of accidentally swapping dick pics with your dad to happen to you—and I’m not even going to speculate as to what that would look like—you’re gonna want to have that awkward conversation before the party, not after. If your dad is as sex-positive and reasonable as you make him sound, I could see you two agreeing to give each other a heads up—a little advance warning—about the events you’re planning to attend, NTKB, with whoever gives a heads up first having dibs on a particular event. If you don’t want texts about kink events mixed in with your regular father/son chats—or you don’t want to send a kink event text meant for your dad to your family’s group chat—you could create a top secret Google calendar that only you and your dad have access to, NTKB, but agree never to discuss.
You often advise readers to move on all fronts: go places and meet people while also getting on the apps. It’s just that I have a terrible fear holding me back from the apps and I think it’s something only gay men have to worry about. To this day, I’m one of those faceless torsos that
won’t share my mugshot (or nudes) because I’m petrified of it being screenshotted and posted online. It puts a pit in my stomach to see the way gay guys gossip about each other on forums like MaleGeneral, LPSG, and now Telegram. I’ve seen so many friends wind up on there for simply being horny. I can’t think of anything more dehumanizing, demoralizing, and degrading than having strangers comment on you and your body. Gay men can be so vicious to each other. I do alright in person, but never really meet someone who’s my type. Is my apprehension justified? If not, what precautions can I take to avoid winding up on those awful online forums?—Posting Intimate Cock Shots
It’s not just gay men who have to worry about time-wasting pic collectors and malicious assholes reposting screenshots. Straight women have to worry about that shit too, PICS, and some teenage boys have been tricked into sharing pics and then driven to suicide by blackmailers.
But let’s not overstate the risk: millions of gay men swap pics online every day—torsos, faces, dicks—and the overwhelming majority don’t wind up being dissected on the sites you mentioned. And even if your pics wound up on one of those shitty forums, PICS, it doesn’t mean everyone you know is going to see them. And even if someone does recognize you? Most people won’t care.
I recently had Colby Jaxxx on the Savage Lovecast. Colby is a professional gooner who just so happens to live in a small town in the Midwest, where he works a pretty normie day job. His boss and coworkers know about his side hustle, and it hasn’t been a problem. Because Jaxxx keeps his gooner life and his professional life in separate online silos. And that, increasingly, is the cultural consensus: so long as you don’t cross the streams— so long as you don’t post thirst-or-worst pics on your regular accounts—no one will see them except the people who go looking for them. And if someone is going out of their way to look for your smut, that’s their problem, not yours. (This offer does not yet apply to people in teaching professions.)
So, take reasonable precautions—blur your face pics, use messaging apps that only allow one view of a photo, don’t send out dick pics with your face in them or face pics with your dick in them, weed out guys who seem too good to be true (reverse image search is your friend), and be quick to block guys who make you feel uncomfortable—but don’t let the guys talking shit on online forums keep you from living your best life and/or getting the best dick.
P.S. You won’t know what’s going on in those forums if you don’t look at them.
I am the mom of an 11-year-old boy. For the past year, he’s been using our sports massager privately in his room. When he first started doing it, he told me he was just putting it on his legs, and we talked about how it wouldn’t be a good idea to put it directly on his penis. Every few days, sometimes with weeks in between, he’ll announce, “I’m using the massager,” then head to his room for a couple of minutes with it, and that’s that. My only concern with this is that he might desensitize himself. Having this tool at his age makes me worry he’s going to develop unusual masturbation habits that might not be the best for him in the long term. I’ve thought about selling this massager, as he’s really the only one who “uses” it, and that would quickly solve the problem. But is it a problem? Should I just leave him be to explore himself?—Misuse
Of Massager
Most boys begin masturbating around age 13, MOM, but some boys start sooner—13 is the average—so your son most likely isn’t using that sports massager on his legs. If he were using it on his legs, he would be doing it in front of the television and not in his room with the door closed. You worry he might become dependent on a particularly intense kind of stimulation in order to climax, MOM, and that’s a valid concern. Some adult men have a hard time climaxing during partnered PIV/ PIB/PIT intercourse because they jacked off as boys doing or using things that vaginas, butts, and throats can’t replicate. (Google “death-grip syndrome” if you wanna read more about it.)
That said, your son has a right to privacy, and bursting through his bedroom wall like the Kool-Aid mom to slap the sports massager out of his hands could do him more harm. Instead, have an ageappropriate conversation with your son about self-pleasure—emphasizing privacy and online safety, and the distortion field that is porn—and discuss the importance of being gentle with himself. You could also run interference by misplacing (read: hiding) the sports massager and/or arranging for it to break and not rushing to replace it.
Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage.Love.
Notice of Public Sale Notice is hereby given that the undersigned will sell, to satisfy lien of the owner, at public sale by competitive bidding on www.storagetreasures.com ending on August 8th, 2025 at 10:00 am for units located at: Compass Self Storage 2291 S. Frontage Rd, Plant City, Florida 33563 Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the time of sale. All goods are sold as is and must be removed at the time of purchase. Compass Self Storage reserves the right to refuse any bid. Sale is subject to adjournment. The personal goods stored therein by the following may include, but are not limited to general household, furniture, boxes, clothes and appliances, unless otherwise noted. Unit 1034 Juan Silva. Run Dates: 07/24/2025 & 07/31/2025
NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE Pursuant to Section 715.109, notice is hereby given that the following property will be offered for public sale and will sell at public outcry to the highest and best bidder for cash: a 1986 BAYS mobile home, VIN 33610416V and the contents therein, if any abandoned by Dan Lee Jenkens (deceased), Known Heirs of Dan Lee Jenkins, and Unknown Heirs of Dan Lee Jenkins. on Friday, August 15, 2025 at 9:30 a.m. at 1 Heron Drive, Tavares, FL 32778. ICARD, MERRILL, CULLIS, TIMM, FUREN & GINSBURG, P.A.
Alyssa M. Nohren FL Bar No. 352410 2033 Main Street Suite 600 Sarasota, Florida 34237 Telephone: (941) 366-8100 Facsimile: (941) 366-6384 anohren@ icardmerrill.com smenasco@icardmerrill.com Attorney for Fountainview Estates, LLC
NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE Pursuant to Section 715.109, notice is hereby given that the following property will be offered for public sale and will sell at public outcry to the highest and best bidder for cash: A 2005 PALH mobile home, VIN FLFL470A31662LF31 and a 2005 FTWD mobile home, VIN FLFL470B31662LF31, and the contents therein, if any, abandoned by previous owners and tenant John Werner On August 18, 2025 at 9:30 a.m. at 4810 NW Highway 72, Lot #211, Arcadia, FL 34266. ICARD, MERRILL, CULLIS, TIMM, FUREN & GINSBURG, P.A. Alyssa M. Nohren FL Bar No. 352410 2033 Main Street Suite 600 Sarasota, Florida 34237 Telephone: (941) 366-8100 Facsimile: (941) 366-6384 anohren@icardmerrill.com smenasco@icardmerrill.com Attorneys for Desoto Village
NOTE: A true genius of the art world left us on January 20, 2003, at the age of 99. This puzzle is in honor of him—and his practice of concealing the four-letter name of his daughter in his caricatures. (Don’t be surprised if a few of them even read backwards.)
Soccer star Mia
Lorne on the Galactica
Homeland airer, for short
Wile E. Coyote’s supplier of choice
55 Onetime Swedish cars
Fuzzy fruit
“Here, have a sip”
Tolstoy novel
Proclamation
Dove sound
Daughter of Cadmus
Nelson of the movies
Icons of communism
Curious one’s query
Tampa’s MacDill, for one: abbr.
Recipient
Bounder
Decrease
With 98 Across, what albinism is, basically
Church section
Fermented drink
Pay attention to
See 87 Across
A Nightmare on Elm Street creepoid
Sushi candidate
Condition
Flower ring
With 116 Across, where you might find Ninas (other than in the theme answers of this puzzle)
Conciliatory one
See 106 Across
Composed
And so on, in Lat.
In a bit, once
Before, formerly
___ Janeiro
And others, in Latin
Lid woe
Radiator sound
I love, to Julius
First name in topical comedy
Functions list
“Heads up” abbr.
Theo’s other half?
Make ___ for it
Lisa
Is inquisitive
Percussionistsinger (formerly with Prince) who had a Top Ten hit with “The Glamorous Life” in 1984
Haunts
Cannons and ammo, e.g.
“___ see it ...”
1992 victor
Mitsubishi SUV
Breakable food
Flight crew?
Rice and others
Hose content
Certain Italian 126 Cold-climate present
Intro to science? 28 Intro to José?
KO center 33 Get ___ good one
Hunters’ rewards
City SE of L.A.
Yale student 37 Docs’ org. 38 Hard-to-fold item, often 39 City E of L.A.
40 Cooperstown’s Ryan 41 Ancient Peruvian
50 West African ruler (which anagrams into a snake) 52 Scratch (out a living)
