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PUBLISHER James Howard EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ray Roa DIGITAL EDITOR Colin Wolf FOOD CRITIC Jon Palmer Claridge
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CONTRIBUTORS John Allman, Jeffery C. Billman, Angelina Bruno, Paul Catala, Gabe Echazabal, Chris Fasick, Julie Garisto, LJ Hilberath, Erin Hughes, Alexandria Jones, Eliot Mayo, Peter Meinke, Nano Riley, Jennifer Ring, Melissa Santell, Cathy Salustri, Eric Snider, Resie eaWorld in February, animal Waechter, SKrights West
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INTERNS Katlynn Mullins, James Bennett III
SeaWorld animal rights any don’t in seeFebruary, a parallel between the kind PHOTOGRAPHERS claiming the practice of keeping wild nd theNicole practice of Nick displaying Abbett, Cardello,animals Kimberly DeFalco, dangerous. But even though public Dave Phil DeSimone, Todd king for tooDecker, much? Or is it time forFixler, a Brian many don’t seeTracy a parallel between Mahar, May, Marlo Miller,the Jesskind Phillips, animals? Michael M. Sinclair, Kelsey Walker, Chip Weiner,
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and the practice of displaying animals asking for too much?James Or is Ostrand it time for a t” animals? SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Anthony Carbone, Scott Zepeda
Music: Tampa Bay Blues Fest ........................... 40
MARKETING, PROMOTIONS AND
Music Week ................................................... 42 EVENTS DIRECTOR
Alexis Quinn Chamberlain Music: review: Tampa Bay Blues Fest ........................... Concert Artic Monkeys ..........................40 42
Music ................................................... 42 The ListWeek .......................................................... 46
STREET TEAM
Concert review: Artic Liz Monkeys .......................... 42 Movie reviews 63 Nate..................................................... Lamb, MacLean, Daniel Nolan,
But what happens if people order ‘Animal Style?’
Nebraska Mini-Mart turns into ‘NMM-N-Out Burger,’ p. 24.
Paola Otero, Jason Rivera, Shomy Rodriguez, TheWill List .......................................................... Free Astrology .........................................46 64 Abbey Turner
Movie ........................................................... reviews..................................................... 63 Puzzler 66
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS Savage Love ...................................................... 69 Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP OF DIGITAL SERVICES Stacy Volhein DIGITAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Jaime Monzon
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editor's note JAMES HARVEY
LYNN IN: Lynn Waddell’s 1999 long read on Don Lewis’ disappearance is the centerpiece of this throwback issue.
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Tiger queen
Here’s why you picked up a cover from ‘99. By Ray Roa
L
ynn Waddell said it best during our Tuesday afternoon talk: “It was kind of weird, I was shocked to see it.” The St. Petersburg-based, award-winning journalist and author of “Fringe Florida” was talking about seeing her March 1999 Weekly Planet story about the disappearance of Don Lewis appear in “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” The Netflix docuseries put a spotlight on Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue, and you’re probably just as shocked to see a 21-year-old story about Lewis on the cover of this week’s Creative Loafing Tampa Bay (Don co-owned Big Cat Rescue with his wife Carole at the time of his disappearance, which remains unsolved today.) Putting an old story on a new issue is an odd move, but what about our daily lives isn’t weird these days? The longer I thought about it, the more it made sense to bring this one back from the archives for a throwback cover. If you don’t try something new or off the wall right now, then are you really trying at all? Plus, so much of the country is obsessed with “Tiger King,” and it shows in our web traffic. The cover—designed in ‘99 by Scott Allison and recaptured this week by Todd Bates and Orlando Weekly designer Daniel Rodriguez— screams “alt-weekly.” The story itself speaks to what an alt-weekly was two decades ago and what it is now (side note: visit cltampa.com to
see the old adverts). “I don’t remember the Times covering it the way the Planet did,” Waddell told me. “And that’s what was great about working at an alt-weekly. We were allowed and encouraged to explore stories in a way the mainstream paper wouldn’t.” And while both CL and the Times are adjusting to the realities of a post-coronavirus news ecosystem, there will always be stark differences between our publications (CL’s role as an ombudsman to the vaunted daily being one of the most important; the fact that they still have 100 journalists in their newsroom to our two full-time editorial staffers is a big one, too.) I, for a plethora of reasons, can’t imagine life in a city without an alt-weekly—but those are for another day. The 1999 story in the following pages is a fun long read. And anyone who’s watched the entire “Tiger King” series can see how its producers used Waddell’s piece as a guide for the timeline of their series, which Waddell said sadly sensationalizes the storyline and trades the real issue—the overabundance of wild animals in captivity by private owners—in for the drama between Oklahoma zookeeper Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin from Big Cat Rescue. “Frankly, I don’t know what happened to him. Nobody knows what happened to him, so it is unfair to try to make somebody look like they committed a crime when there’s no real evidence,” Waddell said about Don Lewis. “We worked really hard to make the story balanced.” Balance. That’s a hard thing to find these days in general, so don’t let this retro cover throw you off too much. Read an extended version of this note—with more comment from Waddell— via cltampa.com/news.
“What about our daily lives isn’t weird these days?”
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Uni-tree
Photos by Alex Kaufman
L
ast summer, Florida lawmakers effectively overturned local tree protections when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that keeps localities from regulating removal, replanting, pruning or trimming of a tree on private property if a licensed arborist determines the tree poses a danger. One gorgeous banyan on Granville Court N. in St. Petersburg appeared in danger of being cut down last week, but after some neighborhood uproar (read: unity), one of the households tasked with its care (two addresses have equal rights to it) told CL that they’ve decided to just prune it under the guidance of the city’s Urban Forester, Shane Largent. Get more details and see more pics of the beauty via photos.cltampa.com. —Ray Roa
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Into
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Editor’s note: What follows is a story published in the March 25-31, 1999 issue of Weekly Planet (now Creative Loafng Tampa Bay). We’ve explained the throwback content in a longer note on p. 6.
By Lynn Waddell
Down a bumpy shaded dirt road called Easy Street, past a half dozen trailers, behind an eight-foot chain-link fence, lurks the legacy of Don Lewis. More than 200 tigers, lynx, bobcats, panthers, caracals and leopards slink around in shaded mesh pens, looking as cuddly as house cats and eating 10 times as much. Occasionally, one will dine inside the adjacent small ranch-style home of their master, Carole Lewis, Don’s wife. Dressed in a sheer leopard print blouse with matching tank and knee-length leggings, the tall blonde Carole Lewis talks about the disappearance of her husband as she glides among the kitty compounds. His story is frequently interrupted with introductions to the big cats she sweetly addresses as “baby” and “my boy.” She gives the cats’ history, and occasionally pets one. She does it keeping her hands flat to the mesh fence, warning that they will bite. Carole and Don Lewis started this refuge in 1992 after buying 56 bobcats to save them from a furrier’s scalpel. Today, Wildlife on Easy Street is a nonprofit attraction with more than
PHOTO FROM “WEEKLY PLANET” ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PROVIDED BY CAROLE LEWIS.
On August 19, 1997, an enigmatic millionaire vanished—leaving behind a tangled web of lies, and an estate over which his heirs and associates are still snarling like the wild cats he collected. But most of all, he left behind a mystery that deepens with each strange new revelation.
100 volunteers. All that’s missing is Don Lewis, who still finances most of it. A self-made millionaire who cultivated eccentricities, Don Lewis remains as mysterious in his absence as he did when he was around. Did he fatally crash into the sea? Was he murdered? Or did he just get the hell out of Dodge? The scenarios seem equally plausible, depending on whom you talk to. An adventurous daredevil, Lewis thought nothing of flying off in a small airplane he knew little about. He would buy an ultralight plane on the spot if the owner could prove it would leave the ground, and then Lewis would fly it home. But he was a better negotiator than a pilot; he had crashed three planes, one into the Gulf of Mexico. He lost his pilot’s license as a result of flying dangerously. No shortage of theories A cut-throat businessman, a landlord with a history of ten- ant complaints, an aggressive ladies’ man, he frequently carried a lot of cash, often as much as $30,000. Lewis was also a man many people had a motive to feed to the lions. The accusation of foul play hovers in the air of every conversation among those who knew him. Finger pointing is rampant. But few are willing to accuse anyone outright of the crime. Instead the suspects are implied so strongly that even a neutered housecat could probably pick them out of a lineup. Prior to a settlement regarding Don Lewis’ estate, two of his children spoke to People Magazine and suggested their father was fed his exotic cats. They could not be reached for comment for this article. Their attorney did not return phone calls. Elizabeth Anne McQueen, a squatty direct woman with long acrylic nails, was Don Lewis’ business assistant for 18 years. She and her new boss, Wendall Williams, a sometimes business partner of Lewis, have appeared on the television show “Hard Copy,” insinuating that someone helped Lewis disappear. Both told the Planet that they believe Lewis was killed by “someone close to him.” Williams goes even further: “I don’t think she (Carole Lewis) would think it gruesome to put him in a meat grinder, grind him up and feed him to the cats. I’m just not sure she could do it physically by herself.” Two months before Lewis’ disappearance he filed an injunction seeking to have Carole removed from their home, claiming she threatened to kill him. “She ordered me out of the house or she would kill me and if I came back she would kill me (She has a 45 revolver and she took my 357 and hid it)” Lewis wrote in his injunction request.
Don & Carole Lewis in better days. But several volunteers on Easy Street find it hard to believe that Carole Lewis could have murdered a man she so loved. “I know Carole is such a nice person,” Sandy Wittkopp, a housekeeper and volunteer, said. “She could never have done what they are saying. They were madly in love with each other.” Richard Reed, a Tampa mortgage broker and former volunteer at Easy Street, said he thinks Don Lewis was murdered. When questioned about who he believed killed Lewis, he replied “No comment.” Carole Lewis also has a long list suspects of those who may have been involved in her husband’s disappearance. And because McQueen and Williams are publicly denouncing her, she questions their involvement. “She (McQueen) and Wendall Williams have made a career out of trying to make the public, the police and everybody else think that I’ve done something to Don,” Carole Lewis said. “And if anybody knows better in this entire world it is her. So, I can only assume the reason for putting so much attention or trying to focus so much attention on me is to take the focus off what their part in this was.” There’s also a chance Don Lewis purposely flew away and didn’t come back. Some friends speculate he’s somewhere laughing at the chaos he left behind. After all, Lewis labored at being an enigma. Worth upwards of $6 million, Lewis bought his clothes at yard sales and thrift stores. He told people he couldn’t read, while others say they saw him read. He even told his wife Carole that his name was Bob Martin when they first met. It took her nearly three years to learn who he really was. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office is still investigating Lewis’ disappearance. The case is classified as missing with suspicious circumstances. Because it’s an open case, the investigators refuse to share their theories. But from a compilation of other, often contradictory reports, calling his disappearance suspicious is an understatement.
Conflicting recollections On August 15, 1997, four days before he disappeared, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a balding 59-year-old Lewis shuffled through a parking lot littered with old motor homes, used cars and trucks toward a modular building. Unshaven and his eyes puffy from a lack of sleep, he entered the office of his $5-million real estate empire. McQueen studied him. She had never seen him come to work unshaven. “What? Did you forget to shave and take a bath this morning?” she recalls joking. “I slept in the trailer last night,” he told her, referring to one of seven used travel trailers he planned to resell, one of his many business ventures. McQueen asked him if things weren’t going well with his wife, Carole. “No,” he answered. McQueen heard him dial up his attorney and ask for a recommendation of a good divorce lawyer. Wendall Williams, who was also in the office that day, says Lewis “had told her (Carole Lewis) she was history.” But Carole Lewis says there was no divorce planned. Four other Easy Street workers say they had never heard any talk of divorce. Later that day, McQueen says, she talked to Lewis on his way home and tried to convince him to work things out with Carole. “It’s not going to happen,” he said. The following Sunday, Don Lewis called Williams to say he would drop some real estate signs off at Williams’ office the next morning. A few volunteers at Wildlife on Easy Street remember seeing Lewis around. Volunteer Kellie Dorn was in the Lewis’ small kitchen when Don came in bottle-feeding an African desert cub. “Hey, how are you doing?” he asked her. But that was about all he said. “He wasn’t as talkative as he usually was,” Dorn says. “In retrospect, he may have seemed a little down, although mood swings were apropos for him.”
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Dorn’s fiancé, Doug Edwards, also an Easy Street volunteer, says Lewis asked Carole for some directions, but at the time Edwards thought it was just for real estate since the Lewises owned more than 200 pieces of property. Later Edwards learned it was the location of an airplane for sale. On Monday morning, Carole says, she was still in bed when Don set out on his day’s journey, preparing for a move to his 200 acres in Costa Rica. Williams and McQueen say he told them he was planning to move there and leave Carole on Easy Street. Carole knew he wanted to move some of the cats there, but denies he planned to leave her. He stood in the doorway of their bedroom, which was decorated with leopard print curtains and bedspread. “Be sure and have the Costa Rica truck looked at,” Carole remembers Don saying. He wanted her to take the truck to the mechanic because he was planning to ship it the following day to Costa Rica. However, employee Ken Farr says the truck had been taken apart by a mechanic who quit before finishing the job, so it was in no shape to be shipped out the following day. Lewis then set out in his rusted 8-year-old blue Dodge van with a broken window and a battered grill on what was believed to be a typical day of wheeling and dealing. He was a trader of used appliances, cars, trucks, motorcycles, heavy equipment, planes, real estate—anything he could make a buck on. He often spent his days in the courthouse buying foreclosed mortgages or going through dumpsters looking for something he might be able to repair and resell or feed to his cats. But that day the only indication he made it anywhere were some real estate signs left at his lawyer’s Town ‘N Country office. Later, McQueen says she tried phoning and paging Lewis to remind him he needed the title for the “Costa Rica truck” and the motorcycles it was hauling. That afternoon she began punching into his pager her and Lewis’ emergency code, “9797.” That was their signal for “Urgent! Call Me!” Finding a shipper for the truck and getting approval had been a year in the making. It would all be blown if Lewis didn’t remember to take the titles. McQueen got no response. That night she called him at home until midnight. There was no answer. On Tuesday she called Ken Farr at Easy Street and left a message for Lewis to call. No response. Later she reached Carole Lewis. “Do you have any idea where Don’s at?” McQueen asked. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” Carol said. McQueen says that Carole told her it wasn’t unusual for Don to disappear and “pout.” But Carole gave conflicting stories. First, she said she became nervous that first day when Don didn’t come home at the cats’ feeding time. Later, she said she he was prone to disappearing for extended periods. “That’s why in the initial
Carole & Don’s home as shown in “Weekly Planet” in March 1999. first couple weeks or so I didn’t get too excited over it. I felt like it was just him acting out. He’d be over it. He’d be home. It took a while for it to settle in.” Lewis’ truck was found the next day, August 19, at Pilot Country Airport in Pasco County, parked in front of a hangar door. The keys were on the floorboard. The driver’s seat was pushed all the way back, too far for Lewis’ feet to reach the pedals. There was no sign of Lewis. Meanwhile, according to McQueen, more than $200,000 in cashier’s checks made out in his name remained in her safe deposit box. Lewis and she both had keys. No large sums of money were withdrawn from his known accounts. His credit cards have not been used since his disappearance. It wasn’t until a few days after the van was returned to Easy Street that the sheriff’s office processed it, checking for blood, fingerprints, the typical forensic checklist so much a part of modern-day sleuthing. Investigators have questioned Carole Lewis and walked around Wildlife on Easy Street so many times that she finally asked them to leave if they had no new questions. Hillsborough Sheriff’s investigators even went to Costa Rica in search of Lewis, after receiving a tip that he was sighted there. It turned out the person who saw him was confused about the dates and had seen Lewis before his disappearance. Lt. Craig Latimer said investigators are convinced Lewis is not in Costa Rica.
Dueling Interpretations As Carole Lewis flows around the big cat compound, she says she believes her husband is dead. She thinks that he crashed an ultralight plane into the Gulf of Mexico, burying his body beneath the waves. Don had been looking at some ultralights that he wanted to take Costa Rica to sell. She had seen some of them and said they looked like they were made out of “popsicle sticks.” She says she warned him against buying and flying them, but “you couldn’t tell Don anything.” “I feel like that more than likely he paid a person for it and flew to the Panhandle or the upper part of Georgia,” she says. “He liked flying over the water and he flew low because he didn’t want to be picked up (on radar). He didn’t have a license.” Carole Lewis says it wasn’t unusual for her husband to rig a plane to fly farther than it was built to fly. Once he loaded the wings of a small plane with gas tanks so he could travel farther. Another time, Lewis was forced to land in the Gulf after his plane ran out of gas. Carol says he climbed from the plane with his briefcase and gun and stood atop the sinking plane until shrimpers rescued him. No doubt, Lewis was a risk taker. He routinely stuck his face into that of a wild beast that could kill him with a chomp of its incisors. Easy Street volunteer Edwards once saw Lewis stand on a tire and stick a screwdriver into a faulty power box. A jolt of electricity knocked
him back about 10 feet. Lewis got up, dusted the seat of his pants, and went on about his business. But if Lewis bought an ultralight plane and crashed it, why hasn’t the seller come forward? Investigators say it’s not out of the question that the seller may be afraid to admit to selling Lewis a plane. Edwards also holds this theory. “Let’s say you owned a house and built an experimental airplane in your garage. He (Lewis) went out there and climbed into the airplane, took off with it and crashed. Are you going to tell anybody if you had just killed a millionaire even though not through hatred?” But Lewis’ sometime business partner Wendall Williams doesn’t buy the plane crash theory. He and McQueen believe someone else drove Lewis’ van to the airport because of where it was parked—in front of the hangar door. “That van was planted there. It was parked in front of a hangar door so it would have to be found the next day when they opened that hangar,” Williams said. “He (Lewis) would always park his van somewhere out of the way so the planes could get out. He knew that because he had planes.” Williams and Carole Lewis never got along, and since Don Lewis’ disappearance their dislike for one another has intensified. Williams considers Carole an “egomaniac.” Carole considers Williams a leach who cajoled her husband into deals that would benefit Williams. She says Williams always disliked her because she
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pointed out his questionable business practices to her husband. But many of Don Lewis’ family and friends have turned bitterly against one another since he disappeared, often in the dispute over his assets. Carole Lewis and Don Lewis’ three daughters and adopted son from a previous marriage exchanged barbs in court over Lewis’ estate. Earlier this year they reached an agreement that allows the adult children control over 10% of the estate, while Carole Lewis controls 90%. The once-close friendship between Carole Lewis and McQueen has soured. Legal arguments between the two compose much of the four overflowing probate court files concerning Don Lewis’ estate. Carole Lewis has accused McQueen of theft; McQueen has accused Carole Lewis of libel and slander. Several of the volunteers and workers at Easy Street have sided with Carole Lewis in the disputes. “If you knew them (McQueen and Williams) the way I know ‘em, you wouldn’t put much on their credibility,” said Farr, who worked for Don Lewis since he was a boy. But the hissing over Lewis’ money has also led to more serious accusations and implications. Plenty of motives Carole Lewis’ list of suspects grows with each interview. Initially, she named McQueen, Williams and a business associate named Joe Ryan as people who may have had motive to aid in Lewis’ disappearance, or whom she considered his “enemies.” In a subsequent interview, she also named a German man in Costa Rica whom she claims threatened to kill her husband. A couple of days after the second interview she e-mailed the Planet her notes to the police from October 21, 1997, which cast aspersions on yet another person. According to a court document filed by McQueen, about three months after Lewis’s disappearance Carole Lewis wrote in her newsletter “Cat-Tales” that McQueen had taken out a life insurance policy on Don Lewis and that McQueen had transferred $600,000 of Lewis’ accounts to her name. McQueen has officially denied those accusations and called them libelous. The only life insurance policy noted in the settlement between Carole Lewis and Lewis’ adult children is for $1.25 million. It gives $400,000 to his children, $250,000 to Carole Lewis, $200,000 to McQueen and the remaining to potential claimants and Wildlife on Easy Street. McQueen says that she put property in her name at Don Lewis’ request. Lewis was sneaky and hated to pay taxes; he often put property in other people’s names who he trusted, she said. No charges have been filed with the sheriff’s office against McQueen for any impropriety in Lewis’ financial affairs. Carole Lewis said her husband also had about $200,000 in gold coins that disappeared with him. Williams knew about this money, she said. The seat of Lewis’ van being pushed so far back makes her wonder if Williams, a tall man, had parked it at the airport. But McQueen said most of the gold was spent
long before Don Lewis’ disappearance. About $100,000 of it was given to his first wife of 34 years, Gladys Cross, in a divorce settlement in 1996. Much of the gold was used in 1991 to settle a threatened legal dispute with a man accusing Lewis of usury, charging illegal interest on a loan. But McQueen says Williams had nothing to gain. His reliance on Don Lewis is exactly why he wouldn’t have killed him, she said. “Don was Wendall’s gravy train.” Another person Carole Lewis names as having a beef with her husband is Joe Ryan. And court documents show he had plenty of reasons to be angry with Don Lewis. Lewis sold an option on a piece of land at 11509 Sligh Ave. in Seffner to Ryan for $50,600. Ryan in turn agreed to sell the land to Lazy Days for $131,000. Carole Lewis says that Ryan later decided he wanted to ask more but couldn’t because he had already signed an agreement with Lazy Days. To get around it, he asked Don Lewis to claim his option void, which would mean he didn’t own the property and thus could not sell it, she said. Ryan, however, argues in his lawsuit against Lewis’ estate that the greedy guy was Lewis. Lewis ultimately let Ryan out of the option, but sold the property to a Costa Rican company, Corporación Witco, which Lewis owned. Ryan claims in his lawsuit against Lewis that that company in turn sold it to Lazy Days for $225,000. Ryan in his lawsuit claims Lewis promised to give him everything over the original $50,000 sales price and has a letter from Lewis’ to prove it. Lazy Days is still suing Ryan for damages and legal costs. Ryan couldn’t be reached for comment. His attorney, Neil Polster, when told that Carole Lewis saw Ryan as a potential threat to her husband, said: “That’s stupid. I wager that she didn’t know what he was doing less than 1% of the time. She may be in good faith saying that, but she just doesn’t know.” Lazy Days General Counsel Terryn Bennett said Ryan and Lewis were perfectly capable of working together. And she said she found it hard to believe anyone would kill anyone over a small piece of land in Seffner. “There wasn’t anything cloak and dagger about it.” Closer to home Carole Lewis, however, is the person who had the most to gain financially from Lewis’ disappearance. In her 1994 journal, Carole Lewis said her husband only gave her $518 a week. The legal stipulation with his adult children now gives her $100,000 a year on top of living expenses,
insurance and a vehicle. In the long term, if Lewis fails to resurface, Carole Lewis stands to inherit almost all of his $6 million estate. After his disappearance she produced Lewis’ signed and notarized will leaving her everything but a handful of properties that will go to his adult children. The recent settlement gives Carole Lewis control over what she stands to inherit. However, the court must approve any transaction more than $125,000. Prior to this settlement, Carole Lewis acted as co-conservator along with a court-appointed conservator over those properties and could independently make transactions up to $75,000. Carole Lewis’ control over the estate in her husband’s absence was made possible by a durable power of attorney that she filed two weeks after his disappearance. Dated November 21, 1996, it gave her unusually broad powers of control over his estate. She drafted it, Don Lewis signed it, and it had been notarized nine months prior to his disappearance. Carole Lewis has argued on more than one occasion in the legal wrangling over her husband’s estate that because “there is no evidence that Don Lewis is deceased” that putting his estate under the court’s control is premature. Once the grantor of a power of attorney is dead, the document becomes void. Their assets then go into probate court. The most glaring oddity of the durable power of attorney document is the use of the word “disappearance.” It states: “This durable family power of attorney shall not be affected by any disability or disappearance of the principal except as provided by statute and shall be exercisable from this date.” Tampa attorney Bill Platt, who is experienced in probate work, says he’s never seen that language used in a durable power of attorney. Carole Lewis told sheriff’s investigators that she included the word because Don was always disappearing, spontaneously taking shopping trips for exotic cats, planes and property. She told the Planet the word “disappearance” was specifically added because she and Don feared that he might disappear in Costa Rica. “We changed it when he started going to Costa Rica because we had read an article down there about some people who had disappeared,” Carole Lewis said. “We realized there was nothing in the documents we had that would have protected me in that sort of an event. So that was why it was in. I just expected if he would disappear, he would have disappeared in Costa Rica, and never dreamed it would happen here.” Carole says it wasn’t unusual for her to draw up legal documents to save money. “Don hated
The case is classified as missing with suspcious circumstances, but calling his disappearance suspicious is an understatement.
using attorneys,” she says. “When I first started working for him in 1984 it was because he was spending $60,000 in attorney’s fees. … Those were things I could do for free.” Carole says she had nothing to gain from Don’s disappearance. “From a financial standpoint, if Don were to die, then I stood to gain all that we had together. For Don to be simply missing I stood the risk of being in exactly the position I am in, which is to be under suspicion, and not in control of our affairs, and to watch greed and malice destroy through the ensuing legal battles all that we worked for. If I had done something to Don for my own gain, I would have to leave a body in plain sight, and an ironclad trail to anything or anyone but myself, for me to gain anything.” Her cluttered house is no bigger or more luxurious than a double-wide mobile home. She doesn’t appear to be living in luxury since her husband disappeared. The center room of her home is a cat pen that smells strongly of cat urine, and she sleeps with a bobcat in her bed. Strange attraction Even though Don Lewis was 24 years her senior and no Brad Pitt, his money was not a part of her initial attraction to him, according to Carole Lewis’ 1994 journal. The journal was given to the Planet by McQueen, who says a former volunteer fished the handwritten diary out of the trash. But Carole says several of her journals were stolen and that the volunteer has been trying to sell them to tabloid television shows. In the 1994 journal Carole describes the highs and lows of being married to an eccentric, frugal man with an irrational temper. But even when he blasted her over something as minor as buying cable TV for her daughter, she exasperatingly proclaimed her love for him. She portrays herself as a victim of a volatile love that was unconventional from the start. She was 19 when she met him. He was 43. She had had a fight with her then-husband, Mike Murdock, threw a potato at him and ran from their house barefoot onto 48th Street in Tampa. He yelled at her as she walked up to Sligh Avenue and 56th Street in Tampa. She had no money or gun, she wrote, but kept walking. She spotted her husband looking for her, driving around the block. She ducked down alleys and behind houses to avoid him. Meanwhile, another driver kept circling. The wild-eyed man inside frightened her, so she ducked into a watermelon vendor’s tent at 56th Street and Hillsborough Avenue. Later, as she left a railroad overpass, the driver pulled over and asked her if she needed a ride. “No,” she said, and kept walking. He circled the block and came back. When he pulled over she could see a handgun on the passenger seat. He rolled down the window. He said he had just fought with his wife and needed an ear. He offered to let her hold a loaded gun on him while he talked. For reasons she still can’t explain, Carole Murdock got into the car. He told her his name was Bob Martin. He described himself as a poor farm boy who worked
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how to look into people for their strengths and weaknesses, exactly how to manipulate you for one reason or another. He always knew what vein to cut.” Although Don Lewis continued to prowl, infidelity doesn’t appear to be the source of his marital problems. Witness accounts and Carole’s journal show the couple’s strife revolving around Wildlife on Easy Street. Carole often accused Don of mishandling the cats and complained that he was junking the place up with his bargain purchases. Lewis, a businessman to the core, may have loved the big cats, but not so much that he wouldn’t sell some of them. “He didn’t have a hard time selling them or giving them away,” Aronoff said. “But some of them were his babies. The ones that were his babies were his forever. If they represented a dollar sign, yes, they were gone.” Carole Lewis, on the other hand, views all the cats as her children. Williams said the differing views prompted fights, especially before Lewis disappeared; he was planning on taking 23 cats with him to Costa Rica. She didn’t want him to take any of them. McQueen said at the time Carole Lewis told her that Don was so mad that he threatened to kill every cat there by feeding them antifreeze. Tensions about the exotic pets began long before that, according to Carole’s 1994 journal. She wrote of July 9, 1994: “We have over 60 cats now and he spends 11-24 hours a month, calling long distance, trying to buy more cats, but he doesn’t want to build pens for them and crowds them together (tonight a Cougar killed a house cat) or he puts them in unfinished pens (without consulting me) and they escape (like last night, when a Bobcat and a Canadian Lynx got out and took three of us several tense hours to recapture). He had let 10 exotics in that pen within 8 hours of me telling him it was not safe. Then rather than finish the pen he decided to have all the workers spend all day Friday getting a load of personal effects loaded into vans and trailers for his grandson to have a yard sale, which would have seemed like a family thing to do, except that the stuff isn’t his. He bid on it through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and agreed to store it for them. He doesn’t have any idea if the owner will redeem the property, or if someone else will bid higher. When I reminded him of this he just said I’m only selling part of his stuff. Today he spent at Tampa Machinery Auction, buying more junk, although we are under citation by the county to clean up his “dumping site” and remove all inoperative vehicles (which is most of them). One car is completely engulfed in a hornets nest. How long since he’s even seen whatever it used to be, that he just had to have.” Two months before Don Lewis vanished, the couple had such a disagreement over his collection of equipment that he filed a petition for injunction for protection against domestic violence. “This is the second time Carole has got angry
PHOTO BY TOM BERNDT ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE “WEEKLY PLANET.”
for a cruel, money-grubbing man named Don Lewis. He had a suitcase of penny wrappers stuffed with rolled-up $100 bills that ostensibly belonged to his boss. He asked her to go to New Orleans with him. She told him she had a 7-month-old daughter she couldn’t leave. They settled for the beach instead and later a pay-by-the-hour motel. He promised he wouldn’t try anything. Once in their motel room, he barricaded the door, brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. She joined him, wearing his baggy pajamas. They didn’t have sex, which endeared him to her all the more; “No one had ever cared about me, without wanting something in return,” she wrote in her journal. Don and Carole continued seeing each other even though they were both married. It was nearly three years before Carole called his office and got someone who didn’t know who Bob Martin was. She described him, and the worker told her, “Why, that’s Don Lewis.” Although Carole Lewis said she and Don grew closer and she assisted him with some real estate deals, McQueen said Carole wasn’t the only other woman in Don’s life. She rattled off the names of six other women and added there was “a honey in Costa Rica.” Lewis even had illegitimate children with some of his lovers, according to McQueen and Susan Aronoff, an Easy Street volunteer and friend of Carole’s. “He had more kids than he knew,” Aronoff said. “He acknowledged them, but he didn’t support them. Some of the people he had affairs with had more than one child each with him.” Back when Lewis was more into trucking, he had trailers and campers on the lot that often doubled for love nests, she said. McQueen recalled seeing Lewis separately take three girlfriends back to a camper in one day. “I could never see what women saw in him,” McQueen says. “He walks funny. His teeth are crooked, and he has almost no hair.” But what he lacked in looks, Lewis made up for in charm and courage. “I used to listen to him schmooze women, and he was amazing,” McQueen says. “There wasn’t a woman in the world that he talked to that he didn’t try to get into her pants.” After 34 years of marriage, his wife Gladys decided to move on. She divorced him in 1990, and Lewis married Carole Stairs (her maiden name) in 1991. But Don Lewis’ womanizing didn’t stop. One of the women he hit on was Susan Aronoff, who now peddles long distance phone service. Proceeds go to Wildlife on Easy Street. “Don was very subtle about it for a very long time,” said Aronoff, whose van license plate reads “LIONLDY.” “He’s the kind of person so unattractive to me. You wonder what the hell do women see in this man. … Don always knew the right thing to say to a woman. Don knew how to make you feel like a queen. He would spoil the woman to the point she would sleep with him. He knew
Photo of sign warning that trespassers will be eaten. enouf (sic) to threaton (sic) to kill me,” Don Lewis wrote in the petition. On the petition’s questionnaire asking to indicate situations he had experienced, Lewis placed three “x’s” by “respondent has ready access to a firearm.” He also checked that he had received verbal threats and suffered emotional distress. The Hillsborough Circuit Court Judge denied Lewis’ request, the reason: “No immediate threat to do violence.” (The word immediate was underlined in the court document.) Don Lewis wrote on the injunction request that while he was away Carole gave two junk men permission to remove trucks and equipment stored on their property. Lewis was holding the equipment as collateral for a $17,000 loan to Wendall Williams. Lewis said Williams had to call the sheriff to prevent the men from taking the equipment. Carole Lewis said, “I never threatened to kill him. The worst thing I ever did was threaten to report him to the IRS.” She admits that Don Lewis’ collection of stuff
around their house was getting on her nerves, but claims he was mentally unbalanced. “He always did that. But originally, he brought home things that were useful,” she said. “Then he started bringing home things like the cardboard boxes of unwanted junk leftover after garage sales.” Carole Lewis claims she became concerned that her husband was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He would call her and not know where he was, she said. She insisted that he get a physical and an MRI. The test results showed no signs of Alzheimer’s, but Lewis was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she said. But even that’s disputed. McQueen said she set up the physical and Lewis was given a complete clean bill of health. Still Missing Today about all that remains of Lewis’ junk pile is an old blue wooden boat with the words “Das Boot” spray painted in neon on its side. Many of the cats have their own pens now, and they have soil underneath their feet instead of slabs of concrete as they did before.
Wildlife on Easy Street has ironically benefited from the publicity of Don Lewis’ disappearance. Its slick website is bannered by “As seen on Dateline NBC and as featured in People Magazine.” Outside donations have climbed from $32,000 in 1996 to $176,000 in 1998. Lewis’ contribution has also increased from $154,000 in 1996 to $222,000 in 1998. The operation’s overall budget has climbed from $186,000 to $398,000 since Lewis disappeared. But the improvements on Easy Street may have nothing to do with Lewis’ disappearance. Carole Lewis says it hurts to have people think she would have done anything to her husband. The accusations about feeding him to the cats she finds impractical; the exotic cats won’t just eat anything, she said. They feast on chicken. Susan Aronoff gets huffy at insinuations that Carole Lewis fed her husband to the wild cats. “Anything a tiger eats comes out,” Aronoff said. “Human bones are going to show no matter what. (The accusation that she fed him to the cats) opens it up to every trash television show wanting to come out and film these tigers. The person who had most to lose would have been Carole. If it were Carole she’s too smart to do it that way. She has so many people to contend with.” By law Don Lewis cannot be declared dead until his body is found or five years pass. Because of that, everything he owned is held in probate, limiting what Carole can do with it. Aronoff believes that’s just what Don wanted. She’s one of the few who believe he is still alive, playing a contemptible prank on his family. “I believe with all my heart that he will show up,” she said. Carole Lewis and Aronoff say he considered his children traitors for siding with his first wife in a money dispute in 1996. “I think he’s doing it to see the reaction to his children,” Aronoff said. “He’s very spiteful. They went right for the money. They did exactly what he disinherited them for in the first place,” The idea that Lewis could be murdered strikes Aronoff as odd, for Lewis was always armed, she said. Many others who knew Don Lewis have no doubt he was crafty enough to pull off a disappearing act. After all, he made millions by his wits alone. “I could see him somewhere thinking this is the funniest thing he ever saw,” says Lazy Days attorney Bennett. “He always saw it as his best advantage that nobody knew better about him. I mean here was a guy that you really can’t even answer whether he could read or not.” Carole Lewis says her husband was functionally illiterate. McQueen says not only could Don Lewis read, but that he had caught flaws in contracts. Several volunteers say he told them he quit school after sixth or seventh grade, but Pasco County school records show he graduated from high school a year ahead of schedule in 1955 from Pasco High School.
Williams says he believes Lewis is capable of disappearing without a trace, he just doesn’t think he would leave $200,000 in the bank. “Don didn’t have much money until the last 10 or 15 years,” Williams said. “He always lived like he didn’t have any, but he would have died fighting for it. The problem is who helped him disappear didn’t know he had that money.” McQueen also can’t believe Lewis would have left the money in the bank. “No sane person would leave $200,000,” she said. But Lewis’ extreme paranoia leads Aronoff to believe he had other money hidden. “Don might not keep money in the bank. He was the type who buried it in the ground. He’s gone somewhere with a large sum of money. And he’s the kind of person who will turn the mole hill into a mountain. People with all this sensationalism on their brains will be disappointed when Don comes walking home.” The major players Carole Lewis — Don Lewis’ second wife, who was married to him at the time of his disappearance. Elizabeth Ann McQueen — Don’s business assistant for 18 years Wendall Williams — Don’s sometimes business partner Joe Ryan — A business associate who was suing Don at the time of his disappearance. Vokker — A mysterious German man who allegedly worked for Don in Costa Rica and had reportedly taken out a contract on Don’s life. Gladys Cross — Don’s first wife of 34 years Richard Reed, Doug Edwards, Kellie Dorn, Ken Farr, Sandy Wittkopp and Susan Aronoff — Volunteers at Wildlife on Easy Street, the exotic animal attraction owned by Don and Carole Lewis —
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INFORMED DISSENT ISSUES
OPINION
Hands off
The president who botched the pandemic is only interested in shifting blame. By Jeffery Billman
I
n 1933, at the height of the Great Depression—a year after the U.S. economy contracted by 10% and just before FDR’s New Deal took effect—American unemployment hit an almost unimaginable 24.9%, a record that stands 87 years later. It’s time to imagine it again. In the week that ended on April 11, according to the Department of Labor, more than 5.2 million people filed initial jobless claims—more jobs lost in one week than the economy gained in all of 2017 and 2018 combined. This was, stunningly enough, an improvement over the two weeks prior, when more than 6.6 million and nearly 6.9 million filed claims. All told, in the four weeks after President Trump (finally) declared a state of emergency, the U.S. economy lost at least 22 million jobs, about the same number it gained since 2010. The Great Lockdown, in other words, destroyed in a month what the recovery from the Great Recession built in a decade. Economists say unemployment is probably hovering around 20% or higher. In Michigan, more than one in five workers have already applied for unemployment. The same goes for Florida. In North Carolina, about 14% have. In New York, at least a million people have filed for benefits despite a problematic and overloaded system. More than 15% of Americans could fall into poverty this year, researchers say, many of them Black and Hispanic. This is going to be ugly. And we’re only at the beginning. The annualized second-quarter GDP contraction could hit 30%, three times what it was following the financial collapse in 2008, as commerce has frozen in place for a month or six weeks or longer. And the optimistic scenario foresees us ending the year with unemployment at about 10% and GDP recovering to about a 5% loss. But that depends on us getting the next few weeks right. Before moving on, let’s pause to acknowledge the scale of the human tragedy: As of Friday morning, the U.S. had 671,425 confirmed cases
of COVID-19 and 33,286 deaths from the disease. That’s about 50% more deaths and 360% more diagnoses than the closest countries, Italy and Spain, respectively. While the U.S. is much larger—more than five and six times their respective populations—the Trump administration also had a longer window of time in which to prepare for the pandemic, and it failed to do so. Writing in The New York Times, epidemiologists Britta L. Jewell and Nicholas P. Jewell say that had President Trump acted sooner— issuing social distancing guidelines on March 2 instead of March 16—“an estimated 90% of the cumulative deaths in the United States from COVID-19, at least from the first wave of the epidemic, might have been prevented.” Even issuing those guidelines on March 9 would have meant “a 60% reduction in deaths.” At the time, however, the president was more interested in propping up the stock market than acknowledging the crisis. On March 6—a week after promising that cases in the U.S. would soon be “close to zero,” the virus will “disappear,” and “everything is under control”—Trump insisted that “anyone who wants a [coronavirus] test can get one,” a statement that was not true then and is not true now. On March 10, Trump said, “Just stay calm. It will go away.” The administration’s dithering also did enormous damage to the economy. An analysis by Robert J. Shapiro—a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business who served in the Clinton administration’s Commerce Department—comparing the U.S. to Germany and South Korea argues that at least 40% of the carnage can be traced back to Trump’s inaction. Which is to say, there’s both blood and misery on Trump’s hands. In late March, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion rescue package to keep businesses afloat and prevent the economy from spiraling. Its shortcomings are already obvious. The $349 billion Paycheck Protection Protection (PPP), designed to subsidize employers not to lay off employees, ran out of money within two weeks. The Economic Injury Disaster Loan program has almost run dry. Even the $1,200 stimulus payments haven’t gone out smoothly: Paper checks were delayed so the Treasury Department could put Trump’s name on them, and millions of taxpayers didn’t get their funds direct-deposited because they’d used
JOYCE N. BOGHOSIAN
POLITICS
SMALL HANDS, SMALLER BRAIN: Trump doesn’t have the capacity to own up to his mistakes. third-party filing services like TurboTax. From the outset, the PPP has been a bureaucratic train wreck. The administration was rewriting the rules until just before the program launched, leaving lenders in the dark. The second it did launch, systems were overloaded with demand, and small businesses without established relationships to connected banks couldn’t even put through applications. Once applications went through, rural and red states, some of which were barely touched by the coronavirus, appear to have gotten more PPP help than hard-hit blue states. In the first 10 days of the program, according to a Bloomberg News analysis, Nebraska got enough money to cover 75% of its payrolls, and Wisconsin received 63%. But California and New York? Just 24% and 25%, respectively. Michigan and Florida: 39%. North Carolina: 38%. And because of a loophole allowing giant
“There’s both blood and misery on Trump’s hands.”
restaurant and hotel chains to cash in on money meant for struggling small businesses, the Florida-based Ruth’s Chris Steak House chain scored $20 million from the PPP pot, while the Potbelly Sandwich Shop chain got $10 million. The administration now says it needs $250 billion more. Congressional Democrats want to tie in help for devastated states and cities, hospitals, and people on food stamps who are likely to otherwise be left holding the bag. Republicans have refused. The longer the stalemate, the more businesses will go under, and many of them won’t get up again. Even for those who get the money—and who hold on to their employees until the end of June to make the PPP loans forgivable—the funds are only designed to hold them over for two months. So if the economy’s not roaring back by summer, another Depression-like round of massive layoffs is coming. That’s why Trump is hellbent on reopening the economy even when public health officials are wary. On Thursday night, the White House
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FAILING GRADE: The President doesn’t want to believe that testing is a problem. released guidelines for reopening the country. Written by doctors, it’s a cautious document, certainly more cautious than the president, who days earlier was insisting (absurdly) that he had “total” authority to force states to lift stay-at-home orders. Trump was more cautious in another way, too. While he encouraged governors to open sooner than later, and he preferred they did so before May 1, he said it was their call. The deferential announcement, it seems, was timed to get ahead of own-the-libs govs in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi who were going to reopen anyway, so Trump wouldn’t look feckless. Trump being Trump, however, this move was also a rather obvious ploy to shift responsibility: If a state’s economy is in the toilet, Trump can blame the governor for waiting too long; if a state has a deadly coronavirus outbreak, Trump can blame the governor for opening too soon; if a second wave grips the country this fall, Trump has partners with whom to share culpability. This is part of a pattern of diversion and blame-shifting, of course. To blame China for the novel coronavirus, Trump and his advisers are pushing an evidence-free conspiracy theory that it emerged from a research lab in Wuhan, where it might have been engineered; scientists say the virus’ genomes make this highly unlikely. Trump also threatened to cut off funding for the World Health Organization—amid a worldwide pandemic, no less—accusing the WHO of furthering Chinese propaganda and causing “so
much death.” (In late January, Trump praised the Chinese for “their efforts and transparency.”) It’s China’s fault. It’s the WHO’s fault. It’s American governors’ fault. But Trump? “I don’t take responsibility at all.” To reopen responsibly, the U.S. needs a testing-and-tracing system like South Korea implemented. To make that happen, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute says we need to test 500,000 people a day—350,000 more tests per day than we’re doing now. (That’s a lowball: A white paper from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics puts the number of daily tests in the millions.) Without being able to quickly identify and quarantine the infected, social distancing measures have to stay in place to prevent an outbreak. Otherwise, everything we’ve endured over the last six weeks has been for naught. But states don’t have the resources to do that kind of testing right now; to get there, they’ll need the feds’ help. “The biggest problem we have right now is testing capacity,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on MSNBC Thursday. “What we need from the federal government right now is help on that testing capacity and with supplies and with personal protective equipment.” The White House, however, has told them that testing is their responsibility. “The President doesn’t want to believe that testing is a problem,” Cooper continued. “And it is a problem, particularly if we want to get the country going again.”
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“The U.S. needs a testingand-tracing system like South Korea.”
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A termed-out Hillsborough commissioner lets down his district. By Linda Saul-Sena
A
pril 15 was an extraordinary day. The rare mashup of grassroots activists and Chamber of Commerce leaders all speaking to a common goal was impressive. Last Wednesday, 17 out of 18 speakers were passionate in their virtual pleas to the Hillsborough County Commissioners in support of continuing the 1% transit tax voters already passed in November 2018. Oddly enough, the public hearing was also about a new referendum, which could be on the November ballot (a back-up tax in case the Florida Supreme Court finds the November 2018 tax unconstitutional.) This is a very detailed and confusing issue, but the Cliff Notes version is that in 2018, over 57% of the voters, in every single district, supported a 1% sales tax to fund transportation in Hillsborough County. A lone east county commissioner, Stacy White, disagreed and filed a lawsuit challenging the referendum. That legal challenge is before the Florida Supreme Court and it appears from the judges’ tone and questioning that they are likely to throw out the tax. Hillsborough County Commissioners had the opportunity to schedule a hearing to discuss placing a fresh referendum on the November ballot. The speakers were eloquent. David Mechanik, past chair of Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, which provides bus service to the county, began. “As you know, the majority of voters in HIllsborough County recognized the need for an additional funding source for roads and transit. I recognize that there is a concern that many people will be economically devastated by the effects of the coronavirus,” Mechanik said. “While that is true, those people will require transit service more than ever, to seek jobs and hopefully go to their jobs. HART barely has sufficient funding to serve the existing demand and will need the surtax to be able to meet the increased demand.” Bicycling activist Jim Shirk continued by saying, “When economic recovery begins, there will be a significant number of people, mostly working poor (and disproportionately people of color) who have lost access to a car. Cars cost money even if they aren’t being driven (loan payments, insurance, etc.) and without transit, these people may not be able to ‘go back to work.’ This could further cripple and delay the recovery.”
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
Les could’ve done more
Michele Cookson, a Seminole Heights neighborhood leader lent her voice and explained that, “We are all already paying this tax. Let’s keep it going so that we are best positioned to invest and ensure better times ahead as we go into a recovery period.” The irony in this dramatic vote was that Les Miller, the commissioner representing the most urban neighborhood in the county, was both the initiator of this referendum and the proponent of delaying the vote. When I spoke with him to better understand his vote, he explained that he had been an early supporter of the tax. “In early 2018 I was the only commissioner trying to get it on the ballot. I worked with Go Hillsborough to insure the transportation tax’s success. I was livid about the lawsuit. When the coronavirus struck, that was a game changer for me. One out of four people in our area, 362,00, have lost their jobs. That’s why I changed my mind. This is not the time to push a tax… we should be talking about how to help.” Miller is term-limited, and one of the contenders for his seat is Tampa Heights Civic Association past president, Rick Fernandez, who argued that “Transportation/Transit is the circulatory system of a thriving metro area. We must not continue to deprive our county of oxygen. In this context, failure to back up the All For Transportation funding with a November ballot measure would be not only callous, but also the height of political malpractice. Please take this opportunity to bring us back on course.” Sierra Club staffer Phil Compton commented, “ I was bitterly disappointed in Commissioner Miller’s vote in particular, as he represents my East Tampa neighborhood. As the chair of HART, he should know how his many of his constituents have no choice but to spend thousands a year to own and operate a car because HART doesn’t have the funds to run buses the way transit agencies do across the country— early, late and often, so people can get to work and back home safely and affordably. He let us all down, and set us back another few years in finally tackling our community’s most cruel example of economic inequity. He didn’t save anyone money—he cost many folks thousands they might have had before this crisis, but likely won’t as we come out of it.” Four Commissioners—Sandy Murman, Les Miller, Ken Hagan and Stacy White—voted to not schedule a public hearing until 2021 at the earliest. Pat Kemp, Mariella Smith and Kimberly Overman were the proponents and pushed their hardest for the funding. Overman was clear in her anger. “We will have to wait until 2022 to bring transportation solutions to our citizens and
OPINION
20 | APRIL 23, 2020 | cltampa.com
TERMINAL ERROR: Term-limited County Commissioner Les Miller backtracked on his support of a transit tax. forgo bringing real jobs and training to our local and state infrastructure money, as they will citizens,” Overman said. “It’s a fallacy that not have the funding in place for matching grant protecting the surtax protects our most vulner- requirements. On more than one occasion, memable. It will hurt them more to not have those bers of this board have noted that we lose money revenues to provide jobs and a safer and more for transportation projects that could substaneconomical way to get to them.” tially help our communities because we don’t Federal transportation dollars require a have a united front.” local match as Congresswoman Kathy Castor To Overman, the April 15 vote was an opporpointed out. When Mike Merrill, the county tunity to give jobless citizens a fighting chance administrator, was asked by Overman if the to get back to work. county has match money without the surtax “FDOT two years ago launched a workforce revenues, he responded no. training recruitment campaign because the Overman continued, “Without the surtax, skilled labor needed by contractors is sorely this county will lose and will lose big. After the needed,” she added. “Our moving forward with initial push for aid and relief, the federal and transportation projects will add to that need state governments will transition to packages and expand much needed training programs, to stimulate the economy." which would be a win for residents needing jobs, "As stated by Congresswoman Castor, 'A receive skill training and for employers who are lack of local transpor- in dire need of trades workers.” tation matching funds How do we move forward? The Florida would be devastating to Supreme Court could vote in support of the All Hillsborough County’s For Transportation initiative. Plan B would be ability to recover from a a polished-up new referendum promoted again recession, draw down funds for major transpor- by a coalition of business and grassroots leadtation and infrastructure projects, boost wages ers. In two years our economy will, hopefully, and create jobs.'” be recovering from the coronavirus collapse and Overman added that,”Other Florida counties voters will have an eye to the future. have a surtax and will win the race for federal Until then, we’re stuck.
“He cost many folks thousands they might have had before this crisis.”
Shit Happened THURSDAY 16
SATURDAY 18
Hillsborough County’s Emergency Policy Group cancels the coronavirus curfew it enacted just three days before. Who the hell is in charge here?
GAGE SKIDMORE (CC)
FRIDAY 17
A #FloridaMorons hashtag starts trending after Jacksonville opens beaches for people to walk, run, swim and surf. Proponents argue that you can’t just chill on the sand, but all the same idiots will probably still go to the hospital at the first sign of Covid-19 symptoms.
MONDAY 20
Reports show that only 4% of Florida residents who filed for unemployment have received a check. Gov. DeSantis, who’s been more or less following cues from Trump during the pandemic, surprisingly takes responsibility and says his team’s progress is “not nearly enough.” Another report shows that Florida’s small business loan program ran out of money, but only after giving millions to corporate chains. Is anybody surprised or outraged enough to actually vote some of the scumbags who passed the legislation out?
The 10-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill arrives. Offshore drilling is still happening and still just as unsafe, but oil companies breath a deep, black sigh of relief since everyone’s so focused on the coronavirus instead.
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RECIPES
CASSSTREETDELI/INSTAGRAM
RESTAURANTS
DINING GUIDES
FAT STACKS: Cass St. Deli’s Chef Suzanne Crouch just got an infusion of funds to help feed local restaurant workers.
Cass street-nova
Lee Initiative dubs Suzanne Crouch a rising star, taps her to feed locals in need. By Ray Roa
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ampa’s Cass St. Deli just got a big boost from James Beard Winner Chef Edward Lee, and local laid off restaurant and hospitality workers are getting a lot of help as a result. As part of the Lee Initiative’s Restaurant Workers Relief Program—which recognized Cass St. Deli’s Chef Suzanne Crouch (pictured above) as a leading woman in the Tampa Bay culinary scene—the New York-style Jewish deli is being infused with funds and being asked to feed hospitality workers in need for three weeks starting last Saturday. Lee launched the program at his restaurant Louisville, Kentucky restaurant, 610 Magnolia, a month ago. The undisclosed amount of grant money, made possible through a Lee Initiative partnership with Maker’s Mark, allows Crouch to hire back five of eight furloughed employees. It also provides meals to laid off hospitality workers every night from 5 p.m.-7 p.m., for 21 days straight. Crouch told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that she expects to serve approximately 250 people a night, for a total of about 5,250 meals. “It’s actually completely fulfilling,” Crouch said of the idea of making that many meals after
a full day of slinging Cass St. Deli’s modified menu, which includes its own in-house lunch box program which finds locals donating food to front line medical workers. “This provides job security for me and my staff, and knowing that I can provide for my community is amazing.” All laid off hospitality and restaurant workers have to do to get a free meal is show a pay stub, and they’re encouraged to come back for a meal every night. Crouch plans on having three different menus for each week of the Workers Relief Program; over the weekend she served roasted lemon chicken with Maker’s Mark sweet potato mash and braised cabbage. Crouch also said that she was able to buy produce from Tampa Bay’s very own Sweetwater Organic Farm, bread for Jamison B. and meat from Florida’s own Providence Cattle Company. “You deserve the best, Tampa,” she wrote. The funds are a boon for Cass St. Deli— located at 1331 W. Cass St.—which was acquired by Blind Tiger in January. Details of the deal were not disclosed, but the following months
FOOD NEWS
presented challenges for the deli due to planned maintenance on the city streets surrounding the location. The road in front of the deli’s parking lot has been under construction for months, but Crouch says she’s learned to embrace the challenges and turn them into positives in the face of the coronavirus pandemic that’s crippling the restaurant industry worldwide. “When this first started, I was really really stressed out, and I was frazzled because there were a lot of things happening to a lot of people all at once,” Crouch told CL. But for her, a chef’s job is to always be on her toes and coming up with solutions to problems. She said that she’s been fortunate to have a supportive staff plus customers who travel through NoHo back alleys to get their food “So yeah, I was nervous and I was scared at first, but now I’m just doing what I always did, and that’s making feel-good food,” she said. “We have to make people feel good.” The Restaurant Workers Relief program is active in 15 cities, and Cass St. Deli is the only Tampa restaurant chosen by Maker’s Mark and the Lee Initiative. The relief effort’s website says that dinners are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. There’s also a limit of one package per person unless there is an emergency situation. Essential supplies—think toilet paper and paper towels— will also be on hand.
If Tampeños donate more money to the initiative, then it can live even longer than the three weeks it’s scheduled to. “We will limit how much any one person can take of these supplies, but they will be handed out free to those in need,” the Lee Initiative wrote. “We will continue to offer this program until we can no longer financially support the program.” On Tuesday morning, Crouch told CL that she hopes more people show up for the meals as the program goes on. She knows there’s a need; she’s seen it in her social feed and she’s heard about layoffs across the area. She says that if you’re hard up on money because you got laid off from a service industry job, then she and her team are here for you. “We all need help right now,” she said. “We’re taking help from the Lee Initiative, and we’re ready to pay it forward. There’s no reason to not take our hand.” It can be tricky to get to the deli by car, but Cass St. Deli is asking folks to pull up behind the deli via Lemon Street, which is accessible via Willow and Oregon Avenues. “Wait in your vehicle,” staff wrote on Instagram. “We will place the food supply donation in the trunk of your vehicle.” Anyone arriving by foot is asked to mind markers on the ground and stand six feet away from their closest neighbor.
“We have to make people feel good.”
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SKYLER JUNE
MEAT FERRELL: The lights are back on at Ferrell Alvarez’s refurbished mini-mart.
Out, now in
and we’re toeing some lines in marketing but all in good fun,” Alvarez added. But what if people start ordering things “Animal Style,” during the pop-up? Alvarez said that for now, “NMM-N-OUT Burger” is going to hold back on In-N-Out fan-favorites like “Animal Style” options, slushies and milkshakes. “We want to do specials like that on different By Ray Roa weeks to keep up engagement,” Alvarez told CL. He’s privy to a lot of the specials In-N-Out runs, ampa Bay In-N-Out fans: Get ready to but he knows he won’t be able to do all of them buy bigger sweatpants. Seminole Heights’ since there’s limited space at the restaurant. Nebraska Mini-Mart is “There are a lot of logispaying homage to a fast-food tical complications. But burger chain that simply nonetheless, we’ll have the won’t come to Florida by ability to add certain things ‘NMM-N-Out Burger’ opening the “NMM-N-Out to certain foods based off of Fri.-Sun. Starting April 24. 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Burger” pop-up at 4815 N. what In-N-Out offers,” he 4815 N. Nebraska Ave., Tampa 813-231-9522. nebraskaminimart.com Nebraska Ave. starting added. “We’ll know more as Friday, April 24 at 5 p.m. we go week by week.” “There aren’t any in Florida In-N-Out And when asked about that week-to-week Burgers in Florida, and that’s just a sin,” Ferrell outlook—and if his restaurants can open if and Alvarez, told Creative Loafing Tampa. when the pandemic clears—Alvarez is cautiously The “NMM-N-Out Burger” pop-ups will hap- optimistic. pen on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays, from 5 “We feel very positive that we will be able p.m.-8 p.m. and will be available for pickup or to open up our restaurants again—intelligently, via UberEats and GrubHub. concisely and methodically,” he told CL. “And Alvarez, 41, is chef I’m not sure how norand partner at Proper mal dining will become House Group, which after this, based on owns Nebraska-Miniwhat we’re experiencMart, Gallito Taquiera ing now,” Alvarez said. and Rooster & Till. He envisions the The three concepts industry accommoare currently operating as a new restaurant, dating the demand for more carryout and even “Rooster Redux,” during the coronavirus pan- better standards of cleanliness and open space, demic, but the new pop-up lets Alvarez hire and he most certainly doesn’t feel like Proper back 10 more employees after having to lay off House Group is close to being out of the woods 41 when the fallout began. when it comes to the economic fallout surround“That means we started with 11 people on ing the pandemic. payroll, quickly jumped to 21 with Rooster Redux “Don’t get me wrong like we’re fortunate in and will now be at 30 and possibly more if the this situation, momentarily, but it’s all because demand is as great as what we’ve experienced,” we’re grinding and we’re earning all of it,” Alvarez said in an email to Creative Loafing Alvarez added. “But we’re still not out in the Tampa. It also means that Nebraska Mini-Mart clear—no way. It’s still a very very tight line.” gets greased back up after having the lights off Have a look at the “NMM-N-Out Burger” for the last month. menu for Tampa’s Nebraska Mini-Mart via “We thought it would be pretty well received cltampa.com/food.
Seminole Heights’ Nebraska MiniMart is turning into ‘NMM-N-Out Burger.’
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OPENING
“There aren’t any In-NOut Burgers in Florida; that’s just a sin.”
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CL’s most recently reviewed restaurants
Parlor House Bistro Chef Ryan Steffensmeier’s new French restaurant is a cozy addition to the Dunedin scene. Entrees deliver classic bistro dishes in fine form. The super tender filet mignon has a perfectly-charred crust plus delightful green peppercorn cognac cream sauce with Lyonnaise potatoes and surprisingly full-flavored confit carrots with grill marks 1757 Main St., Dunedin. parlorhousebistro.com
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Counter Culture James Beard-nominated chef Jeannie Pierola has outdone herself with her latest concept, Counter Culture, in Tampa. Our critic gushes over the menu and decor, while marveling at Pierola’s attention to detail. According to JPC, you’re safe ordering anything, but make sure to start with the tuna tartare appetizer, which he says is simply perfection. 2909 W. Bay to Bay no. 100, Tampa. cc-tampa.com
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Olivia Chef Chris Ponte’s latest venture (pictured below) is an upscale Italian trattoria in South Tampa showing the care and thoughtfulness of a chef at the top of his game. An all-star on the menu is the Bucatini, which leads your tastes buds on an tangled adventure filled with smoked guanciale nuggets from tender pork cheeks, and plenty of sharp black pepper for pungency to balance the creamy carbonara sauce. Be prepared for a wait, even with a reservation. 3601 W. Swann Ave., Tampa. oliviatampa.com
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Rox Rooftop Bar The most sweeping panoramic view of Tampa Bay of any watering hole in the region comes with carefully crafted cocktails at this indoor-outdoor bar. Along with the unparalleled views and splendid sips, the food matches the high standard with eats like a citrus grilled achiote shrimp taco topped with shreds of cabbage and pickled kohlrabi, plus some heat from jalapeño, and minced cilantro make for a flavorful combo. You’d need to be a pelican or
osprey to get a better view. Current Hotel, 2545 N. Rocky Point Dr., Tampa. thecurrenthotel.com
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Old School Bar and Grill Stocked with TVs, giant Jenga and live music, this South Tampa restaurant serves classic bar food. If you’re a corndog fan, go for the six hand-dipped miniwagyu beef corn dogs the size of fat skewered golf balls. The juicy dogs have layered beefy flavor highlighted by corn batter that’s not at all grainy. 2202 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa. oldschoolbars.com
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Barterhouse Ybor City’s new show-stopper has a seasonal menu that focuses on approachable but elevated fare. The Fresh Florida fish (black grouper) wows, constructed of a luscious filet sitting on creamy cauliflower purée topped with shaved crisp Brussels sprouts and bacon surrounded by herb vinaigrette. A perfect quenelle of golden caper pistou with citrus adds a scrumptious grace note. 1811 N. 15th St., Suite A, Ybor City. barterhouseybor.com
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Psomi The Greek restaurant aims to please from menu offerings to decor. Psomi’s burger is terrific. A short rib-sirloin mix with some Greek spices sits on crisp butter lettuce atop a brioche bun. It’s bathed in piquant kefalograviera cheese béchamel which drips down the sides onto the plate. Don’t leave without sliding by the droolworthy display of stunning Greek pastries. 701 N. Howard Ave., Tampa. eatpsomi.com
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Jon Palmer Claridge is the Bay area’s longest running food critic and dines anonymously when reviewing. Visit cltampa.com/food to see an explanation of his rating system, his Top 50 Tampa restaurants of 2019 and read his new book, “Drink. More. Wine!”
cltampa.com | APRIL 23, 2020 | 25
MOVIES
THEATER
ART
CULTURE
Friend in weed How marijuana can help with anxiety. By Jerilyn Jordan
M
y relationship with weed started, like many, in my teens. I smoked a joint in a basement when I was 16, sucking the smoke through the neon-colored rubber bands of my braces, coughing hysterically before engaging in my first kiss. Later, I would take turns smoking out of pop bottles with my step-sister in our shared bedroom, separated by a curtain, our respective hideous paint colors clashing in the middle. We would curl up on her twin bed, staring up at the skylight hoping to catch a glimpse of some weird aircraft headed to Selfridge Air Base, which happened to be down the street from where we lived. Other times we hoped we might get abducted by aliens because this was the early 2000s, and aliens were pretty sweet. At some point in my early 20s, weed and I got a bit more serious. It was no longer pop bottles and apple bongs; it was glass pieces, tabletop vaporizers, and well-crafted joints. Plus, I had my medical marijuana card, something I pursued as an alternative to the opiods prescribed to me in my teens following a spinal surgery (and a major reason why I’m a daily marijuana user to this day). In my early 20s, I also found myself in my first serious relationship, which also just so happened to be an emotionally abusive one. To gain some independence, I took a receptionist gig at the very dispensary I got my herb from, a dysfunctional holistic practice and a far cry from the pristine Apple store-like shops we have now. During this time, I developed anorexia and found myself in a three-month outpatient recovery program. Weed was there for me the entire time. In addition to the systems implemented by the program—I still silently thank the food that goes into my body before eating it—I smoked before each meal to increase my appetite and calm my anxiety about food. If my life were Pixar’s “Toy Story,” then I’m Andy and weed is my Woody ... or Buzz Lightyear, but probably Woody because he was the hot one. Plus, fuck Tim Allen. No matter how many times I moved or fell in and out of love, weed was there. Years after my first toke/first kiss, my top worst relationship ever, and the height of my battle with an eating disorder, I now find myself in what is shaping up to be a time of collective global uncertainty.
BE PREPARED: A handful of spliffs is a sight for sore eyes. Yet my faithful cowboy, weed, is here, helping me through all of it. What’s in a strain? Nowadays, everyone appears to be a goddamn ganja guru. When you go to the dispensary, sometimes it seems like the budtender just starts talking about terpenes, cannabinoids, beakers, and Bunson burners. Ack! While I might know a bit about weed, when it comes to reducing anxiety, there are only a few key rules: CBD, CBD, indica, and CBD. OK, so there are some exceptions when it comes to sativas, but cannabis strains that are more sativa-leaning and THC-heavy are likely to have a bit more of a psychoactive punch,
MARIJUANA
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which can be fun in its own right, but may not be conducive to feeling isolated at home while suffering from anxiety. Indica-dominant strains, however, are known for generating more calm and serene effects. It’s not entirely about indica vs. sativa vs. hybrid as much as it is about their CBD-toTHC ratios. Think of it this way: CBD tends to combat anxiety, depression, and pain and THC, though it can do all of that too, can send anxiety-suffering folks into a spiral of mental acrobatics, which can increase feelings of paranoia. One of my favorite strains for a tranquil and tranquilizing effect is Northern Lights. One of
the more popular and readily available strains, Northern Lights creates a calming trickle-down effect starting with the brain to the toes. It’s good for pain and sleeplessness, too, both bad boys in the game of anxiety. When Purple Urkle and Big Bud are crossed, they make another anxietyrelieving indica fave, Grandaddy Purple, which offers similar sedative sensations, calming any racing mental activity, and has been known to help with muscle spasms (which I also suffer from, yee-haw!) Girl Scout Cookies, Amnesia Haze, Kosher Kush, and Blackberry Kush are all effective strains, too. But it should be noted that everybody is different and every anxiety
“Nowadays, everyone appears to be a goddamn ganja guru.”
is its own monster, so it’s best to start with indica/CBD-heavy strains and move toward some of those sativa/THC exceptions I was talking about—my favorite being Blue Dream, a slightly sativa-dominant strain that’s a bit on the buzzy, cerebral side, but is great for tackling daytime depression and anxiety while remaining active. This same ratio rule can be applied to edibles, which are made with cannabis-infused oil or butter, which occurs after decarboxylating the marijuana. (That’s science talk for heating the weed in such a way as to activate the plant’s psychoactive element.) Unlike smoking, which has instantaneous effects, edibles can take about 30-45 minutes to kick in, and the duration of an edible high can last between 4-6 hours — meaning there ain’t no turning back. But luckily for us anxious Andys, there are a whole mess of CBD-only products on the market. My suggestion? For any edible cannabis product, start with 5 mg and work up in 5 mg increments until you reach your desired effect. For me, a regular edibles eater, 20 mg of THC means I’m on a magic carpet ride to panic-induced sleep paralysis. Bed, bath, infinity and beyond, baby. Another reminder: You will not die from edibles. You just won’t. You might panic if you ingest well beyond your limits, and that panic might feel like you’re dying, but you’re not dying. If it’s available to you, should you find yourself with heightened anxiety as a result of edibles or cannabis, get your favorite blanket and wrap yourself up tight and warm like a burrito (but leave a hand free so you can touch a cat/dog or reach for the remote to put on a show or movie that makes you feel comfort. Focus on your breathing and eventually turn your attention to the quippy conversational stylings of Gilmore Girls and allow yourself to turn yourself off. You will not die, but you might lose a few hours to feeling like you are. Get ritualistic with it One of my favorite parts of being a proud pothead is the fact that, in general, I like rituals. I enjoy most holidays (exceptions being Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, Presidents Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Columbus Day, and Groundhog Day). Also, I have an actual altar for rituals where I keep my—wait for it—healing crystals, sage, personal talismans, tarot cards, and a list of exes who have scorned me. Oh, and I like rituals that involve fire. If quarantine has taught me anything, it’s that developing new habits—and rituals—is key to not losing my mind. Now is the perfect time to create your own weed altar. Most smokers already have loose smoking habits, but by making it a special, untouchable standing appointment each day, your usual smoke sesh could break up the monotony of, you know, not being able to leave the house for weeks on end. Each day after work (because I’m able to work from home at the
moment), I approach my tray as if it’s a place of worship. I carefully select my herb, scraping the crystalized keef from the corners of the containers. The sound of the grinder crushing the dried flower, to me, is akin to crystal bowl meditation. I like joints best, but nerve damage has made me unable to truly master the art of the perfect David Crosby-approved joint, so I like to use those pre-rolled cones, filling the fragile little tube with the ground herb, picking out any chunks of stems that may have snuck past me. If you’re a bowl, bong, or bubbler smoker, when was the last time you really cleaned them out? This has been a very rewarding risualistic task in its own right, and a clean device allows you to conserve weed a bit better, as you’re not sparking up fresh new material on top of a clogged bowl, just burning up that precious, precious green. Recently, I filled a Ziploc baggie with very hot water and coarse sea salt and dumped my glass pipe in and shook it up like some damn Jiffy Pop. Watching the resin melt off my piece was like that scene in American Beauty with that creepy neighbor kid and the plastic bag.
Any stoner knows the most important part of any ritual is the tunes, dude, the tunes! Now that you’re ready to smoke, cue it up. Making a smoking playlist might help you ease into this new routine. (But please don’t take any notes from me, as lately I’ve been toggling between the most depressing Philip Glass compositions and Sarah McLachlan songs from ASPCA commercials.) Miss smoking with your favorite smoke pal? Make them part of the ritual, too. Fire up the FaceTime or Zoom so you can pack bowls together and smoke. Give peace a chance ... or fuck it and sleep Just like that Carrie Underwood song “Jesus Take the Wheel,” I, too, often relinquish control of my life, though to a little thing called crippling depression. That’s right, folks. My depression controls a huge chunk of my life, and I know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t using marijuana every day fuel your depressive tendencies? Well, Karen, thank you for that thoughtful query, but the answer is no, it fucking does not. In fact, the use of edibles grants me permission to accept the things I do not want to change, like the desire to just be still, to do nothing at all.
The messed up thing about depression, or at least my depression, is sometimes I don’t want to control it or stop it. I just want to let it run its course, whether by launching myself into full-blown couch paralysis with the help of some THC-leaning edibles and whatever reality TV trash is currently streaming. Most of the time, though, there’s an even stronger desire—one that is louder than anything else—and that is the desire to sleep. Morning to night, midday to middle of the night, draw the blinds, sleep. Listen, you don’t have to use your newfound quarantine downtime to bake bread or write a great American novel or do anything to better yourself, your home, your neighborhood. You can just exist. That’s enough for now. Letting go of the pressures brought on by late-stage capitalism’s bogus ideas of #SelfCare can be really hard without some herbal assistance. So just lean into it. Don’t answer your phone—or do. Make a new recipe, or just melt cheese on tortilla chips in the microwave. Wake up early and go for a run, or save waking up for another day and know that this too shall pass. So pass the joint.
TAKE A HIKE: Let the spliff help with stress.
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Dive in
More Tampa Bay podcasts for your new life under quarantine.
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odcasts were a big part of our lives before the coronavirus kept us from going to work and the gym, and their presence in our daily routine probably hasn’t changed now that we’re all sequestered to our homes. And while you’re probably subscribed to all your favorite podcasts made by folks who don’t call Tampa Bay home, there are plenty produced right here to keep you company, too. Here’s round two of our podcasts recommendations. Catch the entire list via cltampa.com/arts. Did we miss your podcast? Tell us more about it by emailing rroa@ cltampa.com. Nine Bullets Radio 9B used to be a kickass Americana radio program on community radio station WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM, but then its host moved to Nashville. Now it’s a Music City podcast still wholly dedicated to breaking the genre’s best new artists (Becky Warren and John Moreland are some my personal favorites, which I found on 9B). Host Bryan Childs still roots for the Lightning, too, so we’re lumping him into the local pile. 9bradio.net Officially Legit If you miss your cool officemates, then you might want to subscribe to this watercooler-ready podcast from “your favorite Savage Coach Wilson Zarzuela and The Filipina Colada Cat Lim.” Lim, is a Tampa Bay-based designer, and together with Zarzuela, Officially Legit tackles pop culture (hi, “Love Is Blind”) and talks with Bay area creators. Bonus points for the regular playlists and inside baseball around Rolling Loud music festival. Officially Legit on Facebook Reverse Psychology Doctors Mike and Diana might not be able to write you a prescription, but the Seminole Heights psychologists can let you into their world, an hour at a time, thanks to this podcast that’s recently looked into why we binge watch TV, take part in cancel culture, the Asch line experiment and phobias. reversepsychology.pinecast.co Something Planet If you like your podcasts raunchy, then this one based out of Clearwater, with over 400 episodes in the bag, is your ticket. Nothing is off the table for hosts John J, Stuey B, David the Day and Endless Mike, but every episode is not safe for young ones. somethingplanet.com Song Divers A Critic’s Pick for “Best Immersive Podcast” in CL’s 2019 Best of The Bay awards. We’d start with episode featuring Bay area songwriting God and guru Steve Connelly. You’ll learn about a bunch of old venues long gone and come to find that Connelly is still one of his own biggest critics. Hosts Ed Woltil and
Stefan Scheuermann aren’t afraid to go deep with their guests, and it’s why we always tune in. songdivers.com St. Pete X Local business and civic leaders with a love for the Sunshine City pop in to share stories, strategies and ideas about the development of St. Petersburg. Episode 61—featuring Jonathan Daou, a developer and raconteur who’s always in headlines locally—is a great place to start. St. Pete X on Apple Podcasts Sweat Equity Law Smith is a wild man, and Eric Readinger keeps him in check. Their Sweat Equity Podcast provides not just pragmatic business advice, but motivation to keep working at that hustle that’s keeping you up for an extra hour or two every night. The latest episode is titled “How To Instantly Reject Exposure in the Face of Adversity Because the Value of Free is Zero Like Kanye West in anything he has ever done,” so that should give an idea of how this goes. sweatequitypod.com Tampa Bay Times’ “Coronavirus in Florida” We start our days with the “Up First” newsblast from NPR, but this one from “Florida’s Best Newspaper” is a good companion these days. tampabay.com Tampa Bay Podcast Know who was smart enough to snag “Tampa Bay Podcast”? Caleb Fuddy, and some of his chats—especially the one with Manny Leto and Rodney Kite-Powell— are required listening for and self-respecting Tampeño. Bonus points since one of CL’s favorite artists, 3lbgod does the artwork. tampabaypodcast.com Tampa News Force If you like the idea of a Tampa Bay version of satirical news site The Onion, then soak your ears in the podcast. Our favorite episode so far: “Matt Gaetz talks about the House Judiciary Committee.” tampanewsforce.com That Joe Joe Madiedo’s just getting started on his “Brady Bucs” podcast, but the “That Joe” podcast family also includes one series aimed at helping a very niche industry—limousines and their drivers—navigate the fallout surrounding the coronavirus. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one. The Brady Bucs on Apple Podcasts The Unused Substitutes Matthew Cox and Stephen Cundiff—the team behind this soccer podcast—have been covering the Tampa Bay Rowdies since 2014. And while there are no games, there’s plenty to talk about. Fans—from diehards to casual onlookers—could get by on this podcast alone. theunsubs.soccer Queer Tampa Ren and Jai Lopa host this podcast about queer issues in Tampa Bay, but also bring it out into the real world for a quarterly happy
JAMES OSTRAND
By Ray Roa
PODCASTS
SONG SPELUNKERS: Stefan Scheuermann (L) and Ed Woltil guide guests through their most intimate thoughts and best songs on ‘Song Divers.’ hour so that discussion about issues that matter can happen face-to-face as well as in your earbuds. @queertampa on Instagram Waves of the Bay I love Waves of the Bay for its commitment to shining a light on local musicians, and I’m even happier now that hosts Tone Kapon and DJ Spaceship brought the program to FM airwaves care of a Saturday night slot on Tampa Bay community radio station WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM. tone-kapone.com
The Zest One of Tampa Bay’s best food podcasts is getting ready to serve its second season to listeners who’ve come to love the way senior producer Robin Sussingham talks to folks from across the state about how our plates get to the table. Upcoming ‘sodes include talks with oyster farmers, Taco Bus founder Rene Valenzuela and bonus content about the coronavirus’ effect on the statewide food scene. thezestpodcast.com
cltampa.com | APRIL 23, 2020 | 29
Is your yard ready for the upcoming dry season? Is your sprinkler system applying water where it is needed? Is your sprinkler system watering as efficiently as it can? St. Petersburg is offering a FREE check-up to make sure our customers are ready for the spring dry season. To be eligible, you must be a City of St. Petersburg water customer, and your property must: 1. Have an operating in-ground sprinkler system with timer 2. Irrigate with drinking (potable), reclaimed, or well water
APPLY NOW!
Visit: stpete.org/WaterPrograms Email: SensibleSprinkling@stpete.org Call: 727-892-5611 Limited time offer. Restrictions may apply. Installation of suggested modifications not included in this offer. Partial funding provided by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
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REVIEWS
PROFILES
MUSIC WEEK
Six-foot feeling
Despite Covid-19 scare, Someday Honey still has a lot to sing about.
K
aleigh Baker and Matt Walker are about as partnered up as you can get. They’re members of the rock quartet Someday Honey. They play duo gigs together. They live as a couple in a rented house in St. Petersburg, where they write and record songs together. So when Kaleigh came down with a respiratory illness a few weeks ago—and subsequently tested negative for COVID19—they felt extreme measures were called for. The couple quarantined in their house, sleeping in separate rooms, doing their best to observe social distancing. “It’s unnatural to stay six feet from someone in your own house,” Walker said. “It’s hard to remember. She’s cooking and I’ll walk behind her and goose her.” Baker and Walker stuck to the plan pretty well for nine or 10 days, they said, but on Wednesday, March 25, with Kaleigh feeling better, the pair decided to make some music. They got a little inebriated. “We wrote a song and recorded it,” Baker recalled. “Later that night, he knocked on my door wanting to crawl into my bed.” Was he allowed entry? “Of course,” exclaimed Kaleigh, who sings lead and plays acoustic rhythm guitar in Someday Honey. Making music: a proven aphrodisiac. The song that the couple created, which they describe as having a Parliament/Funkadelic feel, is titled, “I’ve Got a Six-Foot Feeling We’re Gonna Be Here For Awhile.” It’s nice to know that some fun and games are happening at the Baker/Walker household. But grimmer realities are obviously at play as well. The house, fairly big and rather ramshackle, isn’t cheap to rent. The couple have a modest cash stash, but “after this month’s bills, we have no money,” Baker said. Added Walker, the band’s lead guitarist: “It’s dependent on how cool our landlord is going to be.” Their small financial cushion provides some comfort and forestalls panic mode a bit. Like many other working musicians in the Bay area that find themselves newly out of work, Baker and Walker feel for friends and peers who are worse off than them. “I know people who have literally 35 bucks in the bank—with kids,”
Walker said. The couple spent the first few days of their under-one-roof quarantine on a cleaning spree, “using a neurotic amount of bleach and ethanol—but not [mixed] together, not together,” Walker said with a chuckle. “We got chemical burns from the first few days.” Baker said she has washed her hands so much that her fingertip no longer opens her smartphone. Until their recent night of collaboration, Walker and Baker had been working on music in their own impromptu ways. “I usually strum stuff like Jim Croce songs on an acoustic when I’m home,” Walker said, “Lately, I’ve been picking up my Strat more, playing Albert King licks. I was jamming to a [legendary jazz guitarist] Wes Montgomery track earlier. It was terrible. I’m definitely yearning to jam. And I really only see my friends at my job.” Baker, who didn’t sing for eight straight days, misses performing more than Walker, who describes himself as a “hermit by nature.” “There’s fear involved in not being able to work,” she said. “And I miss playing in front of humans.” She does have one very specific music goal: “By the time we get out of this, I want to be able to play one rippin’-ass solo on electric guitar.” During her isolation time, Baker has jotted down stream-of-consciousness lyrical ideas, some of which will turn into songs. “Musicians at home all day,” she mused. “We’re creative people, but it’s hard with this [virus] stuff going on to find inspiration. You don’t want it to sound manufactured.” Baker generates an income stream not affected by the shut-down of live performance. She writes and records songs for a company called Musicbed, which licenses material to film and television that’s generally played as incidental or background music. She releases the material, most of it in the contemporary pop realm (and some of it quite good), on streaming services under the name Ma Baker. The work doesn’t bring in much revenue yet, she said, certainly not enough for a safety blanket. And the tunes are, in fact, manufactured. “I am conflicted about it,” she admitted. “It takes a little bit of my soul. To make a
LOCAL MUSIC
DARYL BOWEN C/O GASPARILLA MUSIC FESTIVAL
By Eric Snider
ONLINE, HONEY: Kaleigh Baker of Someday Honey. song just to make money. For me, it’s a weird juxtaposition.” Last month, Baker and Walker performed streaming duo gigs in association with The Ale and The Witch and Southern Fried Sunday in Orlando. They did it again on Sunday, April 5. Despite some initial technical problems—it was their first ever livestreams—both performances were successful, delivering joy to online audiences of up to 200. They took donations via PayPal and a tip jar. Both Baker and Walker were a little squeamish about accepting contributions. “I want to feel like we’re able to offer something that doesn’t turn into complete charity,” Baker said prior to the shows. “A lot of people have it worse than us. We want to give people something that they’ll want to give us a couple bucks for.” Money-wise, the duo fared pretty well with the livestreams. Although they preferred not to reveal an amount, Baker/Walker brought in enough to make a difference in their cushion fund. Then there’s the bigger picture—and all the worry, uncertainty and moments of sadness and fleeting desperation that rears up from
time to time. “I’ve just sat and bawled, and I’m not really a crier,” said Walker. “I get bummed—mostly about my parents. Fortunately they’re fine. The normal protocol is to go over and be there. But I am the biggest threat to them. All I can do is call them. It makes me feel helpless.” Baker has a take that’s more wide-angle: “It’s frustrating watching people close to us that aren’t taking this seriously.” Although both admit that their contrasting personalities—him more logical, her more emotional—can at times cause tension, the bottom line is that they have each other. “I live with my favorite musician and my favorite person,” Walker said. “So I can’t complain too much.” This story is part of a series about how musicians are coping with life during the COVID-19 pandemic — from creative, financial and emotional perspectives. The subjects are those who make their living as full-time musicians, not as a sideline. If you fit into this category and would like to share your story, email: eric.r.snider@ gmail.com
“I know people who have literally 35 bucks in the bank—with kids.”
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Taurus The bull.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Renowned Taurus composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) completed his first symphony when he was 43 years old—even though he’d started work on it at age 22. Why did it take him so long? One factor was his reverence for Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer who had such a huge impact on the development of classical music. In light of Beethoven’s mastery, Brahms felt unworthy. How could any composer add new musical ideas that Beethoven hadn’t already created? But after more than two decades, Brahms finally managed to overcome his inhibition. He eventually produced four symphonies and scores of other pieces, and left a major mark on musical history. For you, Taurus, I see the coming months as a phase comparable to the time when Brahms finally built the strength necessary to emerge from the shadow that had inhibited him.
subject: Each of us should strive to be at peace with the fact that we are a blend of wisdom and folly. We should be tenderly compassionate toward our failures and weaknesses, and not allow them to overshadow our brilliance and beauty. Now would be a good time for you Leos to cultivate this acceptance and perform this blessing for yourself. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Helen Traubel (1899– 1972) was best-known for her opera career, although she also sang in concerts, nightclubs, and musical theater. But in her autobiography, she confessed, “Opera bored me.” She reminds
the ambitious part of you that craves success and recognition and the lyrical part of you that yearns for rich experiences and deep meaning? Or do those two aspects of you get along pretty well—maybe even love and respect each other? Now is a favorable time to honor your ego and soul equally, Libra—to delight in the activities of both, to give them plenty of room to play and improvise, and to encourage them to collaborate in ways that will further your well-rounded happiness and health. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio author Voltaire (1694–1778) was a crusader for free-
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning poet Czesław Miłosz. Wow! If a highly respected genius like him has spawned so much nonsense and ignorance, what about the rest of us? Here’s what I have to say about the
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): At its best and brightest, Capricornian love isn’t frivolous or flighty. It’s not shallow or sloppy or slapdash. When Capricornian love is at its highest potency, it’s rigorous, thoughtful, and full-bodied. It benefits anyone who’s involved with it. I bring this up because I expect the coming weeks to be a Golden Age of Capricornian Love—a time when you will have the inspiration and intelligence necessary to lift your own experience of love to a higher octave. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I hope you’re not one of those Aquarians who regards stability and security as boring. I hope you don’t have an unconscious predilection for keeping yourself in a permanent state of nervous uncertainty. If you do suffer from those bad habits, you’ll be hardpressed to stick to them in the coming weeks. That’s because the cosmic energies will be working to settle you down into a steady groove. If you cooperate, you will naturally enhance your ability to be well-anchored, calmly steadfast, and at home in your life. Please don’t resist this opportunity.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A Gemini friend sent me and three of her other allies a poignant email. “This note is a tender apology to those of you whom I’ve hurt in the process of hurting myself,” she began. “I want you to know that I have been working hard and with great success to eliminate my unconscious tendency to hurt myself. And I am confident this means I will also treat you very well in the future.” I received her message with joy and appreciation. Her action was brave and wise. I invite you to consider making a comparable adjustment in the weeks ahead. CANCER (June 21-July 22): The Ojibwe are indigenous people of North America. Professor of Ojibwe studies Anton Treuer writes that in their traditional culture, there have been men who act and dress like women and women who act and dress like men. The former are called “ikwekaazo” and the latter “ikwekaazowag.” Both have been “always honored” and “considered to be strong spiritually.” Many other Native American groups have had similar arrangements. Transcending traditional gender behavior is not unique to modern Western civilization. With that as inspiration, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to explore any inclinations you might have to be your own unique gender. The time is ripe for experimenting with and deepening your relationship with the constructs of “masculine” and “feminine.”
job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job.” In other words, all the activities he names, to be done well, require a commitment to excellence and an attention to detail. They are worthy of your diligent efforts, strenuous exertion, and creative struggle. I encourage you to meditate on these thoughts during the coming weeks. Identify what jobs you want to get better at and are willing to work hard on and would like to enjoy even more than you already do.
me of Georgia O’Keeffe, famous painter of flowers. “I hate flowers,” O’Keeffe said. “I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” Now of course most of us have to do some things that we don’t enjoy; that seems to be a routine part of being human. And since the coronavirus arrived in our midst, you may have been saddled with even more of this burden. But I’m happy to inform you that the coming weeks will be a favorable time to brainstorm about how you could do more of what you love to do once the crisis has abated. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): What’s the current state of the relationship between your ego and your soul? Is there an uneasy truce between
dom of thought a n d civil liberties, as well as a key player in the Enlightenment. He was very prolific. In addition to producing 2,000 books and pamphlets, his carried on such voluminous written correspondences with so many interesting people that his collected letters fill 98 volumes. Would you consider getting inspired by Voltaire’s approach to cross-pollination? According to my calculations, the next phase of the coronavirus crisis will be a favorable time for you to intensify your communication via the written word. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I like musician David Byrne’s views on what constitutes meaningful work. It’s not just the tasks you do to earn money. “Sex is a job,” he says. “Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I foresee the likelihood that you’ll be having brilliant and evocative conversations with yourself in the coming weeks. Your heart and your head may become almost blissful as they discuss how best to create a dynamic new kind of harmony. Your left side and right side will declare a truce, no longer wrestling each other for supremacy, and they may even join forces to conjure up unprecedented collaborations. The little voices in your head that speak for the past will find common ground with the little voices in your head that speak for the future—and as a result you may be inspired to formulate a fresh master plan that appeals both. ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the future, when the coronavirus crisis has a diminished power to disrupt our lives, I would love for you to have more of the money you need to finance interesting new experiences that help you learn and thrive. Now is a good time to brainstorm about how you might arrange for that to happen. For best results, begin your meditations with vivid fantasies in which you envision yourself doing those interesting new experiences that will help you learn and thrive.
cltampa.com | APRIL 23, 2020 | 33
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Big moves By Dan Savage
I was raised in a religious home and didn’t lose my virginity until the embarrassing age of 26. I was told by the church to save it for marriage, and I was a virgin until I met the woman who would become my wife at a party. I said to hell with it, we had a one-night stand, and we’ve been together now for eight years. I’m tall and slim and my wife is short and heavy. Like an idiot, I believed it’s what’s on the inside that matters. My wife is the sweetest, most thoughtful person I’ve ever met, I love spending time with her, but I have absolutely no sexual attraction to her. As a result, I’ve all but stopped initiating sex, and on the rare occasion when we do make love I make her come twice while I’m struggling just to get off. I know it’s shallow, and I know beauty is only skin deep, but what am I supposed to do when seeing my wife naked sends me into an anxiety attack? When I’m helping out with laundry, I get bummed because there’s nothing in her wardrobe I find attractive on her. Even when I look at old pictures of us together I get extremely depressed because I know this is the best she’s ever going to look. It doesn’t help that she finds me handsome and regularly tells me so. It’s gotten to the point where I find any woman who isn’t my wife desirable. (Including, but not limited to, her family and friends.) I should also mention that she has no interest in having an open relationship or threesome because she prefers having me “all to herself.” I don’t want to ask her to change because she’s perfectly happy with herself, but I’m becoming increasingly resentful. What do I do? How do I tell her? And is there any way I can come out of this a good husband? —In The Shallows
If you were capable of having premarital sex, you were capable of refraining from marrying the first person you slept with. Your wife is gonna want to know why you’re leaving her—of course she is—but you’re not going to tell her the real reason. You’re going to make something up. You want kids and she doesn’t (or vice-versa), you married too young (which is true), you have unresolved childhood issues (and don’t we all). While you won’t be able to spare your wife the pain of a breakup, ITS, you can spare her the pain of learning the person she’s been sleeping with for eight years is repulsed by her body. You can’t be a good husband to her, ITS, but you can be a decent ex-husband. And to do that—to be her decent and loving and supportive ex—you can’t set her self-esteem on fire on your way out the door. And your wife’s body isn’t repulsive. She’s not someone you’re attracted to, ITS, and you’re not obligated to find short and round women sexually appealing. But while “tall and slim” are more closely associated with conventional concepts of attractiveness, ITS, not everyone’s into tall and slim. There are people who are into short and round and people out there who are attracted to all body types and people who are utterly indifferent to bodies. Your wife deserves the chance to find someone who’s sincerely attracted to her. Even being alone would be better than spending decades with someone who recoils from her touch. For the record: What’s on the inside does count. It matters. If you met a woman who was more conventionally attractive—if you were with someone who was your idea of hot—and over time she revealed herself to be an asshole (if she was rude to waiters, if she was emotionally abusive, if she was a Trump supporter, etc.), your attraction to her would wither away. What you want—not what you’ll get, ITS, but the best you can hope for—is some combo of hot on the outside (subjective and personal) and good on the inside. And the longer you’re with someone, ITS, the more important good on the inside becomes. Time is a motherfucking meat grinder and it makes hamburger out of us all. If you prioritize you’re idea of hot over all other qualities, you run the very real risk of spending decades with a person who has aged out of hot and was never nice.
SAVAGE LOVE
I was so relieved to get all the way to end of your letter without learning you had kids. Because that means I can advise you—with a clear conscience—to file for divorce and move the fuck out just as soon as it’s possible to do so. Not for your own sake, ITS, but for your wife’s sake. She deserves better. You say you’re growing increasingly resentful. I hope your resentment is directed at all of the people who victimized you. Your wife isn’t one of them. It’s your parents you should resent, ITS, as well as all the sex-phobic bullshit artists out there masquerading as “faith leaders.” You should be angry with yourself too. While I know from personal experience how a religious upbringing can put the zap on a kid’s head, you were a grown-ass man when you met your wife at that party. You couldn’t have slept with her that night—you couldn’t have lost your virginity in a one-night stand—if you hadn’t already rejected nearly everything you’d been taught about sex.
Long time reader asking for advice. I’m a med student, I came to the U.S. when I was 18 in order to go to college, and I’m still in the U.S. I’m 25 now and I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about three years now. We’re somewhat monogamous and have been living together for two years. I’m out as a gay man where we live, but my parents and family back in Brazil have zero idea. As you may know, Brazil has a weird relationship with sexuality. We’re seen and for the most part
are very open but our culture is also very homophobic. My BF has been pressuring me to come out but I’ve been apprehensive considering how important family is to me. —Fears A Massive Implosion Likely, Yet… Gay men don’t come out to our families because they’re unimportant to us. We come out to our families because they are important to us. Family is important to you, and you’re worried you might lose yours if you come out to them. But you’re definitely gonna lose them if you don’t. Because to keep your life a secret from them—to hide your boyfriend from them—you’re going to have to cut them out of your life. It’ll be little things at first, FAM, but over time the amount of things you have to keep from them grows. Lies pile up on top of lies and the distance between you and your family grows. Before you know it, they don’t know you at all anymore
and you don’t know them. Because you can’t risk letting them know you. So to avoid their possible rejection, you will have rejected them. You will have lost your family. I know, I know: It’s scary. I came out to my very Catholic family when I was a teenager. I was scared to death. But if they couldn’t accept me for who I am—if I couldn’t rely on their love and support—what was the point of having them in my life at all? P.S. No one likes being someone’s dirty little secret. It hurts your boyfriend to see the person who claims to love him prioritize his family’s presumed bigotry (it’s possible they’ll react more positively than you think) over his feelings and dignity. By not coming out, FAM, you will lose the family you were born into and the one you’ve created with your boyfriend too. Contact mail@savagelove.net, follow @ FakeDanSavage on Twitter and visit savagelovecast.com.
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creative loafing puzzler WHAT’S YOUR NATIONALITY? by Merl Reagle ACROSS 1 Heavenly utensil 7 Big-eyed nestling 12 Post's Honey Bunches ___ 18 Out marauding 20 Caribbean stop for late-filing travelers? 23 A sense of guilt 24 Handy item for those hot ricepaddy visits? 25 Multi-faced 1957 character 26 Opposite of dextro28 RV fillers? 29 Unit of force 30 Angle prelude 31 Allen and Ferrer 33 Frogspit, e.g. 35 The old soft shoe, for short 36 Ufa uh-uh 37 Most popular cartoon show in the Middle East? 43 “___ I miss my guess ...” 44 Chantilly's river 45 Tombstone lawman 48 Martin and Lewis, once 49 School interiors 51 Prison present 53 With 75 Across, most-oftenheard remark by honeymooners in Scandinavia? 57 Abbr. after a proof 58 Sir Arnold the composer 59 Cad 60 Unqualified 61 “No problem!” 62 Greek letter 63 Galley prop 1
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Your server takes them DOWN Slangy money “Well ___!” Actress Anderson In favor of James Jones, at heart? Get up Surprised exclamations Wisconsin insurance city Support over a door Caesar says it Certain lady of Spain “You're the ___ for me” Belgian composer César Bassoon's cousin Pilot's concern: abbr. See 59 Down Frighten William of Marathon Man Hit-___ (random) Grow back together Early auto man Sty cry Auth. of Mrs. Warren's Profession Close to “Love comes ___ the eye ...” Beggar's plea Hang laxly Crafty Captain or coach Benigni and Rossellini Stable period, on a graph “Home on ___” Communisthunting panel, ca. 1950 Everyone, in a way 9
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Gilpin of Frasier Precise Light-lunch eatery Start of a Brooklyn novel Like Pinocchio, beforehand Monopoly watchdog: abbr. Annul, as a writ With 16 Down, condescending Beatles tune, “___ Leaving Home” Some ladies of Spain Final notice? Protuberance Michel's shout City with a famous opera house Circus critter “How ___ to know?” In My Own Fashion guy Soared QB VII author Blood pressureraising substance Three Mile Island nuke builder, ___ & Wilcox
85 Actress Hagen 86 Athletic-shoe giant 87 Athletic shoes, for short 89 Basket fiber 90 ___ in the grass 91 Alpine abode 92 “Vengeance ___” 93 Pipe cleaner 94 Laundromat sights 95 Whirlpool 96 Applier of Elmer's 97 “Honey, you've ___ all wrong!” 102 867-5309, e.g.: abbr. 103 Start of a kid's recitation 105 Pocket power 106 Ogling one 109 These, to Thérèse 110 Hubby of 11 Down 111 Mil. ranks 113 Steam trapper
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TRANS Model Yazmine: 813-508-1441
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