Today's Topics:
(3 msgs)
Slack near Tampa.
stang's email
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Message-Id: <199504201451.AA242879507@netmon.marcam.com>
Reply-To: trevay@marcam.com
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 10:51:47 -0400
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
From: "Ven. Maha Swami-ji B. Jeebees" <trevay@marcam.com>
Subject:
Michael Salmond <M.Salmond@plymouth.ac.uk> writes:
>Serious note - I'm (hopefully moving to USF in Tampa later this year -
>anyone out there been or know the place? Would appreciate any info.
TRUE STORIES OF TAMPA
Hitchhiker: "I thought you was goin' ta Florida!"
Driver: "Naw, I just tole'ya I was goin' ta tampa wid'ja ...!"
My grandma lives across the street from the University of South Florida.
She lives in a retirement village, and has to get the village's van to go
to church, because it's too damn dangerous to cross the six-lane, divided
boulevards that constitute "streets" in Tampa, Florida.
She also doesn't live far from Busch Gardens. You, being from the UK,
where Beer is Ale and Ale is Real, probably didn't realize that
Anheuser-Busch, whose ads have More Tits Per Pixel than any other ad on
teevee, built several Theme Parks around their breweries. One of them is
not far from USF. It's called The Dark Continent at Busch Gardens.
With the price of admission, you get a free tour of the Spudweasel Beer
Factory, that's at the center of the amusement park. There are bald eagles
living in the park, the coporate symbol of the Anheuser-Busch company, and
All the FREE Pisswater you can drink awaits you at the Hosptiality Shelter
at the end of the tour. You can swill your fill, and then go ride the
Loop-De-Loop-De-Loop Coaster.
No, I am *not* kidding.
The only people you see walking the streets in Tampa are hookers, and
football players, looking for hookers. If you see your professor on a
street corner, ask him/her whether they play free safety, or nose tackle.
It might save your grade.
When I first went there in 1987, I did what I'd done to get friendly with
The Locals when I travelled by myself to England, Scotland and Ireland: I
went into a newsagent's shop, bought a local newspaper, and casually asked
the man who sold it to me where a good pub was. They would invariably
suggest a local one, that was without tourists, where the pints were
delicious and the crowd was friendly.
I tried that in Tampa, at a 7-11. I bought the paper, and asked the man
where's a good, friendly place to go for a beer. Said he:
Well, now, that jus' depends 'pon what'chur lookin' fer. Ya got yer
country-western roe-dee-oh bar down the road, an' cross over there ya
got'cher heavy metal, and 'round that there corner is yer strip tease
nudie bar. Nice place, but kinda s'pensive!
Tampa is not far from a nice beach town, Clearwater, on the Gulf coast.
You cross Tampa Bay on the Campbell Causeway -- oh, by the way, you -will-
have a car in Tampa, won't you? You can't survive without one, believe me!
Anyway, you drive west on the Campbell Causeway, and you're in Clearwater.
Along the way, there be strip malls, chain restaurants, discos, nudie bars
and night clubs -- the works.
In 1993, my wife and I went to Tampa to visit my grandmother. We had a
fine time. We took her to Clearwater, and bought her a drink on the beach
(she drinks Old Fashioneds, a rather strong whiskey drink. I think it's
kinda cool to have a bourbon-swilling gramma, tho' I don't think she owns
a shotgun. Anyway ....)
When we dropped her off, my wife and I decided to go out for dinner, our
only night there on our own. We found a nice place off the Campbell
Causeway, with palm trees outside, and a simulated pseudo-grass-thatched
hut appearence. Made me wish I'd brought my Hawaiian shirt, so it did.
The valet parked our car, we got a table in the bar, and looked around. It
was a huge place -- a disco in one room, pool and pinball in another, and a
long bar and restaurant in a third room. I got the grouper sandwich (a
favored Florida fish, prolly one of the many junk-fish that we eat these
days, seeing we've driven the haddock, cod, marlin and tuna to extinction).
My wife went to the ladies' room.
Upon her return, she said to me, "I can't believe this place! They've got
a full cosmetics bar in the ladies' room, with a beautician to put the
makeup on you." I replied, "This is the State of Big Hair -- Marge Simpson
would be in her element, here." Indeed, Florida women are coiffeured like
none other, 'cept maybe Texans, but then they wear those damn cowboy hats.
We had our dinner. We watched the bar fill up. Fellas in tight jeans,
women with Big Hair. She went to the ladies' again, and came out lookin'
... kinda strange.
It seems that, when she entered the ladies', there was a woman there,
getting her makeup "fixed," and repeatedly wetting a piece of tissue,
rubbing it up and down her threadbare fishnet stockings. The client was
saying to the beautician --
God, I -hate- it when they come all over you! You can't get that stuff
out, and nobody pays for a girl who has come on her! I've gotta work
all night tonight, too!
Another woman, similarly dressed, came in, and nodded her head in
agreement. Professional conversation, you understand. And that's when it
became obvious to my wife -- they would meet their hour-long dates in the
various strip-show bars, bring them here for a quiet drink to negotiate
"business," and do the job in the parking lot. Then, back to work!
And don't think I don't respect these people -- I mean, I couldn't do that.
But then, I don't think I could ever employ any of them, either. It's just
not my cup-of-tea. Or Jack Daniels.
Anyway, as my wife is explaining this scene to me, she looks over my
shoulder, and says, "Don't turn around!". I see flashing blue lights
reflected in the mirror behind the bar. It's the Sheriff's Department.
In come a phalynx of cops, who wander thru the bar and disco with
flashlights, shining them at each table. One comes to ours, spots us as
tourists, and says, "'Scuse the intrusion, folks. Enjoy yer meal!".
Floridians are basically friendly types, they really are.
After this, we decided to go for a quiet drink at the Hyatt Hotel at the
airport. Unfortunately, the bar wasn't so quiet -- it was a Sunday night,
and like most Florida nightspots, this one was given over to the religious
observance demanded by that day.
Sunday, you realize, is the day when most of the football games are played.
So the bar had three big-screen teevees, and a roaring crowd, watching the
New York Jets play somebody -- Dallas, I think? Anyway, some guy from New
York got paralyzed during that game. The television showed the hit
repeatedly, to the cries and sighs of the crowd. It was grusome. We all
loved it.
The weather that November was lovely. Sunny every single day, temperatures
well over 25 degrees centigrade. Driving was fun and mostly pretty easy. We
came back with suntans and lots of stories to tell.
But you couldn't get me to live there if you paid me. This should come as
a relief to those who are currently living in Florida, because I b'lieve
they're damned sick of us northerner Yankee types moving down there, buying
big cars, driving them at 20 mph in the fast lane with our turn-signals
pepetually blinking, wearing our trousers up to our nipples and complaining
about the gummint full-time.
I can't blame them, really.
>Yours
>
>Mike S
("x") The Venerable Maha Swami-ji B. Jeebees (His mark)
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OUR "Olde Time Family Values" ITEM FOR TODAY:
Warren, Ohio -- In November, 1994, Donna Dunik, 63, was arrested
for carrying colored balloons in her socks and bra, that held
marijuana, paste cocaine, flake cocaine, vitamin B (to cut the
cocaine), and yeast (an ingredient for homemade wine). She was
allegedly smuggling them to her son, in prison.
[USA Today, 11-20-94]
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Message-Id: <9504201500.AA07348@engineer.mrg.uswest.com>
Date: 20 Apr 1995 08:55:24 U
From: Don Wrege <don_wrege@msmgate.mrg.uswest.com>
Subject:
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Listening to the national news last night, there was a report of. . .and I am
totally serious about this. . ."a man named Bob" who was responsible for
pulling people out of the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma.
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Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 14:42:04 -0700
From: "Rev. Android Grfng Margarines" <android@rahul.net>
Message-Id: <199504202142.AA21661@bolero.rahul.net>
To: Subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject:
Cc: SHIT_Frank_Zappa_is_STILL_dead@biteme.net, android@rahul.net
>
>Ok 10 scary thangs:-
>
>10) Eighties retro.
The quote: "I will KEEL you!" comes to mind.. Eighties retro is THE BEST!
How can you possibly deny that the slackest, well, STUFF came from a time
period when "the people" had a SENILE PRESIDENT, >AND< voted him in for TWO
TERMS?! I, personally, wish that '85 could go on forever. It can't, so,
Viva La '98, the year to beat ALL years with a STICK, a HOSE, and 500,000
tibias...
Well.. Except maybe '53..
Rev. Android
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From: dryfoo@mit.edu
Message-Id: <9504202329.AA15260@thelonious.MIT.EDU>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Slack near Tampa.
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 19:29:44 EDT
} Subgenius Digest Thu, 20 Apr 95 Volume 6 : Issue 73
}
} From: Michael Salmond <M.Salmond@plymouth.ac.uk>
} ...
} Serious note - I'm (hopefully moving to USF in Tampa later this year -
} anyone out there been or know the place? Would appreciate any info.
Very SLACK location just south of Tampa is Gibsonton along highway 41,
a/k/a "Gibbtown". For many years the winter layover for the geeks and
freaks of America's circus sideshows. (Could afford the more $$$ locale
around Sarasota, where the Barnum&Bailey regulars hung out, I guess.)
Anyway, Gibbtown is so small it doesn't have a center of town, but if
you head south along 41, just over a bridge as you cross the town line,
is a little dump of a diner called "Giant's Camp" -- right beside the
Giant's Camp Bait Hut.
The "Giant" in question is Al Mania, the Eight-And-A-Half-Foot-Man, who
died a few years ago. There's a picture of him in the place, and
sometimes his widow Jeannie ("the Half-a-girl") hangs out there. Her
place is right around the corner, and she likes to regale visitors with
tales of the old circus days. Al himself looked a lot like Jack
Dempsey, and I think that I may have met him once many years ago, at the
Clyde Beatty show, and that there may be a picture in the foo family
archives of him, me, and my younger brother, all dressed in cowboy
outfits.
You might (tho' I did not) also encounter The Human Blockhead, who
delights in demonstrating to visitors his talent for putting rail
spikes, ice picks, et cetera, into his nose, and driving them into his
head. Talk about self-surgery on the peen gland!
If you do visit, please treat these magnificent mutants with the respect
that such advanced Slack-meisters deserve. They are obvious recipients
of an earlier, pre-Bob Dispensation, and no doubt the X-day Saucers will
pick them up first.
-- dr foo
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Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 15:10:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Amy Frazier <afrazier@marlboro.edu>
To: subgenius@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Cc: afrazier@marlboro.edu
Subject: stang's email
Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.91.950420150858.26162A-100000@akbar>
Thank you much for stang's email; my mistake. Much apprecietion from
Marlboro.
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End of Subgenius Digest
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