Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

As mentioned in my intro, I am all about giving back to my community. So when good times are to be had for a worthy cause, I love to spread the word.

Tomorrow, Friday, October 28th at 7:30pm, the doors will open at Gaspar’s Grotto in Ybor City to celebrate the “Feast of the Dark.” The Feast features a costume contest, ghost crew, belly dancers and, of course, fortune tellers. Local alternative rockers seven2seven (both links watch the volume!) will provide the live music. The proceeds to this annual Halloween event go to our friends at Operation Shoebox. Based in Seminole Heights, OpShoe sends goodie bags to our active US troops.

Admission to the Feast of the Dark is only $10 or $5 plus a bag of groceries (see what they need). For additional information call (813) 884-8189, and tell ‘em Skippy sent you from Sticks of Fire.

***editor’s note*** If you go, let us know about your told fortune here in the comments, so we can check the accuracy of these so called “fortune tellers.”

Today Sticks of Fire welcomes a new informer to the gang. Skippy Rowntown will focus on Tampa area events, celebrations, parties, and other great things that you should not miss. This beautiful young lady will see to it that we all know the right places to be seen.

I am a Tampa native with a marketing background. I participate in numerous volunteer efforts, and my favorites have been with United Way and Hands on Tampa Bay. Both of these allow me the opportunity to participate in a variety of ways all over my community. Being single & an avid fan of the JGLB, you can be assured that I know how to have a great time. My goal here at Sticks of Fire is to find local events for everyone; everything from free to VIP.

A big welcome to the newest member of our consortium.

UMASS released a study measuring the work environment. The paper ranks the 50 United States and DC on work-related matters, such as job opportunities, job quality and workplace fairness. Florida ranked 40th, tied with North Carolina. Delaware came out on top. Except for Georgia (#35), the entire south (from Nevada east) is in the bottom 20%.

A young Muslim girl stood up before the Hillsborough County School Board yesterday and repeated the request of her community by asking for one day off during the school year to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Instead, the school district took away days scheduled off for Yom Kippur, Good Friday and the day after Easter. (Christmas is conveniently celebrated during Winter Break and therefore remains a day off for everyone).

I have no problem keeping religious expression separate from public schools. Yet here was an opportunity to take a progressive step forward and include Muslim students as legitimate members of our family. Instead, by removing almost all religious holidays and replacing them with secular days off, we took a few steps back.

Administrators and school board members will say teachers know not to schedule exams or special events on these days. Yet, a few years ago a local high school scheduled homecoming during Rosh Hashanah. Is it fair that Jewish and Muslim teachers must use a personal day to take off for legitimate worshipping purposes while Christmas and Easter require no such sacrifice from Christian staff?

Some will blame Muslims for such a drastic measure; however, understand this was not their purpose. Recognition of a time-honored tradition was the goal and our school board members responded by turning its back.

Tampa’s second biggest party of the year will be held this weekend in Ybor City. We can always count on Guavaween to be a decadent barrel of monkeys. Live music, a guava cooking contest, and the parade each promise to titillate your senses, but the most interesting part of the celebration is the costumes. By far (a little NSFW).

The creativity used by everyone in coming up with costume ideas seems unlimited. I’m sure this year will be no different.

By the way, on this date in 1985 Ybor City hosted the very first Guavaween ever. I first went in 1988, as a voodoo tribesman. Or something like that.

If you have never been to Guavaween, I highly recommend it. If you do go, make your way over to the Blue Shark, where Tampa’s greatest party band will be partying all night long. There’s a possibility you won’t recognize us in our costumes, though.

The other day, I told you about the first Tampa Bay area Rolling Stones concert. For that show in 1965, one of the opening acts was a local band, The Intruders. The lead singer of that band, Bob Langford is currently a Pasco County deputy. And he is the guy responsible for making Freebird so damn long. He engineered the piece for Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Langford was in another local band called the Capris. Current Tax Collector Mike Olson played sax, and Bertie Higgins played drums (yep, that Bertie Higgins). Langford now has a music studio in New Port Richey.

So, how much is South Hillsborough growing? In only four years, the school board has built five elementary schools. Because the boundaries change with the growth, some students have gone to a different school in each of four years. And there are still not enough. High schools must consider double sessions.

Don’t get me wrong - I love horses.

In fact, I spent much of my twelfth year pretending to be one. It’s a girl thing. Or at least it used to be.

But I question the wisdom of mixing drunks and horsie hindquarters. Horses have imminently smackable rumps and drunks have little or no inhibition. Police say the equine is necessary, because Ybor’s horse patrol is more effective than the cops on foot.

But the horses have been getting smacked, and will continue to get slapped. I just hope that the fine levied on the smacker is nice and high so that the hard working horses can get lots of yummy apples.