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From the MC Film Mail Bag

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2nd Annual Summer of Rum Festival

Summer of Rum Festival, an island-inspired celebration of everything rum,

returns for a second year to a new venue at the Cuban Club in Ybor City on

National Rum Day. The Cuban Club’s 3 floors of inside space will be transformed

into multiple “Rum Zones”. The top floor ball room will be turned into the “Island

Party”, the second floor lobby & theatre will be “The Pirate’s Cove”, and the

ground floor cantina will be turned into the “Mojito Lounge”. Cuban Club’s newly

expanded outside concert area will ‘transport’ attendees to a Caribbean Island

with street vendors, street performers, live entertainment and multiple custom

built rum shacks serving multiple varieties of rum drinks.

To accommodate the event, 9th Avenue will be closed to vehicular traffic between Avenida Republic de Cuba and 13th Street starting at 9am until midnight.

$20 general admission in advance, $95 VIP in advance

| 2-11 p.m. The Cuban Club, 2010 Avenida Republica de Cuba | 

SummerofRumFest.com | www.facebook.com/SummerofRum

  

Tampa Noles Pub Crawl 

The Tampa Bay Seminole Club gears up for another football season with this

signature event. Seminole legends and football experts will breakdown the

upcoming season from 3-4 p.m. Starting at 4 p.m., the pub crawl is on. 

No street closures are planned for this event.  

$20 in advance, $30 at the door

| 2:30 p.m. Italian Club, 1731 E. 7th Ave.

tampanoles.com | info@tampanoles.com

Dishing with Mark & Carrie 8-11-14

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THIS WEEKEND…
    Fetish Con 2014
Femmes & Follies Comic Burlesque
    Katie James and the burlesque troupe of Femmes & Follies had a packed house for their special performances of Comic Characters Burlesque! The Social Club event Sunday night had the tables filled and hundreds of great bizaro dance art enthusiasts standing and cheering.
    That was ok because the two darling bartenders, Danielle and Chou had them all warmed up with great specialty designed spirits. The fun themed cleverly prepared drinks included the Superman, Artists Falling, Aqua Mann Martini & Kryptonite Pleasures.
    The show glowed with energy expelled from the exotic female dancing burlesquesters right down to the skinny! The pretzel doll,  the fire eating busty dame and the magic sparking grinder gal, well… wow!
    The next monthly show of Femmes & Follies show will be again be most entertaining. The group has helped numerous non profits here in Tampa Bay. Be friends with Femmes and Follies on Facebook for special event dates.

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New LGBT Club Opening in GaYBOR
    The new Mist Martini Lounge is set to open this week.  GRAND Opening is this Friday at 6 pm.
The new owners are David Shortino and partner Daniel Campbell. The redone dining room portion of the old Laughing Cat Restaurant have the new entrepreneurs opening  the quieter more quaint and an after dance and music scene martini get-a-way spot in Ybor.
    They are now accepting applications for friendly bartenders and security. http://mistmartinilounge.com/
    Next to Mist is the new proposed new Coffee & Tea Shop in the main part of the old Laughing Cat Restaurant facing the streetcar line. Work is continuing on the build out with no announced opening date
What Else We Can’t Wait To Try, ‘CIDER & MEAD’
    The Cigar City Cider and Mead is a unique brewery. It is part of Cigar City Brewing Company owned locally by Joe Redner, Jr. The local Tampa craft beer was named “#3 Best Brewery in the World” by RateBeer.com in 2010 out of 10,000 breweries. It is opening in the old Roosvelt Building on 15th Street. Big stainless steel brewing vats are being set up and the building progress is seen daily.
    We can’t wait for the highly rated brew stop to open in the next couple of weeks. www.cigarcitybrewing.com     https://www.facebook.com/CigarCityCider
    
People Are Talking
 
    Check out the new lunch buffet at Cristino’s Italian Coal Oven Pizza… Every Mon, Tue & Wed. While we were at Cristino’s what arrives but 6 ton of coal from Pennsylvania. Now that is a lot of coal. The coal comes in 2-3 times a year we were told. This Italian eatery is famously known for their best ever Italian pizza cooked in their coal ovens. Yumm https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cristinos-Coal-Oven-Pizza-Restaurant-Ybor-City/581786438532980?ref=br_tf
    Yborites Rich Kerin, Mike Olds and Scott W returned after a month in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They really wanted to check out the gay scene thoroughly. The smiles they have on their faces they must of achieved their mission. Welcome back guys! Mark & Carrie entertained 3 nieces the last couple of weeks. Wisconsin nieces Nikki & Karmen and Satellite Beachster Miss Natalie. Oh, the fun they had in GaYBOR and the St. Pete beaches.
    Margaret Murray, Exec Director from TIGLFF returned from San Francisco film festivalwith many new GLBT movies put on the schedule for this years 25th Anniversary Gay Film event at Tampa Theater  October 3 – 11.
    The TIGLFF 25th Anniversary Launch Party is set at the Tampa Museum of Art, September 4th. www.TIGLFF.com  It will be a ‘Fabulous Movie Festival Season’ again in Tampa Bay.
    A lot of land has changed hands in the last 2 months in Ybor City. The new land acquisitioner is local resident,  Daryl Shaw from Pearl Veterinarian Services. He has purchased many Ybor buildings, Ybor  City vacant land, the old Blue Ship Building on 7th, Underground Church Bldg, old Olivia Cigar Factory, Barbarella Building (old Frankies Patio Bldg) and the Don Vicente Historic Hotel. He said that he wants to add more residences in Ybor City. Many locals and leaders were talking in wonder. But new housing and residences, What a relief!!! Now how about a grocery store?
    Comic Con was last weekend with 45,000+ family members attending the Tampa Convention Center to see a wide variety of characters and dress up as their fantasy comic heroes. This weekend is the infamous “Fetish Con” with visitors and couples in fetish attire walking downtown Tampa and Ybor City. Visitors come from around the world to be a part of this long Tampa convention tradition show.  Well as witnessed in past years, some leather dressed slaves and latex attired mistresses might not be walking!!! Headquartered at the Hilton downtown it opens your eyes to new possible play out fantasies and adventures…
GaYBOR Monthly Meeting
    The next GaYBOR District Coalition Meeting is Thursday, August 14 at Game Time in Ybor City at 6pm. Many new wonderful community ideas and networking opportunities.
    GaYBOR is happy to participate in the “Back To School Back Pack” program associated with East Ybor City Civic and Neighborhood  Association, ‘ help the school kids out program.’
   Many of the upcoming August primary election candidates will be in attendance.  www.gaybor.com
Chris Sullivan, Local Artist Celebrity
    Local artist Chris Sullivan has been selected by Acura (luxury division of Honda) to debut his art work along with their newest model, August 21st in Houston Texas. This Friday, Aug 9th 5-8:00 pm will be a Premier Showing at the (Our Favorite) The Hollandar Hotel in St. Pete. The event will feature 14 of his painting. A portion of the sales will benefit The Metro Wellness and Community Center.
Tampa PRIDE Returning to Tampa
    A Tampa PRIDE Meeting will be held Tuesday, August 12th at Don Vicente Historic Inn on 9th Ave. at 5 pm.
    Updates on the planned weekend will be discussed. Committees members are needed and will be setup. Volunteers are asked to sign up at TampaPride2015@gmail.com.
    Sign Up and “Like” for your support of Tampa PRIDE also on Facebook at Tampa PRIDE!
Please tell your friends to help make this new historical Tampa PRIDE event one of the Best PRIDES in Florida!
R.I.P. Helen Chavez
    The always out spoken Helen Chavez passed away in Tampa this week at the age of 89.  Serving her community on Tampa City Council 1979 – 1987 she fought for women’s rights, Tampa historic preservation and an early advocate of glbt equality even though she was a Republican! Was famous for being a critic of ‘ shirtless men’ at the Buccaneer football games calling the shirtless, ‘primitive’.
    She was also the owner of the popular, “Chavez at the Royal “ restaurant, which we had visited often on South Howard Ave and ‘Tea Room’ in Old Hyde Park plus other Tampa restaurants.
    She greeted you at the door with a large smile and was very welcoming. Helen will be missed.

You Can Not Make this Up.

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    One very hot summer day we were going to our annual Family Reunion in Hastings, Nebraska. We landed and rented a car from a big national car company in Omaha. Carrie was driving and also in the car were our Florida sister, Yvonne and niece, Natalie. Driving down a long stretch of cornfield lined state road and it was really in the middle of nowhere. The temperatures all week had been in the 107-112 degrees and this day was no different. It was blistering hot! But we were on a mission to go to Lebanon, Kansas over the state line to visit the geographical center of the United States.
    Suddenly we noticed a police car with lights flashing traveling at a high speed in the review mirror. Carrie pulled over on this narrow 2 lane road to let him pass. Surprisingly he stopped right behind our car. We all were shocked and bewildered! We hadn’t noticed even another car for over 20 miles on this road. The officer walked up to the car with his hand on his gun.
    He shouted, “Get out of the car with your hands visible!” The next thing we knew Carrie was handcuffed. The officer looked at all of us with a squinted eye.Then the officer told us that this car had been reported stolen by the rental company. We laughed and showed him the rental papers. This mean cornhusker cop was not amused and made Carrie sit in the back of his police cruiser for over 2 hours in the very hot 110 degree plus Nebraska sun. We just sat in the car. We thought it might be a Nebraska “Book em Dano” experience. My darling sister wanted a bottled water that was in a cooler in the trunk. My niece thought and advised her mother otherwise!
    He had to have the rental company verify the car was not indeed stolen. Not only was the car reported stolen from St Louis, MO but had the wrong license tags on the rented vehicle we were driving. OMG!!!!
    He was nice enough to let us keep the supposedly stolen vehicle until we went back to the Omaha Airport in 2 days. And sure enough they had a tow truck waiting to take the car away on our arrival.
    When back in Tampa we called the car rental company and told them what had happened. They just laughed and said, “This happens all the time.”
     We have never used this big name car company again. NOT FUNNY! NOT FUNNY!!!