The Bradly Bunch Connection to Ybor City

HGTV has been featuring “A Very Brady Renovation”. In this series HGTV have been renovation the house used  for the outside photos. The inside is being renovated into what the set of the Bradys TV show actually looked like. https://www.hgtv.com/shows/a-very-brady-renovation  There is an Ybor Cty Connection to the Brady Bunch.  It is Mike Brady who was played by Robert Reed  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reed Robert had a favorite bar in Ybor City.  “The TAMPA EAGLE” also known as The Eagle’s Nest, located at 2201 N 15^th Street. This was a 1980’s hard core gay leather club. The only one harder than this I have ever been in was Mother’s in Miami. The Eagle was previously known as The Yellow House a notorious Ybor City MAFI BAR. http://tampahistorical.org/items/show/86  That helps explains why this club was so WILD. Our first time at THE TAMPA EAGLE was in 1980. On closed party nights patrons would walk up the fire escape on the build next to it. Then walk across the roof and onto the front balcony to enter the club. It was in the mid 1980’s that Robert Reed frequent the Eagle. People said that he was in town working on Summer theatre at Don Sherwood SHOW BOAT Dinner Theater. (The same Don Sherwood that owned Village inn Restaurant. After his death the family sold the Show Boat and it was torn down.) Robert Reed had many friends in Ybor City. In 1992 he passed away from colon cancer and was HIV positive.

The TAMPA EAGLE became Impulse. On the 1^st floor was a restauran. November 16, 1988 there was a big fire. Today there is a shell of a building standing. Impulse moved downtown next to the flour plant. A couple years later Impulse was sold to THE TAMPA EAGLE. This was one of our all-time favorite clubs in Tampa. The owner with partners went on to open The SunCoast Resort in St. Petersburg.  Here opened the SunCoast Eagle. Later there was a TAMPA EAGLE opened in Sulphur Springs by the Tampa Dog Track. We had a MC Pride Store in this location for a very short time. After it’s closing there was a TAMPA EAGLE opened on Franklyn Street in the former London Victory Club.  Today Tampa Leather club is Cristoph’s located in the former 2606 Bar Location at 2606 N Armenia Ave.

Cheap People

Last week we were talking about a very cheap person who has passed away. Both of us could not remember his name. It finally came to me 2 days later. How sad…  We will call him John. One day John came into our store very upset and shared this story with us. John was in charge of a LGBT Group that meet once a month at a restaurant.  They had found a South Tampa restaurant that had a private room and was owned by a Gay person. The owner told him he would wave the rental fee but the group needed to be on one check.  No problem and the group had meet there 3 times. John went on to say that he could not believe how much the group over tipped. So after he collected the money. John took his meal out of the tip money and after he left a 5% tip there was even money left over for his cocktails later.  The restaurant owner couldn’t get staff to work the group and found out why. He then suggested they go to different restaurant because his private room was booked. The group did find a different restaurant and had separate checks here. John was very upset and mad that he now had to pay for his own meal and drinks. John went on to trash the restaurant and said he was never going back!!!! Hummm… and now 10+years later we remember the story, but couldn’t remember his name.

This week passed away, at the age of 90, a very strange and sad guy. We will call him Bob. We have known Bob since the 1990’s.  He was a major closet case and just a plane dirty old troll. Bob was from a famous Tampa family and also owner of a multimillion-dollar company. Bob didn’t think his wife or kids knew that he was gay. Years later after his wife passed away Bob told his kids who said “we have always known and Mom knew too.”  Because Bob was in the closet he would hook up with male prostitutes. Bob once told us he never carried more than $30 and never any credit cards. In all the years Bob came into our store he never spent one dollar. Bob would flip thru the magazines and cruise guys in our store, sometimes for hours.  He would talk and talk and we would listen and listen. One day Bob was bragging that he just had the best BJ ever. Went on to say it only cost him $18 dollars.  I asked him why 18 and not $20.  With a big creepy smile Bob said “Well I deducted the price of the beer I bought him before paying for services rendered.”  Today it makes me smile when I think of birds flying over his grave saying Cheap Cheap Cheap

You Just Can Not Make This Up

Looks like this runs in our family. Below is a Facebook post from our Niece Niki.

I’m taking after my Uncles Mark Carrie with YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP with BEST Uber ride ever tonight! Here’s what happened. Got in the Uber and Rhonda found a cell phone. I checked to see if I could open it but it was locked. The home screen was a very attractive man without a shirt. He finally called his phone and when I answered I told him that he would have to take his shirt off to properly identify him. After all, we wouldn’t want this phone to get in the wrong abs, I mean hands. He then Face Timed me and took off his shirt. Once I counted all of his abs, we could be sure it was him. He thanked me for being so careful and properly IDing him. The Uber driver Jason then delivered him his phone after we were dropped off. Here is the pic of our FaceTime.

We all know what a jokester Carrie can be. We were at the Walmart Grocery store on Kennedy Blvd in Tampa. I was buying a package of chicken drumsticks. Carrie asked the checkout girl if they were front legs or back legs? The girl picked up the package and said “I’ll go ask.” She came back and said “NOT FUNNY GUYS!” Hum… we laughed all the way home.  

When your young you sometimes do dumb things….  I was living in Minneapolis, MN. and had a Gay roommate we called Miss New York. Together we had a lady friend who was living in an abusive relationship. One day at happy hour we decided to put a stop to it and move her in with us. We waited until 12 midnight, after the boyfriend had gone to work. Walked the 5 blocks away to her nasty apartment. All she had was twin bed, dresser and clothes.  So, we took the bed out side put the dresser and clothes on it and started to push it down the street about 1AM. (At this time in Minneapolis when you were charge with public drunkenness, they put you in the drunk tank (a clinic for rehab) for 48 hours.) Just then we realized that we were in front of the drunk tank!!! OMG WTF!!! A guard came out and asked what were we doing? I don’t know to this day why but he let us go. Our lady friend lived with us for 4 months then got her own apartment in a nice building.

One day there was a 20 something girl sitting at the bar. She was staring at her big purse on the bar and looked upset. I asked if her drink was OK. She said Yes that she was just very mad. Of course, I asked mad about what? She told me that she had just found out that her purse was a fake!!!! With a laugh I asked her…. How did you find that out? “My girlfriend told me that if your boyfriend goes to the Bahamas with out you and brings you back a purse IT IS A FAKE!!!”  I though to my self HUM…. TRUE & Wonder now you thanked him for that $20 purse???? LMAO

In school, and later in life we all had nick names for our friends. A friend of our was hit by a train. After spending many months in a coma, he came out and is OK today. We all have called him Train Wreck since that time. One time I was bartending in a restaurant. Train Wreck stopped by and I took his order. The kitchen manager came out and called me aside. He said to me… You know, that when you type a customer’s name in they can read it on the receipt.  I smile and said yes.  He then said with and upset voice… You just called this guy Train Wreck. I smile and said Yes its his name. The manager just walked away shaking his head in disbelief. LMAO So the next time you get a recipe look for your name. You might be surprised what they called you.

There was a wonderful free spirit person we called Miss Samantha Perkins. Dressed in female clothing but never with makeup or female hair. Samantha loved to make people smile and have fun. One day at the SunCoast Resort, one of the owners was having a political person running for St. Pete Mayor, coming to speak. The political rally was right infront of our store there. Samantha came walking up to see what was going on. The owner got mad and said she was not welcome and need to go into our store and stay out of sight until after the rally. Devastated she came into our store and sat with us until after the rally. What a sad day for Samantha and our community.  Today she is retired and living quietly in Tampa.

I have been bartending full and part time most of my adult life. The most annoying customers to me are young giggling girls!!! One day a girl in a trashy whore outfit, that she probably changed into in the car because her Mother wouldn’t let her leave the looking this bad, walks in…  She asked excitedly if I could make her a “Green Alien Screaming Orgasm?” I smile and said “PUFF you’re a green alien now scream.”  Giggle, Giggle I want it as a shot. I have one before and it totally F’d me up. I asked what’s in it. She doesn’t know but had one at the bar next doors. I said sorry have no idea what that is. (bartenders make up shots all the time) She then asks the predictable question “What do you know how to make!?!?!” With a BIG SMILE I tell her “I know how to make a “Whore Moan””. She asked what’s in it… I say “I just don’t pay her.” It just goes over her head. I then say just let me make something that will taste like Christmas in your mouth. She tries the shot and PUFF It’s the best shot her has ever had in her mouth. What’s it called??? I tell her a “Southern Cowboy C***sucker (Southern Comfort & Baily Cream).” Now you know why I go home laughing every night!!!

In 1983 John “Billy” Ferry walked into the Palm River Winn Dixie and tossed gasoline over clerks and people waiting in the checkout line. Killing 5 people and hurting many more. He’s is serving 5 life sentences, one for each of the people he killed. His 14 year old son, John was arrested in ‘91 for possession of a firebomb and destructive device.

Fast forward to 1986 when we purchased a home in North Hyde Park. From the second floor we could see into the lot of the house next door. There was a strange long pile of dirt on one side. We asked the seller about it. She told us that there was an old guy living there. He helped a homeless guy and gave him a place to live. They then started to argue and to fight. Suddenly the old guy was gone and the young guy started to sell everything on the front porch. When the neighbors asked where was the older guy, he would say “he moved back up north.”  

The landlord came and evicted the young guy.  The young homeless guy was Billy Ferry.  After the fire-bombing the neighbors called the police. They came to the house and for 3 weeks to dig up the back yard. They watched in horror and wonder.  The older gentleman was never found.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/thirty-years-later-memory-of-winn-dixie-fire-billy-ferry-still-vivid/2129443?fbclid=IwAR0Kv7vVh0poW8TvdEQRdqH4Uc_O9FxB8cfJIF4d8nAElbMAqeYNJchXemw