Category Archives: “You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up…”

You Can Not Make this Up

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60 Year Love Story.
    Our Mom & Dad Bias were married on November 1, 1953. Together they raised 3 great kids and faced many life challenges together. Our Mom passed away 13 years ago in 1999. Dad continued on. Us kids would tease Dad he needed a new girl friend. He would say, “No your Mom is the only girl friend I will ever have.”
     Dad passed away on Oct 30, 2013. It was just 2 days before what would have been their 60th wedding anniversary. At the funeral home the director gave us Dad’s wallet. There in the wallet was their wedding photo. For everyday, for 60 years, Dad carried this photo. The photo might have been crinkled torn and old but it made us all smile. Dad is now back together with his only girl friend.

You Can Not make this Up.

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There are many fun memories of the Suncoast Resort. In front of our store facing the breezeway, above out main windows were 2 speakers. cross the street was a very large commercial building sitting in its own park. On the north side were 3 houses. The owner of the second park was always calling the police for to loud music. We were always getting in trouble with the police for music too loud. then the police realized it was not us but the 2 huge main bars. On Sundays we would open our store at 10 am and play Cajun. Then the bars took over at 12 noon. One October morning we changed the music to Polka. people started to dance the Polka and were having a great time. Then the police pulled up. The officers walked up to the dancers.  We looked surprised and said “We know why your here the music is to loud…..Right?” The officers started to laugh & said “No it’s not to loud. They are complaining the music is so awful bad… Please make them STOP!!!”

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Winner of the First Bradley’s on 7th Chili Cook Off.
In 2011 was the very first Chili Cook off at Bradley’s on 7th. The regulars all thought they had the very best chili in town. Mark came up with a very different idea. He made the Asian dish congee (see video below)  then added lots of chili powder and white beans. Presto it was a strange white chili. The day of the event and there were many different kinds of chili. All of them really looked & tasted great, even the chili from the can Bud brought in. As luck would have it the contest was on a Sunday afternoon. A big group of our Asian sisters had just come from Thai Temple. We told them they all had to go and try the chili. The guys all laughed at us and said “We no eat American chili!” We laughed back and told them they had to try each one.  Of course they liked the Asian one. The winner of the very first cook off went to Mark & Carrie . An now you know the rest of the story.
 
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You Can Not Make This Up

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      The Ye Mystic Krew of the  Umbrella
    Our entire life together we have been active in Human & Equal Rights organizations and fighting homophobia. Just this week we were criticized for being way to controversial. But being controversial is all part of being a journalists and a great writer.
    We remember back in the 1990’s. We were in a Gay Krewe called, “The Ye Mystic Krew of the Umbrella’s”. The Krewe helped in local charity benefits, praised by HRC and Ellen DeGeneres  for representing the GLBT community and a sponsor of a  Gay play, “Mama’s Ghost” at the Silver Meteorite Theatre in Ybor City. (This theatre is still here today).  This play went onto  NYC Times Square for a major theatrical run.
    On a super fall Sunday afternoon after the play we all walked down the Ybor City sidewalks with our Rainbow umbrellas open. The after party was at a new fun beer bar. Our group of over 60 members and friends had made arrangements in advance for a private party in a private room. The party went off with out any problems. Our bill of over $1,700 was paid in full.
    The bar was also offering a fun beer mug group. You purchases a beer mug and then got discount & samples over the year. These purchased mugs were all displayed on the wall and were all over the top decorated up. A large number of memebers in our group purchased the bar mugs including us (Mark & Carrie).
    Back at our MC FILM Gay Pride Store on Kennedy Blvd., Mark took two rainbow stickers and cut out a “M” & “C” stickers for the mugs. We took the mugs back with us and had a fun time. I think the 1st beer was 1/2 off.
    A close Gay couple friends of ours were visiting us in town the next week. We went with our visiting friends and 4 other couples back to show off the bar establishment. Ybor City is a fun unique district and yes is very historical!
    For some reason the bartender could not find our mugs anywhere, yet there was plenty of empty shelving.
    Finally the owner? manager? came over to us & said, “You know we can not allow that in here!” with a surprise look we asked, “Allow What?”.
     He then replied, “You know all the Gay stuff, your stickers on the mugs was making our customers too uncomfortable.”  
    Embarrassed, the 10 of us all got up and left. To this day we have not spent another penny in that bar.

You Can Not Make This Up.

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    Tea Cup & the Raw Hide
    The Raw Hide Bar in New Orleans is a very famous leather & bear club in the French Quarter. One Southern Decadence weekend a large group from Tampa were there. You know that Tea Cup takes his tea cup everywhere and the Raw Hide was no exception. Our group of 8 made our way to Raw Hide one quiet afternoon. Let’s just say that Tea Cup always makes an impression! LOL LOL
    The group was having a great time when Tea Cup headed to the men’s room. There was this HUGE NORTHERN FIRE DOOR over the entrance to the men’s room. You know the kind that rolls down a slanted track attached to the wall. Well there was this mean drunken little local sitting at the bar. He got up and walked over to the door and give it a hard kick. Everybody in the bar was laughing as the door rolled close but then it jumped off the track and slammed into the wall.
    The bar staff not amused called in extra staff to get the door open. They even had to use a car jack to get it back on track. Locked inside was poor Tea Cup. Thank goodness the tea cup had just been re-filled! Tea Cup noticed a ladder in the restroom going up into the ceiling and could hear voices coming from there. Up the ladder went Tea Cup to meet some very interesting people smoking and not cigarettes.
    After a 3/4 hour of laughter and bar workers working, the door was opened and out popped Tea Cup with new friends. Viva La New Orleans!!!

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    Since the Sawmill Campground opened up in the mid 1990’s we have been going there. When they very first opened we would pack our store into the car tunks and set up our Pride Shop in the old Community building on Saturdays & Sundays. Many years we celebrated Mark’s Birthday’s there. One of the first times they had just opened up the primitive cabins. This was way before the trails and nice hotel style cabins they offer today.
    Our very small cabin was one room with a very small window  and even smaller tiny window in the door. We were surrounded by 2 dozen friends all in cabins and or tents for the birthday bash.
    It was a Monday night. There was the BBQ dinner that Carrie cooked, drinks galore and even greater number of newly made friends and friends that came for the party.
   It was about 2AM sitting around the campfire talking, singing, toasting, you got the picture.  Mark went back to the cabin room for something. Then when he was leaving the room the door handles pulled right out of the door and fell on the floor! The door would not open and there was no way anybody could crawl out those tiny windows.  Mark started to freak out. The whole group of drunken friends tried to get the door open.
    Luckily our attorney Steve was there. With a calm voice Steve said, ” Don’t worry. If the place starts on fire and you happen to burn up in there, Carrie will get a Great settlement with me as his attorney!!!”
    About an hour later, the guys finally got the front desk to wake up the maintenance person to fix the door & let Mark out.
The party then calmly continued!!

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   We are very lucky to have good friends in Ybor that have been here for many years. One of the fun stories we were told was about the former building that was next to the Honey Pot today. It was a famous photo studio and the home of the “Burgert Brothers Photography”. Many of their photos live on today in the historic archives including the special collection at USF and the Tampa Bay History Museum.
    Any way back to the building. After the Burgert Brother moved out, the building remained empty for many years. The building on the other side had been torn down. The dilapidated Burgert buildings roof collapsed and started to lean very badly. It became the joke of may locals. There was even a pool betting on when it would fall down. Then on Sunday at 2 AM the building started to fall over. The phones started to ring out all over Ybor City, the building was falling down!!! At this time antique bricks were very valuable.
    People came with wheel borrows, trucks & pickups to pick up the bricks. By noon that day the building was almost gone. Every brick was stolen!! In the photo on the right side you will notice the windows of the Honey Pot today.

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    International Wigstock Fest promoter/entertainer, Lady Bunny has been a Gay icon for many, many years. She reached international attention with her hit 1995 movie, “Wigstock the Movie” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigstock:_The_Movie . We have met Bunny many times. In the early 2000’s she was performing at George’s Alibi in St. Pete.
    Our good friend and nationally acclaimed artist Clayton Hood had created a beautiful painting of Lady Bunny. After her performance Clay walked up on Georgie’s stage and tried to present it to the magnificent funny Bunny. With a big laugh, Bunny said she didn’t want it.  (To be fair it was a framed 3ft X 3ft painting.) Clayton was very hurt. He had idolized the helium balloon fluffed hair comedic performer for years.
     In Clay style he… Turned around and started to auction the framed masterpiece painting off. $50, $100… the audience bidding stopped at $420.00.
     Lady Bunny turned to Clayton with her hand out and said wittingly,  “Why… Thank you Sooo Much.” Clay smiles and said in his Alabama drawn accent,  “F*#K YOU Girl!”  Then cocked his head and walked off the stage and bought all his friends cocktails.
 P.S. I think we had 2 each… Thank You Clay!
Double P.S.: The everlasting comedic Lady Bunny just appeared at the Honey Pot’s Steam Friday’s a week ago. Ironically, that same weekend Clayton (now living in Alabama) had a huge art gallery showing also in Ybor City!

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On day a group of about 12 pretty lipstick type lesbians came shopping at MC Film. They all were wearing the same black backpacks. The whole group was having fun, laughing, joking & buying things. We could not figure out who was with who. We just had to ask.
 “What was this group all about?” The girls all laughed and said “Your not going to believe this but….” They all worked together on a oil tanker ship!  The ladies told us the 4 of them were hired. Then as openings became available they called each other. The ships Captain says it’s the best & most fun crew he has ever had!!!

You Can Not Make This Up.

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Our best trip ever to Las Vegas was our first trip! It was in the early 1980’s. We went with good friends, an older Tampa Gay couple, Dr. Walt Banks & Jack Busciglio .  Both of these super guys have since passed away.  When checking into the landmark Stratosphere Casino Hotel & Tower. Jack told the front desk clerk that he didn’t want to be higher than the 4th floor… just in case of fire.LOL LOL The beautiful towering Vegas strip hotel has 108 stories and told Jack not to worry!
The smiling hotel clerk then put all of us in rooms in the basement!!!  “For safety sake!” she remarked!!
We went to Old Las Vegas in the downtown area for dinner and to gamble a little. We started off and went to the legendary  Frontier Casino Hotel. Dr. Walt went to one of the women casino drink servers and said, “Which are the machines that are paying off really good tonight?” She led us to the corner section at the Frontier Casino area and said these 4 here and 3 over there 1 isle over. I was shocked as was Mark. How would she know what machines will be winners??? But I loved the tenacity and pure honesty of our 5′ Southern Georgia doctor friend in asking the server. He then gave her a $20 bill with a very southern accent, “Thank You, Hon-ney!”
We were there no less than 5 minutes playing the machines in the corner when Dr Walt hit a $800 win.
We collected then looked for the server to give her $100.00 for her advise. We were pretty hungry by now.
Of course we went to the “4 Queen’s Casino” for dinner. Their infamous acclaimed Prime Rib dinner was $9.95 with a glass of house wine and then you also got $20 in money chips to gamble with. We were having such a great time playing the Queen’s slot machines.
Jack was playing the same 2 slots over and over again next to Mark. Jack was yelling “It’s HOT…. She is going to pay soon!” Then Jack said, “OMG… I’m going to pee my pants!” and ran for the men’s room. He yelled to Mark to stay on the 2 maybe magic fortune telling & paying slot machines!
Mark started to play Jack’s mojo money machines then…. OMG!!!  It HIT for $2,500 dollars!!!! You could hear Jack screaming from the nearby men’s room…. “You SOB, Sh*t …Sh*t …That’s My Money!!!” We all couldn’t stop laughing.
Mark then said, “NO YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE MONEY!!!  But, the 4 of us can not leave Vegas until we spend it all on fun!” Together we hired a plane and flew over the majestic Grand Canyon & mamoth Hoover Dam on the 16th world’s largest man made lake, Lake Mead . We saw all the top shows including front row lounge seating for Siegfried & Roy Magical Extravaganza, Ceasar’s Palace hit Celebrity Impersonators Show, Frank Marino’s Female Impersonating Review at the Riviera Casino Hotel and bags full of fun Las Vegas souvenirs.
 Best of all, the memories we still have and behold today.