Nude Nite in Tampa

I'm not a guy who "gets" art. And I'm not saying that as a guy who really does "get" it, but pretends not to in an effort to be endearing by seeming to be smarter than he's willing to admit, because that is just as obnoxious, maybe more so, than the guy who doesn't "get" art but pretends to because he's a pretentious horse's ass. But I do enjoy attending art events and I do so as often as possible. In large part because of a teenage fixation with John Lennon, I think I'm destined to meet my exotic, avant garde artiste soulmate at one of these things. I'll walk in and she'll be sitting on a bamboo mat, stir frying a pan full of Barbie doll heads, pouring green paint on herself and chanting the lyrics to the theme song from "The Flintstones" while a blind midget wearing bifocals plays the bongos. A single tear will roll down her cheek when she gets to "One day, maybe Fred will win the fight..." and I'll go, "Ah yes! I get it! I get this!"

That probably won't happen, but I keep going anyway. Such as last Saturday when I attended Nude Nite in Tampa, accompanied by The Up-And-Coming Author. Here's what happened:

• We got our hands stamped at the door. Fantastic. That ink NEVER comes off with one washing. Now I have to go to work tomorrow with "NUDE NITE" on the back of my hand.
• You know, as Americans, we're never really ready to encounter naked people, regardless of the context. You can go in to an art exhibit like this knowing exactly what you're going to see, but the first time you're face-to-face (so to speak) with Hoo-Hahs and Nee-Nees, Va-Jay-Jay in the light of day-day or Herr Schwantz mit keine panz, you're going to turn into a 12-year-old and giggle at least a little bit. In this kind of setting, it's best to do this as subtly as possible and get it over with, which I think I was able to do fairly well.
• The first, and probably most striking, exhibit we saw was a woman wearing nothing but high heels, kneepads, a black bag over her head and what can only be described as a prosthetic attachment crawling verrrrrry slowly across the floor. Probably about two feet a minute. If she's still crawling now, she's probably still in Ybor. Especially with that bag on her head. Surely she would have hit a wall or something. Unless the apparatus was a GPS.
• I was a little disappointed there weren't more artists there. I saw some very cool artwork (especially some of the photography) and would have liked to have talked to the people behind it.
• There was a performance by a Fosse-esque dance troupe. I'm not sure why, but I actually kind of expected that.
• I had the chance to try naked sushi. But at $6 for two pieces (plus a glass of wine) it was out of my budget. Plus, it would have been just my luck that the specific kind of sushi I wanted would have been very strategically placed. I would have taken it and the model would have rolled her eyes and said, "yeah, you just had to have that one."
• Many of Tampa's most beautiful people were there. The Up-And-Coming Author made the observation that guys can show up anywhere dressed like slobs and women are expected to get dressed to the nines. I pointed out to her that there was a carnival taking place up the street in the Gaybor district where many of the men were far more dolled up than any women here.
• In the presence of all the nakedity, I couldn't stop thinking of the showgirl in the feathers we saw when we passed L'Olivier Restaurant & Cabaret on the way to the exhibit. Great googly moogly! OVERRATED: Nudity UNDERRATED: A costume made entirely of big white feathers. I wonder if she's an avant garde artiste...?