This, yet again, one more time (until next year etc.)

Isn't voting so much fun that you wish you could do it more often than every three or four years or whatever it is?
It is, you do and YOU CAN!

Creative Loafing's annual "Best Of The Bay" polls are now open..."It's time to vote for the tastiest restaurants, the baddest local bands, the politicians who inspire and infuriate you — even for your favorite acupuncturist. Now in its 27th year, Creative Loafing’s Best Of The Bay has long been a local institution, but it’s one that always depends on you. You suggested the categories, you submitted the nominations, and now you’ll decide who wins. Your voice, your choice."

Once again, this blog (actually, me as the blogger of the blog) is nominated. It has never won. A blog now in its 12th year has never won a BOTB. Not that longevity merits a "Best of" award, but I'm going to pretend that it does so I'm asking that if you vote (and of course, you don't have to), please vote for it (me) as "Best Local Blogger". It's located under the "People, Places, Politics" tab.

While you're at it, please consider slinging votes (follow the rules and DON'T CHEAT!) at a couple of other things in which I have vested interests:

• "The Spike On The Mic Show" - nominated as both "Best Local Podcast" and "Best Local Internet Radio Show".
• Vivienne Brown - nominated as "Best Local Actress" (under the "Arts and Entertainment" tab) Because she was just great as The Amazing Desdemona.
• Me - nominated as "Best Local Stand-Up Comic" (also under "Arts and Entertainment"tab). I won't mind if you don't do this one because I already won it two years ago. SERIOUSLY!  I'm only mentioning it because, well, I am nominated and if I won it again, that would be kind of cool. But I don't need to win it like the blog (me) needs to win, so by all means, go ahead and vote for someone who is not me. There are lots of very good, award deserving comics nominated. Besides, as I have been told, it's just a meaningless token from an irrelevant popularity contest (until you get one, when it suddenly becomes a relevant achievement and you slap a mention of it on every piece of promotional material that bears your name after inciting your followers to send death threats to a previous winner). Oh well. As FDR once said, "Haters gonna hate, voters gonna vote".

(Last) Christmas in (this) July!

Jeff Vinik, the owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team for whom I work, gets a lot of attention for his philanthropic efforts in the Tampa Bay community. One of the things he does that doesn't get any attention (because it's a low-key, in-house staff initiative) is he authorizes an amount of cash to be made available to each Lightning employee, who is then allowed to go out and spend that cash on some charitable endeavor of their choosing. Theoretically, you could take that cash and just drop the whole lump sum in the first donation kettle you come across. Or you can choose to do something more elaborate. Whatever you want. The organization doesn't scrutinize you, trusting each individual to honor the spirit of the endeavor.

I tend to skew toward the elaborate because that's much more fun.

So for the third year in a row, I enlisted the help of shopping expert Lynne Austin and we invaded a dollar store in search of items to help The Volunteer Way, a non-profit agency that helps people in need in Port Richey. brought along our mutual friend Kelly to document the proceedings (she also edited the finished product, which she just finished yesterday and is why this is just coming out now).

And here's how that went down...

Billy's Brain is almost Bad enough

We're getting close to living in a world where everyone can watch Tony Gaud's film, "Billy's Got a Bad Brain"! In 86 days (on October 15) the film will premiere at a gala event to be held at the Tampa Improv. In 100 days, on Halloween (October 31), it'll be available to stream everywhere.
It's a horror-comedy, shot entirely here in the Tampa Bay area with a cast and crew comprised of all local actors, most of whom are stand-up comedians.
Here's the link to our IMDB page with a full list of cast and crew.
And here's the link to purchase tickets ($10) for the premiere event at the Improv.
And here's the link to the special episode of The Spike On The Mic Show where we interviewed many of the people involved in making the film.
More to come as we get closer to the big date(s)!!

I don't get men

Right up front, please let me state for the record that this is not a shallow, gratuitous attempt to ingratiate myself with women. Because I don't need to do that. I get along just fine with women, I always have. I've always had far more female friends than males and I've always preferred their company doing whatever to hanging out with a bunch of dudes watching sports or porn or sporn (that's sports porn, which may not be something that currently exists, but if it ever does, I named it and you saw it here first).

Men confuse me, with their words and actions not exactly meshing with what they claim to stand for and represent. I realize this is a broad generalization and that I should probably mention at this point that I'm mostly talking about the tough guy types. The ones who happily embrace all the dumb "No son of mine is going to play with dolls!"® brand of stereotypes of what REAL MEN (bold, italics and increased font size applied for the sake of referencing implied penis size or something) are. The kind of guys concerned with these kinds of things:

• Men's Rights
• Some Men Are Not Happy About A Women-Only Screening Of 'Wonder Woman'
• Statue fight in New York
• Marvel Comics hero Thor is a woman now
• The new Doctor in "Doctor Who" is also a woman now

First, I'm confused that REAL MEN care about stuff like that because four of those things are dealing with either comic books, science fiction or art, all of which falls under the jurisdiction of nerds, not REAL MEN. 

Second, why would REAL MEN be threatened by these things, when the virtue with which they most want to be associated is a stoic strength that comes from self-assured confidence? I mean, if I had an ingredients label stamped somewhere on my body, you wouldn't find any of the last eight words of that previous sentence anywhere on it, and I don't even care enough to actually read the whole articles found at the links, let alone be bothered by what those articles are about.

These guys won't be seen crying during a sad movie, but they'll whine like infants outside of a theater showing a single "women only" screening of 'Wonder Woman'? I just don't get it. 

And before anybody feels the need to explain, let me state for the record that I also don't care about that either. So don't waste your time.

Hey, do what you feel you need to do with your "guys nights out" in your "man-caves" or whatever. I'll be with the girls at the mall. We're going to go shopping, have lunch and maybe catch the matinee of 'Wonder Woman'.

The John Jacobs Cinematic Universe

John Jacobs is a comic who lives here in Tampa and he, along with Josh Santos, another local comic, makes funny videos. Recently, I've had the privilege of being in some of them (see below) and hope to be in more soon. You can watch all of them here and you should. Because they're hilarious. It's like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, except with unusual characters doing strange things. Pawn shops, roadkill, shark books, gay dogs, treasures found buried way deep under the Tuscans. You won't find Thor or Iron Man dealing with any of that stuff.

Is it in the stars?

Remember when I was in that stand-up comedy tournament at Side Splitters last year, as one of 64 participants and I made it all the way down to the Elite Eight? Remember? I sure do! Gosh, that was a lot of fun!

Well, I'm doing it again. My first match-up in this year's big blowout is Sunday, July 16th at 7:00 PM. You can get tickets for less than $5 by purchasing them online and using my initials "CB" as the promo code when you check out. Local legend JB Ball will be headlining that night.

I did pretty well last time and that felt good, but I'm not so sure what my prospects are this time around. So I decided to visit a psychic and see if I could get an idea of what my chances might be...

Another failed attempt to save us from each other

That's right, it's the return of the podcast that truly lives up its name (last published: August 8, 2016)!

Back to once and for all to make a concerted effort on behalf of white people to get to the bottom of our racial issues in America. In under two minutes!

CLICK HERE FOR THE SHOW

Thanks as always to PW Fenton for his invaluable assistance.