The Re-election Blues
Mayor Buddy Dyer is running for re-election, and Keith, Darren and I went to a fundraising event he had at Urban Think Bookstore in Thornton Park. I was pleased that the Mayor remembered the SAK appearance at CityKidz fondly and was impressed he even remembered my name. He greeted us warmly and said “hey, after I say a few words, I should bring you guys up.” Of course I replied “yes Mr. Mayor, whatever you like.” He did. – “Hey my good friends from SAK are here, and maybe they’ll entertain us with a little comedy…” Don’t you just love set ups like that? We were very glad to oblige of course and ended up getting from the Mayor challenges he’s likely to face during his re-election bid – “Protestors!” were the first words out of his mouth, referring to the crowd that had formed outside waving soup ladles and protesting the city’s ordinance against public feeding of groups larger than 25 people. We sang the Re-Election Blues incorporating that and other suggestions and it was a hoot. 
There ought to be a video of that impromptu improv performance right here on this blog. In this day of cell phones with video cameras you’d think it would be easy. But here we all were in the ‘show’ - all with camera cell phones – but how do you get someone to work your camera phone without being horribly obvious and opportunistic in front of the Mayor. This is one example where “Baratelli Balls” would come in handy. Mark to his credit would have no qualms about saying “wait a minute, let’s get this for YouTube!," and hand someone his camera phone. As a final note on the story, there was an article in the paper (see it here) about the event. They mentioned the protestors, and had a photo, but no photo or mention of us. On Keith's suggestion, next time we do something like this we'll protest and the protestors can serenade the Mayor.
SAK’s Future Home?
We’re cautiously optimistic to be in discussions with the Downtown Arts District and a downtown developer for a potential new and permanent home for SAK. More on that as it develops. This deal is still a year and a half to two years down the road, but seems promising. Even though great number of snags and/or changes could come in 18 months, it is nevertheless very exciting to proceed down this path.
SAK Escort Service?
Well, not exactly. But one of our past Lab Rats showed up in the paper as a defendant in a criminal investigation for such a thing! That’s right, turns out she was like our local Heidi Fleiss, running an escort service that was really a front for a “full service car wash,” where 'car' is a metaphor for um, people, like famous sports figures and ‘wash’ is a metaphor for, um, well, you get the picture. Gives the phrase “in the SAK” a whole new meaning. Here’s the story: “Lab Rat in the SAK now in the Clink.” Once again, not even 1 mention of SAK.
More rain - residual from Alberto? is just beginning to fall - reminding my hopeful heart that we're just beginning hurricane season so there's plenty to still be anxious about. Go away, little voice.
At SAK it's always difficult to be gone for several days. Every day something new, exciting and wonderful happens. If you could hear the tone of my voice as those words come forth you'd hear the steaming sarcasm. Of course that really means aggravating, frustrating, and maddening. When it rains - like it did today, we get leaks. They come and fix them, but somewhere/somehow, it finds its way to leak again. Our network goes down, we don't know why. It comes back up, we don't know why.
It's like that ad for lamasil - that little gremlin thingy. The one that lifts your toenail with the fungus. That's the picture. He's the guy who mutters - "it's all for naught. Nothing matters anyway!!!"
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