i. love. summer.

Beachy goodness at Sunset Beach.

I love it. I love the summer here in Florida. The beach is absolute bliss right now.

By popular demand?

Eddie Money - by popular demand. Really?

We get interesting press releases here at Punch the Sky.

To those of you who don’t know what a press release is, it is a schill-sheet that PR people send us when they want TV news to cover what they are doing. And to those of you who don’t know what TV news is – see me after class.

Anyway, Taste of Pinellas is coming up and it’s a fun event where restaurants showcase food and old rockers put on a show. This caught my eye in the note from their PR folks: on Sunday, June 1, Eddie Money returns to the Taste by popular demand.

Popular demand, you say? Okkkkkaaaaaaaaaaay.

Here’s the whole line-up:

On May 30, the stage features heart-throb, musical artist/actor, Rick Springfield (“Jessie’s Girl; “I’ve Done Everything You”; “Love is Alright Tonite”; “Don’t’ Talk to Strangers”); on Saturday, May 31st, the Blues sensation, Jonny Lang (“Lie to Me”; “Breakin’ Me”; “Darker Side” and “There’s Gotta Be a Change”). Immediately following Lang’s performance, is a spectacular fireworks show sure to please crowds of all ages; and on Sunday, June 1, Eddie Money returns to the Taste by popular demand (“Think I’m In Love”; “Two Tickets to Paradise”; “I Wanna Go Back” and “No Control”. )

I used to really heart Rick Springfield when he was Noah Drake on GH. And Jonny Lang – Lie to Me – excellent juke box song (to those of you who don’t know – they used to have these things called juke boxes in bars and bowling alleys where you could pay to play songs. Ahem.)  But Eddie Money by popular demand? Come on.

Don’t get me started on old rockers. I cried during the last Vince Neil show at Jannus. And then there was the great Duran Duran disaster of 2001. It is kinda like visiting the casket at a funeral, I prefer to remember them how they were, not how they are now.

Seen any old rockers lately? Did you cry, laugh, leave or love it? Tell me here.

Where’s the devil? Or Jerry Garcia?

A lot of people send ideas here, suggesting that I should consider writing about them on the the Punch the Sky blog.

Check this out and tell me – do you really see the Shroud of Turin?

Frankly I am surprised at two things:

The first being that there are actual bidders on this, it is up to $99.

The second – where has the devil been? Jesus has been showing up on
windows, potato chips, cheese toast, dog doors and all over the place,
why doesn’t the devil represent?

Gotta go, I’m heading home to find the image of Jerry Garcia in my bag of Doritos…

Here’s the pic from the auction in case eBay yoinks it:

Dear Oprah

Dear Oprah,

If you happen to be catching up on the latest from the Punch the Sky blog, I have a question… I am a 38-year-old female. I want to buy a few pairs of new jeans. Where should they fall? Latest cuts of pants are styled either to the 18 year old modern lady plumber, or the high-waisted school marm. As a 38-year-old professional, which should I choose? I don’t want to look and feel old, nor do I want to look like a plumber.

Also, I could really use a make over. Let me know. Say hi to Gayle and Stedmond.

-PTS

PS – Luckys are the bomb – but they are pricey. Are they worth it?

Favorite Place

Best. Sleep. Ever.

Here’s an essay that I wrote for Gary Mormino’s Modern Florida. it was like writing “what I did over my summer vacation.” We had to pick our favorite place in Florida. I’m not sure what my absolute favorite place is, but this is one of them:

My favorite place in the state is along the Santa Fe River. Now I know why there are so many songs about rivers. There’s no better place to think clearly and learn how to just surrender to the flow. I can pitch my tent right up on the bank  of the river, and sleep so close to the water. I’d think twice about pitching there if I  were a sleepwalker or one of those folks who just wakes up out of sorts. The spot on the  bank transforms into an outdoor living room and I change too as I wind down next to the  river with walls of green trees surrounding me. It feels like a dream with my eyes open here,  watching the herons and the egrets skim and  sail in the “v” that the river carved through the trees.

From my hammock, the green, blue and brown scenery is punctuated by  happy people floating, drifting downstream on brightly Skittle-colored rafts and tubes. On this bank, as I watched people float, I used my Blackberry to solve  some complicated work flow issues back at the office. The river flow gave me ideas  that suddenly made sense, and the peace of mind to deliver my plans in a steady manner. Words just flowed, and the simplest idea, though not obvious, made itself known and subsequently made life a little easier.

The cool ride downstream in the tube is steered by the slow, steady intensity of the  river. Floating rigs of all shapes and sizes are toted upstream, dropped in to the  tea-colored water, and from there the river acts as its own tour guide. I drop my trusty  tube in at one end, hook it to my friends and my cooler, and take the day making it down to  the other end. I can paddle and rush it, but I have learned that the best part is slowing  down and letting the river set the pace. It’s during the slowing down part when the beauty  of the river starts to reveal itself, and shows that things look so much different when I  go by them slowly. For instance those bumps on logs turn out to be sun-worshiping turtles.   I realized here that turtles aren’t really so slow, they’re just relaxed.  And they refuse  to make a mad scramble if I get too close to them. Instead, they show me what to do by just  falling of the logs into the river without making as much as a single splash.

Rolling out of the sun into the river’s seventy-two degrees may sound cold, but there’s  something to the shock of it. Nothing comes close to being as refreshing as rolling off of a raft right into the Santa Fe on a hot Central Florida sunny  day. It is so clean and clear and along the way down the river, and I can let it steer me  right into one of its many coves that contain a crystal clear spring. There’s something  about things being so clear here that translates into the rest of the world starting to  make sense. It was after a long swim in a cool clear spring that I decided to end a bad  marriage. The thought just came to me and the right words and plans immediately followed.  And I haven’t looked back since.  The water is so clear it seems to defy logic as it comes  right out of the earth, a fresh start. It seems like there should be a sound that goes  along with this but there’s not, just quiet force.

At dusk, owls are easily spotted in the trees and hoot more often the darker it gets. Night  falls in what feels like an instant. Darkness along the river is dotted with fire from  camps and Tiki torches.  The chorus of frogs and their friends is the loudest thing going,  and would likely keep me awake if I wasn’t so happily exhausted from the day’s flow.  Refreshing tiredness and a spring-clear state of mind bring on the best sleep of my life, right next to the river.

Cafe Con Leche

Make no mistake that Tampa is a coffee town.  There’s fabulous coffee to be had here. I don’t know how I ever got by without Cuban Coffee. It’s tall, strong, sweet and heavy on the milk.  Today we hit Alessi’s for Cafe Con Leches and stuffed potatoes. What makes it so good? The best way to describe it is that it is comfort coffee.  Alessi’s might just have the best, but La Tropicana in Ybor is pretty good too, so is the joe at La Teresita.

We found Cuban Coffee in the French Caribbean too, drank them in Marigot.

Cuban Coffee in Saint Martin