RECOVERING PRIDE
Last year I got into a very heated discussion at a local coffee shop with a board member of Tampa Bay Pride about the upcoming event. When asked if I was going, I said no and stated my reasons why. Some of those included the fact I thought they were leaving out gay youth since most of them could not pay to go, and having the event at a closed stadium thus making it “invisible” from the rest of Tampa, among other reasons.
I used to live in Wichita, Kansas, which oddly enough had a parade lasting an hour and a half, local community events and of course the business expo. Pride here to me has always seemed geared to the Wet Party set or the Pillage and Plunder crowd. If you were not into that, you were pretty much left out: no events for gay youth, no parade, in fact not much reason to go at all.
Needless to say she was quite upset and said, “You’ll see, this will be the best ever!” Sadly, that didn’t happen.
Pride is possible here in Tampa, but things need to change first. From what I have been hearing, it sounds like St. Pete may actually get it right. Listen to the community, take a poll, something. It doesn’t have to be an event to match New York. But it does have to meet the needs of the coummunity.—Keith Privette, Tampa
Your article was by far the most accurate and well researched ever done on this sleazy matter. For once, Jim Garciga Travel was not used as the scapegoat. Jim’s agency is licensed and bonded to do travel in the state of Florida. This protects the traveling public. Tampa Bay Pride was neither licensed nor bonded to do travel. Small wonder Pillage was a failure. (“Amateurs should not attempt a professional’s job!”)
You might note that Garciga’s “Mutiny & Mayhem” last March, which I attended, was a huge success. Yes, sex does sell, to nobody’s surprise. There were live porno shows, but it was hardly a “floating bathhouse.”—Nick Vega, Tampa
ENRICHING TAMPA
I really enjoyed the article about Richard Florida (and greatly enjoyed his book), but I was struck by one thing you wrote in the article.
You said, “Tampa will never compete with New York, San Francisco, Boston or Seattle as a cultural and creative Mecca.” New York, sure. Boston and San Francisco? Probably. But Seattle? How short our memory is.
Seattle has not always been a cultural mecca and is a good example of the kind of city that recreated itself. For a long, long time, Seattle was thought of as a gray, depressing, single-industry city. When recession hit the U.S. in the ’70s, it hit Boeing and Seattle especially hard. There was actually a billboard in Seattle that said “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?” But over the next 15 years, new industries established themselves in Seattle, and a new cultural life grew up there, and now Seattle is a “cultural and creative mecca” as you say.
The reason I’m writing this is not to point out that you are wrong, but rather because Seattle is a great example of Richard Florida’s message. No matter what the current state of a city is, it can make decisions now that will affect it for decades — including decisions about what kind of people and businesses it wants to have. That’s what Seattle did. If it had made the wrong decisions, it might be just another decaying industrial city, with its ups and downs tied exclusively to the airline industry. There’s no reason Tampa can’t have what Seattle has.—Robert Boyd, Tampa
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2003.
