The gravy train of selling sex

(This essay ran in my Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET, but for some reason they didn’t post it online — so I’m posting the piece below. All rights reserved by the Sarasota Herald Tribune.)

I just can’t get into the whole pole-dancing and burlesque scene that, by all accounts, is sizzling up the sexy quotient in Sarasota.

Go ahead, call me a prude. But before you get your knickers in a twist, let me assure you – I could care less who likes taking their clothes off and who likes paying for the pleasure of watching them do it. I have no personal objection or moral disagreement with it. But I do have a question or two. (more…)

Gotta Vote for Geckos!

I love Sarasota’s hometown, locally-owned all-round great meet-up/sports bar Gecko’s Grill and Pub! I love their nachos — veggie style.

If you’re a fan like me, you can cast a vote — do it before April 4 — for Gecko’s in the Sarasota Herald Tribune’s “Best Sports Bar Showdown — at www.ticketsarasota.com.

Book Junkie’s Paradise

Hi. My name is MC, and I’m an addict.

But before you go thinking I’m mainlining vodka, let me clarify: (more…)

It’s fashionista to be a feminista

My Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune (all photos courtesy of Cliff Roles Photography:

The Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota recently held its 4th Annual Frances Kraaymes Lecture. This year, the event was a panel discussion on “Men, Women & Relationships,” moderated by Dr. Willa Bernhard, who posed questions such as, “How have your relationships with the opposite sex changed since your 20s?”, and, “What has affected the balance of power in your relationships?”

I was one of the panelists, and while I can’t claim the professional bona fides of the others

– author Dr. Nancy Schlossberg; Ringling College of Art and Design President Dr. Larry Thompson; local physician Dr. Jon Yenari; the Honorable Larry Eger, Public Defender; and mental health therapist Lauren Alston of Coastal Behavioral Healthcare — I still had plenty to say about how physical attractiveness, financial ability, sexual viability, and aging can tip the balance of power in personal relationships..

The discussion was lively: opinions flew, and amid a lot of straight talk and good humor, the panelists shared personal experiences and perspectives about male/female roles, communication, child-rearing, money, housework, even online porn. It was a refreshingly frank conversation, slightly rare in Sarasota, but judging by the audience response, very welcome.

I learned a lot from the panelists, and I’d like to think I shared something as well. For example, after I commented that one of the reasons U.S. women continue to struggle for power in their relationships and within their communities is because they’re still earning under eighty cents for every dollar a man earns in comparable jobs, one panelist stated that he wasn’t aware of any such discrepancy. I muzzled my impersonation of Scooby-Doo’s quizzical woof of disbelief –“Huhrrrr?”, but wondered how anyone in the working world could be unaware of the pay gap between men and women. (To learn more about the Paycheck Fairness Act, visit www.whitehouse.gov/issues/women.)

Another interesting point was raised when one panelist said the word “feminist” was irrelevant in his work and home life because he’s already so egalitarian that self-describing as a feminist would be moot. I’ve heard that argument before – that women have come so far, there’s no longer a need for either sex to carry the “feminist” calling card.

The word has always carried a lot of “angry-female” baggage, exacerbated by Rush Limbaugh’s coinage of the term, “Feminazi.” I’m a feminist and don’t mind saying so, but in the past decade, fewer and fewer of my friends use the term. I’ve got girlfriends who pay half the mortgage and expect their husbands to help change the diapers, and men friends who gladly let their wives bring home the bigger slice of bacon and want their daughters to have every opportunity to grow up to be President, but in both groups, many say, “I wouldn’t call myself a feminist.” As if it’s a dirty word.

But judging by the comments made by my fellow Kraaymes panelists, there’s a new breed of modern-day feminists out there — the men on the panel talked about how they share responsibilities and chores with their wives, and the women talked about how they contribute their fair share financially to their relationships –even if none of them used the dreaded “F-bomb” to describe themselves specifically.

So, taking a page from the Limbaugh playbook, I’m coining my own term to describe anyone who believes in the “social, political, and economic equality of the sexes” (that’s the definition of feminism, by the way). This new word isn’t really new — it’s just the Spanish word for feminist – feminista. But just like the Italian word “barista” turned coffee servers everywhere into über-hip coffee designers, I’m betting “feminista” will finally make it fashionable to be a feminist. And in any language, I’d call that fabulous.

Men of Midtown — my V-Day date with Sarasota firefighters!

Could my Valentine’s Day have been any sweeter? I got to get kind of up close and person with some of the men who keep my city safe.

Here’s my Sense and the City column from today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune: (more…)

Up Close and Personal with Poverty

In my Sense and the City column today in the Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET, I wrote about Greg Mortenson, Pulitzer Prize for Peace nominee and author of Three Cups of Tea,

Mortenson’s simple presentation of himself, his extraordinary dedication to helping others, really impacted me … and I wrote about it. You can read the story on page 10E of today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune TICKET section, or you can pick it up — FOR FREE — in TICKET/CL boxes across the city.

If you want to read it online, visit Up Close and Personal with Poverty.

If you’re enjoying my new Sense and the City column, feel free to let the editors know! You can send an electronic Letter to the Editor by clicking here: Letter to the Editor at Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Maybe my American dream

Yesterday afternoon I felt kind of sad because I don’t have a home of my own — that quintessential American dream of home ownership, is one I just haven’t been able to sustain. I did own and live in my own home briefly when I was married, and one other time as well, but most of the time, most of my life, I’ve rented. And I’ve generally hated it. From rats (real, live ones that Einstein had to catch) to landlords who wouldn’t fix leaking roofs that dumped buckets of rain into my living room … I’ve never liked renting one bit.

And because of that, for most of my life I’ve felt like a woman without a home. Kind of like a man without a country, but worse. Because somehow it seems romantic to be a man wandering the world with just a backpack or something … but to be a woman without a home … just evokes visions of bag ladies dancing in my head. It’s not a good feeling. (more…)

Skipping stones … in the age of distraction

My Sense and the City column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune tells about my recent experience watching a Dad teach his two sons to skip stones across the water.

Skipping stones — I really didn’t think boys did that anymore. Didn’t imagine Dads taught that anymore.

Glad to see I was wrong.

The story is on page E7 in today’s TICKET section … or you can read it online by clicking the hyperlinked words above.

She’s baaaack! Reality Chick is back — in the Sarasota Herald Tribune

What a way to end a year … and start a new one!!

When the announcement came earlier this month that the Creative Loafing newspaper publication was closing up shop and the Sarasota Herald Tribune was taking over its branding rights, I smelled opportunity … opportunity to return to my roots and get back to writing in a style more akin to my old “Reality Chick” days at the Pelican Press.

I’ve enjoyed the last month or so of writing the After Hours column for the TICKET section of the H-T — heck, I finally forced myself to get out and have some fun –but my interest, and I think my strength, lies in writing observational essays — columns — about what’s going on around my town. People, places, events, the zeitgeist of our little corner of the world. Luckily for me, when I pitched the idea to the editors — they agreed!

That new column starts today — it’s called Sense and the City and it will be my weekly “reality” take on whatever’s topical or at the top of my admittedly sometimes “Sideways in Sarasota” perspective.

In this week’s column I touch on Sarasota Mayor Kelly Kirschner, the Second Line street gang, and Sarasota’s semi-obsession with dirty dancers. I hope you’ll check it out at Sense and the City.

This is all actually a huge deal for me personally. I haven’t had a regular, weekly opinion column in a newspaper since May 2008 and I’m thrilled to be back writing the beat I know best.

If you like what you see in Sense and the City, don’t hesitate to let the editors know — it’s always helpful for them to know whether writers have a healthy readership or not — you can send an electronic LTE by clicking here.

Thanks for sticking with me as readers — whether I was in print or online — and I hope you enjoy this new column!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR, INDEED!

MC Coolidge in today’s St. Pete Times opinion pages!

Yippee!

Back in ’92, I remember working briefly as an intern at the Concord Monitor newspaper in New Hampshire and hearing about the St. Pete Times and the Poynter Institute back in my home state of Florida. The St. Pete Times was talked about almost as the holy grail for newspaper hounds like myself. And, now, a gazillion years later, I’m super happy to be appearing today in that paper’s opinion pages in the Pinellas edition of the paper.

You can read my guest column online at The Pen is Mightier than the Email, Tweet, and Text or in print if you live in the Pinellas County area.

It’s a big thrill, and an honor, to appear in my home state’s largest newspaper, which also happens to be one of the most respected print publications in the country.

If you read the column and are so inspired, you can post a comment and/or write a letter to the editor at http://www.sptimes.com/letters/ letting them know that you like (or dislike — though I hope not!) seeing a local writer from Sarasota in their pages. Who knows? — maybe someday they’ll be inspired to have a regular “weigh-in” in their pages from a Sarasota writer!

This column also appeared in yesterday’s Sarasota Herald Tribune op-ed pages — I’m always grateful to appear in my hometown paper — and of course, it would be a long-held dream come true to have a weekly print opinion column in those local pages — but until that happens, I’ve got to keep trying to land work in any and all print pubs!

Oh, well, got to run — headed downtown to find the St. Pete Times!