I’m not talking about a bar, where the object tends to be to get smashed or deal with those who are smashed… I’m also not talking about a restaurant where it’s awkward to hang around, watching everyone else eat with nothing going on besides food…

It was a little earlier this week I had been conversing with my friend Bill about his need to get out to a neighborhood place on the norm just for the sake of meeting people… He’s isolated where he’s living now much like I’m isolated in my current situation. Yet I used to have a place to socialize every so often… It might have been a Thursday, Friday or Saturday Night… but it was my chance to go out and enjoy myself by just enjoying my surroundings.

Before Starbucks ever appeared in the greater Tampa Bay metro region, there was a little coffee shop just across the street from my place in Palm Harbor called Java Jungle. It’d been open a few years before I finally got the courage to go inside… I began my love for Espresso there as well. With nightly music and even the rumble of different drink-dispensing machinery against the bar where I normally sat, it was my little place of escape for a few hours a week where I could be me.

I met a bunch of interesting people during that itme, a lot of casual friends at that… I got to know the staff but not as well as I had liked. My hearing was so horrid at the time that being social was a pain in the ass… but it was also a necessity for my sanity.

And I spent many a night there simply scrawling in black-and-white Meade notebooks, writing down ambling verses of rhymes and poems — some of which are on this very website.

The problem is, the Jungle is gone. Long gone. And while I have no qualms about Starbucks (and rather enjoy their coffee), it’s not a neighborhood coffee shop when all of the closest locations are situated for mass appeal on US 19 with drive through windows (to get COFFEE??!?) and next to BBQ restaurants.

And so I get to reminisce about the days of yore and the evenings spent sipping coffee and musing with the guys and girls of the Jungle and what was… and what’s missing from my current day to day: a place of escape.

This brought back memories of sorts — cuz I had come across a ridiculous protest online in the past… I ended up commenting at Current about it:

This reminds me of the faux protests of Star Wars through the The Force is a tool of Satan web site. It landed on the web sometime before the Prequels started and has been a rallying point and a laughing point since.

I know that the over-consumerism in reality is a noose around our necks (suffocating us from truly enjoying the season or any holiday – because some SALE has been inspired by it! Or some greeting card, etc)… but a protest like this with an animate pastor/reverend who seems like a caricature of TV Evangelicals everywhere? Laughing point, not rallying point.

That’s just me though.

So what’s the hubub? Current contacted me yesterday and asked if they could read my comment on air. W00t! That will be (I THINK) 2:26 PM this afternoon.

Edit: Didn’t air at the 2:26 PM airing. Maybe later today?

That being said, there are still problems there…

Local businesses need to be reviewed and sometimes listings need to be removed. For instance, Jaguar Coffee has been gone from Palm Harbor for years upon years (how I miss Java Jungle — Jaguar Coffee’s predecessor) and yet their listing still exists. Same with the now-closed Palm Harbor Ale House as well as other businesses.

The Yahoo Local listings are very much an online social network of reviews and user driven content… But of course users have to be willing to get active on their own Yahoo Local area in order for the content to be accurate.

I was more than happy to see K-Mart leave with thanks to the K’s re-organization. The store had always given me a negative vibe every time I got near it. Bealls converted the store and things have been a lot more pleasant with thanks to this.

But the one addition that I liked most — The Den, a coffee house and bar — was notably missing when I ventured to Woodlands Square on Memorial Day weekend. The Den had been inside Woodlands Square for a few years and served a great espresso. Alas, they gave way to music and live bands (I was there for coffee and conversation — which was hurt by this) and it would seem that the Den went the way of the Dodo. The store was empty when I looked.

Of course, The Den isn’t the only store missing that shocked me. Sans Pizza was also gone. Sans — which is right next door to the movie theater — was busy all the time and popular without having to find a side attraction. My guess is that they were a victim of rent prices skyrocketing. Why? Oh, because Office Depot moved in a few doors down — making their location even hotter than it already was.

Mark and me have been friends on the SkyscraperPage forum for a while – we knew each other but we didn’t really KNOW each other until I got real depressed after my operation in August. (one link but a bunch of stories on the subject in the past). I had been real down over a few things going on at the time and had talked about that stuff on SSP. I started finding relief by writing in here and Mark, a fellow writer, had been started chiming in on the forum after I made mention of the writing. We got to talking and I found out he was a screenwriter and a bit more. He was interested in my story after some private communications and we’ve been talking a bit about me and some story ideas since then.

Well, Mark had also told me he’d be in the Bay area in March of 2004 and at the time of the call — Mark was here :smile. We set up a little encounter this afternoon and I just rambled for him some points about myself and what I have gone through. Anecdotes and what not from my life and about who I am. We were doing this over coffee at a new place I discovered not too too far from my house. Looks really cool and I am hoping to be able to hang out with a few of my friends there in the future.

Anyway, back to the story. I told him of a few things – like giving him some details I could remember from the Beatles Lyrics incident, some anecdotes from childhood and growing up, moving down to Clearwater and such. It was fun to ramble like that but sorta awkward too. You couldn’t imagine a story about dear old John appearing in film, could you?

Didn’t think so :wink.

When I am out west next time (not sure when) I need to meet up with him again to keep going over things and just build. He’s got a ton of notes to work with and research if he wants. H also has a ton of work to do as is :tongue. Patience, John, Patience….

The song-poem was Java Jungle which I wrote at Palm Harbor’s “Java Jungle” coffee shop years ago when I was still very much a lyricist and poet. The song is just rambling verse that makes sense to me and probably me alone in some of it’s meanings but has a little niftiness to itself… if you can find the rhyme scheme and what could have been the beat or what the music could have turned into with the song…

At any rate, I’m going to post the lyrics now – then I will tell you more about that “ironic and funny” little meaning I didn’t intend that I just found out about…

Sally-man say:
“Who led the way,
“Across the Great Red Sea?”
Way back,
The long way back,
Back home

© 1997 John P. Fontana

So what’s the big deal? Well, I could break down the meaning of each stanza and verse to you but some of it is boring and some of it – as I already alluded to — should make sense only to me (Mickey and Brand across the great land, for instance, is a reference to friends of mine who used to come down to be with family here in Florida, I would see them every summer).

The lyric that I found funny is one of the closing lines… I talk about Easter Day and St. Jude’s Parade and then make a reference to “Lennon Lad”. This is all talking about Julian Lennon. “Jude” being direct reference to “Hey, Jude” which was written by Paul McCartney for Julian during the time John Lennon was divorcing Cynthia Lennon.

The entire line was actually supposed to be reference to St. Crispian’s Day, I believe I had seen Renaissance Man not very long before I had written this poem and I was very fond of Shakespeare at the time after a year of his works being passed on to me through Ms. Ciccone at East Lake High School.

Well, St. Jude got worked in there and the reference to Julian was made — “The kingdom’s yours to have” and silence abounds… That’s saying that Julian could have easily followed John Lennon’s footsteps and gone to the top of Rock and Roll but failed to do so… Of course, Julian is still involved with music and still battles demons involved with his father and his childhood… That being said, there are reason the kingdom was never entirely inherited by him or by Sean Ono Lennon for that matter.

The ironic – funny twist that I keep making reference to is St. Jude. I didn’t know who St., Jude was nor did I ever think to find out… I just threw the name out there for the rhyme and for the reference (Jude, Jules, Julian) and only recently (reading another Rick Reilly article) found out who St. Jude is:

The Patron Saint of Lost causes.

So, Lennon Lad, the kingdom may be yours to have but from what the Java Jungle tells you, it’s a lost cause trying to inherit it…

In fact I went and put on a pot of coffee for my parents about the time their flight got in. You know, Mr. Nice Guy and stuff like that. I would never do some shit like this if I wasn’t craving attention in some way. How was I thanked? I think I got 10 words total out of both my parents when I talked to them. Oh, they could give me the rub that they were tired — or someone else might make that case with me – but they sure as shit had a lot to talk about with my older brother. They weren’t as dismissive or non-inquiring about things.

And what about John?

Lets see, I’m using a WALKER to keep my balance at times around the house, I can’t just leave the house… I’ve been stuck here with someone who believed I couldn’t handle shit in the house alone and yet he was also someone who wouldn’t bother trying to talk to me much — if at all — the entire time.

To say the least, I’ve been lonely. I’m still lonely… I don’t know how the hell I am going to get through the next few weeks in the hospital feeling like this, because it’s not like I’m going to have people stopping by much.

I’m lost. Plain and simple, I am lost.

Though I can’t get over the similarities.

She came over to my place and we then went out to Insomnia — or were planning to go there — when we found out that Insomnia (local coffee house, pretty nice atmosphere) is now closed. FUBAR. We sat around inside her Camaro for 10 minutes talking and then decided to go to Applebee’s because she hadn’t eaten yet. No problem — off we go and then I find out two very important things:

1) she’s a vegitarian
2) Home Depot reminds her of her younger brother almost losing his finger in an accident

Applebees menu is a lot of meat on it with salad on the side. Shit. Should have gone to Carrabas or some other italian restaurant instead. Didn’t matter though. She ordered a chicken salad and most of the time it wasn’t focusing on eating between us anyway, it was talking. Though I admit I did most of the talking (on the account of my hearing).

I like rambling like that. I mean, we were talking for 20 minutes before we even ordered our food (of course, our waitress didn’t help things out too much either by taking her damn sweet time getting back to us). It was a lot of talking and it’s just what I wanted to be hoenst. I’m interested in the girl from the little bit that I learned about her when we talked online and I’m moreso now that I know more about her.

Of course I’m reporting too much of my personal life in here. Some people might say “What do you mean? That’s what makes it interesting.” while the few and the proud know first hand just what has happened to me in the past by reporting too much in here.

So anyway, had a friend over here again today and we shot the shit up – just talking, ended up surfing the web for a bit for jokes. Always a blast.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m starving, time to grab some grub.