Guess It's Time to Eat Cake - Guest Post

By The Hater

We here at Effin' Florida have been desperately trying to restrain ourselves from commenting on the Petraeus sex "scandal" invented by hyperbolic blue stockings -- in part because coverage is so ridiculous that it's impossible to improve on with comedy. But this piece in the erstwhile Tampa Bay Times, one of the best papers in the nation in my youth, which has now tried reach every lowbrow, mouth-breathing demographic available (despite the best intentions of the Poynter Institute) is finally enough to draw our notice. As if Florida (and Tampa -- and South Tampa) weren't hellacious shit holes enough, this piece has to reduce the coverage of this allegedly earth-shattering event to desperate gossip and resort to stereotype.

Tuxedos come out for Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla's coronation ball, but the Cattle Baron's Ball is intractably Western — Stetsons, Tony Lama boots, pearl-button shirts. Black ties at the Cattle Baron's Ball would be as silly as Hawaiian shirts at the elegant Pavilion gala.
Jill Kelley might have known so, had she grown up south of Kennedy Boulevard, gone to Plant High School, come out as a debutante, paid dues to the Junior League and had a daddy who teed off at the Palma Ceia Golf & Country Club. 

A decade ago, Kelley was an arriviste, a new-in-town doctor's wife looking to climb rungs on Tampa's social ladder.
The annual cowboy ball to raise money for cancer research could have been her way up.
She offered to chair the event if she could turn it into a formal affair. She went so far as to mail out save-the-date cards with a new dress code.

Thank you, no, organizers said. It would remain hoedown casual. With that, Kelley had overstepped an invisible line in a city where boundaries were set so long ago no one need even discuss them.

OMG! She's a would-be social climber into the high society of South Tampa, which covers a mere 1,500 square mile.  She wanted to get into THIS fantasy land of men who would prefer to live in the 1950s:

"Dad's been talking about this since I was 3," said Liz Cordell. "He's crying because he thinks this dress makes me look like I'm getting married."

Awww. So CUTE! My quick perusal of this list tells me why, even though I grew up in Alfred Austin's personal home (not this one, the one before it), not just one of his developments, I never knew these people (thank god!): Little did I know that Plant High was the epicenter of addle-brained privilege and backward social norms. I mean, in excess of how much the American high school is already such a place.

So that scurrilous Kelley is an arriviste into this blue-skinned mouth-breathing society, but they cruelly reject her! No racist homophobic Gasparilla KKKrewe for you, bitch! Move on to those uncouth SOLDIER types! Now, to be fair, the Times writer perhaps has more ironic disdain for this bullshit than editorial detachment allows, else why this:

"If you are brand new to the community, and you want to get into that echelon, you do need to meet high charitable expectations," says Kasey Shimberg Kelly, a South Tampa native and member of the Shimberg clan that has donated millions to various causes. "It definitely requires a hefty commitment of time and or money. If you're able and fortunate to come in with an open checkbook, you're welcomed with open arms. With cash comes bigger exposure because everyone knows who you are — the diamond sponsor, not just a table host."

Or the mention of a "charming" mansion.

Bayshore is smelly, grotesque, and undeservedly beloved. "Charming" is far from the first word that comes to mind for those houses.

And I write as one who got his first kiss in one, admittedly in a 7th-grade game of spin-the-bottle that also involved weak screwdrivers, not to mention that the girl was likely a future deb. So you know I'm not bringing any of my own baggage or anything. On the other hand, my memories of the TYCC were much blander than the power-brokering described in the coverage of this affair. I mostly remember doctors' wives having mediocre burgers with their churlish offspring before we could run to the pool or walk the dock looking at boats. And the all black wait staff who were unfailingly friendly and polite and pretended to give a shit about whatever I had been up to since the last time I saw them. When I think of Major I still want to cry a little today for being so fucking clueless. But if you're the type who misses the J.J. Hunsecker school of gossip as power, you're exactly the sort of audience the Tampa Bay Times hopes to reach, and I leave you to this cancerous metastasis of journalistic ambition gone astray:

Jill Kelley wanted to live with her doctor husband and three children on Bayshore Boulevard, a 4 1/2 mile waterfront ribbon of concrete and the city's prettiest and most prestigious address. For months she knocked on doors, even suggesting to some residents it was time to downsize. 

The Kelleys bought a charming brick mansion. She attended teas, luncheons, fashion shows, cocktail parties and galas. But insiders didn't consider her one of them. They say she tried too hard. She should have gone slower.