BlogWood: MT Archives

The piggies did Pinellas this weekend, wowing shoppers at BayWalk and The Pier, and making appearances throughout St. Pete. The pink porkers were also spotted in and near downtown Tampa around lunchtime on Friday, having fulfilled their obligation to the President.

Gave a honk and the heads up at them today when we caught a glimpse of the piggies on my way home on Tampa St.

Is it too late for driver sign ups?

Well our first day out in the 3 lil Pigs was a bright spot in a rainy day for us ... and many others. We were only flipped off once by an angry man in a drive by car and one woman who rolled down her window and said "spending money on things like this is the problem!" And of course I had to reply that Ben Cohen, founder and Pres. of True Majority and co-founder of Ben & Jerry's funded the Pig Mobile and didn't go in debt because of it. She then replied "Wait until November!" and of course I had to reply that I couldn't wait! And so it went on our first day. Today we will have a tv spot with Ch. 8 on Share the Ride program or something like that. Should be fun. We spent our first day cruising Ybor City, Hyde Park, downtown Tampa around lunch time, USF campus and the Democratic HQ which was unfortunately very disappointing and hard to find. They didn't have any Kerry buttons, yard signs and only bumper stickers. And this is a battle ground state? What's going on? They were so hard to find we had to phone to find out where they were hiding! Today we are going to cruise east Tampa and try to garner some support and enthusiasm. We plan a photo op at Alabama John's Barbecue too! The Tampa Tribune shined us on but we took a photo outside the building anyway.

So stay tuned folks as we try to bring the message to soggy Tampa! Very few are out and about these days but we will persevere -- the True Majority!

Dale & Sara

Tuesday, July 20, and another rainy day on the streets of Tampa in the Pig Mobile! The high point of the day was the filming of the Pigs and drivers by the program on Ch.8 on Saturday nights at 1am!!!! They spent hours with us, filming us driving along Bayshore Blvd. and then did an interview in which we explained the True Majority message. They filmed every inch of each pig while we explained the facts and figures. Too bad no one will see the spot at such an insane time. But they are sending us a copy so hopefully we can send it to the TrueMajority org for use of some sort. Depends on how good it is though... They were very enthusiastic about the whole package and that was very cool. The rest of the day we drove around east Tampa where the people loved it. Since Bush shined on speaking before the NAACP, I figured this neighborhood would give the pigs a positive response and they did especially when we stopped for lunch at Alabama John's Barbecue. By the end of the day, we were pooped after having covered most of Tampa albeit in a cursory way. Every time we pulled up at Norwood's parking lot, dozens of kids would swarm over the pigs and ask for some of the "money." They said Norwood would throw it out at them so we gave them each a coupla million dollar bills.
The next driver should know that we couldn't find the pink bucket to put the key in so dropped it in Norwood's mail slot. The second thing is that while we were driving, one of the speaker underneath the head pig came loose and started to drag on the road. I tried to get underneath to re-attach it but couldn't. It just dropped off and we stuck it in the front of the cab. The other speaker is alive and working but it just isn't as loud now. Don't know why it suddenly dropped off because we didn't drive over anything to knock it loose.

That's all the Pig news that's fit to print on Dale & Sara's travels around Tampa in the Pig Mobile. It was a great experience and the responses for THE TRUE MAJORITY were positive and gave us a lot of hope for change in November.

Happy Trails to all the Pig Drivers from Dale and Sara

I saw you on Tuesday in the rain on Dale Mabry highway. I was very proud of you guys and I honked. I saw you again today down on Kennedy Blvd. Outstanding. Everybody saw you and I noticed some were chuckling, but they saw your message about how much the war costs florida.

Thanks again

I may be a little anal and I do have to say that the inside of the van was pretty much a pig sty when I got in this morning. I didn't do much about the clutter of literature, just the styrofoam cup and other sundry papers. The pigs got a tour of Davis Island, spent a good deal of time downtown and what seemed like hours on South Dale Mabry. We drove by the Republican headquarters and didn't stop. As the work day drew to a close we took a quick excursion around Tampa University (where a few photos were taken) before bidding farewell to downtown. After traveling north on Florida, we tackled rush hour traffic on Hillsborough and on to Carrollwood via Dale Mabry. The neighbors in Carrollwood were very receptive, as were many others along the route throughout the day. Many photos were taken and questions asked. Got lots of "thumbs up", smiles and waves. Saw the speaker and didn't know where it belonged so it's still there. It was definitely a positive experience and I'm looking forward to next week.

New Piggie posts, including the infamous "Pig v Pig" in Ybor on Thursday by following this BlogWood search link:

http://www.blogwood.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=pig mobile

(Cut and paste into your browser - I must have disallowed HTML in the comments. Sorry)

Piggies in Pinellas: on the beaches today, from Clearwater to all points south. Probably making appearances on various? Bay Area causeways as well on the way to and from Tampa.

DRIVERS: fyfi - Fans are requesting an appearance in New Tampa.

Again, is it too late for driver sign ups? I live in Ybor and could do a route.

The piggies will be coming to New Tampa on Monday, possibly Tuesday as well. Even with all the SUVs and Hummers, they should still stand out. Bruce B. Downs, get ready to start spinning in your grave!

Driver sign ups in Tampa are way over. Other cities may still be available, though, if you want to give friends out west a heads up. Sign up through their web site and they'll contact...

TrueMajority

oops... Here's the website

https://secure3.ctsg.com/blsp/pigmobile.asp

The piggies had a fine Monday afternoon in New Tampa, southern Pasco County, and USF-Tampa. The clerk at a convenience store closed up shop for a couple of minutes to pose for pictures with them. Three or four people on the USF campus made me stop and give them flyers.

The most affecting moment of the trip came at the very end. The piggies were stopped at a traffic light near Norwood's when the guy in the adjacent lane asked us to sit there while his mother took a picture. He told Elaine (my wife) and me that he's home from Baghdad on leave. He wants to show the picture to Iraqis to "blow them out of the water." We're not entirely sure what he means, but we'd like to think that he wants Iraqis to know that not everyone in the U.S. is happy about spending $200 billion for 12,000 dead Iraqi citizens, Abu Ghraib, "Bring 'em on," etc., yada yada yada, ad nauseam. (In any event, the New York Times had a front-page story yesterday about the severe cutback in water-development projects due to the CheneyBush junta's war profiteering and rank incompetence, so it's not clear that there'll be much Iraqi water out of which to blow anyone.)

The piggies noticed a lovely pasture with grazing cattle and a big sign reading, "Regional Mall and Office Complex" coming soon. They asked me where all the cattle and cattle egrets will go when their home is destroyed. I didn't have a good answer for them.

In solidarity,

(Mr) Bill

Yesterday (Tuesday) the piggies made a return visit to USF and New Stepford -- oops, I mean New Tampa. On campus, they happened upon a large group of students and parents who were there for orientation. I slowed down to a speed of approximately an angstrom per month so that everyone in the group could get the message.

The piggies are wonderful to be with. I shall miss them.

The Piggies last days in Tampa: I can't believe they're leaving already - this Sunday, the Pigs will be heading up to Gainesville, the next stop on their cross-country tour.

In the meantime, look for them around Tampa today, mostly the downtown area and wherever maintenance needs take us. Yea, it's time for a little fixing and patching, but nothing serious. We'll probably be off the road for a few hours.

Saturday, the Pigs will be in and around BayWalk and downtown St. Pete between 7 and 9 pm. Come out and show some love to the St. Pete for Peace group and celebrate the fact that the St. Pete City Council just dropped an unconstitutional proposal to restrict protestor’s rights.

http://sptimes.com/2004/07/29/Southpinellas/City_ends_proposal_to.shtml

St. Pete for peace link

http://www.stpeteforpeace.org/

Just an update to those of you watching the City-Council...I am still suing them (the Tampa City Council) over their secret meetings with the Chamber of Commerce.

I have also just filed a complaint against the city for the Classic Courthouse Committee which has been doing their stuff without the proper public notices.

And if that isn't enough, I've filed a complaint against the Tampa Bay History Center for wanting to pilfer taxpayer's of $17 million dollars without allowing us to witness their proceedings...they claim they do not have to tell us what they are doing...which is wrong.

The latest is on my website, www.terryneal.com.

Thanks, Terry