Dining with influence in Tampa

Column

It can't be much fun belonging to a secret club if everybody knows who you are, even if you have a secret handshake.

In Thursday's paper, Trib reporter Michael Sasso uncovered the existence of the No Name club, a group of almost 50 muckety-mucks who meet for lunch and do whatever it is secret clubs do.

Apparently there is no real agenda at these gatherings, other than figuring out who pays the bill for lunch. One thing I've learned in dining with muckety-mucks is that they are cheap, which probably helps explain how they became muckety-mucks.

I can imagine all of them getting together at the Colonnade and asking for separate checks.

I wouldn't think it would be much fun belonging to a club where you couldn't go around wearing black leather jackets with skulls and crossbones, or at least "No Names" outlined in glitter.

It could be that they do wear funny outfits when they get together, and we just don't know it. I used to think about joining the Elks Club or maybe the Moose Lodge … until I found out they don't wear giant elk or moose hats at their meetings.

Maybe the No Namers do have outfits. I think a good choice would be to dress as no-see-ums, because the insects are also a little secretive. For those of you who have never seen a no-see-um, they are those tiny bugs that show up around dusk at the beach or when you're sitting outside. Technically they are called ceratopogonidae, but just remember they are nasty, almost invisible little flies that bite like crazy.

I actually do belong to a club called The Behemoths, which consists mostly of some rather large people. We came together several years ago with the purpose of losing weight. We probably made a mistake by holding our first meeting at a Chinese buffet.

So what happens at these No Name meetings? Do they chant, "We are the 1 percent!" or argue about who has the best skybox at the stadium? A few of them suggested to our reporter that they don't have an agenda or try to pull any strings.

That's too bad. We could use a little more power-brokering here, at least if it's going to do us non-muckety-mucks some good.

A couple of decades ago, when civic boosterism was in full flower, downtown projects blossomed and pro sports franchises came our way. A new university promised to create an urban synergy with downtown leaders that would produce a modern Southern city.

But the banks moved their headquarters to Charlotte or Dallas, as did many of the other corporate entities, and it has been tough getting big money support and leadership around here. Maybe that could be a mission for the No Namers. We even could name an arena for them: No Name Stadium.

I like it.