White Chocolate VS Ronda Storms

Countless men and woman have had the “Public Access Rags to Riches” dream. Cut their teeth in the low budget studio. Earn a small fan base in the city. Get discovered and turn into a national superstar. Unfortunately, the list of those who have made that leap is short.

Max Kellerman parlayed a New York City public access show into a successful career as an ESPN analyst and a boxing commentator.

Tom Green hosted a public access variety show in Ottawa before he was discovered by MTV.

And that may be it in terms of recent Public Access personalities who made it big.

In 2002, for a brief time, it appeared that Tampa had a Public Access personality ready to add his name to the list–Charles Perkins, aka White Chocolate, the faux pimp who hosted the raunchy “White Chocolate Show” that broadcast such controversial footage as women fondling themselves in showers, a stick puppet of an African American county commissioner being hung by a tree and a sock puppet offering a female county commissioner puppet sexual favors.

He lived his pimp gimmick 24/7, wearing his trademark fur coat, gold chains and pimp hat almost everywhere he went. He was a regular guest on a local FM radio station. He was invited to appear on nationally broadcast daytime talk shows. He opened his own Ybor City nightclub. He even had a bevy of girlfriends who were his Public Access groupies by day and dancers at some of Tampa’s most frequented strip clubs by night. They were the type of woman whose looks could have landed them doctors or lawyers. But they instead chose to sleep on the couch of a man who at times dressed like a nun and played with Osama bin Laden puppets.

“It was crazy. When it began, I never thought it would become as big as it did. Most of the time, it was all a joke to me but people kept watching and talking about it, saying good things and bad things. It was the bad things that fueled me. They kept feeding it and the more bad things they said the further I wanted to push it. I was just having fun getting under people’s skin and trying to prove the point that free speech means free speech,” explained Charles Perkins.

The more he pushed the boundaries of decency, the more Tampa Bay talked about him. His show drew the ire or applause of seemingly everyone in Tampa Bay and turned the community into a national battlefield in the free speech vs. obscenity debate, launching himself into local stardom, a little-talked-about county commissioner into a national political celebrity, and Tampa’s rarely watched Public Access Channel into one of the most viewed stations in all of the city.

“I was just a kid really,” said a more mature Perkins of his 25-year-old self. Today, he is a 36-year-old loyal husband and father who has long since turned in the fur coat and pimp hat. “And I was taking advantage of my moment I guess. But I’m not that guy anymore. “

He is not that guy AT ALL. The young man who would to search for ways to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons is now trying to make the headlines for all the right ones. White Chocolate is trying to launch a career in politics, hoping to win a seat on either the Tampa City Council or Hillsborough County Commission so he can help rebuild his deteriorating neighborhood in North Tampa.

“Drive through and around the neighborhoods in the Armenia Avenue and 50th Street area,” he said. “Some of the neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks. Other neighborhoods don’t even have paved roads. It’s 2011 and they still have dirt roads! That is ridiculous. Meanwhile, the city keeps giving more and more money to the rich over in New Tampa. How is this fair?”

He has run for political office twice so far and has come up short each time but vows to continue to run until he wins. And he said that when he DOES win, he will not keep one penny of the salary. He will instead donate it back to the community.

“Helping your community is not a job,” he said. “It is a privilege. I don’t want to be a career politician. I don’t want to use a seat in office as a spring board to other political jobs. I just want to help my neighborhood.”

There was no smirk or roll of the eyes when he made that comment. Charles Perkins, “White Chocolate” himself, was actually 100 percent serious. He no longer seems to care about obtaining 15 minutes of fame. He actually seems to care about his community. But, despite his seemingly earnest intentions, the million dollar question is, “Can a man who once dressed like a pimp and showed footage of women masturbating in the shower while he read children’s stories win an election?”

“Of course I can,” he snapped. “Because I am real. I am who I am. When a voter recognizes me, I don’t deny who I am or who I was. But I do tell them that I am not that guy anymore and when I tell them what I want to do for their neighborhood they see me as a leader and not a public access pimp. Look, you can’t go through life with regrets. I don’t regret what I did or who I was. It is what it is.

“Look man. Before you can become the man you want to be you have to accept the man who you were,” he continued, taking a breath to grin in a sign of self-acknowledgement of his profound statement. “I know who I was and I am not ashamed of it or anything about my life. I am an open book. I have nothing to hide. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about me.”

And he did. For the first time ever, he shed the “White Chocolate” costume and allowed someone to see Charles Perkins – the man he is, the man he was, and the man he still wants to become.

“I’m deep,” he joked. “Real deep.”

Perkins was born on November 10, 1975 and was raised an only child behind Chamberlain High School on the corner of Busch Boulevard and Linebaugh Avenue.

His parents divorced when he was 5 years old, but he stayed close with his father during his formative childhood years.

“My father was my hero,” said Perkins. “He was a real hero, a World War II hero.”

According to Perkins, his father’s battalion had to storm a German pillbox located on the top of a hill. Everyone in the battalion but his father and one other soldier were killed shortly into the offensive. His father did not back down, however. He instead charged the hill, spraying the Germans with bullets. When he ran out of ammo he picked up a shovel and beat the Germans manning the pillbox to death, successfully completing the mission.

“I swear it’s true,” said Perkins. “I have seen letters and newspaper articles about it. I was always proud of him for that. He stood up for something great. I just wanted to be around him all the time when I was kid.”

In order to spend time with his father, he often accompanied his father to work. His father’s clients, however, were not the type a young boy should have been around.

“He built secret rooms inside of houses for mobsters and bikers who lived in Carrollwood and Ybor City,” said Perkins. “These were known guys. They would have a fake wall in a den or living room and when you pressed a button the wall would open up and reveal the hidden room my father built.”

Perkins’ father taught him everything he knew and as the years progressed, Perkins graduated from a simple helper to his father’s full-fledged apprentice. Then, when Perkins was around 12 or 13 years old, he and his father had a falling out and have not spoken since.

“I think he may be dead,” said Perkins. “I don’t care where he is or what happened to him. When I was in junior high, I overheard him on the phone with my mom saying something like, ‘I think our son would kill me in his sleep if he had the chance.’ I have no idea why he said that but I was crushed. I looked up to my father. When I heard him say something so terrible about me it broke me and I never spoke to him again.”

But he did keep the lessons he taught him.

With his mother working fulltime, Perkins had little parental supervision as a teenager. He used this freedom to become THE party guy at his high school by building an underground party room in his backyard, mimicking those secret rooms he used to build with his father. He said the room was a work of art, complete with hard wood floors and cubbyholes in the walls for alcohol storage.

Alcohol was something easy for him to get his hands on. He also made and sold fake IDs.

Every weekend he would put on a lab coat, rub some black makeup under his nose to create a five o’clock shadow on his upper lip, clip a USF medical student ID he made at home onto the jacket, and purchase alcohol using his fake ID at a liquor store drive thru. He would then return to the underground room in his backyard and host the weekend’s best party. Because the room had limited space, it was an invite only party with guests clamoring to go. By the end of the party, bodies were strewn across the hidden room’s floor and the smell of vomit was overpowering.

“My mom knew I had the room,” explained Perkins. “There was no way to hide it from her when I was building it, but she thought it was just a boy’s clubhouse. She had no way of knowing what really went on. Then one weekend when I was at a Saturday morning detention she saw one of my friends passed out on the lawn and when she checked on him she looked into the room for the first time and saw what we really did. When I got home, she made me cave the room in.”

Perkins refused to allow that to be the end of his partying ways. At the age of 15, using his fake IDs, he rented a townhome near the University of South Florida. By that point he had earned and saved quite a bit of money by selling the fake IDs and by working at a KB Toy Store, money he used to pay for the entire year’s lease up front, enabling him to avoid a credit and background check. And because the rental home was near a popular college, police left his parties alone, thinking it was another college party rather than a high school kegger.

The parties featured plenty of beer, a two-story funnel, and a pool of beer on the first floor that partiers dove into from the second floor. At the end of each party, he cleaned and then returned to his mother’s house.

“It was just a party house,” he said. “I didn’t live there.”

He rented the townhome throughout high school. Following graduation, he had little desire to attend college. He knew what he wanted to do – run his own business. Because he made a profit off the fake IDs and parties, coupled with the fact that he’d become a manager at KB Toy Store, he felt he had the experience and know-how.

His first legal business venture was a Saturn Subs in what was then the East Lake Mall. His calling card was a one-dollar hotdog and soda. The business was a success in terms of moving products, but it was not providing him with the type of income he wanted.

He sold the business for a small profit and returned to KB Toy Store for a few years before again venturing out on his own, this time opening Cheap Auto Repair on East Hillsborough Avenue where the Taco Bus is now located. Perkins knew next to nothing about fixing cars, but he knew commerce. On that strip of road on Hillsborough Avenue were a car lot and auto shop but no auto repair shop. He knew there was a need for one. He hired a handful of qualified mechanics and was open for business.

Perkins also knew how to promote, bringing in customers with unique promotions that catered to that area’s low income clientele. For instance, covering one side of his building was his slogan, “We have crack head prices!”

“There was a ton of crack heads in that area,” laughed Perkins. “And they would come by the shop all the time with random objects they were trying to sell, like DVD players and pairs of shoes. I wouldn’t want anything they were selling, but they were persistent. They would say the DVD player was $5 and I’d say no. So they’d drop it to $3 and I’d still say no. Finally they would offer it to be for a buck, so of course I had to take it at that price. I even had one crack head who stopped by with a pair of scissors and asked to cut the lawn. I didn’t even have a real lawn; it was just one strip of grass, but I said sure and offered to pay him $10. When I checked in on him, he was cutting my grass with the scissors. It was crazy. So that is what crack head prices meant – we were always willing to negotiate and would do anything to get your business, like a crack head. The people in that community understood it and loved the slogan.”

His other famous promotion was “Pimp Discount Mondays.” He offered a 30 percent discount to anyone who looked like a pimp, whether they were a real pimp or fake. More often than not, however, the pimps were real. The promotion was such a hit he decided to run with it. He would wear a fur coat and pimp hat, stand on the corner of the road near his shop, and wave a sign to the passersby that read either “We Have Crack Head Prices” or “Pimp Discount Mondays.”

“And that’s how my pimp character was born,” he said.

Perkins was a teenager, 13 or 14, when he bought his first video camera. He and his friends would hide with it near the fairways of a local golf course. When a ball rolled by, Perkins would grab it and film the golfers’ reactions when they couldn’t find the ball. If the golfer saw him grab the ball and run, the reaction was even funnier, explained Perkins

He also filmed his own comedy skits. In one of his earliest creations, he played a Russian chef who prepared his dishes with a chainsaw. Unfortunately, his Russian accent was the only thing worse than the production value, he admitted. He knew he had the creative mind it took to entertain. What he needed was the skill. This is where Public Access entered the picture.

Sometime around 1990, he was channel surfing one night when he stumbled upon footage of beautiful girls flashing their breasts at Tampa’s various beer-soaked parades. The show, Lifestyles of the Up and Coming, was causing quite a stir in Tampa Bay at the time. Conservative politicians and church leaders said it was pornography and was exploiting drunken girls who did not know their half-naked images would end up on television. The show’s supporters used the First Amendment to defend it. In time, the show petered out on its own, but not before it inspired Perkins to visit the Public Access studio.

“I realized after watching that show that Public Access was a place that allowed anyone to freely express themselves creatively,” said Perkins.

He signed up for a training course at Public Access, they taught him the basics of TV production, and a short time later he launched his first Public Access show, The Happy Dog Show. He was still with KB Toys at the time and used toys to film raunchy skits revolving around characters such as its host, Happy Dog, a dog puppet wearing sunglasses that told tasteless jokes; Mr. Waffles the alcoholic puppet; a homosexual police officer who liked to frisk people; Satan the Weatherman who always gave the same weather report – “It is hot!; and Chef Osama bin Laden who cooked such delicious dishes as stone and sand soup. In a way, the show was before its time, a local precursor to the national hit, South Park.

He produced the show off and on for a decade. As he grew older, while the show stayed raunchy, it also matured. His jokes focused more on politics and less on pointless sex acts and potty humor. He also became a larger part of the show, coming out from behind the puppets more and more, bantering with the puppets while poorly throwing his voice by obviously moving his mouth the entire time. Other times, he had friends and crew members control the puppets. He also revised his role as the chainsaw chef and created new characters such as the Heathen Nun and White Chocolate the Pimp. He became the star of the show, not Happy Dog, and he renamed his program The Happy Show.

Then, in mid-2002, he was given the news that would soon rock Tampa Bay. He said that Public Access officials told him that his show was too raunchy for the primetime time 9 p.m. slot he held and would be moved to 11 p.m. Public Access officials denied that claim. They said his show was moved because that was the timeslot it drew in the lottery, which is how they assigned timeslots to all their shows.

Perkins was furious. He had built a fan base at that timeslot. He thought the move would kill his momentum and he thought he was being censored.

“They said I was crude because I was cursing with puppets,” he laughed. “Ridiculous. There was nothing crude about my show. But I thought, well, if they think I am crude, I will be crude.”

In his final episode in his primetime slot, he showed footage of one of his female friends naked and rubbing herself in the shower.

“It was my way of protesting,” Perkins explained.  It was his way of saying, “Damn the man!”

At least one female viewer did not appreciate his form of free speech. The next day, she called one of her local representatives, County Commissioner Ronda Storms, and complained.

With that, The Great Public Access War of 2002 began.

Commissioner Storms was a conservative Republican who hitched her political wagon to God and the cause of cleaning up Hillsborough County’s morals. Originally elected to the County Commission in 1998, she was up for reelection in 2002. Perkins provided her with the cause she had been looking for to propel her name into the newspaper and possibly ensure herself another four years on the County Commission.

After viewing the episode of his show featuring the girl in the shower, she filed a request with State Attorney Mark Ober to press obscenity charges against Perkins. She also wanted the county and city to pull its funding from Public Access for allowing such “obscenity” to be broadcast. Her requests made headlines in March 2002, putting both she and Perkins at the forefront of a censorship battle.

Perkins saw this as his opportunity to propel his show to new heights.

“I decided to push the issue a bit more and began showing nudity every week,” he said. “If Public Access had never tried to censor me by moving my timeslot I would never have shown nudity. Then, if Ronda Storms had never made an issue out of it, I would never have shown it again. But the worst thing you can do to me is to challenge me. When you do, I fight back. Ronda Storms wanted to censor me so I kept shoving what she wanted to censor in her face – nudity.”

He also made himself the face of Public Access, stating to the press that he was defending the station in the name of freedom of speech and because of all the good it provided to the community. He told the media that if the city and county pulled Public Access’ funding, a lot of worthy organizations would suffer. He stood outside the County Center with a bullhorn and condemned Commissioner Storms for wanting to cut spending, and reminding anyone who would listen that the station was also used by organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs to raise awareness of their causes.

However, despite claiming he had good intentions, he refused to stop airing nudity, even though that was the root of the problem. In fact, he stated that showing nudity helped the station rather than hindered it.

“By showing nudity, I think I did a lot of good for the station,” Perkins stated. “Before my show, a lot of people did not know that the station existed. Suddenly, I’m all over the news and people are tuning in and see the other shows. Whenever the media would call me, I would ‘pimp’ the other shows, tell them about all the good programs that Public Access has. And then I would give them the names and email addresses of the producers of those shows. If you look back at the articles during that time, they often quote the producers of those shows and that had something to do with me.”

Of course, Perkins will admit he wasn’t only full of good intentions. He was having some devilish fun at the expense of Commissioner Storms. His show continually parodied her. He renamed his show, “The White Chocolate Show,” to capitalize on his fame and he often ranted and raved about Commissioner Storms’ desire to censor him and Public Access. He then added a new sidekick – Commissioner Storms herself. He taped a photo of her head onto a stick and had various members of his production crew act as the puppeteer.

“She was the best sidekick I had,” Perkins laughed. “Whatever I said, she would be radically against. I’d say that I think freedom is great and she would chime in that freedom sucks and everyone should be locked in a cage. It was funny.”

He also produced skits that focused on Commissioner Storms’ puppet. For instance, one of his other infamous puppets was Black Sock, a dirty black sock that represented a “clichéd black person.” In one particular skit, Black Sock was taking a nap after a long day of picking cotton when the Commissioner Storms puppet showed up and unleashed a tirade of racial slurs toward him. In another skit, the Commissioner Storms puppet proposed to the rest of the County Commission—all of whom had their own puppets— that they should wear uniforms to each meeting. They voted in favor of the action and at the next meeting they were wearing KKK outfits. Following the meeting, the Commissioner Storms puppet invited the African American County Commissioner Thomas Scott puppet to meet her in private. The Commissioner Jan Platt puppet, which was cast as the intelligent member of the commission and was wearing Yoda ears to accentuate that point, thought something was amiss with the Commissioner Storms puppet’s invitation and decided to investigate. She found the Commissioner Scott puppet hanging from a tree and the Commissioner Storms puppet pulling the rope.

“My favorites, though,” said Perkins, holding his stomach as he laughed, “were when I had the Commissioner Storms puppet and a Satan puppet doing lines of coke together and when I had the Commissioner Storms puppet kill me in the shower in a takeoff of the Psycho scene.”

“What made these skits so great,” continued Perkins, “is that we had secret guests who would come on the show and do the Ronda Storms puppet’s voice and you would be SHOCKED to know who some of the guests were. We never showed their faces but if we did, I think people would have been totally surprised.”

After each episode of a show that poked fun at Commissioner Storms or showed nudity, Perkins would then send the tape to Commissioner Storms’ office and write a fake note from a concerned citizen saying that she needs to get the show off the air.

“We were just egging her on,” explained Perkins. “And she bought into it the entire time. But look, I was using her and she was using me. She saw me as her way to get attention to make a bigger name for herself, win reelection and then go on to bigger things. She was not innocent in all of this.”

She would not leave Perkins alone either. She kept attacking him and he kept winning the battles. At the height of their battle, Commissioner Storms and Perkins were guests on a local FOX 13 afternoon show that dealt with the “hot topic of the day.” Perkins’ attorney, Luke Lirot, who is best known for his legal defense of strip club king Joe Redner, pleaded with Perkins to leave the pimp outfit at home, reminding him that he was facing obscenity charges so it was best not to egg on the public on local TV. Perkins agreed, but could not pass up a chance to get under Commissioner Storms’ skin on television. It was around Easter time that year and in keeping with the holiday spirit he made a “First Amendment Easter Basket” that contained such items as a copy of the Constitution, the First Amendment and more. He presented it to her at the beginning of the show and frazzled her.

“For the rest of the show she was off her game,” said Perkins. “I got to her early. It was so easy to beat up on her.”

In the meantime, public officials were turning on Commissioner Storms. Her fellow commissioners accused her of grandstanding when she asked to show an episode of Perkins’ program during a County Commission meeting. In that particular episode, Perkins was reading from a children’s book while flashing video images of naked women on the screen. Commissioner Storms said she wanted to show the episode to showcase to the commission the type of obscenity that was being broadcast on Public Access. The program was not broadcast in the meeting. The other commissioners thought she was just trying to keep her name in the headlines.

If that was her goal, it was working. Rarely did a day go by in which Perkins’ or Commissioner Storms’ names were not mentioned by a media outlet. Some national newspapers even picked up on the story.

Perhaps the most outlandish headline took place on May 3, 2002 when the St. Petersburg Times ran an article titled, “Storms: Show Using Sock Puppet to Threaten Her”. In the previous week’s episode of the White Chocolate Show, Black Sock told the Commissioner Storms puppet that he wanted to take her home and perform various sex acts on her. The real Commissioner Storms said she feared for her life after watching the episode.

“It was a puppet!” exclaimed Perkins with a sly grin on his face. “She was so over the top.”

The legal system agreed with Perkins. State Attorney Mark Ober declared that Perkins’ show may have been offensive but was not criminally obscene and charges could not be pressed against Perkins or Public Access. He also stated that the episode that made Storms’ fear for her life could not be considered legally threatening to her.

Commissioner Storms would not give up. She was determined to defeat Perkins and Public Access. To do so, she began searching for other shows that could be deemed obscene.

In the meantime, Perkins continued to add time onto his 15 minutes of fame. On May 8, he announced he was running for County Commission District 3 against incumbent Commissioner Tom Scott. He announced in a typical White Chocolate manner. He arrived at the County Center around 11 a.m. with a group of friends who were carrying a box. Perkins said it was a gift for the Hillsborough County Commission. When the opened the box, Dave “The Dwarf” Flood, a popular 93.3 WFLZ personality, popped out holding Perkins’ filing papers. At the time, Perkins swore he was serious about running. Today, he admits it was just a publicity stunt.

“I was just having fun bothering Ronda Storms,” he said. He ended up dropping out of the race.

In June, after over a month of combing through tapes of various Public Access shows, Storms found the smoking gun she was looking for. On May 10, the show Saheeb’s Dream showed video footage of the 1987 public suicide of Pennsylvania treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. Dwyer had been convicted of bribery, called a press conference to explain his actions and then committed suicide via firearm on live television. When Saheeb’s host, Billy Willie, showed the footage, he could be heard saying, “Do it, do it” and then when blood flowed from Dwyer’s head, Willie said, “Cool.”

Any footage shown on Public Access required a release form from those appearing in it. Commissioner Storms said that because Dwyer was dead there was no way Willie could have acquired such a release. She demanded that Willie and Public Access be punished for that violation. She then said she would refer the tape to Ober to see if there were any other crimes committed during the airing of the show.

Commissioner Storms announced a press conference on June 14 to discuss the Saheeb episode and to again claim that the best way to stop such shows from airing in the future was to pull Public Access’ funding. The press conference was not open to the public; press only.

Perkins local fame had risen to the point that he was a regular guest on 93.3’s afternoon show hosting a popular segment called “Pimp Slap a Bitch Thursdays.” Listeners would call in and explain to Perkins why someone they knew needed to be “pimp-slapped.” If Perkins agreed, he would simply exclaim, “Pimp slap that bitch!” and the sound of a screaming woman being slapped would follow. Through 93.3, Perkins received press credentials to Commissioner Storms’ press conference. Dressed in full pimp uniform and accompanied by Dave “The Dwarf” Flood, Perkins burst into the press conference screaming that Commissioner Storms was trying to censor Tampa Bay. Commissioner Storms immediately retreated back to her office, calling a sudden end to her press conference.

A month later, on July 10, the St. Petersburg Times released a report stating that Commissioner Storms’ crusade against Public Access had forced the State Attorney’s Office to log 867 hours since March investigating the station, which equaled 11 weeks of full-time work for two employees at the office. The Times wrote that the State Attorney’s Office estimated that it had spent $57,000 on the investigation. The Times also reported that technicians at the county’s government access station had recorded 92 videotapes of public access shows since mid-March for Commissioner Storms and other county employees. The Times then wrote that the county normally charged $20 for videocassettes to recoup the cost of the tape and the time it took the technician to prepare it.

On July 20, Commissioner Storms could finally claim victory on one battlefront. Perkins’ was suspended by Public Access for a technical violation. He failed to run credits identifying him as a producer during a July 10 episode of his show. Perkins claimed that the reason behind the gaffe was that he fired a technician in the middle of the show and could not figure out how to run the credits properly. His excuse fell on deaf ears. Frustrated, rather than waiting out the suspension and then returning to the airwaves, Perkins opted to end his Public Access career and move on to other ventures.

These ventures revolved around the White Chocolate gimmick. He took to the internet to sell episodes of his show and even enjoyed a short stint as co-owner of a club in Ybor City with Joe Redner.

“Enjoyed a short stint is the key phrase,” Perkins said. “We packed the place for the first few weeks when I was involved with it. Then we have a falling out over business issues and I was out. The club died without me.”

He continued to hang onto the White Chocolate persona. He even came close to booking a spot on an episode of the then-popular Jenny Jones Show, but he turned the deal down due to differences over his role on the show. Show producers wanted him to be part of a lineup of pimps, real and fake, and a panel of experts had to figure out who the real pimps were. Perkins didn’t want to be in the lineup, he wanted to be on the panel. When the show said no, he said no and moved on.

Despite getting Perkins off the airwaves, Commissioner Storms did not move on. In October she successfully convinced the County Commission to vote in favor of cutting $355,000 in aid it provided to Public Access. The commission said the cut was due to budgetary reasons. It was a short-lived victory. Shortly after the commission voted, The St. Petersburg Times quoted Commissioner Storms bragging, “They didn’t get Al Capone for murder or racketeering. They got him for tax evasion.”

A federal judge ruled that her comment was enough to reinstate Public Access’ funding as it provided evidence that the vote was made to censor Public Access and not for budgetary reasons.

Perkins said it was around this time that he had a moment of clarity. He had numerous girlfriends at the time, but one in particular held his interest. She realized that the pimp act was just that – an act. She knew that Perkins was actually a decent and good man at heart who got a little too caught up in the moment, in chasing those 15 minutes of fame. So she told him that if ever planned on getting married and having children with her or any other woman, he needed to leave White Chocolate behind.

“I was sitting on my couch one night and had these strippers with me who had been crashing at my place,” remembered Perkins. “I looked at them and realized that if I really wanted to I could become a pimp. I could have convinced them to let me pimp them out.”

He had become so engulfed in his alter ego that it threatened to become him.

“I didn’t want to be a real pimp,” he said. “I wanted a family.”

A few days later, he threw the White Chocolate costume away and got rid of all his girlfriends but one. She later became his wife and mother to his son.

And like that, White Chocolate disappeared.

Commissioner Storms found ways to stay in the news using her newfound fame as the county’s moral authority. She attacked the Hillsborough County Library System for having books on homosexuality. She called for ending county funding for Planned Parenthood.

Her popularity rose with ultra-conservative voters and in 2006 she was elected to the Florida Senate. In 2007, she again went after Public Access when she sponsored House Bill 529 that allowed cable companies to place access channels on their lowest, non-digital tier of service. Public Access in Tampa had historically been Bright House channels 19 and 20, channels viewers regularly surfed by. When this bill was passed, Tampa’s Public Access was moved to Bright House channel 949, a channel few people surf past.

A funny thing happened to Perkins after he left White Chocolate behind. He found he had something in common with Ronda Storms. He also wanted to pursue a career in public service. And this time he was serious.

“If I learned one thing throughout the whole Public Access thing it is that our elected leaders don’t do anything but find new ways to be elected,” said Perkins. “They don’t really care about the people. Then I looked around at my neighborhood and then saw New Tampa and realized that while my neighborhood is falling apart, New Tampa keeps getting money. I realized that if my neighborhood was ever going to get fixed, I had to take an active role.”

He ran for a citywide council seat in 2003 and lost. He did not expect to win, however. A friend with political experience told him to put his name on the ballot and do nothing more. His friend said he had to admit that he had little chance of winning so not to spend money. But, by putting his name on the ballot, he could gauge what precincts he was best known in by which ones he won the most votes in.

“The election came and went and my friend said to take a map and color code it by how I did in each precinct – which ones did I come in first, second and so on,” explained Perkins. “Then, he said to find a smaller district that encompasses those precincts.”

And that is what he did. In 2007, he returned to the campaign trail, running for the City Council District 7 seat encompassing his neighborhoods, the area between Armenia and 50^th Street, and New Tampa. He worked a tireless grassroots campaign, knocking on every door he could, stressing the ones “he could.”

“They don’t let you knock on doors in New Tampa,” said Perkins. “It is a deed restricted area. But guess what? I won every precinct I did knock on doors in. I don’t think I could have won New Tampa anyway. They would not have liked my message to give more of their money to the struggling neighborhoods.”

He spent the next three years as crime watch president of his neighborhood and then in 2011 decided to run yet again for district 7. He again walked the streets and knocked on doors, talking to as many people as he could personally. He even carried a giant notebook with him and jotted down everyone’s concerns. He again lost, but made a positive stride – he made the runoff. New Tampa was again his Achilles Heel.

“After that election, I said I would never run again,” he admitted. “I was tired. It was hard work and I thought that New Tampa would keep me from ever winning. But now I am thinking that was wrong of me to think. I really do want to help my neighborhood. The people running the city right now don’t seem to care about it at all. This is 2011 and we have neighborhoods with dirt roads and no sidewalks! This is ridiculous. Don’t tell me there is no money for it in the budget. Find it! These neighborhoods’ should be at the top of the city’s to do list. So I’ll run again. And next time I will bring some big guns to the fight. I’m going to hire a campaign consultant and other paid staff. I want to win. I want to help my neighborhood.”

There will always be those who doubt that Charles Perkins is all grown up, but it truly does appear that he is. However, there will always be a little White Chocolate left him in. The devil hasn’t been completely exorcised from his body. When asked if he would ever have a sit down with his former enemy, Ronda Storms, he said with a sly smile, “Of course. I’d love to see what she would order.” It was obvious, though, that he had another answer in mind, one that he purposely held back.

He then ended the interview with, “The City of Tampa needs White Chocolate. It needs more real people in charge.”

Perhaps he is right.

Mayor White Chocolate … it has a nice ring to it.