An indoor, medium-shot photograph of performer Justin Peters on a small stage at The Commodore in Tampa. Peters is caught in an energetic, mid-movement stance, leaning slightly to their left with one leg kicked out and arms outstretched. They have short, dark, tousled hair and are wearing a light-colored, short-sleeved plaid button-down shirt tucked into dark blue jeans. They are smiling broadly at the audience. The stage is sparsely furnished with two wooden stools and a small wooden chair. The background is a dark, painted cinder-block wall, and the stage floor is covered with a patterned, worn area rug. The scene is illuminated by warm, focused stage lighting.
Justin Peters at The Commodore in Tampa, Florida on Jan. 9, 2026. Credit: Dave Decker / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

When Justin Peters is staring someone dead in the eyes, everything else kind of stops. The 45-year-old journalist, comedian, and author, apparently, has always had a gift for listening and for holding an audience’s attention.

Since December 2023, his wit, curiosity, and compassion have been a driving force of the “Salud and Happy Days” series at the Commodore in Ybor City, a space he co-founded earlier that year. The show’s title is a nod to a commercial for Tampa’s long-shuttered Valencia Garden restaurant. During the performance, Peters interviews notable Tampeños before unleashing improv comedians to act out what comes out in the onstage chat. The presentation is one-of-a-kind in the Bay area and has become a staple for natives and newcomers alike.

About 100 days ago, Peters had to stop in his tracks, too.

During a “Salud” interview with Karen Kress, the then outgoing Senior Director of Transportation & Planning at the Tampa Downtown Partnership, castmates noticed that their leader wasn’t totally himself. They forced him to get checked out at Tampa General Hospital. That’s when he was diagnosed with a grade four glioblastoma, the most dangerous and aggressive type of brain cancer, with an average survival time of 12-18 months.

Peters, who is a Slate contributor and the author of “The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet,” told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the news kind of just rolled off his back, leaving friends and family around more stricken than he was. 

In fact, the diagnosis almost immediately left him relieved.

“The moment that I learned that there was a pretty significant percentage that I won’t survive through the end of Donald Trump’s current presidential term, that took a lot of the pressure off of me,” Peters added. “Pressure I’ve been feeling with respect to getting another book out or establishing myself as a regular contributor to Slate  and so on and so forth.”

Since mid-May, Peters said he’s been taking it easy and letting himself not worry about a publishing career. He went back home to New York City, where just one surgeon, Dr. John Boockvar, agreed to do surgery.

“All the other doctors I talked to around here were like, ‘No, we would not even risk cutting you open to try to debulk the tumor because of its placement across both frontal lobes,’” Peters explained. “He was like ‘I’ll go in. I’ll do it tomorrow.’”

Peters, along with his family and partner in comedy, Kelly Buttermore, asked Boockvar for a couple weeks to get ready. On June 8, Boockvar, who appears in the Netflix documentary “Lenox Hill,” ended up taking out 75% of the growth.

A close-up selfie photograph showing comedian Kelly Buttermore sitting alongside Justin Peters in a hospital room at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, New York on June 8, 2026. On the left, Buttermore smiles gently toward the camera while wearing thick black-rimmed eyeglasses and a grey t-shirt. On the right, Peters lies in a hospital bed wearing a patterned blue and white patient gown, resting against a light green pillow with a thick white medical bandage wrapped around his head and chin. Medical monitoring equipment, wires, and wall-mounted cabinets are visible in the background behind the bed.
Kelly Buttermore (L) and Justin Peters at Lenox Hill hospital in New York City, New York on June 8, 2026. Credit: c/o Kelly Buttermore

Radiation and chemotherapy followed, and are on the agenda in the weeks ahead, but last Monday, Peters looked at ease. The taste of food, he added, is a lot better, much like everything else in his life.

“Everything’s a fucking gift. Everything feels better, is better. I feel better,” he said, admitting that he might think differently after the next round of treatment. “But as of now, I’m feeling great. I’m optimistic. I got nothing bad to say about my treatment out here. I’m doing good.”

Buttermore, a Commodore co-founder, attributes Peters’ attitude to the improv they’ve been practicing for more than a decade-and-a-half now. “What does that teach you except all you have is right now—it sounds really corny, but it is actually true,” she added.

It’s natural to want to reach for answers from a doctor, but improv teaches someone to be in a scene, think about who they are to the others on stage, and what the stakes are for everyone. The cast in a show has to let go, accept what is going to happen next, and adjust.

Despite the devastating prognosis, Buttermore said, the last three months have been filled with countless moments of joy and laughter. Peters obviously had no clue that his practice, work, and effort in improv would lead him here, but did surrender that “it’s come in very handy.”

Everything he’s put in for others has apparently boomeranged for Peters, too. A GoFundMe launched three months ago to help with expenses has surpassed its goal, and this weekend a bunch of Peters’ friends and collaborators are throwing a benefit at their unofficial clubhouse: Tampa’s American Legion Seminole Post 111.

MW Walker, a songwriter, actor and fellow Commodore co-founder, told CL the Legion is where he really got to know Peters. Walker will play music there, and so will the rarely seen electro-experimental act Yung Groan, Have Spirit, rock outfits Abortion Twins and Bad, Bad Things, and others. Raffle prizes and food from Taco Dale are on the menu. Bartenders are giving their tips to Peters, too. 

“That place is a good hang,” Walker said. “The hang is where you really get to meet people and understand them, bond and become true friends.”

Walker said that there was a karaoke night at the Legion—after Countdown Improv Festival, the first time Peters got to hang post-surgery—where friends got to kind of grieve together.

A medium group photograph showing (L-R) Justin Peters, Kelly Buttermore and Eddie Geller sitting on wooden barstools on stage at The Commodore in Ybor City, Florida on Aug. 7, 2026. On the left, Justin Peters sits holding a water bottle while wearing a beard, eyeglasses, dark trousers, and a teal "COUNTDOWN IMPROV FESTIVAL" t-shirt, smiling toward Kelly Buttermore in the center, who wears matching festival t-shirt, eyeglasses, khaki pants, and dark sneakers. On the right, Eddie Geller wears a dark button-up shirt, brown trousers, eyeglasses, and grey New Balance sneakers while resting his hand over his mouth and laughing, set against a painted brick backdrop.
(L-R) Justin Peters, Kelly Buttermore and Eddie Geller at The Commodore in Ybor City, Florida on Aug. 7, 2026.

Peters said the fact that his people over at the Legion are throwing this benefit concert is really touching. “I’m really grateful,” he said.

He’s not spent the last decade trying to cork or manifest this kind of support, but most of his days have been devoted to trying to create opportunities for others.

“Then the moment comes where you need help, and just to see the people for whom you created all those opportunities stand up and try to help you out and lift the burden from your shoulder, it feels great,” Peters said. “It’s really a humbling experience, but a good one.”

Peters won’t be able to fly down for the benefit, but friends will likely send video. In fact, he encourages anyone who has his contact to reach out, regardless of whether they know what to say or not. “Just reach out, say, ‘Hi,’” he added.

And while it’s true that for right now, Peters is letting time stop, and just taking it moment to moment, he does know what the first order of business will be if this all ends with the doctor telling him he’s beat the brain cancer.

“I’ll go out and drink like 20 beers,” he said, specifying a preference for Coors Banquet and tapping into his improv mind when it comes to the aftermath. “That would be my first order of business. Just go get completely fucking hammered that night, and then deal with the consequences of that for the next three days.”

Salud indeed, and here’s to hoping that Peters has many happy days ahead.

It’s $7 at the door for A Benefit For Justin happening Saturday, Sept. 5 at American Legion Seminole Post 111 in Tampa.

A benefit for Justin: MW Walker w/Yung Groan/Abortion Twins/Have Spirit/Bad, Bad Things/more

Time Sat., Sept. 5, 7:30 p.m. 2026

Location American Legion Seminole Post 111, 6918 N Florida Ave., Tampa

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This article appears in Sept. 03 – 09, 2026.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...