Shaping beauty with lingerie mogul, Rhonda Shear
Rhonda Shear should be the spokesmodel for the ever-changing shape of beauty and success. She parleyed her skill-set as a sultry television actress, standup comic, and Playboy model into a career as the figurehead of the lingerie empire, Shear Enterprises. Much can be assumed about Shear from the fact that she won more than 40…
Kathy Castor tells Obama how U.S. policy changes could help the people of Cuba
Kathy Castor When Tampa Democratic area Congresswoman Kathy Castor returned from Cuba earlier this month, she told reporters that she would brief President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry about her thoughts on modernizing U.S.-Cuba relations. Castor followed through on Tuesday, sending a four-page detailed letter, acknowledging that human rights remain a "challenge" for…
Sudden “Impact” at Hogan’s Beach
Chris Girandola HULK-ING PRESENCE: Hulk Hogan announces Impact Wrestling's next match. Midway through Hulk Hogan’s press conference to announce Impact Wrestling’s nationally-televised event on May 23 at the USF Sun Dome, the relaxed evening at Hogan’s Beach restaurant on Clearwater Causeway took a sudden turn, courtesy of Aces & Eights. Loud voices, flipped-over tables, proclamations…
Mitch Perry Report 4.24.13 – Immigration bill to pass with 70 Senate votes?
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the omnipresent legislator who is literally on cable news ever day now, boldly predicts that the comprehensive immigration reform bill being debated in the U.S. Senate currently can pass with 70 votes, with 22 votes coming from the 45-member Republican Senate Caucus. Although there is (deserved) concern about the…
Tampa Bay History Museum announces 2013 honorees
On Tuesday afternoon in front of the Tampa Bay History Museum, six well known and not so well known names were announced as the second class of pioneers to be honored on Tampa's Riverwalk. Blythe Andrew, Cody Fowler, Peter O. Knight, Kate Jackson, Paulina Pedroso and G.D. Rogers will join last year's group in being…
Rubio fast to dispel of myths regarding immigration reform
It's been stated ad nauseum how crucial Marco Rubio's support is to having any immigration reform pass in Washington this year. That thought is also true, which is why it's been fascinating to receive press releases from the Florida Senator's Washington office in the week since the "Gang of 8" officially released their piece of…
New Music Tuesday! (April 23): Phoenix, Oberhofer, The Appleseed Cast & more
Releases out this week; audio & video included!
Beets n’ Brews at The Roosevelt 2.0
A farm to fork event at The Roosevelt 2.0. There's a food revolution afoot in the Tampa Bay area, and the folks involved want to see the demise of processed preservatives, and the rise of locally grown produce and whole foods. Ybor City's Roosevelt 2.0 is one of the base camps for these pro-active people…
Education writer says the hidden power of character allows schoolchildren to succeed
Education writer Paul Tough will be in Tampa In his 2012 New York Times best-seller, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, author Paul Tough writes that it's not about how much information a child can accumulate, and it's not high SAT scores, but skills like curiosity and optimism that truly…
Mitch Perry Report 4.23.13 – Sequestration hits the fan
When sequestration hit at the beginning of last month, we were warned that most people wouldn't be adversely affected for awhile, but that sometime in mid-April, flights would be delayed because of mandated furloughs for air traffic controllers. That promise became the reality yesterday, when major airports throughout the country reported delays in some case…
CL’s Big Damn Birthday Party: Pics from the bash
Creative Loafing five-day birthday bender stretched from Tarpon Springs to Ybor City.
25 years of Creative Loafing’s ‘Missed Connections’
SophieBlackall.com Those who have glimpsed love and lost it often resort to desperate measures in the search for "the one who got away." They need a way to throw their "message in a bottle" into the void. What changes is how these loveless optimists make their public pleas. In the 1990s, the mode of choice…
Pro-medical marijuana advocates say their campaign will take off in June
Where is the petition? That's the question posed in a press release/mass email generated today by Ben Pollara, the campaign manager for United for Care, aka the people trying to get a medicinal marijuana initiative on the 2014 ballot. Pollara said he hears that question nearly every day. The momentum and excitement for advocates who…
The FEA’s Andy Ford is incensed about Florida Legislature’s move to make proposed teacher bonuses merit-based
(UPDATE: See below). Over the weekend, the Florida Legislature decided to make Gov. Rick Scott's proposal to distribute one-time $2,500 bonuses to all public school teachers merit-based, which has the head of the state's biggest teacher's union hopping mad. In one of the more surprising public policy announcements of Scott's tenure, he announced prior to…
Buckhorn, Lopano and EDC head, Rick Homans, debrief the press on their business trip to Germany
The EDC's Rick Homans, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and TIA CEO Joe Lopano breakdown their trip to Germany Before he was elected two years ago, Bob Buckhorn made it known that he would travel far and wide to do what it takes to sell Tampa to the world. According to himself and other local business…
Mitch Perry Report 4.22.13 – Happy Earth Day?
Although there were lots of events on Saturday commemorating the 43rd anniversary of the original Earth Day (including over at USF), today is actually the day set aside to embrace all things about the environment. But apparently some of our legislators in Tallahassee haven't received the memo. As detailed in an essay posted last week…
Promoting Sustainability at Earth Day event at USF
“People don’t need to go 100%, they can take one step at a time” to help sustain the planet, says Shawna Neckar is the Program Coordinator at the Office of Sustainability for the Patel College of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida. As a mother of four, Neckar believes it is important to…
Hillsborough County Aviation Authority Chair Steve Burton dies
Steve Burton Steve Burton, managing partner of the Tampa-based law firm Broad and Cassel and the chairman of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, has died from complications after a heart transplant. Burton had been in the hospital for weeks waiting to get that transplant, which finally happened in the past week. It's why he was…
The hole truth
Is there a safe, nonsurgical way to enlarge the opening in the foreskin?
Bill Nelson and Kathy Castor speak about progress of RESTORE Act
Bill Nelson, Kathy Castor & Rick Kriseman were just some of those speaking at 3rd anniversary of BP oil spill at Demens Landing in St. Pete On Friday morning Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Kathy Castor along with others discussed the progress and pitfalls of the bill to hold oil companies accountable in…
Birthday poem
Celebrate CL’s big day with a poem in your pocket.
This year’s Sunscreen Film Festival would like to thank the Academy
Look out Sundance, St. Petersburg is bringing their “A game” with the Sunscreen Film Festival. Already in its eighth year, the Sunscreen Film Festival, presented by the not-for-profit St. Petersburg-Clearwater Film Society, has been cited as one of the nation's top film education festivals. With submissions from Korea, Australia and many European countries the festival…
Castor says V.A. news about expediting claims still not good enough
General John Shinseki In the past few months, the uproar has become deafening regarding the fact that so many men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have to wait an exceedingly long time to begin receiving medical care. The backlog for veterans disability claims now exceeds 900,000, as reported late last year…
Rowdies’ first win of season and looking forward
After starting the 2013 NASL campaign with a less-than-spectacular performance at home with Carolina, the Tampa Bay Rowdies went to San Antonio last weekend and spoiled the grand opening of Toyota Field with a 2-0 victory over the Scorpions. This Saturday at 7:30 p.m., the Rowdies try to capture their first home win in a…
Bill Nelson comments on Boston manhunt
Immediately following a memorial for the third anniversary of the BP oil spill, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson stopped to make comments on the developing news regarding the Boston Marathon bombers. “I want to know are affiliated with any international terrorist groups,” Nelson said. “I want to know what was their motivation, if they had co-conspirators,…
Dan Gelber says three different Democrats could beat Rick Scott next year
Dan Gelber spoke at today's Tampa Tiger Bay Club When he was acting as Jeb Bush's bete noire in the Florida Legislature, Dan Gelber had the reputation as being Florida's smartest Democrat. But the former federal prosecutor and North Miami Beach legislator's political career was derailed, at least for the time being, after his loss…
Tom Cruise faces Oblivion
The movie’s gorgeous, but that beauty is only skin deep.
Sip on Have Gun Will Travel’s High Road Ale
ROCK BROTHERS BREWING COMPANY The new collaboration from HGWT, Cigar City, and Rock Brothers Brewing Company. There's little that gets my beer-drinking motor running hotter than a collaboration between a beloved band and brewer. So you'll understand the excitement when I got an email announcing Cigar City Brewing and Rock Brothers Brewing's collaboration on a…
Infinite Skillz debuts new anthem about cider
Local emcee and hip hop artist Infinite Skillz has a thing for cider and beer. He loves it so much, he wrote a song about it. The new video "Started Sipping Cider" from Infinite Skillz chronicles his journey beginning with Woodchuck Amber cider and Strongbow to a full on crush with craft brews. "Strongbow and…
Mitch Perry Report: The Boston manhunt headlines a big Friday for news
The biggest story in the world this morning is all about the intense manhunt in a Boston suburb regarding a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing. That suspect is supposed to be 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The other suspect, his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, was shot and killed last night by police. Obviously this will…
Constant reader
My two-plus decades with the Loaf.
Stages of growth
Our critic talks about how far local theater has come in the last 25 years — and has yet to go.
Decades 2.5
Trends to remember and a renaissance in the making.
Transcending tragedy in The Amish Project
The play triumphs in the face of a tragic school massacre.
Common ground
Get deeper into the built environment with this weekend’s CL Festival events.
All you can eat
Cheffy Baby, topless steaks, the harshest restaurant review ever, and more from the last 25 years of CL.
Party like a ‘Burger
So I dreamed up my ultimate list of St. Pete restaurants and bars with food critic Jon Palmer Claridge. The best way to see The 'Burg is on foot, so we created a walking-friendly route to some of the best bites and drinks downtown. And wouldn't you know it, everyone said yes. So, as part…
Get out your LGBT weekend planner
If you're still looking to make weekend plans, there are plenty of LGBT events in the Tampa Bay area. Got a rant or a story or a poem? Pick up the mic and show off your stuff at Oral Fixation’s LGBTQ monthly open mic on Thursday, April 18 at Ybor City’s R Bar, 1820 North…
Lest alt acquaintance be forgot
Watching alt-weeklies thrive, and shrink, and endure.
Living the Loaf
CL celebrates 25 years in 2013, while I celebrate 10.
Critical mass
Reflections on lessons learned and significant encounters while covering visual arts in Tampa Bay.
The Creative Loafing Birthday Issue
Past and present staffers take a look back at 25 years of loafing creatively.
John F. Sugg: Feasting on sacred cows
Journalism, to me, is just another drug — a free ride to scenes I’d probably miss if I stayed straight. —Hunter S. Thompson It was a hot day in July 1996, and I was standing in line at the Hyde Park cinema to see Independence Day. Great Googly Moogly, I sputtered in surprise. Just inches…
Max Linsky: When we were fat and happy
During my 18 months as a staff writer at the Weekly Planet — and it will always be the Weekly Planet to me — I was fat, drunk, overwhelmed and underpaid. It’s the best job I’ll ever have. That’s thanks to the names all over these anniversary pages. (I always liked that, writing “these pages”…
Kelli (Kwiatkowski) Collins: AKA Miss Kelli K
I’m still not sure how I faked my way onto the Planet editorial staff. Must’ve been extra charming that day. Regardless, I’m grateful, especially since it led directly to my current gig as editor-in-chief of a digital erotica empire. Isn’t life funny? I’d have been ill prepared for the job had it not been for…
Dave Jasper: He brought the funny
Weekly Planet is sort of the one that got away, if I dare compare relationships to career choices. I still have truckloads of my clips, and I cherish the time I was there, which was about Oct. of ’95 to Oct. ’01. Much of my first three years were spent mired in calendar data entry…
Julie Garisto: AKA Julie Richardson, AKA Julie Garisto Richardson
I came to work at the paper’s previous incarnation, Weekly Planet in 1997, when I was married to skateboarder extraordinaire “Super Dave” Richardson. I was hired as copy editor (or is it copyeditor — we could never agree on the official appelation), and the editorial staff comprised Managing Editor Susan Dix Tibbits (now Lyons), Senior…
Susan Edwards: Not just for art snobs
What do a beer can, an exploding chicken and a toilet seat have in common? a. They’re all things you might smash your head against on a Saturday night binge in Ybor. b. They’re all things drunk pirates have peed on after a Gasparilla parade. c. They’re all things you can use for target practice…
Susan Dix Lyons: The guerrilla years
I loved my years at the paper — the people, the passion, our office in Ybor City. I started as an editorial assistant in 1992 (I was excellent at picking up reuben sandwiches and entering movie times), then Editorial Manager, Managing Editor, Co-Publisher in 1998, then sole Publisher. Can’t remember how long I was Publisher…
Comfort food lives
Inside Datz, and its newly christened bakery Dough, homemade rustic favorites are what it’s all about.
Trevor Aaronson: Surviving the purge
A decade ago, I was a news writer at the then-styled Weekly Planet. Twenty-two years old at the time, I spent less than a year at the paper — but I thought I did some important work. Among other topics, I wrote about African-Americans being passed over for promotions at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office;…
Roxanne Escobales: Passion and free CDs
It took me about six months to stop feeling like a fraud. As an intern, then a copy editor, then the associate editor of what was known as the Weekly Planet, I got paid to do what I love — read and write — and although I showed up in the morning and stayed till…
Doug Tuthill: Mad Max
In the summer of 2004, the Tampa office moved from its Ybor site to the warehouse on Howard/Armenia. Unfortunately, the warehouse wasn’t ready yet, so the staff worked in a construction site with no air conditioning or bathrooms. A portable bathroom was put in the parking lot, which got brutally hot by around 3 p.m.…
Terry Garrett: The culture of work
As I look in the rearview mirror of my career, the time I worked at CL-changed-to-WP-and-back-to-CL was the most rewarding experience. Friends made and the people I worked with made all the difference. I was introduced to Ben Eason in 1992 through a former colleague (Rosalind Dorsey) from my stint at the New Times in…
Alex Pickett: The Beach Trolley Pub Crawl of 2007
My favorite Creative Loafing misadventure happens to be based on an idea of mine. One day during the spring of 2007, the CL editorial staff sat around a large table brainstorming ideas for the upcoming summer guide. We wanted to focus on activities possible in Florida’s unbearable summer heat. I knew my favorite Florida summer…
Record Store Day 2013: Local celebrations of the national indie record shop holiday
As if there weren’t enough going on this weekend already, the fifth annual national celebration of indie record shops, Record Store Day (which now boasts Jack White as its esteemed Ambassador) crashes into a local indie music retailer near you with RSD-exclusive and limited edition vinyl releases to stimulate pretty much any musical appetite. Even…
Joe Bardi: 400 and counting …
I arrived in Tampa one year after Creative Loafing did, when my parents decided to flee the cold winters (and exorbitant state income taxes) of New York and transplant my family from Long Island to Carrollwood in 1989. It took me a few more years to find the paper, but by my junior and senior…
Steve Baal: Déjà vu all over again
For the April 16, 1988 inaugural issue of Creative Loafing in the Tampa Bay area, my cover story, “Metro Mind-Set: It Takes More Than a Bridge to Bridge the Bay,” probed the question: Could the counties and communities on both sides of Tampa Bay, linked mostly by bridges, ever coalesce as an interconnected metropolitan area?…
Eric Snider: The Trickster
I feel secure in saying that, during a 13-year career as a writer and editor for Creative Loafing/Weekly Planet, I produced some pretty good journalism: criticism, commentary, features, some news, quite a bit of silliness, lots of cover stories, and 101,000 blurbs on whatever needed blurbing about. A bit of the work was even important.…
Amber Abram: Weathering the changes
I’ve worked for New Times, Creative Loafing and the Boston Phoenix, but CL was the best. I remember my first impression of the Weekly Planet from my interview at the office in Ybor City. The office furniture looked like it had come from the local thrift store. During the interview I learned that the entire…
Wayne Garcia: Fix It Now –ish
A little more than five years ago, on the way out the door to a vacation, I dashed off a year-end essay that we called “Fix It Now: Tampa Bay’s top 10 civic problems.” I would love to say that I gave it a ton of thought, but I just wrote quickly about 10 things…
Asparagus redux
For a fresh take on pesto, try asparagus.
Breaking Bad will return Aug. 11 for its final season
AMC announced today that Breaking Bad will return for the series' final eight episodes Aug. 11 at 9 p.m. It's a bit later than last year's July debut of this season's first eight episodes, but the longer we have Breaking Bad in our lives the better. The series, starring three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston and…
Taking the U Touch Up Vibrator on a first date
What happened when I asked my date to test drive the sleek, clitoral vibrator.
Celebrate 25 years of CL at Story Time’s Birthday Edition, 8 p.m. Fri., April 19
Check out our stellar readers here!
CL on the Road: The good and bad at Coachella 2013
Upwards of 90,000 people attended last weekend’s three-day music fest
