The day I moved to Tampa, the Lightning won the Stanley Cup.I didn't know at that point whether I would wind up working at the Weekly Planet, but I took the win as a good omen — especially since I'd spent most of my life in the Philadelphia and Boston areas, where big sports championships have proven, well, elusive.
My partner, Larry, moved to town first, in early April. We were living in Vermont at the time, where he'd just finished a roller-coaster year as deputy national finance director with the Dean presidential campaign. Then Betty Castor's U.S. Senate campaign called him. I wasn't sure whether I'd move to Tampa, too, so I paid him a reconnaissance visit.
I sheepishly admit that I had very little notion of the area then, except for a generalized Northern liberal sniffiness. I'd been to South Beach and Disney World, but mostly my image of Florida had gotten stuck on hanging chads and Katherine Harris. Oh, and my grandparents, like everyone's grandparents, used to vacation in St. Petersburg.
I was in for some surprises.
The minarets, for instance: The fantastical roofscape of the Henry B. Plant Museum just isn't what you expect to see poking up into your typical city skyline. And Hyde Park, which is where my partner decided we would live if I moved down. A lovingly restored, walkable downtown neighborhood in the land of the Interstate? Cognitive dissonance was setting in.
I expected the strip malls. I didn't realize Tampa/St. Pete would embrace every single possible variety of fast-food joint known to man, but there was a pleasing completeness about it. And how can you not love a place where churches and Church's, strip malls and strip clubs, all share the same stretch of endless highway?
However, I don't much like to drive. But Larry was smart — he rented me a convertible. I drove the Sunshine Skyway with the top down and my shades on, probably looking like a complete yutz — the single most exhilarating driving experience I've ever had. I was getting hooked.
There was more. I thought I knew beaches. I grew up on Cape Cod, where tourists used to ask, "You live here in the winter?" the way they ask Floridians "You live here in the summer?"
But I gotta say — and the Cape Cod gods may strike me dead with a clamshell for saying this — I've never seen beaches quite so beautiful as the beaches of the Gulf Coast.
And then there were the paradoxes. The cheerful resignation, pride even, when people talked about the long tradition of inbred political corruption in Tampa. The fact that St. Petersburg, land of grandparents, is apparently now hip — and yet still plagued by entrenched racial and economic tensions. The tourist-trapping hype surrounding Ybor City — and the considerably less dazzling, but somehow more interesting, pall that hangs over the place. The presence of CentCom — the fact that the war in Iraq is being engineered just a short drive away from the local Target.
I returned to Vermont. As everyone will tell you, and they're not lyin', Vermont is one of the most beautiful places on earth. But I decided there was something about the Bay area — stylish, laid-back but alive, fascinatingly polyglot — that I couldn't resist. Plus, Larry was there. So I packed my bags.
A few days after that, there was a notice on the website of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies that the Planet was looking for an editor. I'd been editor of an alt-weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper, for many years. I knew already I was moving to Tampa. I knew Tampa would be a great news town. So I applied. And sure enough, a few weeks after that fateful hockey game, I racked up a win of my own.
My predecessor in this job, the estimable journalist Jim Harper, has been amazingly gracious about the handover. I inherit a terrific team of writers, editors and artists, as evidenced by any number of recent stories: Senior Writer Eric Snider's astounding expose of drug-law insanity, for instance, or Contributing Editor Susan Edwards' whizbang summer guide, which was anything but a drag.
I'm a little daunted by the prospect of working for a chain, what with all the strategic plans and management conferences and Power Point documents looming in my future. But I'm also certain that Creative Loafing is a chain whose heart is patently in the right place: that publisher Ben Eason, who literally grew up in alt-weeklies, is looking to make a difference to Tampa, a difference in Tampa, with this newspaper. And that kind of dedication is what has always driven the great weeklies: They're about having fun, god knows they're about making money, but they're also based firmly in the belief that a great alt-weekly can make a great city just that much better.
I'm already finding out how much people care about the Planet. The guy who cuts my few remaining hairs, my new landlord, the woman I just met at a cocktail party — they're all telling me what they like, what they don't, what they want more of.
So talk to me. Tell me what you think. I'm a hopelessly addicted culture vulture, so you'll see me around a lot, wandering into this art opening (Tampa Museum's narrative painting show is a must) or that restaurant (Sidebern's chef is a goddess). And if we do run into each other, tell me stories. That's what I want this paper to do — tell the story of what it's like to live now in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota, and lots of other places I haven't even learned the names of yet.
And since I'm new here, I reserve the right to ask stupid questions. Like, who has more power around here, mayors or county commissioners? What's with all the lizards? Who decides which businesses get top billing in the strip-mall signs? And why are the clouds so spectacular?
I'm excited to be here, to discover the place you've already discovered, to find out what to celebrate and what needs to be better.
I can't wait.
Contact Editor David Warner at 813-739-4854, or at david.warner@ weeklyplanet.com.
