Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

I have no idea why this show flew so far under the radar and I have no idea what (or really where) the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa is but I do know this:

This Friday night (as in tonight!) Sara Lee Guthrie (daughter of Arlo, grandaughter of Woodie) and Johnny Irion are playing there. Doors are at 8:00 and the ticket price is $15.00 at the door.I about swallowed my tongue when I saw this listing pop up on TampaShows.net the other day and can saw I am genuinely excited about this one. Hope to see some of y’all there…

Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion - Cease Fire
Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion - Dr. King
Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion - Gervais

Cross-posted from ninebullets.net.

With the economy tanking, the writer’s strike taking over TVland, and local leaders once again plying taxpayers with ambitious dreams about the Godzilla of sports stadiums, where can a girl go to get some cheap art?

This Friday, the answer is The Wine Exchange in Hyde Park, where eleven/17 will be holding its own art show complete with wine and different forms of paintings and sculptures by local artists. The showing starts at 7 p.m.

Rob Haskew, the man behind the scenes, said many of the pieces will be under $100. He’s never seen anything go for more than $1,000.

For people inclined to go to the club rather than stand around and look at paintings, there will be a DJ on hand, spinning old-school hip-hop and indie dance tunes.

On the bill for the gallery showing is a diverse group of artists. The pieces range from the cartoonish renderings of Duncan Barton to the photography of Deborah Muller.

Haskew finds artists for his shows through Myspace. He feels the site is a great place for artists to upload their portfolios and gather a following.

“I think it’s changed (the art world) for the better,” Haskew said. “A lot of artists get a lot more recognition than they would before and don’t have to spend huge exhibition fees at a gallery.”

While Haskew does charge an entry fee to cover promotional materials for his shows and takes a small percentage of sales, he says it’s still more affordable to show at eleven/17 than at most galleries in the area.

With six shows under his belt, Haskew has proven there is a need in Tampa for hip art presented in a fun atmosphere, complete with music and wine.

“Ultimately, people need to support the art scene in Tampa,” Haskew said. “eleven/17 shows are fun. You meet interesting people, and there might be that piece of artwork you’ve been waiting your entire life to buy.”

The show is also timed perfectly for holiday shopping. (Channukah is only a few days away.) It’s also a perfect place to rub elbows for a night with Hyde Park hipsters and members of the local art scene.

At a public hearing next Friday, Hillsborough County’s Legislative Delegation will vote on 7 state laws affecting our county, including one that would allow half-acre wetlands to be destroyed on any land designated Agricultural, without regard for our county’s wetland regulations.

Hugh Gramling, representing the Ag industry, shocked everyone by filing for this sneaky end run around our local wetland protections WHILE he was working with our Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) on changes to our local rules to benefit farmers. In the face of this sabotage, county commissioners (who also act as the EPC) voted to delay the local changes, as requested by citizens —including me.

Commissioner Rose Ferlita felt the Ag lobby’s move was counterproductive:

“I’m very disappointed that the Ag community did that. … to me that gets right in the way of us trying to move forward with what we expected to do through our own local EPC. … That’s, again, such a disappointment to me, and Mr. Gramling, I’m talking right to you.”

State Rep. Rich Glorioso seemed ridiculously misinformed in the St. Pete Times when he tried to justify the bill he is sponsoring:

“Glorioso said some of the EPC’s regulations are unreasonable, pointing out that some farmers have had manmade ditches suddenly designated as wetlands that need protecting.”

Glorioso is wrong. (The Times should have checked). The EPC has already changed the rule to exempt manmade ditches. They voted to do this, as the first step toward the Hybrid, at the public hearing on August 16. (Furthermore, this rule change was simply codifying a long-standing EPC policy that has exempted those ditches for years. And they were not “suddenly designated as wetlands”—the state designated them as wetlands in 1994. Ever since then EPC has exempted them by policy, and now exempts them by law.)

Gramling knows this, and Glorioso should. The Ag industry has been crying about ditches & cow ponds, even though EPC has always exempted them, because it makes a good sound bite in their politicking toward their ultimate goal: NO local wetland regulations for Agriculture —which is exactly what Local Bill #4 would accomplish.

Even our County Commission opposes this environmentally horrid bill (yes, that County Commission). Last year they refused to defend our EPC against a state bill that would have gutted the agency (it died when Gov. Crist promised to veto it), and this year they tried to gut the EPC themselves, but this time they are standing up for our local wetlands protections against this state bill. (We should thank them.)

Maybe our County Commissioners are finally learning that we won’t put up with that stuff from them. Now we have to teach our state legislators that we won’t let them mess with our local wetlands protections, either.

State-level anti-wetlands lobbyists have been trying to eliminate our local wetland protections for years, and they were involved again in the most recent attack on our EPC. We need to make our state legislators believe that we will vote them out of their jobs if they don’t lay off our wetlands. Especially Glorioso.

You can write them now, to ask them to vote NO on local bill #4, and protect our EPC and our natural resources from further attacks. Then, come to the hearing on Friday, Dec. 7, 9 a.m. – noon, at County Center, 26th floor, in downtown Tampa.

This is your once-a-year chance to speak to all 16 state legislators who represent Hillsborough County—all at once, in the flesh, right here at home; instead of having to reach them one by one in Tallahassee. It’s also a chance to watch your elected representatives in action as they deal with your neighbors & local leaders, and vote on 7 local bills affecting our county.

If you want to speak about something besides the local bills (taxes? transportation? growth management?) you must submit this form by noon, Dec. 3. If you want to speak about the local bills, just arrive early on Dec. 7, and fill out a speaker card there. You don’t have to say anything, though. Your presence alone would speak volumes.

When I started ninebullets.net I had these naive fantasies of sprinkling local Florida bands into my daily musical ramblings, and thus giving them an even larger audience outside of the local area. After a few months of working on the site, I started sending out emails. I quickly learned that, by and large, the Tampa/St. Pete based bands are arrogant and lazy. There are a few exceptions, but as a rule it was like beating your head against a wall. They bitch about the scene not supporting them, but then can’t even be bothered to reply to a few emails. Ultimately, I just gave up and began ignoring them like the rest of the area.

Oddly enough, however, the Florida bands outside of our little Tampa Bay area have been far more receptive to my inquiries, which has resulted in some pieces on ninebullets, and me getting to hear some really awesome bands that I probably never would have heard otherwise.

The Nine Volts have applied an amazing amount of effort into getting me a cd. When I originally contacted them, they were in the process of recording their new EP and asked if I would mind waiting. I told them I had nothing but time and whiskey bottles. Over the coming months they even managed to email me from time to time just to let me know they had not forgotten and were still working on the cd. This was all way above the call of duty in my opinion but it was nice to see a band act in an organized manner and apply a little effort.

The Nine Volts are James Mitchell and Conrad Wilson. They come from the Space Coast area that is Cape Canaveral, Florida. After playing in numerous successful local indie (author: ick) acts, the two decided to build on their common love of the Americana/roots rock sound and formed The Nine Volts. After honing their act on stage, they entered the studio to record an eponymous five song EP.

IMO, the standout track on the EP is “B. Jolene”. Sounding like The Drive-By Truckers, stuck right between the Southern Rock Opera sound and the Decoration Day song writing. “All From Here” features an acoustic guitar and a banjo taking the top of the mix, with a spoken word delivery laid beneath that, for some reason, reminds me of being 16 again. The opening track “Broken Chains” immediately makes me think Roger Hoover (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) could have done it.

Seeing as how this thing is a mere 5 songs I am only gonna post two. The entire EP is available at Nine Volts shows and on iTunes. Check it out. Support the little guys.

The Nine Volts - B. Jolene
The Nine Volts - River

The Nine Volts Official Site, The Nine Volts on MySpace, Buy their debut EP

The Rays have launched a companion site tied to their stadium efforts, entitled Major League Downtown. This, of course, is the Tropicana Field site redevelopment along with the new stadium construction on the site of Al Lang Field.

On a sidenote with all these renderings — ST. PETERSBURG everywhere you can see on graphics representing the new stadium. It’s nice when your resident pro sports team caters to your inferiority complex that people don’t know St. Pete is a city all in it’s own, isn’t it?

Regardless, it’s a pretty nice design but questions linger.. There’s more discussion on things likely to occur at Rays blog draysbay while certainly occuring at development forum SkyscraperCity.

A couple of months ago, the Tampa Tribune revealed a wishful-thinking stadium design for the Devil Rays baseball team… Little did we know that, at the time, the franchise was secretly in talks with the city of St. Petersburg about getting out of Tropicana Field and into a new waterfront ballpark. That little news item leaked out on November 9th…

Today, the Devil Rays officially go public with their plans to replace Tropicana Field with a $450 Million ballpark on the St. Petersburg waterfront… But of course with all this new stadium talk, old rivalries get renewed and old questions get rehashed.

St. Pete or Tampa for instance. Or somewhere in between (another new stadium, another suggestion to float it in the bay).

Oh, there’s a lot more to talk about with regards to the new stadium than that silly little rivalry. Such as local officials conveniently withholding information about negotiations with the Rays until after the city council elections.

But for the sake of asking, where would you want the Rays to play?

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UPDATE — Renderings are up everywhere around the web but I will give you a link to one stop shopping of renderings of this new ballpark. I’m really left awestruck and dumbstruck by things.

The State of Florida unveiled a new website recently, FloridaPerforms.com. The website includes a scorecard that gives you an overview of various state agencies, and if they are getting better or worse.

Here’s the intro from Charlie:

Each year, the Legislature fulfills its constitutional duty to pass a budget that provides state government with billions of dollars of your money. The Governor is responsible for signing the state budget and for managing state agencies charged with spending the people’s money wisely.

In everyday life, if we pay someone to work for us - whether it is to cut our yard, cook us a meal, or provide us with electricity - we expect performance.

The taxpayers of Florida should expect no less from the government they fund. The money that government spends should make a difference.

These performance measures will not only provide you with a window into your government, it will also provide our managers with important tools to build upon successes and address shortcomings. This Web site provides a running scorecard of a broad range of measures reflecting trends in key areas important to all Floridians. You can also access any measure at a Governor’s agency from this site.

I believe that you cannot manage what you do not measure. With your help and input (click “Your Suggestions” to give us input), we will do a better job for the people of Florida.

Keep score with us.

The site offers marks on six different categories - Public Safety, Health & Family, Education, Economy & Taxes, Transportation, and Environment / Conservation. Each category includes a couple of departments or agencies, and they are graded as improving, maintaining, or worsening.

Found via the St. Pete Times

Friends of the River is a citizen support group concerned with promoting health and environmental policies that affect the quantity and quality of water in the Lower Hillsborough River and the Tampa Bay by actively promoting the development and implementation of natural resource management strategies which will improve and enhance the current and future health, recreational, environmental and proprietary values of the Lower Hillsborough River, the Tampa Bay, and adjacent lands and bodies of water, and promoting general public awareness of the issues with which F.O.R. is concerned.

The Friends of the (Hillsborough) River hosts an annual holiday boat parade on the Hillsborough River. They hope to have more than three dozen boats and hundreds of spectators. Held at dusk, boaters sometimes have elaborate set-ups powered by car batteries, while others may have a couple strings of 10 lights run with four C batteries.

As you might guess, this parade is for those of you with smaller craft. It’s easy to be in the parade, and they encourage anyone with any type of boat to get in on the fun. Kinda sounds like the redneck yacht club. I’d fit right in.

All boaters with kayaks, canoes and traditional motor craft are invited to join the Annual Hillsborough River Holiday Boat Parade, Saturday December 8, sponsored by Friends of the River. Boaters meet at the Lowry Park ramp at 5:30 p.m. and travel upriver from 6-8 p.m. past the illuminated Sulphur Springs Tower to the Harbor Club on the river at Nebraska Ave. Incoming tides will be favorable that evening for this trip. Free entry.

This is the boat parade for the rest of us - yacht ownership NOT required. Decorate whatever you have that floats and join the fun!

Spectators can gather to view the parade at the riverfront park by the Sulphur Springs City Pool and historic Gazebo, where they will find plenty of parking and room for viewing.

This year’s parade theme is A New Day in Tampa Bay, celebrating the coming rebirth of the Lower Hillsborough River. New Year’s Day 2008 fresh water starts flowing down the river every day from now on, something our community has not seen for 36 years. This daily minimal flow will provide good conditions for the River to once again function as Tampa Bay’s estuary, the nursery where fish are born & raised. Friends of the River advocated the river’s restoration for the past 9 years, winning its case when Swiftmud set the River Recovery Plan in motion this fall. As a result, scientists expect fishing in the Hillsborough River and Tampa Bay to improve dramatically next year, along with birds and manatees, and to get even better every year from now on as conditions necessary for fish to spawn continue to improve.

This sounds like a great time on the river. Grab your rafts, and head out to Lowry Park at 5pm. The parade ends at the historic Harbor Club at Nebraska Avenue, and rumor says their waterfront bar will be open!