Creative Loafing Tampa — January 4, 2024 by Chava Communications

JAN. 04-10, 2024 (VOL.37, NO.1) • $FREE CREATIVE LOAFING - CLTAMPABAY.COM

Authentic Mexican food is considered to be healthy by many nutritionists. This is because many of the dishes include a

perfect blend of all of the food groups your body

needs (carbs and proteins).

Added bonus: Many

of the dishes include vegetables! WINNING!

2 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 3

PUBLISHER James Howard EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ray Roa

ELEANOR PETRY

Editorial DIGITAL EDITOR Colin Wolf MANAGING EDITOR Kyla Fields THEATER CRITIC Jon Palmer Claridge FILM & TV CRITIC John W. Allman IN-HOUSE WITCH Caroline DeBruhl CONTRIBUTORS Jourdan Ducat, Ben Montgomery PHOTOGRAPHERS Dave Decker, Ryan Kern FALL INTERN Inquire by emailing rroa@cltampa.com Creative Services CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jack Spatafora GRAPHIC DESIGNER Joe Frontel ILLUSTRATORS Dan Perkins, Cory Robinson, Bob Whitmore Advertising SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Anthony Carbone, Scott Zepeda Events and Marketing MARKETING, PROMOTIONS AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Leigh Wilson MARKETING, PROMOTIONS AND EVENTS COORDINATOR Kristin Bowman SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING MANAGER Corrie Miserendino

One of the year’s best and benchmark setting power-pop albums.

Circulation CIRCULATION MANAGER Ted Modesta

chavagroup.com cltampabay.com cldeals.com EDITORIAL POLICY — Creative Loafing Tampa Bay is a publication covering public issues, the arts and entertainment. In our pages appear views from across the political and social spectrum. They do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. Creative Loafing Tampa is published by Tampa Events & Media, LLC, 633 N Franklin St., Suite 735. Tampa, Florida, 33602.

Alvvays is coming to Tampa Bay, p. 43.

NEWS+VIEWS �� 15 FOOD & DRINK �� 23

COURTESY

Chava Communications Group FOUNDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Michael Wagner CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Cassandra Yardeni Wagner OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Hollie Mahadeo DIRECTOR OF AGENCY SERVICES Mindi Overman SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Meradith Garcia DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGY Colin Wolf ART DIRECTOR David Loyola DIGITAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Jaime Monzon

A&E �� 33 MUSIC �� 37 MUSIC WEEK �� 39 SAVAGE LOVE �� 45 CROSSWORD �� 46

Cheeky’s expects to debut sometime in mid-2024.

Nate Siegel is opening a fish shack, p. 29.

The newspaper is produced and printed on Indigenous land belonging to Tampa Bay’s Tocobaga and Seminole tribes.

ON THE COVER: Photo by Shervin Lainez. Design by Joe Frontel.

Our main number: (813) 739-4800 Letters to the editor: comments@cltampa.com Anonymous news tips: cltampabay_tips@protonmail.com

/food Bracing for openings

twitter.com/cl_tampabay instagram.com/cltampabay facebook.com/cltampabay Creative Loafing is printed on a 90% recycled stock. Please do your part & recycle it when you're done with this copy.

4 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

RYAN KERN

/music Still good! /news Probably bad /arts Super Bowl? /slideshows Kool & the Gang at Tampa Edition

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 5

No peace

Photos by Dave Decker

ou might be thinking about resolutions and turning over new leaves in 2024, but tens of thousands of people in Gaza are still thinking of survival as the Israeli government’s bombardment of Palestine enters its fourth month. As of Dec. 28, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 21,100 have been killed in Gaza, with more than 55,000 more injured. In his Christmas day address, Pope Francis even called children dying in wars the “little Jesuses of today,” adding that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians. Still, the BBC reported on Christmas that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days.”

6 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

What’s more, is that at least 7,000 people have been reported missing in Gaza, including just under 5,000 women and children; as Al-Jazeera points out, the missing are believed to be trapped under bombed buildings, which have fallen in the wake of the Israeli government’s push to “eliminate Hamas” which claimed responsibility for an Oct. 7 attack that killed around 1,200 people. To remind Tampa Bay that the war is not over, hundreds of pro-Palestinian voices took to the streets of downtown Tampa—which was celebrating the holiday boat parade—to wave a different kind of red and green in the air, plus call for a full and immediate ceasefire and end to U.S. aid to Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza. See all the photos via cltampa.com/slideshows.—Ray Roa

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 7

Indulge Your

Inner Foodie Introducing new dining options at Hilton Carillon Park hotel. Experience Luna Lux, Lakeside Cafe & The Terrace now open daily!

Reserve Now (727) 954-2140 THE TERRACE O U T D O O R

8 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

L O U N G E

ST PETE BACON 100+

& BBQ FESTIVAL

SATURDAY & SUNDAY! JANUARY 13 & 14 TH

VINOY PARK

GET INFO & TICKETS AT STPETEBACONANDBBQ.COM TROPIDELIC

SERANATION

SIERRA LANE

THE HEADTONES

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 9

do this

Tampa Bay's best things to do from Janury 04 - 10 BAILEY LAMAR

Morning walk

There are still three months left in the Hillsborough Hiking Spree, and an independent group leads an early morning, six-mile romp through Hillsborough River State Park this weekend. The backcountry trail with uneven terrain and narrow paths passes under oak canopies and past the park’s flatlands and dry prairie. Hike It Florida says its guide will also share information on local flora and fauna along the way. Pre-registration is required, and park admission $4-$6 is not included.

Hike It Florida’s Hillsborough River State Park Morning Hike: Saturday, Jan. 6. 8:30 a.m. $20. Hillsborough River State Park (parking area no. 2), 15402 U.S. Hwy-301 N, Thonotosassa. hikeitflorida.com —Ray Roa HAYDEN/ADOBE

Send in the clowns

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey hosted its last animal circus show in May of 2017, and took a several-year hiatus after that. In 2022, the joint company announced the long-awaited return of traveling circus performances—without any animals, of course—and a new and improved show finally makes its way to Tampa this weekend. The new “multi-platform entertainment franchise” features all of the classic trapeze and tightrope acts, special effects, stunt bikes, acrobats, world dance and comedy from 75 performers representing 18 different countries around the globe. Amalie Arena hosts six different performances throughout the circus’ three-day stint in Tampa. The oldest Barnum & Bailey and Ringling Bros. shows date back to the late 19th century, and you can always head down to Sarasota’s circus museum if you’d like to learn more about the historic show.

American pride

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey: Friday-Sunday, Jan. 5-7. Various

FELD

times throughout the weekend. $20 & up. Amalie Arena, 401 Channelside Dr., Tampa. amaliearena. com —Kyla Fields

The big, two-day music festival isn’t until next weekend, but Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival happenings kick off this weekend with community events like a Friday business seminar (“Empowering Black Entrepreneurs” in Ybor City), Saturday’s “Run For Us” 5K at Gadsden Park, and a Wednesday leadership luncheon featuring a keynote by Willie Pearl Mackey King. The civil rights activist spent four years on the executive staff for the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for whom she typed “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which MLK wrote on any scrap of paper he could find. Festivalgoers will get a little music on Sunday during the “Western Glam” heritage gala headlined by Mississippi country band Chapel Hart (pictured), which turned heads (and activated golden buzzers) on season 17 of “America’s Got Talent.”

Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival: Jan. 5-13. Various venues, Tampa. tam-

pablackheritage.org —Ray Roa

10 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

See more (and submit your event) @ cltampa.com HARRY COLLINS/ADOBE

Lucid-versary

My kid spent a lot of his third year on earth carrying around a switchblade comb, and Lucid Vending is to blame. I pulled it out of the vending machine company’s Safety Harbor location at Crooked Thumb Brewery, and it’s been fun to see Chance Ryan and Kayla Cox’s mission to share weird and local art grow from one machine at Pinellas Park’s Studios at 5663 to 15 locations across the Tampa Bay area (plus three more in Jacksonville). To celebrate its third anniversary, Lucid hosts a party in St. Pete, promising a drag show with Adriana Sparkle, fire aerialists, vendors (IRL, not just in the machine), debauchery, food trucks and more. “Everyone is invited. Free stuff. Tons of entertainment, art vendors, and plenty of funny business. Ridiculous raffle prizes, with purchase of a beverage,” Ryan told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “All to give thanks for all the support we received throughout the Tampa Bay community.”

Lucid Vending 3rd Anniversary party: Friday, Jan. 5 6 p.m. No cover. Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe, 2927 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. lucidvending.com —Ray Roa

Sail, kite

On the second Thursday of each month, St. Pete’s Boyd Hill hosts a nature-focused lecture to help its members and park enthusiasts learn more about Florida’s unique ecosystem and the interesting creatures that inhabit it. The first lecture of the year comes from University of Florida Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Dr. Robert J. Fletcher, who will talk about the snail kite—a bird of prey that’s commonly found throughout the Everglades—and its fight against extinction. Fletcher is the principal investigator for the college’s snail kite monitoring program. The South St. Pete nature preserve and park describes its monthly speaker series as a “program that offers fascinating presentations on the natural and cultural history of Florida by individuals who are authorities in their fields.”

Boyd Hill’s Natural History Speaker Series: Next Thursday, Jan. 11. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. Free. Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, 101 Country Club Way S, St. Petersburg. @FriendsBoydHill on Facebook —Kyla Fields Street art

LUCIDVENDING.COM

i zers)

SR PRODUCTIONS/ADOBE

age ness ” 5K ie r l,”

A long-running art festival returns for its 27th year and will once again take over Dunedin’s Main Street for an entire weekend. This freeto-attend art event features dozens and dozens of local artists selling their craft wares, from pottery, painting and sculpture to jewelry, photography and more. Howard Alan Events, an event organizer that hosts art festivals throughout the Sunshine State, says that attendees will be able to find art that ranges from “$15 handmade silver jewelry to life size sculptures in excess of $50,000.”

27th Annual Dunedin Art Festival: Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 6-7. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. Downtown Dunedin, 271 Main St., Dunedin. artfestival.com — Kyla Fields

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 11

No Fuss. No Attitude. Just Great Hair. THE

HOUSE S A LO N

12 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

813.270.4444 3220 S. Macdill Ave. - Tampa, FL 33629

housesalontampa.com

MEN & WOMEN’S

TIMELESS FASHION

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

Offering both Vintage and New

- Clothing - Hats - Shoes - Jewelry & so much more! Follow us on Instagram and Facebook: @lafranceybor

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 13

BUY LOCAL HALF OFF!

FLAMES INDIAN CUISINE $20 FOR $10

AMERICAN SOCIAL $20 FOR $10

DATZ

SHUFFLE

$30 FOR $15

Refer Three Friends, Get Yours Free Once you make a purchase from CL Deals, you will receive a referral link to share. Simply pass on your link to friends and family and, if three people use your link and purchase the same Deal within 30 days, your deal will be completely free!

14 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

$25 FOR $12.50

Purchasing CL Deals is easy, just visit

COLUMN POLITICS

ISSUES

OPINION

Get busy

In Florida, you’ll read what the GOP wants you to read, and nothing else. By Diane Roberts/Florida Phoenix

Perverted penguins Thing is, a lot of us are powerfully attached to that freedom of expression thing; we think that education should not be hamstrung by the fears and prejudices of the government du jour.

The authors of “And Tango Makes Three,” along with a Lake County third grader, have filed suit against Lake County education officials and the state Board of Education over banning the book. It’s a true story, based on Roy and Silo, a pair of male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo who raised a chick together. Moms for Liberty types and other bears of little brain pitched a fit. Two daddies! What if the book makes little kids want to be gay? What if it makes them want to be penguins? Lake County eventually put the book back in its libraries and asked a judge to drop the suit. The judge declined: The plaintiffs maintain that “Tango” could easily be re-banned. The state admitted as much: Any book deemed to present “LGBTQ themes” can be removed from a library at any time. Any book can be removed for any reason. In a hearing on Dec. 6, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor wondered whether the state could ban, say, a book written by a Democratic politician? The lawyer from Ashley Moody’s office replied yes. The AG’s crude, faux populist legal theory holds that since elected officials fund school libraries (with your tax dollars), they get to turn the First Amendment on its head. Teachers and students do not have free speech rights: They must toe the official line. “The government has no constitutional obligation to present educational material with which it disagrees.” If you don’t like it, you have to vote elected officials out of office. Litigation! The good news is that those who don’t consider censorship an American value continue to fight in the courts. The nation’s largest publisher, Penguin Random House, PEN America, and a collection of students and their parents are suing Escambia County, where the school board has banned or challenged a truly impressive number of books—close to 200—for being “disturbing” or “pornographic.” These filthy texts include Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Kurt Vonnegut’s

STATE OF FLORIDA

n their latest assault on the rights of Floridians, Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Commissioner of Education have declared that public school libraries should promote “government speech.” Books are tolerable only when they tell a government-approved story. The Florida attorney general is, of course, a busy woman, raising her profile for a possible run at the governor’s mansion in 2026, as well as threatening an all-important antitrust suit against the College Football Playoff Committee for their grievous insult to the Florida State Seminoles. Yet somehow she managed to steal a few minutes to file an amicus brief defending the DeSantis junta’s book-banning frenzy. She says, “Florida’s public school libraries are a forum for government, not private speech.” Writers, publishers, parents, and weirdos with graduate library science degrees “have no constitutional right to inculcate Florida’s schoolchildren with their preferred ideas through Florida’s school libraries.” Only Ron DeSantis has the right to do that. I expect the first text to be yanked from the shelves will be the United States Constitution. The current regime does not endorse socialist nonsense like that Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing equal treatment under the law, or that First Amendment, which pushes the radical notion that government cannot suppress or compel speech. Here in the unfree state of Florida, the government is in the business of both suppressing and compelling speech, forbidding educators to discuss systemic racism, and banning books that deal with sins of the past from slavery to genocide to runaway capitalism; the injustices of the present (don’t speak the names of Trayvon Martin or George Floyd!); or books that suggest being straight, white, and Christian is not the ne plus ultra of human possibility.

“Slaughterhouse Five,” two acknowledged classics of American literature. A high percentage of other books the district says will corrupt the innocence of our youth concern gay kids, people of color, and stories that involve sex of any flavor. In other words, books that reflect actual human life—books that might expose young people to the strange and often messy world we live in, not some never-never America where we can pretend that we are exceptional, great because we are good, and favored by God. Perhaps thoroughly embarrassed by their tantrum-throwing, Lake County has simmered down. Escambia County, on the other hand, is

RAINBOW WARRIOR: Moody somehow managed to steal a few minutes to file an amicus brief defending the DeSantis’ book-banning. in thrall to Florida’s anti-education she-wolves, Moms for Liberty, aided and abetted by a language arts instructor named Vicki Baggett. Ms. Baggett, who works at Northview High School in Century, is not only a Moms fellow traveler but a proud member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. ‘My clan’ She’s also an unrepentant bigot. Vicki Baggett has taken it on herself to challenge hundreds of books, including “When Wilma

Rudolph Played Basketball” about the great sprinter who overcame polio to win three gold medals in the Olympics. She calls its depiction of the Jim Crow South “race-baiting.” She’s posted a Confederate battle flag on her Facebook page and proudly declares, “Everyone in my clan fought in the Civil War.” Former students report that in class she’s given to statements about how the Bible forbids race-mixing (seems she’s afraid we’ll all “turn the same color”) and “nobody’s born” gay. Like the rest of the Harpies for Hate lobby, she has strong feelings about “And Tango Makes Three,” deeming it an insidious attempt to promote “the LGBTQ agenda using penguins.” She fears that a second grader was exposed to the book might think “these are two people of the same sex that love each other.” Imagine that. The state will undoubtedly try to rid K-12 of this book and thousands of others deemed insufficiently supportive of white nationalism, hetero-hegemony, anti-feminism, authoritarianism, jingoism, and hatred of difference. Consider where this is going: If the regime can strip school libraries of materials that don’t advance its political aims, will books on the climate or anything that might question a pro-oil, pro-development agenda be forbidden? Despite the killer hurricanes, the floods, the record heat, Ron DeSantis still refers to the necessity of reducing carbon emissions as “politicizing the weather.” Intellectually impoverished Will students have no access to slave narratives by Harriet Jacobs and Olaudah Equiano (white kids might feel bad) or “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (Indians should get over it) or “All the President’s Men” (Nixon wasn’t that bad!) or “Foreign Bodies,” a history of vaccine science (we don’t hold with that stuff in Florida)? What if they aren’t allowed to explore the rich variety of religions and cultures across the planet? Government thought control will not help Florida kids prepare for living and working in a diverse country that will soon be majority minority. Nor will it get them into a good college. The DeSantis regime is intellectually impoverished and proud of it. But Florida’s children should not be imprisoned in their prejudices and parochialism. It’s unAmerican.

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 15

Film Festival 34th Annual

ST. PETERSBURG EDITION

January 25-28, 2024 www.tiglff.com

16 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

Wilton Morley's latest novel:

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets The Boys from Brazil” -ANTHONY CARBONE, CREATIVE LOAFING

Available only at:

4115 S MACDILL AVE / TAMPA, FL / 33611 / MADDOGS.COM

NO TIME TO WORK OUT?

THE FUTURE OF FITNESS IS HERE

HOME OF THE 20 MINUTE WORKOUT

20 MINUTES ONCE A WEEK = REAL RESULTS! 1200 W. PLATT ST. / SUITE 202 / TAMPA

813.777.1792 WWW.TUMMOSTUDIOS.COM cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 17

TAMPA BAY'S AWARD WINNING CHEF

ASIAN TAPAS & BAR HAPPY HOUR: WED/THU/FRI • 11AM-6PM FOOD & DRINK SPECIALS

TACO TUESDAYS -----PRIVATE EVENT SPACE

730 BROADWAY STREET DUNEDIN • CARACARATAPAS.COM

TACO TU EsDAY 200 E MADISON ST • DOWNTOWN TAMPA • 813-221-TACO

CATCH ALL THE GAMES! MARGARITA TUESDAYS 2 MARGS + MARGHERITA PIZZA

FOR $20

POOL TABLE • DAILY SPECIALS

HAPPY HOUR TUESDAY-FRIDAY 3-6PM 718 BROADWAY STREET • DUNEDIN • 727-754-2573

Celebrating 30 years in Downtown Dunedin. ~ Asi es la Vida! ~

Expanded bar, additional seating and small gift shop. 365 Main St • Dunedin • 727-734-9226 • www.CasaTinas.com

18 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

911 Central Ave. | St. Petersburg, FL | 33705

buyaramen.com | 727.202.7010

Q: Who is having thoughts of suicide? c.

a. b.

A: It’s not clear, is it? People of every income level, race, gender, sexuality, and religion think about suicide. The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay is the community’s gateway to help, hope and healing. Last year alone, we assisted over 5,000 callers struggling with thoughts of suicide.

CALL 2•1•1 Be Heard. cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 19

s i a’s

l l e B en Late! Op

1413 S. Howard Ave, Ste 100, Tampa, Florida 33606 813-254-3355 • bellasitaliancafe.com

20 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 21

Do You

BELLABRAVA?

204 Beach Dr. NE St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727.895.5515 1015 Gramercy Lane Tampa, FL 33607 813.524.5226 www.BellaBrava.com

Authentic & Original. . . Always BellaBrava! TM

AMERICAN SCRATCH

KITCHEN + BAR

224 Beach Drive NE • Saint Petersburg • FL 33701 • 727.350.1019 www.StillwatersTavern.com 22 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS RESTAURANTS

RECIPES

DINING GUIDES

Backstage access

Popular Treasure Island karaoke bar CJ’s on the Island reopens in St. Pete. By Kyla Fields and Jourdan Ducat Those who patronized the former location in Treasure Island will notice some major changes when they visit the new concept, one being that you can no longer smoke inside. The overall atmosphere has cleaned up quite a bit too, replacing tar-stained bar games and a popcorn machine with an expansive dining area and a long, sleek bar. There’s also a hearty food menu that includes ribs smoked in house and Philly cheesesteaks, as well as typical bar apps and handheld fare. Another notable difference at the new spot is the ample free parking, a welcome change from the metered spots at the Treasure Island location. The grand opening of CJ’s Backstage was a long time coming, especially after many months of fighting to stay at its flagship location and the renovation delays surrounding its Park Street location. “We found out we could no longer stay at the CJ’s in Treasure Island location about a year ago and most of you sadly know why, as the demolition

having to survive and pay for things with no income coming in for months,” she explains. “I have been trying to get the help from the property owners to help with build out, as the place was unfit and unsafe to open as ANY type of business.” Leal asks her customers to have patience with her and the rest of her family, as they are still unsure when (or if) CJ’s on the Park will ever open its doors. While uncertainty surrounds its location on Park Street, regulars now have a place to experience all of that CJ’s charm right in St. Pete, only four miles away from its flagship bar on Treasure Island. CJ’s Backstage is now open from 11 a.m.-3 a.m. every day, with a full and late-night menu offered daily, in addition to Italian specials featured every Wednesday. For the latest news on CJ’s Backstage, head to its Facebook at @CJsOnTI or Instagram at @cjsbackstage, where updates about its daily events and specials are posted regularly. continued on page 27

“That was tough all the way around as we fought to stay as long as we could.”

COURTESY

fter a decade on the beach, booming karaoke bar CJ’s on the Island had to close its doors in the summer of 2023—but it didn’t end up relocating to where most folks thought it would. Earlier this year, the bar announced that it was being forced out of the plaza it called home for 10 years to make way for a parking lot and eventually new development. Around that time, CJ’s also confirmed it was moving to the former Buffalo City Bar and Grill location at 5631 Park St. N. Fittingly, the commemorative shirts were emblazoned with the motto, “The Year of the Wrecking Ball,” as the former location, which was located near the popular VIP Mexican Restaurant on Gulf Blvd, is now nothing more than rubble. Rumors have been swirling for months about what will replace the demolished part of the plaza, with many claiming developers will soon swoop in and build overpriced condos, a move that is sadly becoming all too familiar in modern day Tampa Bay. After many months of buildout-related complications surrounding their supposed new home, owner Cherie Leal—who runs the business with her sons—opted to reopen their bar out of an ideal turn-key location in West St. Pete. CJ’s Backstage celebrated its grand opening on Nov. 22 to the delight of die-hard, karaokeloving regulars. The latest iteration of CJ’s is up and running in a St. Pete plaza located across the Tyrone Mall at 7022 22nd Ave. N. CJ’s Backstage still offers all of the drink specials, entertainment and amenities that made the Best of the Bay-winning bar so popular for so many years. Leal tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that CJ’s new location features free parking, bar snacks from its kitchen, games and a variety of programming like live-band karaoke, dueling pianos, DJs and themed nights. The entertainment calendar at CJ’s Backstage is stacked, promising karaoke six nights a week, with a live band playing your background song on Wednesdays. Every Thursday night from 7-10, CJ’s hosts an all request party that mixes music, comedy and audience participation in a “sing-along and laugh-along piano show.” The no cover night continues after 10 with karaoke and dancing until 3 a.m.

in Treasure Island has already taken place there,” Leal says, addressing her customers. “They have torn that plaza down. That was tough all the way around as we fought to stay as long as we could, knowing we were about to lose everything, after building it up as CJ’s for 10 Years!” The Leal family took over the 9,000 squarefoot Park Street space in January 2023 in hopes to open its doors by April. But according to Leal, that day may never come. It’s still unsure if CJ’s on the Park will ever see the light of day, but as of now, Leal and the rest of her team are still battling the building’s structural problems, even after “sinking a fortune” into it. She describes the situation as a “total disaster” and claims that the construction crew of Jon Taffer’s reality TV show “Bar Rescue”— which featured the then-open Buffalo City Bar and Grill in 2019”—merely covered all of the building’s damage with fresh paint and new decor. “We are still at total standstill there since it needs a complete build-out and are just waiting and waiting on answers and help while still

SING OUT LOUD: Those who patronized CJ's former location in Treasure Island will notice some major changes.

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 23

SPECIALIZED MEDICAL CARE SINCE 1991 Providing premier medical care in your community through outreach, advocacy, education, and research.

24 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

SERVICES * Comprehensive Primary Care

Lab Draws

Ryan White Provider

Gender Affirming Care

Linkage to Care Services

Spanish Speaking Staff

Medical Peer Navigators

Support Groups

HIV, STD & Viral Hepatitis Testing & Treatment

On-Site Pharmacy

Telehealth Services

Prevention, Education & Outreach

Patient Care Coordination

Transportation Services

PrEP & nPEP Services

LOCATIONS CLEARWATER 2349 Sunset Point Road #405 Clearwater, FL 33765 Office: (727) 216-6193 eFax: (877) 868-0981

NEW PORT RICHEY 4758 Rowan Road New Port Richey, FL 34653 Office: (727) 312-2040 eFax: (888) 806-9655

ST. PETERSBURG 3251 3rd Ave N #125 St. Petersburg, FL 33713 Office: (727) 498-4969

TAMPA 2105 N Nebraska Ave. Tampa, FL 33602 Office: (813) 769-7207

PALMETTO 408 7th Street West Palmetto, FL 34221 Office: (941) 803-7939 Fax: (941) 417-2328 eFax: (866) 622-3009 WALK-INS WELCOME AT ALL LOCATIONS

(844) 922-2777 CANCOMMUNITYHEALTH.ORG

* services vary by location

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 25

Crispy tacos

.00

FEB 14

FREE

Glass of

HAPPY HOUR IN THE BAR AREA: MONDAY-FRIDAY 5-7PM

WITH THE PURCHASE

OF $30.00

Champagne

*Oﬀer may not be combined with any other promotions. *Valid 1 coupon per check or table.

WITH THE PURCHASE OF

2 ENTRÉE

Exp: March 31 / 2024

Bottomless Margaritas

Monday/Thursday

18.99

*Only small house margarita.

4th Street St. Pete

727-256-9770

399 11th Ave N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701

St. Pete Beach

Tyrone Square Mall

4393 Gulf Blvd, St Pete Beach, FL 33706

2424 Tyrone Blvd north. St. Petersburg ﬂ 33710

727-317-4971

Tampa

813-475-5610

11955 Sheldon Road. Tampa, ﬂ 33626

727-302-0777

Feather Sound

727-623-9140

2325 Ulmerton Rd. Suit#3. Clearwater, ﬂ 33762

WWW.GRANDHACIENDARESTAURANT.COM

26 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

Japanese fast-casual teppanyaki chain Pepper Lunch is coming to Tampa Japanese “experimental” fast-casual concept Pepper Lunch is expanding into Florida with three cities confirmed—and one of those cities is Tampa. Gainesville and Orlando will also be home to 10 Pepper Lunch restaurants starting in late 2024, the chain’s first locations in the Southeastern United States. Currently boasting 500 locations in 15 countries, Pepper Lunch—a teppanyaki concept where customers grill their own meats and veggies on an iron griddle—hopes to establish a permanent presence in Florida. On offer at the restaurant are steaks, curry rice dishes, teriyaki and even pasta. The chain prides itself on diners being able to get in, cook their meal, chow down and head back out the door in 20 minutes (if they so choose) with a price point under $20. There is no information as of this writing on potential addresses for the Tampa franchises, but Tampa Bay Business Journal says Majestic Restaurant Group, the Tampa-based restaurateurs behind Zukku Sushi, signed the agreement to franchise 10 Pepper Lunch locations in Central Florida.—Matthew Moyer Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival returns with celebrity chef Robert Irvine A popular foodie fest returns to Tampa next spring, and organizers promise that it will be even bigger and better than 2023’s inaugural event. Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival happens from April 9-13, 2024 at various local venues in neighborhoods like Water Street Tampa, Hyde Park Village and downtown Tampa. The five day-long run of “unforgettable foodie events” features a variety of programming from live music, interactive sponsor experiences and culinary demonstrations to its “Grand Tasting” event with samples from dozens of Tampa Bay restaurants and “Chef Showdown” competition featuring celebrity chef Robert Irvine. Irvine, most known for his roles on reality shows like “Restaurant: Impossible” and “Worst Cooks in America,” will host the festival’s Chef Showdown event where 14 participants will “battle head-to-head in seven unique showdowns.” TBWFF 2024 kicks off on Tuesday, April 9 with a private, invite-only ticketed experience and

continues with Wednesday’s inaugural “Experience Water Street” and Thursday’s “Experience Hyde Park,” where diners can indulge in exclusive, coursed meals and celebrity chef collaborations from participating restaurants in those neighborhoods. The foodie festival’s Chef Showdown happens on Friday, while its Grand Tasting final—which features unlimited food and drink samples from 40+ restaurants at the scenic Curtis Hixon Park (600 N Ashley Dr.)—wraps things up on Saturday. Tickets for each one of the festival’s events can be purchased directly on its Eventbrite page. They range from a $75 pre-sale ticket for TBWFF’s Grand Tasting to weekend passes that run for $175. Prices may increase as the annual food festival nears closer. Events company CI Management, which also produces the annual South Beach Seafood Festival, hosted the inaugural Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival earlier this year. The 2024 festival is sponsored by Breakthru Beverage Florida, Publix, GOYA Foods and a variety of other companies. For the latest updates on the second annual Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival happening in

April, head to its Facebook or Instagram at @ tampabaywff. Annual St. Pete Bacon & BBQ Festival returns to Vinoy Park this month A popular, weekend-long food festival returns to The ‘Burg in January, and it seems like organizers always make it a point to do it bigger each year. The 2024 Bacon & BBQ Festival returns to Vinoy Park ( 701 Bayshore Dr. NE ) on Jan. 13 and 14 from noon-10 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m.-9 p.m. on Sunday. Not only a food festival packed with dozens of local vendors, restaurants and food trucks, this annual event also features a stacked lineup of live music both days. Just a few of the Bacon & BBQ Festival’s bands include Tropidelic, The New Rulers, Taylor Jansen Trio, Seranation, The Sub Herb and Neverless. In addition to its live music lineup, annual BBQ competition, games and prizes, 2024’s festival will feature over 25 food vendors slinging over 100 barbecue and bacon-focused dishes,

from smoky brisket and fall-off-the-bone ribs to cheeseburgers and perhaps a few savoryinspired desserts. General admission tickets for each day of the festival run for $15 each and can be purchased on stpetebaconandbbq.com. Folks looking to spend a little more cash can also opt for its $79 “Boss Hog” admission which includes various BBQ, beer and cocktail samples, prime seating for live music and access to a private dining tent, or its $100+ VIP passes which include all of those perks and then some. Kids ages 12 and under can attend the festival for free. The Bacon & BBQ Festival’s full food vendor lineup can be browsed on its website and includes Florida-based businesses like Just Smokin’ BBQ, City Wings 305, The Bacon Boss, Kurt’s Sausages and Creative Coastal Cuisine among many others. For the latest updates on 2024’s rendition of St. Pete’s Bacon & BBQ Festival, head to the organizer’s Facebook at @brewedlifefestivals.

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

TAMPA BAY WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL

continued from page 23 It’s always hard to say goodbye to another gritty dive bar like CJ’s On The Island, mostly because it’s a reminder that times and tastes are changing beyond our control. While it’s understandable to mourn the loss of these beloved establishments, refusing to patronize new concepts, especially ones like CJ’s that are owned by good folks just trying to navigate the current environment, won’t do much to slow down the inevitable evolution of this place we call home. Tell your dive bars you love them while they’re still here, and pour one out for them when they’re gone.

FIELD OF GREENS: Tampa Bay Food & Wine Festival also promises meats, seafood, and more.

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 27

28 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

Pangs out

FROM GROUND, ASH: Proper House Group’s latest concept is street level at Water Street.

The 20 most-anticipated new restaurants coming to Tampa Bay in 2024. By Colin Wolf and Kyla Fields

hings are looking tasty in 2024. While this past year welcomed some great new dining spots in Tampa Bay, there’s about to be even more to dish out. Over the next 12 months, diners can expect to see everything from new dumpling spots, new fish and chicken shacks, a couple high-end steak houses, a drive-thru Wawa and more. Here are a few of the hottest new eats coming soon to the Bay. Alter Ego Described as having “energetic vibes and soulful hospitality,” new cocktail lounge Alter Ego, is opening sometime in spring 2024 on the ground floor of Water Street’s Asher building. “Visualize an experience where curated beats blend seamlessly with sleek monochromatic design, offering intimate nooks and social spaces that redefine the nightlife scene,” Water Street writes about the music-focused space. The new concept, which has a DJ booth, will share a wall with Proper House Group’s sibling Italian restaurant Ash. 1050 Water St., Tampa. alteregotampa.com Ash Last year, Strategic Property Partners announced its newest concept, Ash, which

will debut on the ground floor of Water Street Tampa’s Asher building, the district’s newest residential development. The new restaurant is brought to downtown Tampa by a familiar name: Proper House Group (PHG), the minds behind Rooster & The Till, Nebraska MiniMart and more. PHG said that its latest concept will specialize in Italian-inspired cuisine and boast an extensive outdoor patio. Originally, the 2,400 square-foot restaurant and its accompanying 1,000 square-foot patio was scheduled to debut in the spring of 2023. As of now, the rumor is it’s ready to pop any day now. 1050 Water St., Tampa. @ashtampa on Instagram Bavaro’s Clearwater Beach’s Bavaro’s will open out of a 1,800 square-foot parcel at 468 Mandalay Ave. any day now. The beach-adjacent space—which formerly housed a real estate office—will undergo about $1 million dollars worth of renovations before making its debut. Owner Dan Bavaro told TBBJ that his “company is building an infrastructure for statewide

expansion,” which may include additional airport locations throughout the Sunshine State. Bavaro’s first made its Tampa Bay debut in 2009, claiming to be the “first traditional Neapolitan Pizzeria in the state of Florida.” Alongside ‘za baked in traditional wood-fired ovens, the Italian restaurant also dishes out roasted Gulf oysters, charcuterie boards, salads, soups, classic pastas and desserts like cannolis, tiramisu and Nutella pizzas. 468 Mandalay Ave., Clearwater Beach. bavarospizza.com Big Chicken Big Chicken, the Shaquille O’Neal-owned fast casual concept, is heading to Florida in a massive way. The company recently signed a 45-unit franchising deal with Floridabased commercial hospitality development company DMD Ventures, which means we can expect Big Chicken locations in Orlando, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami in addition to Tampa Bay. There’s currently no timeline or addresses for when and where Tampa Bay’s debut Big Chicken franchise will open, a representative for the company told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. The casual chicken spot’s menu is a combination of Shaq’s home-cooked childhood favorites and the hottest trending flavors, chock full of chicken sandwiches, tendies and more. bigchicken.com

OPENINGS

M18 PR

Cheeky’s A new raw bar & seafood grill is coming to St. Petersburg’s Grand Central District, and it’s from local restaurateur Nate Siegel, co-founder of new American restaurant Willa’s in North Hyde Park. Cheeky’s, which is expected to debut sometime in in mid-2024, plans to offer up “fresh seafood, including East Coast oysters, shrimp, fish and daily specials from local waters and the Gulf, along with piping hot bowls of chowder, fried chicken, salads and more,” according to a press release. 2823 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg. cheekys.net Dunedin Mix A new mixed-used food hall called the Dunedin Mix is getting ready to open its doors in Pinellas County. The upcoming food hall will open around the corner from other popular Dunedin concepts like 7venth Sun Brewing, Lucky Lobster Co. and Bon Appétit. The roughly 10,000 square-foot, two-story New Orleansinspired space is supposed to feature an indoor courtyard and a “French industrialist/mixologist” carousel bar—perhaps a homage to the French Quarter’s institutional Carousel Bar & Lounge. In addition to a food hall with several local food concepts, the mixed-used space will also offer live entertainment, cooking classes and host different events, banquets and “boutique pop-ups.” 990 Broadway, Dunedin. dunedinmix.com continued on page 31

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 29

available

NOW!

for a limited time

tbbc.beer @tbbco #beerisyourfriend 30 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

Kinjo Noble Rice and Koya will soon get a third sibling, creating a trifecta of high-end Japanese fare in South Tampa. While ItalianJapanese food might be a new concept to Tampa Bay’s foodies, Wafu-Italian or “Itameshi-style” cuisine has been a fine dining trend throughout Europe and Asia for quite some time. Kinjo’s full-service bar loaded with wine, sake and spirits will be joined by an intimate menu of fresh pastas, crudo, sashimi, and a variety of meats and cheeses cured in-house. 226 S Blvd., Tampa. @kinjo_tampa on Instagram Lara Seasoned Tampa chef Suzanne Lara, who was widely known as Suzanne Crouch before getting married, recently announced the opening of her upcoming, bar, from-scratch kitchen and artisan marketplace. The multifaceted concept deemed “Lara” (an ode to her newly-acquired last name), is set to open sometime in 2024. Although a building for this exciting culinary and hospitality concept has yet to be secured, Suzanne tells Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that Tampa Heights is the ideal neighborhood due to its

store, the almost 2,500 square-foot building will feature a dining room and bar area that will accommodate 50 people, with outdoor seating with picnic tables for approximately 50 more people. Late Start is no stranger to Tampa and is currently located inside of Pour House in the Channelside District, where you can sip on the brewery’s collaborative ales, lagers and stouts. 1018 E Cass St., Tampa. latestartbrewing.com Ling’s Dumplings and Han Hand Rolls There’s always different food stalls moving in and out of Armature Works’ Heights Public Market, but one local restaurant company is responsible for quite a few new concepts. As you probably noticed, there’s construction happening on Cru Cellar’s recently-closed space and Zukku Sushi’s previous location. After these renovations, there will be enough room for Zukku Sushi 2.0 and its new sibling concepts Ling’s Dumplings and Han Hand Rolls. In addition to its three upcoming concepts inside of Armature Works, Zukku Sushi also operates Zukku-San in Wesley Chapel and burrito and bowl restaurants

OPENINGS

TADA IMAGES/ADOBE

continued from page 29 Dutch Bros One West Coast-based coffee chain (with a cult-like following) has its sights set on the Sunshine State, and recently filed permits to open its first outpost in South Tampa. A 950-square-foot, drive-thru Dutch Bros is in the works for South Tampa’s Sun Bay South neighborhood. Currently, Ballast Point Car Wash occupies that parcel of land, but if Dutch Bros’ plans are approved, the wash will be razed for the coffee shop’s new development. The popular coffee brand is known for its iced lattes, smoothies, teas, sodas, milkshakes, frozen blended coffees and energy drinks—all from the convenience of its drivethru. Signature drinks include the “Golden Eagle” Dutch freeze blended with vanilla and caramel and the aptly-named “9-1-1” loaded with six shots of espresso, half and half and Irish creme syrup. 3616 W Ballast Point Blvd., Tampa. dutchbros.com Fat Boy’s Pizza New Orleans-based pizza chain Fat Boy’s is making its way to the Bay, and the company claims to have the “World’s Biggest Pizza Slices.” The pizza chain has locations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and now plans to open 10 restaurants across the Tampa Bay region in the next few years (although addresses have yet to be announced). Fat Boy’s serves up its pizza in either a half-slice, a 10 and 16-inch pie, or a “whopping 30-inch pie.” The chain also boasts wings, waffle fries, salads, meatballs, daiquiris and a full liquor bar. eatfatboyspizza.com Forbici Forbici’s second location is slated to open sometime in 2024 within downtown St. Pete’s Sundial mall, marking the beginning of the local brand’s possible nationwide expansion. Co-owner Jeff Gigante—who operates Forbici with partner Joseph Guggino under the Next Level Brands umbrella—estimates that 30-40 locations of the Italian restaurant could eventually open throughout the country. St. Pete’s upcoming Forbici will take up 7,000 square-feet, and will include an indoor-outdoor bar, as well as a 3,000 square-foot shaded patio. The concept will open out of Locale Market’s former parcel, which closed in early 2020 after now-defunct plans for Sundial’s food hall were announced. 153 2nd Ave. N, St. Petersburg. nxtlevelbrands.com The H Just when you didn’t think it was possible—Hyde Park will soon get a little bougier. The Tampa version of Orlando’s popular The H steakhouse is planned for the parcel of land that most recently housed seafood restaurant CopperFish, which closed in 2014 after facing over $700,000 in permitting violations from the City of Tampa. The steakhouse’s flagship restaurant in Orlando is known for its variety of meats–from dry-aged ribeye, NY strips and racks of lamb to kebabs, Japanese wagyu and filet mignon—in addition to a spread of seafood-based dishes, pastas and caviar service. Appetizers include small plates like baked bone marrow, octopus carpaccio, burrata with confit tomatoes, grilled calamari and a variety of salads. 1504 S Howard Ave., Tampa. thehorlando.com

CRY MORE: Sorry, but a drive-thru Wawa in Largo is a bigger deal than you think. centralized location. Lara will offer three unique experiences—a bar, a bazaar full of locally-grown produce, artisan goods and hard-to-find ingredients and supplies for chefs, and an intimate kitchen which Suzanne describes as Lara’s “supporting member.” Suzanne stresses that Lara’s bar won’t draw the typical late night, rowdy crowd one might expect. She tells CL that it will be more of a well-rounded beverage bar inspired by the Greek word “pharmakeia,” which was once used to describe a wide range of elixirs, remedies and apothecaries. @chef_suz_lara on Instagram Late Start Brewing Tampa-based company Late Start Brewing started building out its upcoming location in 2022, and plans to debut ... well, hopefully soon. Formerly a convenience

Āto in Lakeland and Wesley Chapel. There’s also a Zukku Sushi location in Charlotte, North Carolina. 1910 N Ola Ave., Tampa. @zukkusushitampa on Instagram Noble Tavern The collaborative effort between Noble Crust and Fat Beet Farm Kitchen & Bakery hopes to debut sometime soon. The restaurant will be located in the newly built Tru by Hilton St. Petersburg. The spot promises locally-sourced farm fresh flavors from Fat Beet Farm, and the menu will feature classic and craft cocktails, local beer and barrel fresh wines. 1650 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. nobletavern.com Olivia Riding off the success of his new Tampa restaurant Ponte Modern American, a renowned local chef is ready to tackle his next

culinary endeavor. James Beard semifinalist Chef Chris Ponte will soon open a downtown St. Pete location of popular Italian restaurant Olivia (stylized “OLIVIA”), which currently resides in South Tampa. His very first restaurant and only concept in Pinellas County, Clearwater’s Cafe Ponte, closed in spring of 2020 after Ponte was unable to reach a lease renewal agreement with his landlord. 225 1st Ave. N, St. Petersburg. @ olivia_tampa on Instagram Perry’s Porch The folks behind some of St. Pete’s best bars are opening a new concept that will surely boast one of the most scenic waterfront views in all of The Burg.’ Perry’s Porch is a new restaurant that will open adjacent to the St. Pete Pier and the St. Petersburg Museum of History—a space that was most recently occupied by craft beer spot Hops and Props. This upcoming concept will be a combination of open-air and indoor seating, since its name is a homage to the 20th century developer Perry Snell, who’s known for revitalizing several St. Pete neighborhoods with his unique approach to architecture, nature, and walkability. No exact opening date has been announced. 600 2nd Ave. NE, St. Petersburg. perrysporch.com Pete’s Bagels Drive-thru The gas station-turned-restaurant trend can be found all throughout Tampa Bay, but one local business is giving a historic landmark—one of St. Pete’s oldest gas stations—another shot at life. In addition to its menu of breakfast sandwiches and freshly-baked bagels—ranging from expected flavors like everything, poppyseed and sesame to unique offerings like sun-dried tomato and feta and jalapeño—the new Pete’s location will also offer a robust coffee program from Look Alive Coffee, a local, Burg’based roaster. The 326 square-foot building will boast a walk-up window and outdoor seating in addition to its drive-thru. Corner of 4th St S and 25th Ave., St. Petersburg. petesgeneral.com Streetlight Taco Chef-partner Michael Brannock told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that his debut restaurant, Streetlight Taco, hoped to open its doors sometime last fall, but now it looks like that got pushed back slightly. Located at 4004 Henderson Blvd. in South Tampa’s Palma Ceia neighborhood, this “hyper-traditional,” 2,500 square-foot restaurant will boast a capacity of about 100. Brannock’s partners in Streetlight Taco are Jack Murray and Nick Reader, two of the managing partners of Rocca, the modern Italian restaurant that took home one of Tampa’s first Michelin stars earlier this year. 4004 Henderson Blvd., Tampa. @streetlighttaco on Instagram Wawa Florida’s first Wawa drive-thru will soon debut in Largo. The new concept will not have gas or pre-packaged items found at typical Wawas, but instead feature a limited menu centered around the chain’s deli sandwiches, wraps and breakfast Sizzlies. Florida ‘s first Wawa drive-thru is part of the chain’s plan to double its footprint and open 100 new locations around the country by 2030. 2530 East Bay Dr., Largo

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 31

NOW AT THE DALÍ

Explore renowned French Impressionist paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, alongside the early Salvador Dalí works they inspired. TheDali.org Horst P. Horst, Vogue © Condé Nast. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2022.

32 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

“I’ve never dated a runner before I met Anna.”

MOVIES

THEATER

ART

CULTURE

SOLE MATES: Ben Montgomery (L) and Anna Bishop in the midst of the Tampa Bay 100. BEN MONTGOMERY

Show me love

An ultramarathon can teach you a lot of things. By Ben Montgomery

e were standing in the dark outside the Fort Knox Lounge on Redington Shores, me and Anna and our pain, when a drunk couple spilled from the side door in a waft of smoke, as though the dive bar had exhaled them. The woman glanced over, saw our reflective vests and safety-pinned number bibs, saw our suffering, two pilgrims from Struggleville. “There must be a walk-a-thon tonight,” she said to her partner. The word “walk-a-thon” hung in the cool night air. This was well past dark but before last call. The beer bugs danced around the parkinglot lights. “We ran here,” I said. “From Ybor City.” “Seriously?” she said. I mustered a nod.

“Damn,” she said. “Why?” I’d been asked the same thing—why?—by a half-dozen people since we, with 71 other runners, started the first-ever Tampa Bay 100 at the J.C. Newman Cigar Factory that morning at 5 a.m., but the answer requires some explaining. I just shrugged. The doors slammed shut on the couple’s car. Seventeen hours of huffing and puffing teaches brevity. Turns out an ultramarathon can teach a lot of things. Patience. Humility. The glory hidden deep inside pain. The ecstasy of sacrifice. It might even teach love if you let it. *** I quit drinking on Jan. 1, the same month I turned 45. It occurred to me that I might have 30 years left on earth, and I’d spent much of

the previous 30 with a drink in hand. There’s something safe about keeping the key to a good time—to social viscosity, to courage, to laughter—in your fist, but I wondered if I really needed it. Or was I hiding behind it? Three months later, I was fired from a goodpaying job in such dramatic fashion that it earned stories in the Washington Post and Vanity Fair, among others, including this publication. The sting made me want to drink; I did not. I met Anna right after, in April, on a group bicycle ride around Ybor City. My bachelor buddy, always on the prowl, had struck up conversation with her earlier, then introduced us. I feel very awkward in these rare situations, like a punter trying to get rid of the football as fast as possible, but she was beautiful and at ease. She told us she’d come alone because she didn’t have her daughters that night. A few miles later, I noticed she was stopped at a light, texting someone. I braked beside her and just sorta said my phone number out loud.

“8-1-3 …” She looked up and smiled. “Put it in your phone,” I said. “I’ll remember,” she said. Bold. I didn’t see her for the rest of the ride, but she texted later that night. I’d come to learn that she can’t remember the names of actors or the titles of films, but somehow committed nine numbers to memory on a bicycle ride. I texted back an introduction and warned her not to Google me because I’d been publicly fired and wanted to avoid some embarrassment. She did anyhow. “Could I take you on a proper date,” I texted, “or join you for a sunrise run or some such thing?” “I would be delighted by that,” she wrote back. “What kind of running interests you?” “The kind beside you.” Send. I’ve never dated a runner before I met Anna. She’s committed. So serious, in fact, that we’ve continued on page 34

SPORTS

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 33

We broke free of Ybor City, ran through Channelside and Thunder Alley by Amalie Arena, then up Franklin Street, past The Hub. “Best dive bar in Tampa,” I said to the strangers running around us. The last time I was loaded in The Hub, our too-drunk friend slipped away before anyone could get his keys. They found his pickup nosefirst in a ditch in Seminole Heights the next day. He somehow made his way—with a broken arm and missing front teeth—to another friend’s house and passed out on the living room carpet. Thank god he didn’t hurt anyone but himself, we all said as we picked up the pieces. *** Why do we run? I honestly have no idea. I used to walk, and became a bit of an evangelist about it when I was working on a book about one of America’s most-celebrated pedestrians, Grandma Gatewood. All the great thinkers, writers and poets were big walkers—everyone from Dickens to Thoreau to Johann Sebastian Bach. But try finding a great writer who runs. Sri Chinmoy, a spiritual teacher and athlete who moved from India to the United States in the mid-1960s, argued that running can be a path to enlightenment through selftranscendence, the act of going beyond our prior capacities and limitations. He died in 2007, but every year they still run a 3,100-mile, 52-day race around one block in Queens in his honor. He taught sobriety, too, something I never thought too deeply about until I started hiking with a Pinellas County lawyer named Bjorn Brunvand. When I met Bjorn in 2018, he was planning to climb Everest to celebrate his own sobriety. Through a turn of events, we found ourselves hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2019. Bjorn told me that he found the path to break free from the herd mentality of America’s booze-obsessed culture in a book called “This Naked Mind,” which argues that lifelong conditioning of the unconscious mind creates in us the desire to drink, and by changing the unconscious mind—Jung’s “the shadow”—we can eliminate that desire. This is extreme oversimplification, but it piqued my interest in understanding why I felt like alcohol was necessary for me to hang out, have fun, feel right, and sleep. And it was fuel for a good long run. *** We ran south down Bayshore Boulevard as the sun came up over Hillsborough Bay. The Canadian running with us couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful it was. (The next day, I heard he’d dropped out due to extreme dehydration.) We swung north on South Howard and stepped around High Noon empties as workers hosed Friday night’s party off the sidewalks. We ran up and around Raymond James Stadium and I remembered the time I tailgated so hard I slept through a USF game.

SPORTS

34 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

ANNA BISHOP

continued from page 33 been running before sun-up the vast majority of mornings since April. We built a relationship in the soggy soup of summer sunrises, on Tampa’s Riverwalk and Bayshore Boulevard and the Heights. Before long we were running through Ohio’s Hocking Hills in May, then around Vancouver’s Stanley Park in June, then from fort to fort in Old San Juan in July. We did enough running that I began to identify as a runner. We were running a Flatwoods trail this summer when her friend Mark mentioned the upcoming Tampa Bay 100 Ultramarathon in November, which seemed like a good way to stay on the hook, and fight boredom. When you stop drinking—and I was a daily drinker for at least two decades—you find yourself with spools of unspent energy and enthusiasm. I should say here that my biological father was a drunk, in addition to being a Southern Baptist Preacher and long-haul trucker. He got my friends and me drunk for the first time when we were 14 or 15. We ran a trotline across a little farm pond called Sandy Curve in Slick, Oklahoma, drank malt liquor and caught catfish, a rite of passage, and we never really stopped. We also worked the next morning, and this instilled in me an important unspoken cultural custom among my people. Drink and work were coupled. Work brought equity that kept us above the bums. It was balance, or penance—like two dogs fighting inside you every day. You have to feed them both or one wins. When you stop feeding them, you find yourself with time and energy that needs a channel. The dogs quit fighting and started running. *** The course for the Tampa Bay 100 could’ve been a long pub crawl, to be honest. I was aware of this as we ran the length of Ybor’s E 7th Avenue on Nov. 4, past the good-time ghosts. Jason Isbell’s “Traveling Alone” played in my mind: Damn near strangled by my appetite Ybor City on a Friday night Couldn’t even stand up right When I moved to Tampa in the summer of 2005, a man stabbed another man to death during a brawl in the old Masquerade nightclub, so the Tampa Tribune sent me out to “take the temperature,” as we called it in the newsroom. I drank my way down 7th and came back with a story that celebrated Ybor’s unpredictability. I did another one a few years later for the St. Petersburg Times about a young woman who drank too much at Prana, popped some pills, and stopped breathing a few hours later as four of her also-loaded friends slept around her. So many ghosts. So high the street girl wouldn’t take my pay She said come see me on a better day She just danced away

ON AND ON: There can be glory hidden deep inside pain. The miles came and went and we hit the Courtney Campbell Causeway in stride, past the traditional marathon mark, sun burning hot, then turned north to Safety Harbor and west to Dunedin. At the aid station at mile 50, they told us we were in 12th and 13th place, and Anna was the third female to arrive. She looked pale and her eyes were ringed with salt. I should probably tell you here, while things are good, how we trained. There was really not much order to it. We ran between five and 10 miles most every morning since mid-April. We built up long runs on the weekends, topping out around 20 miles. I lost about 30 pounds in seven months, and I’m relatively thin to begin with. I flew home to give a lecture in Oklahoma City and my mother asked, in a serious tone, if I was ill. In retrospect, we should’ve done some strength training because our legs were shot coming over Clearwater Pass. Anna had developed an Achilles pain that forced her to favor her right leg, which prompted pain in her knee. We tried walking some, but that seemed to make our jogging even harder. The sun disappeared behind the Gulf. We stopped for pizza at Slyce in Indian Rocks Beach and she laughed at me when I hobbled to throw our trash away. Her knee was swelling. Other runners, older runners we hadn’t seen since the starting line, began passing us, gimping along, pacers encouraging them onward.

“You should finish without me,” Anna said when we stopped to sit on a bus bench in Indian Shores. We hadn’t talked in a while, not since she snapped shut my pep talk at the pizza place a few miles back. I thought about running the next 30 alone, what that would take. Ache had fully inhabited my legs. I’d lost a toenail. But I was pretty sure I could make it. I was more certain that I was here because of the woman sitting beside me, who had run 69 miles to get here. If you saw two bedraggled people gimping southbound on the shoulder of Gulf Boulevard around 10 p.m. on Nov. 4, hand-in-hand, after 17 hours of running, just know that they gave the Tampa Bay 100 their best effort. Anna closed her eyes on the Uber ride home and I watched the streetlights race across her forehead. I helped her inside her house and she collapsed on the bed and I slipped the Nikes off her feet. I’d learn in the days ahead that 49 runners finished the 100, and 23 didn’t. DNF, they call it—Did Not Finish. In my mind’s eye, I caught an Uber back out to the Fort Knox Lounge and coaxed my legs into moving again. I ran the last 30 miles and crossed the finish line on the beach at Vinoy Park, then climbed back into bed beside Anna and fell asleep, happy.

“I’d lost a toenail. But I was pretty sure I could make it.”

THURSDAY JANUARY 18 ARTIST TALK

HAPPY HOUR AT AMSO Monday - Friday, 4pm-7pm Saturday 3pm-6pm

ALEXIS ROCKMAN THURSDAY JANUARY 25 ARTIST TALK

JANAINA TSCHÄPE

Visit mfastpete.org for tickets, RSVPs, event information, and additional programs. Events are subject to change.

$4, $5 & $6 Liquor, Beer & Wine $8 Hand-Crafted Cocktails cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 35

R E S TAU R A N T | BA R | M U S I C V E N U E | P R I VAT E EV E N T S

EST. 1995

810 SKAGWAY AVE | TAMPA

LOCATED NEAR BUSCH & NEBRASKA

813.304.0460 | newworldtampa.com | OPEN TUE-SUN THURSDAY JANUARY 4

BAR

LAUGH LAB COMEDY OPEN MIC

EMAIL YOUR NAME & NUMBER TO GAUDOMATIC@GMAIL.COM TO SECURE YOUR SPOT 8PM-10PM | FREE

FRIDAY THURSDAY JANUARY 5

B I E R G A R TE N

ME AND MY MUSE (SINGER-SONGWRITER) 7:30 - 9:30PM | $FREE

SATURDAY JANUARY 6

B I E R G A R TE N

SWAMP RATS

RESTAURANT & BAR OPEN 11AM - 11PM

MONDAY JANUARY 8

CLOSED

Th 1.11

RENÉ SCHLEGEL

Th 1.11

W/ VAGABOND TWEED

F 1.12

BOYSCOTT

Sa 1.13

GOZADERA

Sa 1.13

RIFF JOHNSON

Su 1.14

POTTERY THROWDOWN

Tu 1.16

TAKING BACK TAMPA

(FOLK-ALTERNATIVE) 7:30 - 9:30PM | $FREE

SUNDAY JANUARY 7

W 1.17

LATIN DANCE

LUNCHEON

JON "BLACKDOG" RIDNELL VAZUM

W/ THE TILT + MOVIE PROPS

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 10

Th 1.18

JAMIE THOMAS

F 1.19

ROCKABILLY BATTLE ROYALE

F 1.19

SAM WILLIAMS

B I E R G A R TE N

PINTS OF SCIENCE NEWBIES (DUO SHOW) SCIENCE LECTURE SERIES DOORS 6:30PM | SPEAKERS 7PM $FREE WITH RSVP| 18+

THE

(ROCK N' ROLL) 7:30PM - 9:30PM | $FREE

BOLD shows are in the Music Hall

DAILY HAPPY HOUR!11AM-6PM

$3 YUENGLING & BUD LIGHT DRAFTS SATURDAY 1/6

MORGAN

HOLD A GRUNGE

LIVE MUSIC • 7-10PM

& BEN

LIVE MUSIC • 7-10PM

SUNDAYS

$4 WELL DRINKS / $5 CALL DRINKS & HOUSE WINE FRIDAY 1/5

BLOODY MARYS, MIMOSAS OR SANGRIA PLUS...

FOOTBALL

FOOD & DRINK

SPECIALS

GREG ROY 6-9PM NIGHTS +.99 CENT CHICKEN WINGS WEDNESDAY 1/10

from 6PM

to CLOSE

471 MAIN STREET, DUNEDIN FL • 727-736-2BBQ (2227) • THEDUNEDINSMOKEHOUSE.COM

36 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

FRI, JAN 05

SAT, JAN 06

FRI, JAN 12

GAME NIGHT

W 1.17

MUSIC HALL

UPCOMING CONCERTS

GENTRY BLUE

TUESDAY JANUARY 9

RESTAURANT & BAR OPEN 11AM - 11PM

JANNUSLIVE.COM

SOLD OUT GREENSKY BLUEGRASS

SAT, JAN 13

SUN, JAN 14

SAT, JAN 20

VIP EXPERIENCE 727.688.5708 - KENDALL@JANNUSLIVE.COM

REVIEWS

PROFILES

MUSIC WEEK

Amazing grace

Judy Collins on resolutions, war, and keeping it all together in 2024. By Ray Roa

INTERVIEW

Thursday, Jan. 18. 7 p.m. $35-$65. inal music, Spellbound, have an answer for why Bilheimer Capitol Theatre. 405 Cleveland St, which earned the 84-yearmen remain so obsessed Clearwater. rutheckerdhall.com old her seventh Grammy with telling women what nomination. In recent to do. years, Collins has been writing nearly one song “Why does it have to be so hard?,” she asked. every week, and she thinks Cohen, who died in Working through the answer, Collins noted that 2016 at the age of 82, would’ve loved her lat- maybe war, and fighting, and anger and ferocity est record. is part of our planet and life. “I would send him songs when I wrote them, While forgiveness is doable for her, one and he would send me notes and tell me how of the hardest things for Collins—a leading wonderful they were. So I was always grateful,” activist voice in folk music—is expressing how Collins told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “His vehemently she is opposed to war. She usually friendship helped me out. He inspired me with deploys a Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie song that first question. He got to help and regularly sings me going. And then after “Masters Of War,” but that, it was up to me, of the Bob Dylan track that course.” Collins recorded for her And after a Christmas 1964 album Judy Collins holiday where she received books, a couple orna- 3, won’t be in the setlist at The Cap this time ments (fireman Santa Claus, microphone), a around. candle in a butterfly container (“I love butter“Since this disaster in the Middle East, I’m flies”) and scarves (“They cozy me up on the not singing it. I just can’t even bear it. It’s too road and they help me get through things”), painful. I don’t want to take people to that place Collins—whose voice soundtracked the highs in the moment,” she explained. Instead, she said and lows of an entire generation—is looking that “Amazing Grace” or “Imagine” by John ahead. She kicks off a 20-date winter tour next Lennon might help. week in Orlando, brings it to Tampa Bay later “We need a song that transcends the moment this month, and even has a few resolutions for instead of leaving us to have to live in that feelthe new year. ing of despair and horror and hunger and human Some of them, in her own words: Work harder. suffering. We don’t have to live that through Keep on the edge. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Delight a concert,” Collins said.” We have to be given in the present. Keep your weight steady. Do your something to lift us over that and through that.”

“Kindness to one another is essential.”

SHERVIN LAINEZ

t’s been 58 years since Leonard Cohen told exercises and your bone strengthening. Take care Judy Collins that he did not understand why to think of all your relatives and friends every she wasn’t writing her own songs. Just 27 day; try to pray for them in this difficult time. “It’s always a difficult time on this planet. years old at the time, she was on the way to recording some of his—popularizing “Suzanne,” I don’t know how we get by, or what we’re sup“Priests,” “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” and others posed to do, but hang in here and try to exist along the way—but until that moment, she’d and survive,” she said. never thought to do it. So Collins went home, Art, she added, can help to that end. sat at her Steinway, and wrote “Since You’ve Oftentimes art has also chronicled her own Asked” in 40 minutes. The tune appeared on the survival. “Mama Mama,” born in the wake of Roe v. first side of her 1967 album, Wildflowers, sandwiched between Joni Mitchell’s “Michael from Wade, followed Collins’ signing of an open letter Mountains” and Cohen’s “Sisters Of Mercy.” The where she and 52 other American women includalbum is Collins’ highing Nora Ephron and est charting collection of Billie Jean King wrote, songs to date, but in early“We Have Had Abortions.” 2022 she finally released A year after Roe was overJudy Collins her first album of all-origturned, Collins doesn’t

COOK WITH HONEY: Collins says, ‘We have to look beyond the depths into what can be the brightness of the outcome.’ Overcoming is not a new concept for Collins. After quitting cigarettes in the ‘70s, she developed an eating disorder. Like her father, alcohol was her drug of choice for a long time. She’s even chronicled those struggles in books, and has been sober since April 20, 1978. Like her dad—a blind singer, pianist, and radio show host—Collins remained disciplined and happy through it all. To this day, her own family calls Collins a cockeyed optimist, but in her view there aren’t many choices outside of looking forward. Even among all the chaos and destruction, there has to be something beyond today that will turn out well. She offered the aftermath of a forest fire as an example. “The next spring, all the wildflowers come bursting out dancing around in their colors and

their shapes and their shifts,” Collins said. “We have to look beyond the depths into what can be the brightness of the outcome.” So as she marches towards her 85th birthday this summer, Collins offered thoughts on how to survive the year and life in general. “I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, except that I do know that it’s one day at a time,” she said. Getting through your own battles and your own struggles with a degree of kindness, gentleness, and understanding is the ideal. “If you can’t see that on the planet, you have to do it in your life,” Collins added. “To show gentleness, to show respect, to show forgiveness, to be an even handed neighbor and friend—the kindness to one another is essential.”

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 37

38 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

'S SKIPPER SMOKEHOUSE FLYING IN THE FACE OF CONVENTION SINCE 1980

FRI JAN 5 • 8PM $10

THU JAN. 04-THU JAN. 11

GRATEFUL DEAD

By Josh Bradley & Ray Roa

NITE W/

C CL Recommends

UNCLE JOHN'S BAND

THU 04

C Rock The Park Tampa: Mercy McCoy w/The Pilot Waves/Sv Noir To kickoff its 14th season of free, family-friendly concerts, Rock The Park Tampa has booked a gem of the pop and Americana scene, Mercy McCoy. (Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, Tampa)

SAT JAN 6 • 8PM $10

IMPLUSE SUN JAN 7 • 11AM

SLOWDOWN SUNDAYS

RYAN METCALF

Joe Marcinek’s Snowbird Jamboree: Joe Marcinek Band w/League of Sound Disciples/Freekbass/Brain Emoji/more It’s snowbird season, and you’ll find a trippy collection of them near the beach for Joe Marcinek’s two-night stand in Dunedin. The jamboree actually kicks off Thursday with a set from local experimental act Brain Emoji before it clears the stage on Friday for genrehopping midwestern guitarist Marcinek who in the past has teamed up with Jerry Garcia Band alum Melvin Seals, The Meters’ George Porter Jr. and also Cincinnati low-end funk lord Freekbass (who plays solo at Dunedin Brewery on Saturday). String Cheese incident drummer Jason Hann also brings his League of Sound Disciples project to the stage during this three-day getdown supported by a stellar lineup of homegrown talent. (Dunedin Brewery, Dunedin)

DONATION BASED

SLOW FLOW YOGA IN THE SKIPPERDOME! SUN JAN 7 • 1PM-4PM $FREE

ACOUSTIC SUNDAY BRUNCH

FRI 05

C Mike Tony and Johnstonsons w/ Soft Cuff For a few years a decade ago, Tampa musician Brian Schanck used to kick around with his rock band The Same, and while he’s been on more or less of a hiatus for the last 10 years, Schanck returned last month with a new solo project, Soda Die. Sessions for that band, however, borne another, when Schanck and bandmate Michael Bostinto (aka crooner Mike Tony, whose Johnstonsons headline this nocover gig) started to land on an instrumental vibe for songs like “Pasta Priest” a cut that sounds like a little Khurangbin, Menahan Street Band and Badbadnotgood, but also a glimpse into the glory days of the Bay area’s 2000s-2010s indie-rock scene when bands like Mouse Fire and Zulu Wave ruled the roost. Helping the boys bring Soft Cuff to life are vets of the local rock scene, keys player and percussionist Tina Sanchez (Fake Nudes, Veiny Hands), plus guitarist-producer Shane Shuch (of the aforementioned Mouse Fire, and Pajamas). (The Bends, St. Petersburg) C Movie Props album release w/ Highway Advisory Radio/Beach Terror/ The Tilt Englewood rock band Movie Props— which plays a, fittingly, cinematic brand of experimental, mathy indie-emo—has four gigs on tap this month and kicks them off with an album release show this weekend. (Noisemakers, St. Petersburg)

WITH

MARVELOUS MARVIN + REVEREND BILLY C WIRTZ

HAPPY HOUR

Soft Cuff

Styx w/.38 Special If you’re gonna sail away, you might as well do it at a waterfront venue, and that’s what’s happening when classic rock favorite Styx brings its current, 20 years running, lineup led by keyboardist and vocalist Lawrence Gowan to downtown Clearwater’s six-month old don’t-call-it-anamphitheater. (The Sound, Clearwater)

SAT 06

C Atmosphere w/Brother Ali/RJD2/ Sa-Roc/Zoodeville After a short holiday hiatus, St. Pete’s waterfront concert series returns,

this time importing Slug and Ant, an emcee and production duo better known as Atmosphere. The Rhymesayers founders have long created introspective hip-hop that was livetronic before the genre got a moniker and arrive supporting a 2023 album So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously which not only memorializes Slug’s pandemic existence, but reflects on the murder of George Floyd which happened more or less outside of his studio window in Minneapolis. Mind bending DJ RJD2—supporting a 2022 album Escape from Sweet Auburn—opens the show (Spa Beach Park, St. Petersburg)

continued on page 40

THURSDAY• ALL DAY! *ENDS 1HR BEFORE SHOW TIME* FRIDAY • 4-8PM TWENTY OZ DOMESTIC DRAFTS: $4 GLASSES OF HOUSE WINES: $3.50 NOW SERVING SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS ONLY!

BRUNCH

SKIPPER'S SMOKEHOUSE SMOKEHOUSE

910 SKIPPER ROAD • TAMPA

813-971-0666

SKIPPERSSMOKEHOUSE.COM

LIVE MUSIC VENUE RESTAURANT CATERING TALENT AGENCY TA LICENSE #438

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 39

continued from page 39 whom Deviant Libation’s Tim Ogden has brewed signature beer) opens the show. (Deviant Libation, Ybor City)

The Venus

C Swivvel w/Kick Veronica/Domino Pink/Grim Hill Miami-based alt-rock outfit Swivvel spent the latter half of 2023 piecing together a music video for its new track “Passerby,” made up of clips from the band’s travels across the country, captured entirely on Super 8 video. The three-minute tune—filled with instrumentation somewhat reminiscent of mid-career Vampire Weekend—is the title track to Swivvel’s latest three-track EP. “Being as real as possible, my self esteem hasn’t been all it used to be,” frontman Jonathan Solis wrote in a statement last fall. “These songs represent what I felt was myself at a kind of full-strength.” Tampa’s own Kick Veronica is also on this bill along with trippy indie-rock band Domino Pink and Magic City art-rock outfit Grim Hill. (Backyard at Shuffle, Tampa)

JEREMY PHILIP

C The Venus w/Chaunces/Radagast Alexander Charos is the big brother in one of Pinellas County’s most musical families. His dad, Socrates Charos, bought and rehabbed the Capitol Theatre in 1995, 58 years after it opened and was renamed The Royalty Theatre (it was eventually bought by the city of Clearwater and handed over to Ruth Eckerd Hall). Royalty is where Alexander’s brother Philip first saw someone play drums and was instantly hooked. Soon enough, the youngest Charos, Jason, caught the bug, too. Nowadays, Jason, a trumpeter with Grammy cred, is putting the finishing touches on his debut while also composing arrangements for two-time Grammy-winner Samara Joy. For this gig, the Charos boys finally get a chance to share the stage again as Alexander leads The Venus through a set on the emergent Bayboro Brewing stage. Hearing saxophonist Alex Malkovich and Jason trade solos over the always-evolving psychedelic-rock band’s sound—all after opening sets by some of the brightest homegrown bands—makes this one of the best live music options this weekend. (Bayboro Brewing, St. Petersburg)

SUN 07

C Goodnight Neverland farewell concert w/Kristopher James/Emigrant Following a long-awaited summer reunion gig, there was hope that Goodnight Neverland would stick around. But both frontman Kerry Courtney (an “American Idol” alum) and drummer Jeremy Tellone have decided to get the hell out of Florida and take on new lives in Seattle and outside of the States, respectively. This show is goodbye for now. (Floridian Social, St. Petersburg)

C Hollow Leg w/Thunderclap/Florist/ Dirtwitch/Captive Frame/Dopesnake/ more Deviant Libation’s adoption of hardcore and heavy metal shows rolls into the new year and kicks off 2024 with a gig headlined by central Florida sludge metal outfit Hollow Leg, which is actually rooted in a love for American blues and English metal. The results will please fans of Iron Maiden, and a cadre of mighty fine Florida metal outfits (including Gainesville’s Thunderclap for

40 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

C Tampa Jazz Club: La Lucha w/Scotty Wright Over nearly two decades together, drummer Mark Feinman, bassist Alejandro Arenas, and pianist John O’Leary have cultivated a chemistry that’s unrivaled in Tampa Bay’s jazz scene. For this matinee, the trio better known as La Lucha links up with Monterey Bay vocalist Scotty Wright whose grasp and appreciation of the Great American Songbook is no surprise to jazz fans in the Bay area who’ve seen him bring a warm, rich vocal to this neck of the woods over and again in the wintertime. (Mainstage Theatre at Hillsborough Community College, Ybor City)

WED 10

Academy Order w/Antacid Trip/Drawn Out If a heavy metal or hard rock band wanted to give new wave or synth-pop a shot, but decided to blend those sounds with its standard ones, you’d have A New Kind of Fear, the latest album from Philadelphiabased outfit Academy Order. While there are

most likely going to be more dates added throughout the year, this Ybor Heights gig is currently the finale of a quick southeast tour that also rolls through North Carolina and Tennessee. (Deviant Libation, Tampa) Bonginator w/Frog Mallet/more Bring pearls to clutch and a sense of humor when Massachusetts death metal band Bonginator finds a place to land The Intergalactic Gorebong of Deathpot, a very stoned strain of walking dead rock. Frontman Erik Thorstenn went to Berklee College of music for a year but grew up singing in operas and cathedral choirs; and before this outfit, he was in a Southern metalcore band called Mudfuck. “I’ve always said I’m more drawn to making people laugh than anything else. That’s how my art is,” he recently told Invisible Oranges. The riffs and ridiculousness go on all night, too, since Bonginator’s tour mate, Frog Mallet, plays an equally heavy and irreverent brand of metal. (Orpheum, Tampa)

THU 11

C Chuck Prophet w/Matt Burke Fresh off a set paying tribute to Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, celebrated San Francisco songwriter Chuck Prophet returns to Tampa Bay to once again play a solo set for another beloved entity: community radio station WMNF Tampa 88.5-FM. Expect to hear a few tunes from the 60-year-old’s 2020 Yep Roc outing The Land That Time Forgot, but don’t be surprised if Prophet takes listeners into all the corners of his more than 30-year songwriting career. Matt Burke, frontman for Bay area Americana hero Have Gun, Will Travel, opens the show. (Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) C Elvis Costello and the Imposters w/ Charlie Sexton Five years ago, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee tore down Mahaffey Theater with his different-everynight “Just Trust” tour, loaded with a healthy mix of mega deep cuts, greatest hits, and a smattering of unreleased material. Since that night, 69-year-old Costello has released both a solo album (Hey Clockface) and a new Imposters record (The Boy Named If ), along with a reissue of material he did with the Burt Bacharach, which was initially planned out shortly before his death last February. Charlie Sexton—unarguably one of the best guitarists to ever back Bob Dylan—joins Elvis and The Imposters onstage. (Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater) C Tommy Stinson w/Karla Rose Diane Gentle There isn’t a lot of rock and roll Tommy Stinson hasn’t touched. From his time with the bands he’s founded—The Replacements, Bash & Pop, Perfect—to stints in Guns N’ Roses, The Old 97’s and Moth, the 57-year-old is straight royalty that’s influenced artists from every corner of the globe. While he is currently doing his version of Americana with Chip Roberts in Cowboys in the Campfire, Stinson’s January dates are solo affairs that culminate with sets at Florida’s famed 30A Songwriters Festival (Elvis Costello and Chuck Prophet, who’re also in the Bay area next Thursday, play 30A, too). On the way up to the Panhandle, Stinson squeezes in an intimate set at St. Pete’s Shuffleboard Club. (St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, St. Petersburg)

WINNER BEST KARAOKE 4 YEARS IN A ROW

7 Nights a Week! AT

hoot gibson & MARTY DJFX DOLAN

with KJ's

DINE IN & DINE IN & TAKE OUT • OPEN 8AM-3AM TAKE OUT 2116 E BAY DR • LARGO, FL • 727-584-3126 2116 E BAY DR • LARGO, FL • 727-584-3126

thecornerbarandgrill.com thecornerbarandgrill.com

riseupstpete .com

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 41

42 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

ELEANOR PETRY

Tampa Bay indie-rock fans have a chance to get drunk on one of the genre’s buzziest bands this summer.

Tickets to see Alvvays play The Ritz in Ybor City on Wednesday, May 1 are available now for $30.

Late last month, 50 limited-edition copies of Alvvays’ gem of a album, Blue Rev, sold-out in minutes, and while the records were filled with the blue flavor of the Canadian malt liquor adult beverage, fans have been drinking up the record since 2022 when it held up as one of the year’s best and benchmark setting power-pop albums.

The show happens three months after Alvvays finds out whether or not its hit single “Belinda Says” is a Grammywinner for Best Alternative Performance (competition in the category includes boygenius, Lana Del Rey, Paramore and Arctic Monkeys). See Josh Bradley’s weekly roundup of new concerts coming to Tampa Bay below.—Ray Roa

Larry Fleet w/Dalton Dover Thursday, March 14. 8 p.m. $27. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg

Arm’s Length w/Carly Cosgrove/Ben Quad/Saturdays at Your Place Sunday, April 14. 7:30 p.m. $20. Orpheum, Tampa

One Hallelujah: Tasha Cobbs Leonard w/Israel Houghton/Erica Campbell/ Jekalyn Carr/Jonathan McReynolds Saturday, March 16. 6:30 p.m. $35.75 & up. Yuengling Center, Tampa

Hot Mulligan w/Free Throw/Just Friends/Charmer Monday, April 15. 7 p.m. $33. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg

I Don’t Know How But They Found Me w/Benches Thursday, March 21. 7:30 p.m. $25. Crowbar, Ybor City Dave Mason’s Traffic Jam w/The Jimmy Hall Band Sunday & Monday, March 24 & 25. 7:30 p.m. $39 & up. Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater Teddy Swims Wednesday, April 3. 8 p.m. $70 & up. Hard Rock Event Center at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tampa Inzo w/Tape B/Hayz/Blookah Saturday, April 6. 7 p.m. $25. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg

Justin Hayward w/Mike Dawes Monday, April 15. 7:30 p.m. $49.50 & up. Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater Don Felder w/Pablo Cruise/Firefall Friday, April 19. 7 p.m. $38.75 & up. Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater The Evolution of Drag: Daphne Ferraro w/Chi Chi LaLique/Jocelyn Summers/ Kathryn Nevets/Kenya Black/ Conundrum/April Fresh/Jaeda Fuentes/ The Lady Janet/Imani Valentino/more Saturday, April 20. 8 p.m. $19.50 & up. Central Park Performing Arts Center, Largo Mac McAnally Thursday, April 25. 8 p.m. $34.50 & up. Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater

Combichrist w/Dead Animal Assembly/ Plant Esoterik/Cultus Black Saturday, April 13. 7 p.m. $20. Crowbar, Ybor City

Rising Appalachia Thursday, April 25. 7 p.m. $38. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg

Ian Munsick w/Meghan Patrick Saturday, April 13. 8 p.m. $30. Jannus Live, St. Petersburg

Born Of Osiris w/Attila/Traitors/ Extortionist/Not Enough Space Saturday, April 27. 5:30 p.m. $30 & up. The Ritz, Ybor City

Mitis Saturday, April 13. 10 p.m. $15. The Ritz, Ybor City

The Veronicas Sunday, April 28. 8 p.m. $34.50 & up. The Ritz, Ybor City

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 43

44 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

Christmas break By Dan Savage

I’m away for Christmas. Please enjoy these Christmas-themed questions from the Savage Love archives. Ho, ho, ho!— Dan I’m a straight married guy who spends the vast majority of every year working on site overseas supervising a large scientific experiment my business partner and I set up. The location is extremely remote, and my wife of five years prefers to live at our house in England. Like me, she is 36 and extremely attractive and I was always very suspicious about what she got up to in my absence. We do not have an open relationship and, until recently, I have been faithful to her. But four weeks ago, my wife’s mother showed up unannounced at my work site and, over the course of two days, she told me in lurid detail about my wife’s many infidelities. It included some pretty shocking behavior, from group sex to gangbangs to escort work. I felt stunned and betrayed. My wife has lived a life of luxury thanks to my work, and she chose to be the local slut in the community where we live. The stories my mother-in-law told me were confirmed by my business partner’s wife. This is where the story gets complicated. My mother-in-law is 20 years my senior and one of the most beautiful women I have ever been around. I have always had a strong attraction to her as she has had for me. On the third night she was with me we spent the night in bed together and had the most amazing sex and we have been together ever since. We have both fallen completely in love with each other. I can’t imagine being without her now, but I am obviously still married to her daughter. I am not totally naive, and I know my mother-in-law used my wife’s confession to break up my marriage but that is something I can easily forgive her for. We want to go home together around Christmas and spend a few weeks in the UK as a couple. How do I tell my wife that this is the new reality?—Mother-In-Law Fucker Allow me, dear readers: Fake, fake, fake! As for you, letter writer/problem maker upper, your “story” was plenty complicated before your bullshit second paragraph rolled around. Implausibly complicated. I mean, you’re conducting a scientific experiment in a place that’s “extremely remote”—so remote your wife refuses to live there—but it’s not so remote your motherin-law can’t drop in unannounced with hot goss about the wife. What? Oh, and before spinning out a story that has everything—cheating, gangbangs, group sex (not all group sex is gangbanging, but all gangbangs are group sex), sex work, intergenerational sex—you pause to assure us that all

involved are “extremely attractive,” a detail honest letter writers include when it’s relevant and dishonest letter writers include when they’re spinning out a fantasy they’re gonna wank to later or bullshitting me while they’re wanking. (A scientific experiment in an extremely remote location? Are you sure you’ve been fucking your mother-in-law and not THE THING?!?) And the question you wrap things up with, MILF? Gotta say… it’s pretty disappointing as bullshit questions tacked on at the end of bullshit letters go. Why would you be worried about telling your wife—your cheating, gang-bangi n g-i n-you r - ab s enc e, doing-escort-work-onthe-side wife—that you’re leaving her? Even for her mother? If she existed, MILF, your wife would be upset—the scandal, the publicity—but she’s not going to be upset at the thought of losing you… as it seems pretty clear that your fictional wife doesn’t give a single holographic shit about you. So, why would you be worried about upsetting her? Would your chief concern under the circumstances really be the feelings of someone who betrayed you so spectacularly/fictitiously? Your “new reality,” as you put describe this bullshit/whirlwind romance with the mother-in-law you made up, is far likelier to cause you headaches by scandalizing friends, colleagues, family members, and neighbors—or it would scandalize friends, colleagues, family members, and neighbors, MILF, if they existed, which they don’t. That’s the risk you would be running: Your fake wife did you fake wrong—you were the fake victim—but once it gets out that you’re fucking your wife’s extremely attractive mother, you’re going to be seen as the villain. “How do I convince my friends, colleagues, family members, and neighbors that I am not the bad guy?” would’ve been a much better question to wrap your bullshit question up with, MILF, not an expression of concern for your fake wife’s feelings. Originally published Dec. 16, 2017.

SAVAGE LOVE

I’m 19, female, bi, and have been with the same guy for a year. Things are great. I came home for Christmas, and he went to his parents’ house, and I’ll see him in a few weeks. For Christmas, my mom got me some typical “mom” gifts—socks and underwear—but the panties had Disney princesses on them. I feel like a pedophile just owning them. I get it: She doesn’t like the idea that I might be having sex, especially with

the alarming rate that babies are popping out of teenage girls. But, come on. What am I supposed to do with these?—Holiday Blues Wear them. Even if Mom was trying to send you a coded message—and I am not convinced she was—you can easily turn the lemons of your mother’s disapproval into the lemonade of good, safe, responsible sex. So, Mom is not happy about her daughter being sexually active? Too bad for Mom. As for feeling like a pedophile, HB, there’s nothing pedo about a 19-year-old bi chick in Disney princess underpants. A girl in those panties is innocent and darling. A sexually active 19-year-old woman in those panties is ironic and daring. (A flash poll of straight men—or straight man, as the sample size in my office small—revealed that 100% thought 19-yearold bisexual girls in Disney panties were “sexy as hell.” (Please note: my sample was a single 25-year-old straight man, so our survey results aren’t as creepy as they may have sounded.) So, when your boyfriend eats your pussy through a pair of your new Disney underpants—when he sucks face with Jasmine or A r i e l or Belle—he will not only be helping you assert your right to sexual fulfillment despite

y o u r mot her ’s disapproval, HB, he’ll be helping you deconstruct a patriarchal heteronormative discourse that reifies female purity and holds up women’s undergarments as moral status markers! Your boyfriend’s efforts to get you off will symbolically transform these princesses into the fully sexual beings their corporate creators never intended them to be!

To think your boyfriend can accomplish all of that—and strike a blow against repressive monarchical systems—just by eating your pussy while you wear your new panties, HB! And all you have to do is lie back and enjoy! Originally published Jan. 3, 2008. I’m a gay man in my mid-20s, and I’m getting more serious with a guy I met a few months ago. I was surprised to eventually learn that “Michael” is in his late-30s, since he easily passes for my age. I’m comfortable with the age gap, but I’m struggling with how to present this to my parents. Religious and conservative, they were cordial but distant with the last guy I dated (who was my age). I’m afraid the age gap with my new boyfriend will create even more discomfort for them and that Michael will sense it when he comes along to visit for the holidays. I’m considering lying to my parents if Michael’s age comes up. I’ve challenged my parents’ attitudes for many years—but at this point, I’m willing to trade honesty for the chance to be treated even a little bit more like a “normal couple” at Christmas. Is it selfish to ask Michael for permission to lie about his age? I’m nervous to even share my feelings with him, for fear it will give the impression I’m embarrassed by him.—Awkward Gatherings Expected Given Age Peculiarity Tell one lie to make your relationship more acceptable to your parents, AGEGAP, and you’ll be tempted to tell more lies—and I don’t know about you, kiddo, but not having to lie to mommy and daddy anymore was one of the chief reasons I came out. And if you want your parents to be comfortable with Michael, if you don’t want them to think there’s anything wrong with their son dating an older man, deceiving your parents about Michael’s age out of the gate is a terrible first move. And let’s say things work out with Michael. The lie you told that first Christmas will only make things more awkward once you finally tell your parents the truth. And if your parents are like other homophobic parents, e.g., if they’re inclined to believe the worst about the man who sodomizes their son, they may not believe the lie was your idea. They’ll think this creepily youthful older man—this man who showed up in their home wearing a suit made out of the skins of younger gay men—encouraged their son to lie to them so they wouldn’t object to the relationship in the early stages, when their objections might have had the power to derail it. Originally published Dec. 11, 2018. Got problems? Everyone does! Send your question to mailbox@savage.love! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 45

creative loafing puzzler

Buying Old Guitars & Old Musical Instruments I buy old musical instruments. ANY CONDITION THE OLDER, THE BETTER ! CALL OR TEXT (937) 767-2326

ADVERTISE

HERE! Contact Anthony Carbone:

acarbone@cltampa.com 813.956.4429

64 Cafe order 65 Nasty cut 67 Julia Dent’s guy 74 Corn cover NOTE: After I made 75 “___ Joe’s” the five-vowels puzzle 76 Plato’s plaza I got a call from the Y 78 Croatia’s capital demanding equal time, 82 The Longest Day so here it is. author 85 Melville opus ACROSS 86 Look pregnant 1 Food fish 88 Lead-in to “log” 5 “Waterloo” singers 89 Lusters 9 “___ lover, not ...” 90 Subject of 12 False alarm Hollywood Rajah 17 Heap 94 Before, earlier 18 Bumbler 96 Exxon, earlier 19 Tube tops 97 Egyptian slitherer 21 Pushed 98 Grad 22 How the best 99 FedEx competitor pickpockets work, 102 Gehrig according to contemporary Ambrose Bierce 104 Adrienne’s wall 25 “Don’t ___ 105 Type of allergy because I’m treatment beautiful” 112 Unsubtle 26 Preset path 117 D.C. type 27 Woman with cuffs 118 Chopper topper 28 Antibiotic’s brand 119 More lemony, name maybe 30 “Sweet Dreams” 120 Landmark musical singer work of 1924 34 Do the floors 124 Just 35 Once around 125 Closing passage 36 Salon bottleful 126 Legendary 37 Fat in a pat, chanteuse maybe 127 Bird or escapade 38 Oktoberfest 128 Gets thinner exclamation 129 Dino’s name 41 Ear-buzzing bug 130 Evergreen trees 45 Rick’s term for Ilsa 131 She, in Milan 47 Jeopardy! bonus 51 Organism needing DOWN oxygen 1 Trunk tire 53 “Eureka!” 2 Athlete’s on-air 56 British gun greeting 57 Raze, with “down” 3 Book of memories 58 Noted 4 God crimefighters 5 Feb. honoree 61 Euro spewer of 6 Face Frazier note 7 Make a mess of 63 Ness’s dept. 8 To Europe

I GOT A CALL FROM THE Y by Merl Reagle

47 54

86 91

46 | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | cltampabay.com

113

114

115

124

125

94 100

101

106

102

103

107

116 120

108

117

118

121

129

119

105

104

75 82

38 50

128

112

74 78

34 37

21 25

24 27

71 Say “uh-huh” 107 1950s platter 9 Hosp. area 10 Pastoral Kenyan 72 The Highwayman 108 California white poet oak 11 Great grade 12 It’ll get you into a 73 “Across” word? 109 Map book 77 Rug-fiber brand 110 Comes down in lather name buckets 13 Francois of 78 Dreyfus’s 111 City of far perfume fame champion northern 14 With, to 13 Down 79 Obadiah California 15 Do followup preceder 112 Slangy doctrines 16 First eviction site 80 Rise 113 “The First ___” 20 Latakia’s land: 81 Régime de 114 First guy in space abbr. terreur victim 115 City near Provo 21 Chased (away) 116 Circle section 23 Farmer’s place? 82 Coquettish 121 ___ Romana 24 Music, Nashville- 83 Be in debt 84 “The wise 122 Missile wobble style ___ knowledge 123 “Weather 29 Author Williams aright” permitting” and 31 “The Old ___ (Prov. 15:2) others Bucket” 86 Blue cartoon 32 News service character 33 Suit color 87 Ark passenger 37 Arena shout 91 A Barber and a 38 Help, in a way Butler 39 Family 92 Hard to see 40 Mother of Ares 41 NAFTA forerunner 93 Bacardi, e.g. 95 Go bad 42 India’s first prime 100 Litter darlings minister 101 Red Baron 43 Whirling, old-style PUZZLE FANS ! chaser 44 Morning show For info on Merl's 103 Arctic bird 46 Fancy fabric Sunday crossword 105 Blood of the 48 Sch. near Phx. anthologies, visit gods 49 “Am ___ www.sunday 106 Gettysburg believe ...” crosswords.com. general 50 Bear Dance performer Solution to I’d Like To Buy All 5 Vowels 52 Shelley’s middle S P E DU P CHOP S EQU A T E 54 “Greatest ___” C L A I R E HON E D NU T L OA F 55 When the ghost A U S T I N P OWE R S D I A L OGU E MME DOR A L S E T H L S D appears, in P L A T I NUMB L OND E G L E S S Hamlet K I NGS OR A MA E L OUNGE L I Z A RD 59 Tankard contents I N K I N G G OWN OP E N T O R A R E F I E D 60 Mal ___ OV A I WR I T E S I R S L OA N R A I N F OR E S T CRUNCH E T N A (seasickness) OA K NOMA N A C T 61 Flavor intensifier A L A N S I MON A ND S CHU S T E R 62 Beat HO I S T CO T T E A R A T O L A A ND E R S E N A L E C T O POS T 65 Crease player G E N I U S A T WO R K V I L L A S 66 Against S E E I ON S U E D E P A C E D UNC L E T OMS C A B I N 68 Sit in (for) A L A T H I S I R E S T NO T 69 Window unit L O I Z E A U X J U L I A ROB E R T S E R A S UR E E L D E R R I V E R A 70 Put your foot OP E R A S DU E L S S P A D E R down

122

123

126

127

130

131

109

110

111

cltampabay.com | JANUARY 04-10, 2024 | 47

ST. PETERSBURG • RIVERVIEW MENUS/INFO/HOURS/ ETC: DATZTAMPA.COM