This is the first in a series of email-interviews with people from all aspects of the arts community. With the second installment of Sweat Shop coming up on August 31, Vanessa Fernandez, the shows curator, gave me a little insight on how this art buffett comes together.
First Things First
TART: Who are you and what’s your arts background?
VF: I have a degree in Art History, which is very useful in day to day life 
. I got involved with Jay Giroux and Brandon Dunlap, a few years back, when they were planning the first Dirty But Sophisticated. They brought me on to be their “pretty front man”, which I thought was cute, and I’ve been involved with these sorts of art events ever since.
TART: What events have you been involved in and how have you been involved?
VF: I’ve been involved with all the Dirty But Sophisticated events, last year’s Sweatshop, Rock Candy (which was a Halloween Art event) and Creative Loafing’s Sensory Overload last March. I’ve also curated for Nova 535 in St. Pete, putting on a show titled “Heavenly Creatures: An Exhibit of Portraiture” and assisted with Jay Giroux and Theo Wujcik’s two man show.
TART: How have you been involved?
VF: My involvement for these events generally goes beyond just curating. Apart from organizing the artists, I usually also write the press release, find sponsorships, promote the event, sell artwork the night of the event and help tie up what ever other loose ends come up. This isn’t at all to say that I don’t have help putting these things on. Usually, there is a team of about 3 or 4 people, each taking on different aspects of the event, to make it all happen. For example, DBS 4 had myself, Becca Nelson, Brandon Dunlap, Jay Giroux and DJ Mike Blenda all working together to put on the event.
TART: How much planning is done to pull these events off?
VF: A lot. More than you would think. They say that “the devil is in the details” and I never really understood what that meant until I started throwing these events. But, all the stress and anxiety is worth it when it all comes together and the place is packed and everyone is having a killer time. That’s when the champagne really starts flowing
SweatShop
TART: Explain a little about Sweat Shop? How the theme for this show was spawned.
VF: The concept for Sweatshop is a little different than the other art/music/fashion events that have been going on locally. For Sweatshop, the fashion show goes on with the live band. It’s an interesting twist on the interplay between fashion and music. This year we have Ben Chmura’s show going on with the Dark Romantics and Raven Reda’s show going on with Giddy Up Helicopter.
I’ve also asked this year’s artists to also try to theme the work they submit to this concept of the marriage of rock music and fashion...We’ll see what everyone comes up with!
Check out Friday Extra and Tboextra.com for a full SweatShop profile.
System: Microsoft Xbox 360
Also available for: Sony PlayStations 2 and 3, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, Windows PC
Publisher: EA Sports
Reviewer’s rating: ***
ESRB rating: Everyone
Game type: Sports
Kind of like: Every other “Tiger”
Best feature: Simultaneous online play eliminates the long wait between shots.
Worst feature: Random lag issues — even offline (!) — can be deadly if you’re in the middle of your backswing.
The bottom line: Wouldn’t you hate to work in marketing for EA Sports, where every single product is exactly the same as last year’s version, with the exception of one or two barely significant features specifically designed to convince consumers otherwise?
It’s not like they can just be honest and tout a game as “less buggy than last year’s!”
Then again, who needs innovation when you have big-time name recognition like John Madden or Tiger Woods?
So, yeah, this year’s “Tiger” is a mild improvement over last year’s “Tiger.”
What’s new? Tiger’s real-life coach, Hank Haney, helps you fine-tune your skills with custom drills between rounds; simultaneous online play keeps matches from dragging on too long; The GamerNet feature, which lets you upload your best — or simply weirdest — shots for other players to try to match, has been “enhanced” (i.e., it actually works this year); and you can tune your clubs, which we found to be entirely useless.
But, really, the biggest change may be that the game is a lot easier. That’s because the developers overcompensated for last year’s hyper-sensitive controls, and because Haney’s drills help you max out your abilities post haste.
Still, “Tiger” is as fun and addictive as ever, and with countless hours of play, it’s a darn good value by video game standards — assuming you don’t already own last year’s.
Just check out this story, which says we’ve all had it wrong about our ancient forefathers.
Got this in my inbox:
The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art offers complimentary docent tours every Sunday at 2 p.m. Tours include the permanent collection galleries and the exhibition on view in the changing exhibition galleries. Please meet at the front desk in the Museum Lobby.
The permanent galleries, Artistic Journeys, chronicle the 20th century through the works of Abraham Rattner, Esther Gentle, Allen Leepa and their contemporaries. Rattner was an internationally known figurative expressionist who spent many years in Paris and New York. His work is featured in many museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art and the Vatican.
The interactive gallery, Challenge of Modern Art, is the only one of its kind on the west coast of Florida and showcases the only full scale replica of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, complete with an audio-visual explanation of the piece.
Changing exhibitions hosted at the museum include traveling exhibitions, works from the museum’s collection and student shows.
The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is located just west of U.S. Highway 19 at 600 Klosterman Road, Tarpon Springs on the Tarpon Springs Campus of St Petersburg College. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; evening hours are Thursdays, 5 to 9, and Sunday hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and free to children and students with ID. Sunday admission is free to all and docent tours are offered at 2 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays and major holidays. For information or directions please contact the museum, (727) 712-5762.
You know the drill.
Susan Wiggs new novel, Just Breathe, is released today. Called “a beautiful novel” by no less a personage than Luanne Rice (you can see it right there on the cover), the novel follows Sarah Moon , a successful comic-strip illustrator and the wife of a real estate developer. They have a great life in Chicago until she discovers her husband is having an affair. This forces her to do the whole “confront her past” thing (according to the press release). Expect heart-wrenching insight and a new love interest and perhaps a movie in a year or so starring Richard Gere.
A Catholic priest searches for the truth about Jew killed in the Ukraine during the run up to World War II in The Holocaust of Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews. Father Patrick Dubois details the events surrounding the murders, which he calls the “first mass killings” of the Holocaust. Dubois, using old Nazi and Soviet records, documents the killings, many of which took place in public, not far from the villages where the Jews lived.
Word on the street is that a new sneaker shop opened in Ybor City and a grand opening party is in the works for early September.
In the meantime, let’s make a sneaker stretch.
Considering the Olympics just wrapped up, check out this Nike commercial featuring the U.S. Men’s Basketball team and Marvin Gaye like you’ve never seen.
A reception will be held for “MashUp,” a group exhibition tracing the history of creative destruction (translation: breaking things artistically), Friday at the USF Contemporary Art Museum.
Guest artists include Pedro Reyes — who got folks to break 180 guitars — and Ted Riederer.
Looking to buy local? Check out our local art buying guide.
Kathy Roth-Douquet is a Jew and a liberal. Frank Schaeffer is a Christian and a conservative. Can’t we all just get along? Those two certainly hope so. They have written a book together, How Free People Move Mountains, which seeks to find “common purpose and meaning” between Americans divided by religion, economic status, red and blue states. Their answer, at least in part, is to stop thinking of consumerism as the answer and get back to the basic values that built the country. The devil, as always, will be in the details.
In fiction, Debra Ginsberg — author of Blind Submission — returns with The Grift, a story about a woman who makes money conning people into believing she is a physic suddenly finds herself gifted with the powers she has, for so long, faked.
Also in fiction, Chris Adrian has released a collection of short stories, A Better Angel. Adrian, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hopsital and a student at the Harvard School of Divinity, offers a series of short stories exploring suffering, and how we all deal with it. Adrian’s offbeat stories often involve supernatural encounters, so prepare yourself for that.
If you are staying close to home this Labor Day weekend (and you know you are), why not visit the Gulfport Geckofest as part of your weekend plans.
There’s going to be live music and wandering performers and activities for the kids. Plus, food, drink and “wares” for sale. Plus, a street dance at 8 p.m.
Free parking and free admission.
Need answers to questions like what are short sales, or where is the nearest restaurant that serves pizzas with anchovies? Call or text Chacha, a mobile search service that gets actual people to answer your queries. You can either text them or call them and someone will send you a text message with an answer.
The service is free so try away.
System: Microsoft Xbox 360
Also available for: Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStations 2 & 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS
Publisher: EA Sports
Reviewer’s rating: ***1/2
ESRB rating: Everyone
Game type: Football
Kind of like: Same ole “Madden”
Best feature: Adaptive difficulty level, Randy Moss
Worst feature: No Madden in the booth!
The bottom line: When it comes to a genre-defining game such as “Madden,” it’s easy to understand why developers and publishers are reluctant to mess with a successful formula. “Madden NFL 09,” like every other edition before it, is essentially unchanged, save for a single “improvement” that is heavily marketed.
This year’s game features an adaptive difficulty setting called “My Skill” that adjusts to user tendencies, strengths and weaknesses. Like the box says, “The game adapts to you.” For many players, it will most definitely improve their “Madden” skills. There are hiccups, though, as it takes a few games for the CPU to generate an accurate difficulty setting.
Once it does, though, the game balances itself out quite nicely and becomes one of the better “Madden” experiences in recent memory. If anything, it emphasizes smart play-calling above all else (well, that and proving we’re not as good at “Madden” as we think we are). It just requires a little patience.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference isn’t on the field at all. John Madden, everyone’s favorite commentator of the obvious, has been relegated to mascot status, reduced to explaining the basics of the game on menu screens. Replacing him in the booth is NBC’s Cris Collinsworth, whose polish and insight is downright awesome.
System: Nintendo Wii
Also available for: Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS
Publisher: 2K Sports
Reviewer’s rating: ***
ESRB rating: Everyone
Game type: Sports
Kind of like: Old-school baseball video games.
Best feature: Real-life rosters without the real-life tedium.
Worst feature: Your teammates’ brain-dead base-running can be maddening.
The bottom line: The old-school, arcade-style action of “MLB Power Pros” serves as a refreshing reminder that sports video games’ tireless pursuit of realism is misguided at best. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I don’t really need to sit around while Nomar Garciaparra snaps his wristbands, kicks the dirt, genuflects, adjusts his package and steps meticulously into the batter’s box between each swing.
Here you get actual MLB teams and Mii-like versions of real-world players, but the gameplay never gets bogged down trying to re-create the authentic baseball experience. Instead, it’s fast-paced and fun.
Surprisingly, “Power Pros” doesn’t lean heavily on the gimmicky Wii-mote-as-baseball-bat control scheme. You can swing it in certain modes (such as a home run derby), but most use more traditional controls. And that’s fine with us, since we got bored with “Wii Sports” baseball after a few weeks.
Our favorite mode is MLB Life, in which you create a player and play RPG-style through his entire career, from the draft to retirement. Your first season or two in the big leagues can be excruciating as you try to crack the starting lineup. But once you start getting regular at-bats, the seasons fly by — and for statistics geeks, the stat-tracking is exceptional.
After two minutes with Dubin-born Carly Smithson and I am hooked. She’s older, wiser, more realistic and not as starry-eyed as the other young women on the show. Afterall, she’s been down this road before.
When she was a 15-year-old Carly Hennessy, she and her father went to California seeking a record deal. By age 17, she had a recording deal with MCA Records that included production living expenses, a music video, a mall tour, imaging, and radio promotion. MCA expected bigger things than the 17,000 singles and 378 albums that were sold from her debut album “Ultimate High” (now a collector’s item on E-Bay).
In the years that followed, Carly bounced around the country and changed jobs. She tended bar in Atlanta at an Irish pub called Fado while her husband Todd worked at a tattoo shop. She was working there when Michael Johns used to sing on Thursday nights (as Michael Lee).
She and Todd moved to San Diego where she worked as a pub waitress. They eventually opened the Nothing Sacred Tattoo shop. She auditioned for “Idol” in 2005 and didn’t get on. This time around, she made it to the top 10.
During the basdkstage interview, she said that people have often asked if having so many vivid tattoos might have hurt her changes with mainstream American viewers. “I don’t know,” she says. “I will never know. But if that was a reason for someone not voting for me then I don’t want their vote anyway. This is who I am. I love tattoos.”
She plans on getting more. “I want roses on my chest,” she says, noting that she is having a “hideous cross” removed from her back. “I got it when I was 18 and it was my first,” she says. “No one should get a tattoo until age 25 because at age 18 you don’t know what you want.”
Carly says she’s heard from Ann Wilson of Heart. “She left a message that she’s been watching me on YouTube and she loves what I do with ‘Crazy For You’,” she says. “I got to met the man who write ‘I Drove All Night’ and he wants a meeting when the tour is over.”
Plans are to head to LA and make a rock album. She is not in a rush. “I want to take my time and get it right, put my heart and soul in it.”
During a chat with Aussie Michael Johns backstage in Tampa, he talked about the impromptu “dance-offs” with David Cook that have become an unplanned part of the tour:
“When we all do ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ during the finale, we do a little thing. We’re not dancers, but doing the same thing every night on this tour gets monotonous, so me and Dave just evolved this thing - and everyone just kinda goes crazy.
“We’ve got this little 5 to 10 second bit where we come up with different dance moves. Sometimes it The Robot thing and the other night we went really crazy and had umbrellas tossed up to us and we did this whole Gene Kelly “Singin’ in the Rain’ bit. And what was really crazy was that the next day we found out it was the anniversary of him doing that.”
He said the dancing started during rehearsals and sound checks at the end of the day “when everyone is tired and kind of loopy.” By the time the tour hit Fresno, Cook and Johns decided to throw their dance-off into the finale.
“It’s gotten to be really big with fans, especially on the Internet. And they (tour producers) stopped us from doing it for a couple of nights because they thought it was getting out of hand. So we didn’t do it and the Internet went crazy and the fans cried foul. And then they said ‘OK you can do it again’ and we’re back.”
Michael Johns David Cook Dance Off Video
At every stop on the American Idols Live tour, the Idols do meet and greets with the fans, usually at around 2 p.m. outside the venue. One by one, they come out and work the crowd, signing autographs and posing for snapshots. Not every one of them makes it out. But usually there’s a good showing.
Then at 3 p.m. at every stop, some of the Idols gather for a series of media interviews backstage. On Thursday afternoon, I was among the handful of media chatting it up with the Idols.
Ramiele Malubay bounced up first. She is really short, really cute. She is 21 and looks 14. During the tour she has been the second act, singing three songs from the past “Idol” season. The reviews have been mixed.
She recalls going to Zephyhills High School (her family moved around a lot) and performing at the annual Filipino festival here. “I hated to miss it this year but I was on ‘Idol’ and I was voted off that week so I had to go to New York and do interviews. So maybe next spring I will be back in Tampa to perform there again. I did it for years,” she says.
She says the tour has helped her mature as an artist. “I have learned how to move on stage. On ‘Idol” I never moved. I was so afraid of the stage on the show and when the tour started. This stage is humongous. But doing the show so many times and doing the choreography that I was given - and I’m in heels - I have gotten over that and I have become more polished.”
After the tour? “I have been trying to get in touch with Disney,” she says. “I want o to get a meeting with them and see what happens. Because I look so young I think that I would like to do something with family or children’s entertainment.”
She says she is living in Newport Beach, Calif. with pal Danny Noriega and his family. Noriega is the freaky “Idol “ contestant who was voted off early after an video surfaced of him ranting against Christmas. But there is no romance going on. “He’s such a character, like, he’s totally a woman, so no, we’re just best friends,” she says.
Ramiele Malubay of Miramar, Fla., performs in the American Idol Tour finale at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla
Ramiele Malubay of Miramar, Fla., performs in the American Idol Tour finale at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla
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