Tampa Street Market at Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay

Love this photo from Clark at the Loafies

[Charles] We purposefully avoided campaigning this year for BOTB for lots of reasons but when I got in today, I had to know the outcome. I'm curious right? Well apparently we got the most votes for eco-friendly store but they didn't give us the award because we are closed. Fair enough. Actually it's really cool that they even mentioned us because they didn't have to. I kind of always felt like we operated our little corner of the world in the shadow of much more interesting developments as far as the published world of Tampa was concerned. So much to my surprise, as I'm reading along the rest of the winners and newsmakers, I come across a little note titled "Saddest Loss to Seminole Heights". I almost went right past it before I saw "Tampa Street Market". Then I read on, and it was good, really good. It was like they finally got it. Not cheesy and they actually even mentioned our little blog. All I can say is thanks. It really does mean a lot to us. Oh yeah and I've always wanted to say this - "They like us, they really like us!?"

The text here:

Tampa Street Market owners Amy and Charles Haynie embody the best
qualities of Seminole Heights: They look to the future while
respecting the past; they have an eye for cool trends without
compromising warmth and rustic comfort; they give back to their ‘hood
and to the planet with salvaged and refurbished furniture painted with
low VOC paints or pieces built from salvaged and sustainable
materials. Their furniture and gift store at Florida and Osborne
specialized in eco-friendly, fair trade and local products, and was
open for 3 1/2 years with a brief hiatus in 2008, and, sadly, closed
at the end of last month. But examples of the Haynies’ work live on in
the community, including metal tabletops and fixtures at Ella’s Folk
Art Cafe and a bench featured in a 2008 exhibition at the Tampa Museum
of Art. And the couple maintain a cool, artsy-community-minded blog at
tampastreetmarket.blogspot.com.

Who should host this year's Loafies? - Clark J. Brooks

[Charles] So I missed the start of the voting for Best of the Bay last week and I feel a little behind. It will take me a few days to finish generating 700 fake email addresses to win Best Eco Friendly Store this year. You fine folks could save me the trouble and just head over there and vote for us, wink wink, nudge nudge. No pressure.

I don't want to talk about that yet though, just think about it while I stump for something real important.

On one of the forms as I was reading through the same old hashed over boring categories like Best Politician (as if that were possible) and Best Dry Cleaner ( like we can afford dry cleaning this year) and I came across one that caught my attention...

Who should host this year's Loafies? - Clark J. Brooks

Having just read Clark's fantastic call to action to help him destroy the competition and recalling that slightly awkward photo of him towering over Rebekah Pulley from last year's party I thought to myself, self, why not have Clark host it? Of course! Brilliant! If he loses his category, not only will he have to announce his crushing defeat himself with thousands watching around the globe, he'll have to do it with the witty style and grace we've come to love from him! I decided to rush over to my tiny little blog and do exactly what busy body people with boring lunch breaks and internet access must do at times like this and rush to his aid! (I promise to stop with the exclamation points soon!)

So here goes... Clark J. Brooks for Host of the Loafies!!!!!! Yep, I said it. Get him on the ballot folks. I won't be happy to see him simply crush that Durkin Robinson woman in the best blog category or to rocket to the top of the most Tweetalicious Guy in Town, no as his great uncle Meatloaf might say we want him, we need him to lead us at the Loafies. If you haven't read his blog lately then you have no idea how funny, endearing, and creative this guy is. Please don't put some useless Florida weatherman or laid-off sports hack up there... let's see one of our own. Somebody with a crappy car, a wonky computer, a ridiculous job, and the amazing ability to make life entertaining and a little brighter for those of us slogging along right next to him in line. Here's to a blogger who is happy to video himself making corn dogs at the state fair or even to plunge into his own bouts with the Big D. Thanks Clark and Good Luck!!! (consider that my endorsement)

CL Tampa Green Issue Out Today

[Charles] Big shout to Tampa's Green Community writer at Creative Loafing - Katie Machol! Instead of the same old list of green ideas that most papers haul out every year, she went to the people and asked for their ideas. Large or small, actually "preferably small" she told me. The idea was to give people things they can easily do to keep moving forward and improving our world.

Not everybody is going to take to the seas ramming whaling ships or scaling bridges for Greenpeace. Most of us have enough on our plate with work, kids, friends, family, and life in general that changing a light bulb is actually a victory worth celebrating. If everybody took a few of these ideas in the article home, the impact would be huge!

I offered that I'd like to see more cool bike racks like NYC's David Byrne designs and more bike lanes to downtown. While we're at it, let's bring back the electric taxis. There were other simpler ideas like to make sun tea or to stop idling in the drive thru that make it really easy to change.

Here's the link to the post on CL's site. While you're there, you might check out the site for more ideas that didn't make the print version but are still worth considering.

http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=1060957

-Photos from Creative Loafing's Flickr page-

Creative Loafing's Green 100

We made the list! Creative Loafing's Green 100 of Tampa Bay. A picture of our small black shutter cabinet is on the site! Here is the write-up:

Tampa Street Market. Amy and Charles Haynie run this store in Seminole Heights, which sells salvaged finds, recycled goods and other utilitarian green product, as well as artistic, original-design tables and benches. The shop's motto is "Rethink. Recycle. Rebuild." Their website has a blog about green ideas and goings-on.