Tampa Bay

By Juron Traill

TAMPA – Global songstress Alicia Keys returned to Tampa on Sept. 18 for an intimate concert from her Alicia + Keys World Tour to support her new albums.

The 15-time GRAMMY winner opened the show in a bedazzled jumpsuit hugged by a trench coat, strutting into “Nat King Cole” accompanied by crooning strings and heavy bass, as if she’s some type of spy sneaking in for her audience. She belted notes that were sure to shake up the walls of the Seminole Hard Rock Casino.

Occasional listeners might have expected Keys to be dropping ballads throughout the night with her fingers on the ivories but she surpassed expectations. She dropped reggae-tinged tunes like “Wasted Energy”, played gospel collaborations like “Nobody” and danced afrobeat to “In Common.” Her album “ALICIA” was released in September 2020 after many setbacks due to COVID-19 and her latest “KEYS” dropped in December 2021.

“I bought the tickets around three months ago and I want more songs from the ‘KEYS’ album,” said 34-year-old fan Tony Johnson.

Keys sang every new song from her album with lyrical emotions and heavy sonics of the instrumentals which never gave a dull feeling to anyone in the crowd because she eventually transitioned to the big hits that we’ve known her for. She occasionally engaged the audience to keep them curious and even choose which records they liked better.

“I’ve been following her since the Paris tour in Europe and I’ve been to more than 10 shows,” said 24-year-old French nurse Kandia Wague. “I’ve been booking Airbnbs and she’s seen me several times in the crowd.”

It was a special moment for many fans who even left their hometowns just to see Keys perform. Her tour started in June with the European leg kicking off with bigger arenas. She dimmed the audience size for her North American leg that began mid-August.

Tampa was no exception to the smaller size and that evidently created missing tour props. Compared to her arena tours in Europe, her stage was smaller in Tampa which didn’t give her much room to walk, especially around her grey piano. She still embraced the venue’s limitations as much as she could with her 4-piece band in the back.

Keys had a busy weekend in Florida where she played two days consecutively in Hollywood and Orlando before her Tampa show. Most likely tired, it caused her to skip several songs on the setlist including “Time Machine”, “So Done”, “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” and more. She didn’t give an encore at the end even after the crowd was yelling for her.

Despite the venue’s limited scale for an artist as renowned as Keys, she still showcased why she’s one of the world’s greatest virtuosos in the music industry and Tampa proudly welcomed her back.

Social media specialist Brooke Nolan often uses Lily Bella the Shih-Tzu as inspiration for advertising content.

By Mikayla Lewis

PALM HARBOR, FL – While seated at her desk enjoying her boost of morning caffeine, Brooke Nolan is greeted by a small, fluffy thing: Lily Bella. The elderly Shih-Tzu fueled the inspiration for a day’s worth of social media posts at Traffic Advertising.

Nolan, 22, spends most of her day glued to a bright red iPad, producing social media content for over 13 car dealerships in Florida. She’s been with the company for about a year, continually growing in her own craft and expanding her horizons within the companies she works for.

“Traffic Advertising is a full-service marketing and advertising agency in Palm Harbor, providing clients with a range of services including traditional media buying (such as radio and print), social media marketing, digital marketing, and more. We have clients throughout the country ranging from automotive to hospitality,” said Shana Moran, the digital director at Traffic Advertising.

Nolan starts off the day like most by checking her social media accounts; only, she does this pretty much all day. It sounds like a Gen-Z dream to spend all day browsing Instagram and Facebook, but Nolan puts more effort into the posts she makes than the casual food pictures and filter-ridden selfies that saturate social media platforms.

Nolan has gained a reputation in her office for finding opportunities in the mundane, or areas one might not normally explore.

“I look for inspiration all around me. From national days to other brands’ content, to even music. It’s all about trusting the process,” Nolan said.

Nolan used Lily Bella as her inspiration for a stream of Instagram story posts on Traffic Advertising’s account, serving as an example of how Nolan utilizes her surroundings to create interesting content.

A lot of Nolan’s posts revolve around relevancy to months or seasons, holidays, current events or trends by creating eye-grabbing visuals. She most often uses Canva to create Instagram and Facebook content – the company currently only works through these two social media platforms, and soon, they will expand to Twitter.

There was a clear shift in content when Nolan started at Traffic Advertising – she goes the extra mile to create interactive content.

“A lot of content creators in the scene have stuck to the old ways, from advertisement strategies, to not putting effort into social media,” Nolan said. “And I came from a background in film and music. Plus, I’m a lot younger for my role, and that allows me to put my own twist on it.”

She brings a creative outlook to the company through her background working in the arts. The current idea she is working on is an adoption event at Volkswagen Wesley Chapel, which only opened a year ago. May is national pet month, making a pet-related event relevant, especially because it’s for a good cause. She plans on using organic posts to boost the event, as well as creating an Instagram filter and reaching out to local animal shelters to collaborate.

Nolan has put time and effort into curating posts for their clients and has had success in promoting and covering events before.

“My most successful post would have to be a family Halloween event I photographed at Hyundai New Port Richey,” Nolan said. “It got a few thousand impressions organically. I also got to see how impactful events are on the community.”

While Nolan is the creative mind behind Traffic Advertising’s content, Dan Consoli acts as a curator of sorts. Consoli is the social media manager and oversees the content before it is put out. He is a first-time social media manager but has worked with social media at other jobs in the past. He works with the budget and manages all social media content before they are posted to clients’ pages.

“My favorite part of my job is creating a well-performing ad with the ever-changing landscape of Facebook Ads Manager,” Consoli. “With Facebook’s updates that seem to come out of nowhere constantly messing with your ads, it feels nice to be up to speed and use those changes to optimize my ads rather than fall prey to them.”

Consoli has also found success in advertising events with Nolan. Together, they created a buy-back event in March for a client.

“It maintained one of the lowest cost-per-result and highest messaging rates that this company has seen in the last few months,” Consoli said.

The social media team at Traffic Advertising composed of Nolan and Consoli reflects the significance of successful advertising and event planning and execution through social media. Creating interactive, eye-grabbing and relevant content is a key component in sales success within an ever-changing, technologically evolved society. As trends ebb and flow, advertisers have to stay on their toes.

How borrowing a pair of swim trunks and trying to win back your girlfriend can land you on the front page of The New York Times.

By Sierra Laico

SARASOTA—As he flips through pages of notes, types away on his computer, and scrolls through his phone searching for the right contacts, freelance journalist Isaac Eger forages for his next story.

Being a freelance journalist does not offer a typical day-to-day routine, so shadowing one on any given day may not give you the riveting reporter story you would hope for. But Eger enjoys the creative freedom that working freelance provides. As someone who makes a living from writing articles—he has quite an abnormal view of writing.

“My day consists of lots of phone calls, lots of emails. Like, reaching out to potential subjects. I’d say that there’s a lot less writing than there is anything. I find writing to be incredibly painful—it’s probably my least favorite part of the job, actually,” he said.

Eger did not plan on becoming a journalist. Shortly after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history from Reed College, Eger says he stumbled upon journalism under extraordinary circumstances. While on his first trip to New York, Eger met Joe Sexton, who was the editor of the sports page of The New York Times, by borrowing his swim trunks. About a year after graduating college and going through a breakup with his girlfriend who told him he was not ambitious enough, Eger set his sights on sports writing.

“To prove to her I was ambitious I was like, ‘I’m going to become a sportswriter,’ because I enjoyed writing and talking about sports. So that’s when I reached out to Joe Sexton, I said ‘Hey, remember me? I borrowed your swim trunks, I’m going to move to New York to become a writer.’ I asked him if he had any advice or anything I could do for him, and he said ‘Come to New York, settle down for a little while, and then we can talk,'” he said.

Eger spent the first month in New York playing basketball around the city, and by the time he met with Sexton, Sexton wanted to hear his basketball tales. After telling him stories, Sexton told him to write them down, which Eger did. After receiving some edits from Sexton, Eger got a call a week later from Sexton telling him to buy a copy of The New York Times—and Eger’s story was on the front page.

“It was funny, I couldn’t really appreciate what had happened because all I wanted to do was win back my girlfriend,” he said.

Eger has since narrowed his journalism to a more local lens, and for the past few years has been writing for Sarasota Magazine. His passion for local journalism runs in the family, as his mother worked as editor-in-chief of the magazine from 2018 to 2022. Eger says he enjoys working for the magazine because of the personal relationships he has made there and the trust the magazine has in his writing. This has allowed him to take on stories that would otherwise be a tough sell for other publications, such as a recent story he wrote about the September 11th terrorist attacks and its connection to Sarasota—which is where former President George W. Bush was at the time.

Along with the story connecting 9/11 to local roots, Eger has developed a beat writing about environmental issues affecting Florida as well as beach privatization along Florida’s coasts, one of which won multiple local awards, in addition to the national Folio Eddie award in the category of “Single Article, City & Region, Overall” at the prestigious Eddie & Ozzie Awards.

As for his stories about environmental issues affecting Florida, late last year subsequent to the infamous Gabby Petitio disappearance, Eger wrote a story about how the manhunt for Brian Laundrie devastated Venice’s Carlton Reserve.

“Petito and her family are the victims of this sad story, but so is the Carlton Reserve. The depiction of Florida as a wild and untamable landscape couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Eger wrote. “The last slivers of untouched Florida exist only as archipelagos between sprawling sub-developments. Florida does not need to be tamed. Rather, it is in desperate need of re-wilding. If we continue to think of Florida as a hellhole, it’s easier for developers to convince us to pave over it.”

Eger also has a newsletter called “Apocalypse Florida,” where he writes stories about “Florida and the end of the world.” The newsletter, which you can receive for free or by paying a small optional fee, features stories about politics, culture, the environment, and other topics—most of which find roots in Florida.

What could be next for Eger? Eger says he is “going with the flow,” but has a lot of projects in mind, including two book ideas—one about basketball and Buddhism, and the other about Florida—which he eventually wants to walk the entire coast of to continue his research on beach privatization within the state.

By Autumn Reinhardt

With weather predictions of rain and wind, many still showed up to Showtime Speedway to watch the races.

The rain didn’t stop racers and spectators from participating on Saturday night, Feb. 5, 2022, for drag racing and drifting at Showtime Speedway in Clearwater. The event, Street Wars, allows for everyday speed cars such as the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Charger and even a Jeep Trackhawk to show off their skills and race to the finish.

Even with the weather predictions, around 600 people showed and around 300 people stayed and watched the races in the rain.

Drag racing and drifting began around 8 p.m. and ran side by side until the rain began. For safety reasons with the weather, drag racing was shut down around 9 p.m., but drifting continued throughout the night.

“I’ve been here for nine years and I enjoy racing. There are a lot of good people out here. We don’t see many serious wrecks,” said Rick Wendling, a paramedic at Showtime.

Many safety measures are taken for drivers including seatbelts, helmets, fire suits and roll cages

“We’re motorsports rescue certified, which covers the NHRA,” Wendling said.

The track enforces the equipment to be up to code, or the drivers will not earn points or payout and will be disqualified, according to Showtime.

The NHRA was founded in 1951 by Wally Parks. Parks’ goal was to “provide competitors a place to race,” according to the NHRA. Drag racing has evolved over the years; top performers ran at 140 mph in 9.0 seconds in the 1950s and now run over 330 mph in less than 3.7 seconds.

Showtime, a member of the NHRA and formerly known as Sunshine Speedway, opened its doors in 1960, just nine years after the NHRA was established. Generations of families have been racing here for years.

“My parents met at Showtime and have been together ever since. I grew up coming here a lot and it caused me to start racing too. I started in junior dragsters when I was 10, then I moved to big cars when I turned 16. My car is a full chassis roll cage car with a 302 small block,” Jamie Brannen a local drag racer, said.

Showtime has continued to entertain the community for years with races and events almost every weekend of each month. For more information and a schedule of events visit ShowtimeSpeedway.us.

By Kassandra Vargas

Florida’s first 2D restaurant has opened in Orlando, and more are opening across the state.

A 2D restaurant is a restaurant that is decorated with black and white decor to give the illusion and experience that customers are entering a book, cartoon or doodle.

A 2D restaurant was featured in Netflix’s “To All the Boys: Always And Forever In Real Life” at a cafe in South Korea known as Greem Cafe. 2D restaurants are common in Asian countries and those designs have inspired the trend to come to America.

Twenty Pho Hour in Orlando is America’s first 2D noodle bar and the menu offers a variety of items from egg rolls, dumplings, boba, noodles and much more. The cafe has gone viral on TikTok and has sparked an interest to many across the state.

“I saw the video and I was like oh I might need to go check that out,” Miles Franklin said.

The noodle bar is on International Drive near many tourist attractions in town. Since the viral success, the restaurant usually has a wait, but takeout options are also available.

The restaurant has tablets inside to place your order and the food comes out as soon as it’s ready. Indoor and outdoor seating options are available, and the restaurant is open every day of the week.

St. Petersburg is dipping into the 2D experience in a couple of weeks with the opening of the 2D Cafe. The cafe is going to be in the former Swah-Rey location on Central Avenue and provides a similar experience.

The @the2Dcafe on Instagram has provided a sneak peek to their followers on the design process of the establishment. Menu items that you can expect are coffee, pastries, croissants and more. The cafe expects to open in late February or early March.

As more 2D restaurants open across the state, they will provide a unique and Instagram-worthy experience to customers who visit.

By Julia Lorelli

TAMPA – Many people in the Tampa Bay area use Riverhills Park as a peaceful escape. The 10-acre park offers an array of different amenities. Then in 2012, a few eager community members put their minds together for a solution in sustainability by founding the Temple Terrace Community Garden.

The main founders and leaders are Elizabeth Leib, Travis Mallory, Grant Rimbey and Steve McBride. Quickly joined by others who were anxious to start gardening, their dreams began to bloom.

The members put their own money into the project and wrote a few small grants for tools and supplies. Tapping into local resources, they were able to get soil and compost for free, “well if you don’t count the sweat equity they put into getting it,” said Cheri Donohue, a loyal member since the start.

The City of Temple Terrace gave them the rights to garden the plot at Riverhills Park. The community garden had to invest in the plumbing and pays for all the water used.

Tools, compost and advice for gardening are also readily available for all. From green thumbs to green heads of cabbage, this community garden is equipped with all the necessities for success.

“This is a wonderful place for new gardeners to begin,” said MaryRose, one garden member who swears she beat cancer from the power of plants.

The garden is accessible through a yearly membership of $10 with garden beds available for $35.

Fruit trees surround the perimeter of the garden so most members grow seasonal vegetables. Occasionally a newsletter is sent by the club coordinator to encourage members with tips and tricks for harvesting, what vegetables to plant during each season, natural pest control and volunteer opportunities.

“I am still in love with the idea of neighbors coming together to grow not only healthy food but to pass on their knowledge about best garden practices,” Donohue said.

To learn more information about the community garden visit the Tempe Terrace Community Gardens website or email Shelby Alinsky at sdalinsky813@gmail.com.