Bloodsuckers, artists and Jackie Warner (maybe)

First zombies, now vampires. Tampa Bay has a major undead fetish.  With the release of Stephenie Meyer's new book, Breaking Dawn, bookstores are doing midnight release parties for the final installment in the teenage vampire drama (taking overdramatic vampires and mixing it with overemotional teens is a recipe for success). I'm really surprised that the Castle didn't get in on this craziness.

Out of all the events, I'd recommend the one Friday (8/1) at Little Bookworms in Bradenton. No, not just because it's a non-chain bookstore, but because no one can resist a bloodsuckers prom. It'll have costumes and dancing with a contest to be a wedding coordinator for one of the main characters. If only this was around when I was a teen; I'd so be there (my inner goth kid is already planning an outfit). Considering this is a teen-oriented event, though, there better not be any scantily clad vampire girls. Save those costumes for the flesh-eating zombie nights. Makes me wonder who would win in a fight between a zombie and vampire.  C'mon, Tampa Bay, time to set up a zombie vs. vampire smackdown! My money's on the zombie.

If you need a little sunlight this weekend, Ybor is putting on an Artwalk on Saturday (8/2) through all of its galleries. And it's free! If you only have time to check out one, I'd recommend the Ritz. They're hosting the Square One Rocks! Art Exhibit, which is playing host to a whole bunch of talented and unique artists. Square One never disappoints.

If you feel like hanging out in Ybor a little later, you can catch Jackie Warner at the Honey Pot on Saturday. Or so they say. After she bailed last time because of her dog, I'm kind of wary to say she'll be there for sure. Who knows? She might break a nail and have to cancel again. Don't neglect your fans, Jackie. Show up.

The Vampire Ball is going at Little Bookworms, 8111 Lakewood Main Street, Bradenton, Friday at 10 p.m. If you haven't pre-ordered the book there, you can't get in. This event will definitely have some teens at it so be on your best behavior. Save the drunken partying for later.

The Square One Rocks! Art Exhibit is at the Ritz, 1503 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City, on Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. This is just one of the many places to hit up in the Artwalk so don't forget to pick up a pamphlet and check out a couple. Bring some water and an umbrella.

Jackie Warner will be at the Honey Pot, 1507 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City, Saturday at 10 p.m. probably. Even without her, the Honey Pot will be crazy so go check it out anyway. 

The St. Pete Times has a punk rock side

You might not know it from all this serious stuff that we publish all the time, but the Times has not one but two bands that like to get their rock on in intermittent gigs on both sides of the bay. We got this press release from SSBF member Emily Nipps (a Tampa reporter in her day job), about an upcoming appearance at the Emerald. Since she's the journalist, we'll let her pitch straight to you:

After a two-month mental health break following the Great Feather Boa Disaster of '08 , SUPER SECRET BEST FRIENDS are back in action, and what better way to  dive face first  into the new era than to team up with everyone's favorite Times boy band THE UNITARDS and rockin' St. Pete madmen THE SEMIS!!! IN ST. PETERSBURG!!!! ON FIRST FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Aug. 1 , come to the EMERALD BAR at 550 Central Ave. in St. Pete around 10:30ish, when the Unitards will warm your earbones with old favorites like KATIE DUFRAINE and new releases like ONLY A**HOLES DRIVE HUMMERS , as well as Eddie "Mundo" Fountain's crowd-pleasing SOUTH TAMPA NIGHTMARE, plus much, much more! 

Next up, SSBF will proceed to bring sexy back with a super secret remix of WHO LET THE CATS OUT , a special cover of The Clash's 1-2 CRUSH ON YOU and the brand spankin' new "coveriginal" BEAR CITY, plus the usual hijinx, pop culture references and general shenanigans that you've come to know and love us for.

Finally, stick around for The Semis, as these guys have mad talent and really catchy songs, including ASIAN GIRLS and PRIMITIVE MIND. Frontman Billy's ability to blow your mind with his hot guitar moves after his ninth shot of Jack Daniels is a sight to behold, plus Matt the Bass Player made us this high-tech girly video to play during the SSBF set, which was soooo sweet of him.

And if that's STILL not enough to make you want to cough up the $3 cover , we've also heard rumors that BIKEGREEN.INFO will be there, collecting your busted-up bikes and passing out FREE ALTOIDS and BUMPER STICKERS !

DON'T GET STUCK AT THE TRAIN STATION WITH YOUR PANTS DOWN, PEOPLE!!!!! COME TO THE EMERALD AT 10:30 P.M. THIS FRIDAY!!

Want a little Mayhem?

Here's the lowdown for all you metal heads. I've been given two tickets to Mayhem Fest at the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa on Tuesday (7/29) by my hookups in tbt*, and I feel I should share the metal goodness with you all! They're pretty good seats (Section 8, Row C, seats 31 and 32 to be exact) and they come with a VIP parking pass.

The concert features Slipknot, Disturbed, Dragonforce, Mastodon and countless other fist-raising bands. With three stages of good metal, surely you can find a band you enjoy (unless your iPod is full of Miley Cyrus). And be sure to bring a wad of cash to buy some sweet hydration through the day. You'll need it.

The concert starts at 2 p.m. but considering the number of bands, showing up late won't mean missing out on too much. If you want the tickets, be the first person to call me and and pick up the tickets. It beats spending another evening trying to master Through the Fire and the Flames on Guitar Hero III

Congratulations to Amy from Brandon on winning the tickets. Make sure rock out and pump your fists tomorrow!

Theater of the living dead

I don't know what the new fascination with zombies in Tampa Bay is all about, but I like it. There's just something very intriguing about every day citizens tearing up their clothes and making up their faces with decaying skin and dried blood (it's sexy, in a creepy way). It was only a matter of time before the zombie craze hit St. Pete Beach Theater's Interchangeable Parts (the ones responsible for the weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show events) and they decided to have a zombie bikini beach party. If you have any interest in the undead and you weren't there on Saturday (7.26), you missed out some mass hysteria. Lucky for you though, you can experience the event vicariously through some of the gruesome photos I took.

Who better to buy your popcorn and beer from, than Sean Sweeney dressed up as Shaun of the Dead? I just wished that he had brought some records with him to throw at the patrons!

Considering an undead version of Rocky Horror Picture Show was shown that night as well, it only makes sense that Natasha Shevchenko dressed as a zombie Columbia. Surprisingly enough, she wasn't in the cast. She's just that awesome.

I can handle Vudu Doll as a zombie octopus but Cash-Man as an undead hot dog creeps me out. I mean not only is it a zombie, but it's a zombie made of parts unknown! That would've been the scariest thing of the night had I not seen this...

Seriously, this chills me to my bones. I got to hand it to John "Cookie" Kochen though, because he didn't run off screaming like a small child when Carlos Burgos ran at him. It may not look scary from the still but just wait until you see it in motion (Thanks Vudu Doll and Cash-Man for the killer video).

Just like anyone though, Carlos only has one thing on the mind. Brains. That's why he's pointing at Natalie Grist's sticker. What else could he be thinking of?

If you want to see some more blood-curdling pics of the night and the crazy people that went (including an all-zombie rock band!), check here. Also, If you haven't had a chance to check out Rocky at the Beach Theater, It's definitely worth planning on doing that for a Saturday night. It's not always zombies but it's always crazy and offensive. You can check out a previous write-up about it here.

A little restaurant messiness

Usually we leave the restaurant criticism to our esteemed colleague at Mouth of Tampa Bay. But this just struck as a disheartening statement about the state of help in our favorite dining spots these days.

Has this ever happened to you?:

You're waiting for a table in a restaurant. There's not really a waiting area, so you squeeze in near the entrance near the hostess. And then you see a group leave the table right in front of you. The hostess slowly, ever so slowly realizes that a table is open, and moves to clean the table by ... shaking off crumbs and chunks of food off the tablecloth and onto the floor ... where they remain, waiting to be squished underfoot by an unsuspecting diner (not you, because you can see this Tampa Bay don't happening and have demanded a different table).  It is then, and only then, that you notice that there are food chunks on the carpet near the door, a napkin carelessly tossed that didn't make the trashcan by the bus table and various other signs of a restaurant in serious need of a Gordon Ramsay kick-butt moment. 

Do you speak up and risk a blank stare? Or just  scratch that one off your list?

Sigh. Doesn't anyone know how to use a broom anymore?

-- Anne Glover,  former mall janitor and sweeping expert

Mixing flappers with hipsters

The Wear to the Tear's vintage fashion show at the Kennedy in Tampa had enough glitz and glamor to make my head spin. Combine that with all the millions of sequins my camera flash bounced off of and you have a wild night that seriously called for aspirin.

One word describes Juliana Cole: fierce! She had the guys picking up their jaws from the floor. I saw one girl hit her boyfriend for staring a little too long. With the way Juliana was dancing though, I don't think he could help it.

What do you get when you combine chess and the beach? The answer is worn beautifully by Elli-J and would make Garry Kasparov drool.

The models were rocking the floor so much, I'll forgive that so many of them wore the over-sized indie shades. Carrie O'Keefe looked particularly chic with the glasses and somehow managed to make her way through the club without tripping over something.

Even the water was hip here! By the end of the night, this was by far the most popular drink in the club, with everyone dripping sweat from dancing to electro. It definitely beats holding on to that Zephyrhills water bottle. If you want to see some more crazy pics from the vintage fashion extravaganza, check here.

Pass the popcorn for some B-movies

The big movie hit of the summer, The Dark Knight, is out and by all accounts awesome. So check that off your list. Now on to some totally cool, classic B-movies.

Starting Thursday (7/24), Studio@620 in St. Pete is putting on their Summer Camp. Emphasis on "camp". They'll be showing some of the all-time great B-movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space, A Bucket of Blood, Mothra vs. Godzilla and a slew of other films that would make Bruce Campbell proud. They'll also do re-enactments from Hairspray (the good one by John Waters, not the new travesty starring Mr. Scientology) on Thursday and a fashion show on Saturday between films. They promise to have some other spectacles throughout the festival so it's well worth it to pay the $5.99, which covers all the movies. I'm hoping there will be some MST3K action as well so I can break out my Tom Servo.

Too tame? Then check out the Beach Theatre in St. Pete Beach. Mix in a love of human flesh with a need to catch some waves and you have the Zombie Beach Night. If you go, let loose and dress the part. Interchangeable Parts (the people putting on the event and acting it out) tends to get a little crazy with anyone the least bit apprehensive. Plus, they're showing Return of the Living Dead, the absolutely horrid second sequel to Night of the Living Dead. (The first is Dawn of the Dead, and if you want to learn how one movie got two sequels, check here.) They're showing Rocky Horror Picture Show right afterward, so get ready for a whole night of cult classics.

Summer Camp at the Studio@620, 620 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg, starts at 7 p.m. Thursday and goes until Saturday night. It costs $1.99 for each movie but given the quality of what they're showing, I'd go for the $5.99, which will get you into all the movies. For a detailed list of what they're showing and when, check here

The Zombie Beach Night at the Beach Theatre, 315 Corey Ave., St. Pete Beach, starts at 10 p.m. Saturday and costs $5 to see Return of the Living Dead or Rocky Horror Picture Show or $8 to see both. I recommend showing up 30 minutes early. Don't want to miss the antics at an Interchangeable Parts show.

A fashion blow-out and kink in St. Pete

It's official. Art Pool is the new place to see and be seen in St. Pete. I felt like I was at the opening for a new Versace line instead standing outside a small art studio in St. Pete on Saturday (7.19.08). The TRA'shion Fashion show was the biggest party Art Pool has had thus far. People were packed into the small building, eager for a look at the clothing that was being modeled on the small runway inside (which in reality was two strips of tape and a couple of X's).

The party got so busy that they decided to extend the runway outside so the models walked down the sidewalk and around the building. Good thinking, considering there could've been a riot had they not. I'm going to guess that Marina Williams wasn't expecting the amount of people that came ot the show, but I've got to hand it to her and the crew at Art Pool because they handled it well and with grace. Near the end, though, the cops came and started to clear people out off the sidewalks because the Rays games was letting out nearby. Any fashion show that has to get broken up by the cops is a definite must-see in my book. The outfits were absolutely gorgeous, and if you want to check some of them out, go here.

After making a speedy getaway from cops, I decided to head over to the Garage to check out the Shocked! event and get a little risque. I had heard numerous things about what was going on there -- from a saucy burlesque show to dancers on poles -- but everything I had heard wasn't happening. The event was more a BDSM-oriented,  with girls and guys in leather while heavy industrial played in the background. Definitely not a bad thing, but not a place to take your prude girlfriend or anyone with a heart condition. It was a deliciously wicked place to be, though, with dark lighting and heavy bass accentuating the already evil-feeling atmosphere. With events like these, it's very easy for people to be put in a wrong sort of light, so a lot of discretion is needed. The sponsor, Stefanie, was able to provide just that (so well, in fact, that I had to assure her many times that I wouldn't take photos of people without permission). She did a great job looking out for her guests and I have to respect that. Overall, the event was interesting, to say the least, and the band, The Future Process, put on a really good live industrial show and that's not easy to do considering most live industrial bands end up looking like Trent Reznor wannabes. It's apparently going to be turning into a regular event occurring the third Saturday of every month. When it comes around again, I recommend checking it out. If nothing else, the bartenders are the same and you'll get some live entertainment by watching either a band or various utilizations of whips and chains. I recommend the latter! If you want to see some of the pictures (don't worry, they're all safe for work!) check here.

Flugtag takes off

UPDATE:  Tampa Baywatch, a homegrown team of old friends, beat out 35 other teams today to win a wacky competition that sent a menagerie of people and flying machines plunging into the Hillsborough River.

The key for the champions of the Flugtag competition: on a day when nearly all "flights" turned into nose dives, Baywatch's handglider traveled some 100 feet. Pilot Keith Humphrey even worried for a moment that he might crash into one of the hundreds of boats crowded outside the landing zone.

The three-hour competition, sponsored by the Red Bull energy drink company, lured more than 35,000 spectators to pack the grounds of the Tampa Convention center, filling every downtown parking garage. They hooted and howled as teams danced, then pushed their craft off the end of a 30-foot tall ramp.

Into the drink fell giant versions of cowboy boots, Cuban sandwiches, a rubber duckie and a silver minaret with wings that flapped and dancing Trojans.

Baywatch won because of its flight, but also thanks to the dance routine, featuring red lifeguard buoys, said auto racer Scott Speed, one of the judges.

"It's more about the style," he said.

-- Bill Coats, Times Staff Writer

************************************************************************************************************************

More than 35,000 people have gathered at the Tampa Convention Center, on land and in hundreds of boats, to watch the Red Bull Flugtag competition.

Times reporter Bill Coats says the 23rd of 36 teams is about to go in the water. The vast majority of the aircraft have taken nosedives off the end of the ramp, but everybody survived unscathed.

With thousands of people converging on downtown Tampa, traffic is congested and parking lots are full. The closest spots are in Ybor City at this point.

***

Times photographer Daniel Wallace captured the photo above of Davey Jones getting ready to fly his team's Big Rubber Duckie in the Tampa's Red Bull Flugtag competition  today. Look for a slideshow later today from Wallace and photos from tbt* photographer Luis Santana.

Santana was allowed access to fly in the Red Bull 1957 Grumman HU-16E “Albatross” during some flights around Tampa on Friday.  Santana will be taking photos throughout the day today and will post them here.

Are you there? Send your photos to photos@tampabay.com.

Memoirs of an Otaku

Metrocon 2008 had some great sights to behold and some things that will remain scarred in my memory for the rest of my life. Here are a few of my favorite people I saw as well as some of the most frightening.

If you played either the Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice games, you know what Brett Gear and Juan Fernandez were trying to get across. The only problem was trying to talk to them without having the urge to yell "Overruled!"

The Princess Mononoke costume that Kirsten Krueger and Kristina Smithman put together was impressive. Kristina looked frighteningly realistic running around as a wolf. Considering she was carrying around Kirsten for a good while though, I really hope that she had a heating pad in her hotel room for her back.

Selling kisses at a dollar a piece?!? Considering the quality of guys at the convention though, Christina Nash probably paid for a semester's worth of college in one day. On a side note: She is 18 surprisingly. I literally checked her ID.

If Mad Max was a doctor instead of a no-holds-barred apocalyptic cop and he wanted to go to a rave, I think he'd show up dressed up like Brett Jamesen.

I admit that I'm a geek. Seeing Patricia Banbuskirk and Adrien Demoret having a light saber duel in the middle of the rave brought back fond memories of when I could say I liked Star Wars and not have to worry about being dateless for the next ten years. In fact, It almost made me take back what I said about glow sticks being uber-lame, but then I saw this...

What's worse than a group of furries dancing? A group of furries rave dancing with glow sticks. Seeing Jynell "Spirit" Wolf, Antony "CB Roo" Urzi and Tim "Valeria" Vige jumping around dancing with their lights will go down as one of the most frighteningly funny things I've seen in Tampa Bay. I even got unintentionally (at least I hope it was!) nuzzled by Jynell's snout while I was getting their information.

If you want to see some more of the crazy photos from Metrocon (including some involving a lot of fire!), check here. Tonight, I'll hopefully drink away the memory of being hugged by a living stuffed animal.