Vote in Creative Loafing's 2007 Best of the Bay Awards!

Creative Loafing, Tampa's hip and funny alternative weekly is now taking ballots for their 2007 Best of the Bay Awards.

The categories cover just about everything you could imagine in this great area of ours. You might notice that the first three categories are Best Theater Troupe, Best Actor and Best Actress. Well, I'm absolutely shameless enough to do my best to twist your arm and beg for votes for Jobsite Theater, TBPAC's resident theater company. At least I'm being up front about the shilling, right? And after all, you're grown-ups and can make up your own minds. I'm clearly not trying to trick anyone. Just maybe nudge a little firmly ...

So, that said, please consider voting for Jobsite Theater as Best Theater Troupe. Best Actor and Best Actress gets a little hairier, it's certainly not so clear cut as just saying "Vote Jobsite!" You could consider almost any of the four lead men from The Pillowman, the trio of performers from This is How it Goes, any number of the cast of The March of the Kitefliers or Woman in Mind. Steve Garland, Matt Lunsford, Ryan McCarthy, Paul Potenza - all these men surely warrant some consideration. So does Ami Sallee Corley for her performance in Woman in Mind.

Jobsite was lucky enough to take home a stack of these things last year: Best Theater Company, Best Play, Best Actor and Best Artistic Direction.

Or maybe you have thoughts all your own. It doesn't really matter, so long as you get out and vote!

A few other things to note: CreLo really hopes you decide to think about true local businesses over chains (like no Taco Bell for Best Mexican!) and you must vote in at least 35 categories for your ballot to be counted. And no ballot stuffing! They're smarter than you think!

(Here comes the big-ol' disclaimer: as editor of this blog it should probably be pointed out that I am also the producing artistic director of Jobsite, and I am working HARD at getting people to vote for Jobsite over just about every medium I have available to me. It's ok though, the paper is all for this sort of behavior. Now let's hope my boss is.)

TBPAC: A bit o' housekeeping

First, go friend our myspace profile if you haven't yet. You know you want to.

Also, a reminder of some show on-sales (we really do try to shill hard in the blog, but I'm also really tired of hearing people say that they don't hear about it when we add shows). These are listed in order of the show date, with the on sale info following:

• Dec. 9 - Jim Gaffigan - a 10p show was added a few weeks back, get em while they're hot! On sale now.
• Dec. 14-16 - One Slight Hitch - a staged reading of a play by Lewis Black. Come see the play then offer feedback to Lew yourself afterwards. On sale now.
• Jan. 20 - Jon Stewart - On sale now to donors, on sale to the public Dec. 1 at noon. Allow me to editorialize a bit here. Get your tickets in advance or pay a ridiculous amount to a ticket broker in order to see the show.
• Jan. 29 - LeRoy Bell and His Only Friends (Club Jaeb Series) - On sale now. Check out the link to listen to some samples. Good stuff.
• Feb. 14 - Joe Bonamassa - On sale now.
• Feb. 17 - Julio Iglesias - On sale to donors on Dec. 4 at noon, on sale to the public Dec. 8 at noon.

And finally, don't forget to go chime in on our open thread on holiday music!