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Art-scene savior?

Vinnie Blesi doesn't just enjoy alternative music, art, film and words. He's promoting them as a uniting force with a new Web site.

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published October 14, 2005

	[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]
	Vinnie Blesi, 44, a Tampa native who attended Plant High, is creator of tampabaymuse.com. It is a modest calendar, but Blesi has big dreams. Share your views on the arts scene

SOUTH WESTSHORE - Lights, camera, action.

This is not Vinnie Blesi's scene.

Sure, he's been in the spotlight before. He even goes by the name Agent Orange on occasion, when he performs strange music in strange clothing for strange people at strange places.

Even then, he prefers life behind the scenes.

On this hot October afternoon, he is the scene.

A guy with a camera frames Blesi's moist melon with a five-limbed lamp, a head-heating hydra that prompts perspiration that stings Blesi's eyes, even as he's instructed to stare into a distant horizon.

He focuses, ignoring a nearby reporter pawing through his CD collection. Sweat slithers down his neck and into a black T-shirt that advertises his on-again, off-again art-rock band, Strange Agents.

The trio is crowded into Blesi's command center, squired away in his modest house off S West Shore Boulevard, a short stumble from the Green Iguana bar.

Here, on his computer, Blesi created Tampa Bay Muse (tampabaymuse.com), a Web site he hopes will support and unite local artists.

It's a cramped cubbyhole, not even 100 square feet. It's filled with his computer desk and musical equipment and the two guys disrupting Blesi's little world of music and technology and framed Gillian Anderson magazine covers.

Blesi, a Tampa native who attended Plant High for a few years, is hot and tired, and that's even before he dons his Strange Agents apparel: a biohazard suit.

But that's the deal, because Blesi, 44, knows the publicity might help his cause.

After decades of bouncing around the darkened alleys and dog-eared edges of the Tampa arts scene, this musician, writer, illustrator and onetime WMNF radio DJ has decided to try something a little more front-and-center.

Which is no easy feat for a guy decidedly back-and-to-the-left.

It's Tampa Bay Muse, and while it might seem rather inconsequential on first glance, there's an underlying utility and potential you might not notice immediately.

Kind of like its creator.

Sunshine, businessmen, meat.

This is not Vinnie Blesi's scene.

He's been invited to a lunch interview at Ken's Winghouse Bar & Grill, off U.S. 301 near the Florida State Fairgrounds. It wasn't necessarily his first choice, but it happens to be convenient to Blesi's day job as a district sales manager for a national periodicals distributor.

Here, Blesi will talk about launching Tampa Bay Muse at the start of October. A Buddhist who has no expectation of profiting from the site, he wants to offer "a free resource for local artists, musicians, galleries and others" to promote themselves and their work.

As the lunch crowd files in - overwhelmingly white, male and business-casual - an attractive young server approaches to take Blesi's order.

"I'm going to freak her out," Blesi confides.

This exchange takes a few minutes to sort out. Blesi is a vegetarian, an anomaly for a restaurant named after a chicken limb and known for displaying copious amounts of flesh.

What he wants is cheese and condiments on a hamburger bun, with a side of fries: a hamburger without a hamburger. The staples of Blesi's diet, soy patties and the like, are not available here.

So that's what he orders, and that's what he gets. It falls in with his devotion to Buddhism, which he discovered in the eight years since he was divorced: "I never was comfortable with my spiritual beliefs before. It works for me."

There is no charge to access his Web site, which provides a calendar and listings of arts and music events, generally in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

"It's not there for me," he said. "I'm not trying to get sponsors; I'm not trying to get advertisers."

There are no pop-up advertisements, though Tampa Bay Muse does have a discreet column of Amazon.com clickable ads running down the left side.

Also on that side, Blesi has a spot where visitors can donate if they choose. As of this week, that consisted of a donation button for the PayPal service, followed by these statistics:

Startup costs: $175

Advertising costs: $77

Donations to date: 0

October goal: $80

Calm, camaraderie, Jagermeister.

This is Vinnie Blesi's scene.

Well, compared with the other two, at least. He has a single shot of the 100-proof cordial while sitting at his dining room table, chatting about art and life.

Over the years, Blesi scratched his artistic itch in many ways. He always loved alternative music, comic books, science fiction, unconcerned with - or at least refusing to be controlled by - the presumption of geekdom then attached to such endeavors.

He self-published comic book-oriented fanzines with writings and artwork from friends. He performed in Strange Agents, which earned a Best Opening Act award from a local publication. He recorded music in his home. He made art on his computer.

He created a Web site dedicated to mystery and suspense writer Cornell Woolrich (cornellwoolrich.com), whose best known credit is for the story that became Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Rear Window.

In recent years, Blesi has written off and on for Nolan's Pop Culture Review (crazedfanboy.com), the long-running Internet fanzine created by friend and fellow Plant attendee Nolan Canova. Blesi has contributed pop culture commentary and a television criticism column, Couch Potato Confessions, to the site.

Canova, who used to star in his own public access TV show about local filmmakers, said he and Blesi have a common goal.

"We're all trying to make a difference as far as supporting the local film and arts community, and it continues to be very difficult," Canova said. "It seems to be hard because the community doesn't seem to want to come together."

Said Blesi: "Art has always, in my opinion, been cliquey. I think we need more cooperative events, bringing together art, music, filmmakers, to have a broader appeal.

"I just want people to use it. It's not there for me. Right now, in fact, it's a lot of work."

Blesi hopes the site will "debunk the claim that there is no arts scene in Tampa Bay."

"Art is something that everybody can do, and everybody should do. It's part of the human experience," he said.

Art that goes unseen by the public "is just a tree fallen in the forest."

- Rick Gershman can be reached at rgershman@sptimes.com or 226-3431.

[Last modified October 14, 2005, 14:01:48]