Daily Loaf

This week, life threw a massive curve ball at Creative Loafing Media. Taken over by the NYC-based hedge fund to whom we owed a ton of money, each employee processed the news in a different way: sadness, optimism, relief. Me? I got shit-faced. On great wine. I figured if my family’s legacy is going down [my parents founded Creative Loafing and my brother was CEO until last Tuesday], I should consume voluminous amounts of quality juice. Fast. However, the questioned remained … which ones? So many choices, so little time to race and get to the promised land.

Obviously, I needed something high in alcohol. These sorts of wines emerge from hot areas, where the grapes grow fat with sugar and the resulting wine has more punch (sugar converts to alcohol in fermentation). Napa, Sonoma, Barossa Valley (Australia), Washington State (yes, there are areas where it isn’t miserably rainy), and a host of other delicious choices for the perfect Zen state of non-thought. Read the rest of this entry »

I distributed the following memo to the Tampa Creative Loafing staff this afternoon.

In the face of declining print revenues and an according shift of resources to web-first production, Creative Loafing is restructuring its editorial staff. Unfortunately, these adjustments have made it necessary to eliminate the position of senior editor held by CL veteran Eric Snider.
There is no question that CL will be a different place without Eric. He has made a major contribution to the company as a writer and editor, and his style, his street smarts, his charismatic presence and journalistic expertise have added immeasurably to CL in print, online, and in our day-to-day lives.
We will miss having Eric as part of the staff, both as a journalist and a friend. He will continue at CL full-time through the end of this week; after that, we hope to continue working with him on individual projects.
Sharry Smith, Publisher
David Warner, Editor

Nothing much else to say except that the recession sucks, that this was an extremely painful decision, and that it brings to four the number of layoffs we have had to make this year from an already small edit staff. And yet, in spite of everything, I’m still optimistic about the future of this company.

But Eric will be missed.