This week, that’s what. And, it was a good one. I’m officially tired.

Tuesday, Charles Landry. The guy who, in front of a standing room only crowd at the Morris Center, filled us with visions of creative grandeur. Public art, mixed income development, and funky, original creative non-standardness everywhere you turn. It was awesome.

My favorite? The sewage treatment plant ( a little like ours, on creepy steroids) that funked itself up on the outside and and starting inviting the public inside. It started giving tours. Tours. And people came…in droves. A sewage treatment plant turned urban center. Creative and inspiring, in a gross left-over meatloaf kind of way.

Afterward I had the pleasure of eating dinner with Mr. Landry and a veritable cast of Savannah characters.  It was enlightening, inspiring and ended at Pinkies. Again.  (Thanks to Reed Dulany, Miller and Michael Brooks for pulling off an great end to the evening.)  Not a bad gig, this whole Creative Coast thing.

Speaking of Sewage…Clean Green

The same night of the Landry Lecture, I was introduced (via my man Tony Jordan of AWOL) to an enterprising young gentlemen named Laurence Green.  Do let the name fool you, because despite having already been on Def Poetry Jam by the age of 22, he’s recently moved to Savannah (9 days ago), and has - get this - an environmentally integrated janitorial service.  Yes, a man after Summer’s own heart, and it’s aptly named, Green Sweep.

This dude mixes all the cleaning stuff himself, using (among other things) herbs, flowers, baking soda, lavender, steam, and his special ingredient (and my favorite)…good ole’ Russian vodka. He even tells me its several dollars cheaper an hour than your standard cleaning service. And, he does everything. Toilets, bathrooms, vacuuming, trash, mopping, dusting, plant service, recycling and the whole nine yards.

According to his spiffy looking brochure, he utilizes 4 key elements:

• Natural non-toxic cleaning products
• Use of common plants for indoor air purification and revitalization
• Incorporating cardboard bins in businesses for easy recycling access
• Aromatherapy during service to create a healing, relaxing and balanced atmosphere for patrons and employees.

If that weren’t enough to get my attention, the guy was sporting a sear sucker jacket when I met him, and came to our office to give an estimate in a yellow bow-tie.  This “janitor” has game.

Jody who?

Speaking of creative entrepreneurs, today Brynn and I had the pleasure of sitting down to lunch with the always jolly Roger Moss and a fascinating recent Savannah convert named Jody Espina. Jody recently moved his niche-market biz, Jody Jazz, to Savannah from NYC and is to the sax and clarinet mouthpiece, what Benedetto is to jazz guitar. That is, he designs, manufactures and sells hi-end precision sax and clarinet mouth pieces, topping out at more than $500 a pop. His business has taken off like wild-fire since 2001 and has among its official endorsers and customers some of the best sax players in the world.

To boot, he’s a musician and recording artist…and not to shabby of one by the looks of it. The guy has studied with the most revered masters of the saxophone, teachers that have shaped the course of Jazz itself, having taught almost all of the major saxophonists of our time like Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Eric and Jerry Coker.  I bet he can play a mean {insert well-known Coltrane track}.

Build a dorm, anyone?

Every now and again, I come across a cool, fresh and useful Savannah website that I’ve never seen before. And because I’m a nerd, I get excited. The most recent incarnation of this fetish is a surprisingly content-rich and constantly updated site called DormBuilder.com. It’s actually useful, god forbid. And, after chatting with one of the trio that runs it, I learned has already made waves in the blosophere, racking up 10,000 unique visits in 3 days after a how-to post caught fire on social media sites.

In short, DormBuilder.com is a hub for cool dorm and house stuff. According to them, “we’re all either living in dorms or have lived in dorms, so we know what’s cool, what’s not, what works, and what doesn’t.”  Makes sense to me, and certainly gives them credence as bargain style shoppers in my book.

The products are divided into tags: by price range and item type and the content is update at least every 6 hours. No content is aggregated; everything is written by the trio, unless noted otherwise and updated at least every 6 hours. They’re also talking with 5 designers of handmade goods about advertising with us so we can replace the Google ads.  At any rate, worth a looksy and a kudos to Chris and his band of trendy furniture experts. Good stuff.

All in all, a well rounded week that reminds me yet again, that when you start to think you’ve just about met everyone, there are always more creative peoples in this weird town. Layers of the onion, indeed.

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