Broward State Attorney Michael Satz, whose bald head and square jaw could have been chiseled from stone, refuses to admit defeat. Sitting in a conference room near his office on the sixth floor of the Broward County Courthouse, wearing a crisp blue dress shirt and a tightly knotted yellowish tie,...
It's that time of the year again, when sidewalk buskers feel the humidity wane and the nights dry and crispen, so they all grab their beat-up woodentops, park their asses on a street corner, open their guitar cases, and play for tips. OK, so hardly anyone actually does that. Tourists...
Newspapers around the country played the New Year's Eve suicides of Morris and Estelle Spivack as a dramatic spectacle. Almost every headline about the Hollywood couple, for example, contained the word "leap." The Chicago Tribune printed this atop its brief January 3 story: "Ailing couple leaps 17 floors to death."...
It was a conversation between Nunsense playwright Dan Goggin and Hollywood Playhouse's artistic director, Andy Rogow, that gestated Meshuggah-Nuns! Rogow recommended adding a Jewish character to increase the already sizable audience for the play, but Goggin, schooled by nuns in Michigan parochial schools, thought he didn't have the Judaic background...
It's the eve of Sneaker Pimps' return to the United States, the country that yanked the band's britches when it was busy reaching for the twinkling cup of fame in the late '90s. Drummer David Westlake is reminiscing. "We lost our innocence on that tour, on every last level," he...
For more than a year, residents of NE 26th Place in Coral Ridge, a pricey street on the Intracoastal Waterway south of Oakland Park Boulevard, enjoyed an unobstructed view of the water. Then on a clear day in October, they looked out their windows, past their BMW convertibles, Cadillac Escalades,...
You know you're getting old when bowling becomes vigorous exercise. And you know you're getting desperate when you crave a dish that's made in the restaurant of a bowling alley. Actually, I'm not a stranger to either sensation. I generally thought of bowling alleys as places to score cheap booze;...
This season has seen its share of family dramas that playwrights keep reinventing to good theatrical effect. One recent incarnation is Charles Randolph-Wright's moody, engaging comedy/ drama Blue, a semi-autobiographical account of one wealthy black family's domestic disturbances, a tale that spans several decades. The story is narrated by Reuben...
Vincent Gallo once described himself as the kind of guy who'd attend a football game in a visiting uniform and cheer until he got killed. Divisive as a portcullis with the stare of Rasputin, the Buffalo-bred director/actor/composer has certainly garnered his fair share of praise and scorn over the years:...
Jim Ironman wants to sell you the gift that keeps on giving. For two months now, Ironman (not his real name), a family man with the face of a deacon and the body of a department store Santa, has written, edited, and distributed the Pynk Pages from his Boynton Beach...
Wake Up and Smile! That's the name of the imaginary early-morning news show in one of the funniest Saturday Night Live skits ever. Former cast members Will Ferrell and Nancy Walls play anchors who are full of cheer until, "Good God no!" their teleprompter breaks. After Ferrell repeats the last...
There's nothing Brian Diaz hates more than a lazy, ignorant rock critic. "We just got slagged for making a video that doesn't exist and wearing New Found Glory T-shirts we don't own," fumes Diaz, bassist for Long Island power-pop wizards the Reunion Show. But it's not just web-jockey slackers who...
Kristy Murphy walked out onto the beach at Sebastian Inlet and surveyed the scene. A logo-enhanced (Billabong Girls, Roxy, Rip Curl, Surf Diva) army had set up camp. More than 100 female combatants swathed in wet suits, stocking caps, knit scarves, sweatshirts, sweaters, blankets, and heavy winter jackets huddled together...
Mick Meehan pulls a tuft of Bali Swag tobacco from its pouch and effortlessly rolls up a cigarette as he discusses his reasons for coming to America. "I came over here in the early '80s, the same as everyone else," he states in a thick, gravelly brogue. "There was no...
Swings wildly at alternative rag's scribe: Thank you for Bob Norman's eloquent article ("The Antiwarriors," November 14) about our bus trip to Washington, D.C., on October 26. The title and subtitle of your story set the tone early for your obvious attempt at discrediting the participants of the growing and...
It's se-e-e-erious: Eric Barton's November 21 story, "Cashed," was humorous. His point was perhaps to prod drug-policy reformers into action? I hope so, because there is nothing humorous about drug prohibition. It is the social policy that causes far more societal damage than it prevents. On one hand, we have...
Ah, the benefits of a music education. Now, I'm not such an advocate that I believe anyone can learn to play an instrument. I'm not so sure that Mozart makes you better in math. I don't think that all babies are born with perfect pitch and that tone-deafness is only...
When a play by Neil LaBute hits town, any town, the specifics of the production usually take a back seat to the force of the writer's personality. LaBute's plays and films are biting, challenging, often cruel. His debut film, In the Company of Men, which he adapted and directed from...
My heart of hearts shouted Pele, Pele -- full of power, with one foot in Africa. How great to be a beautiful people who dance, dance, dance. How great to make music. The power comes from that stone that sings Itapoa; it speaks Tupi, it speaks Yoruba. Caetano Veloso sang...
Broadway musicals and rodeo bull riding are more similar than you might think. Trying to ride a rodeo bull basically means two things. First, you have to stay on for eight full seconds to succeed, with no second chance. Second, the bull doesn't care whether you're a pro or a...
Chris and Robin DiFranco operate a small contracting business from a worn second-story suite in North Miami. A couple of blocks from Dixie Highway, their cream-colored building is surrounded by a hodgepodge of auto-body and machine shops. The deadbolted first-floor door opens to a long flight of bare-wood steps. Their...
Let's begin at the end: "Fat Painting," the small but excellent show now at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, culminates in a short video that perfectly captures the spirit of the exhibition that precedes it. The video chronicles the creation of a piece by Rosaria Pugliese -- one...
