On a sweltering summer afternoon at a Fort Lauderdale waterfront bar, DJ Crash blasts testosterone-driven rock 'n' roll through the PA system, in particular an old Styx song, "Too Much Time on My Hands." With a beer in his hand, a shirtless fat man in a porkpie hat dances along...
Thursday September 17 With her 1995 album -- and without the publicity of a live tour -- she pretty much swept the country music awards in 1996: Billboard No. 1 Top Country Album Artist, Grammy for Best Country Album, Album of the Year from both the Academy of Country Music...
Billy Bragg & Wilco Mermaid Avenue (Elektra) Here's a collaboration for you: the English punk veteran Billy Bragg, the American postgrunge band Wilco, and Woody Guthrie. Right, that Woody Guthrie. His daughter Nora gave Bragg some of Guthrie's unknown lyrics, and he composed tunes for them with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy...
Of all the people you might encounter in a solo drama, John Hinckley is not likely to be anyone's first choice. Chances are the would-be Reagan assassin won't be serving tea in the cozy manner of Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst, or experiencing high-volume sexual liberation along the...
Elizabeth Huizenga Buntrock sits in the cramped office behind her Las Olas Boulevard flower shop smoking Carlton cigarettes and answering questions that lead to money, of which she confesses to having a lot. The middle name is no coincidence. Decades ago, her cousin, H. Wayne Huizenga, lived in her Chicago...
Pearl Jam's got it bad. Unquestionably the most interesting of the grunge bands to follow in Nirvana's wake, Pearl Jam has suffered at the hands of everyone. Even with all manner of concessions to the marketplace -- a video, a tour with the help of arch nemesis Ticketmaster, a solid...
On a cloudy, gusty July afternoon, the trawler Calanus is plowing eastward through a light chop in the Gulf Stream about five miles east of Key Biscayne. In shorts, white T-shirt, orange life jacket, and blue helmet, Jim Post stands astern, bare feet against the wooden planks of the deck...
In the bluish green depths of the ocean, we see the deck of a sunken ship. Out of the murk, two pinpoints of light approach -- humans, lured to this wreck by irresistible curiosity. It's the beginning of a James Cameron movie, but it's not that James Cameron movie. It's...
Dan Marino, perhaps the greatest quarterback in the history of pro football, slumps on a bench in front of a locker ripping wads of tape off his legs. The Dolphins have just lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars in a road game 500 miles north of Miami. Marino himself has been...
After a summer filled with third-rate pulp, Blade arrives with a pedigree that suggests first-rate pulp: characters and situations lifted from Marvel Comics; a screenplay by David S. Goyer, who earlier this year gave us the transcendent pulp masterpiece Dark City; and the presence (as star and producer) of the...
Judah Feldman was dying a slow and painful death. He was only 56 years old, but he looked 80. His beard was gray and stringy, his sunken eyes vacant. More than a decade earlier, he'd battled cancer, which forced doctors to remove one of his kidneys. Now diabetes caused his...
Keeping track of the lineup changes in Yes is like trying to list all of Saturday Night Live's cast members since the days of John Belushi or keeping track of who's sleeping with whom on your favorite soap opera. Since the release of the band's debut album, Yes, in 1969,...
I knew next to nothing about Uruguayan art when I set out to see the "3rd Uruguayan Art Exhibition" on display at the Broward County Main Library. And now, having seen the show, I know... only slightly more than I did going in, other than the obvious fact that some...
Dana Bennett dreams of living in a place without ill will, distrust, or hostility among neighbors. To make that dream come true, he's sunk years of his life and thousands of dollars into the building of a new form of living arrangement -- one that holds the hope of providing...
"I'll never review one of his restaurants again." When I first made that statement last fall, I was referring to renowned chef Robbin Haas, whom I'd tracked from the Colony Bistro on South Beach to BANG on South Beach to Bex up in Boca Raton, only to see him leave...
After having his hand broken in three places by a mop handle, Darin Militello decided a month ago that it was time he came up with a survival plan. Mulling it over he decided the best way to play it safe would be to avoid risks altogether. So from now...
Cecil, I've got a question for you that has me stumped. How are shrunken heads made? I'm sure they have to take the skull out, but how? And why do certain cultures shrink human heads anyway? -- Headhunter Joe, via AOL Another wholesome topic. But if I don't explain this...
And Now a Word From Your Friendly Vending Professionals In Bob Norman's article "The Miniacis and the Mafiosi" (July 2), there were allegations made toward one particular vending company that I felt were used to refer to the vending industry as a whole. While I cannot speak for that one...
Info:Correction Date: 10/29/1998 Info: A Dream Deferred After a decade in office, Carlton Moore hasn't done much for Fort Lauderdale's poorest residents. But he has helped himself. By Jay Cheshes Carlton Moore is a pillar of a man, a politician with the public persona of a high-school principal. His smile,...
OK, now pay attention -- this is bound to get confusing. Wolfie Cohen does not own Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House. Nor does he or his family own the original Rascal House in North Miami Beach. Cohen died in 1986, and ten years later his relatives, along with Cohen's partner, Mark...
My husband swears that when he took anthropology they talked about a race of blue people. How did I miss this? Don't you dare say it was the Smurfs. -- Lonijo, via AOL OK, it wasn't the Smurfs. And my guess is you're not going to buy the idea that...
Even though there's nothing wrong with him, Gary Prater swallows approximately 100 pills a day. In the past ten years, he hasn't even had a cold. And he'd like to keep it that way. He also wants to avoid contracting diseases such as cancer, hepatitis, and Lou Gehrig's. So every...
