In November 1996, New York Times reporter and rock critic Neil Strauss crawled into the hot tub at a Holiday Inn in Fort Lauderdale with desperate-to-shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Strauss was there to write an article for Rolling Stone, and Manson was ready to take full advantage of the opportunity...
Porkpie hats and checkered suits make for great video imagery. So do stretchy-tubed trombones and overamped pseudopunks twisting their wiry frames around the syncopated beats of Jamaican dance music. The uplifting, sometimes political, and often wacky musical detour known as ska is simply made for MTV. Witness the video-rific rise...
Late in the afternoon of February 9, 1996, Fort Lauderdale City Hall was reeling from an onslaught of reporters who wanted answers. At dawn that day, a disgruntled former employee had shot and killed five city maintenance workers at the beach, then turned the gun on himself. The killer, Clifton...
Michael Brasfield became Fort Lauderdale's police chief in the summer of 1995 after a 30-year law-enforcement career in Seattle. In a deposition last December, he answered a seemingly bizarre question about his first days on the job in Broward County. The question was whether he had ever been accused of...
One of photographer Lewis Baltz's subjects, the Hotel Rothaus in Zurich, Switzerland, is flanked by two streets leading to very different worlds. The road to the left leads to an upscale shopping area and some Swiss banks. The road to the right cuts through a former industrial area now ruled...
The last time East Indian music was "hip," four white English lads were directly responsible. The Beatles popularized the sounds of the sitar and the tabla drum in songs such as "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Within You Without You." As a result an entire...
When you think about how some of the smartest, most surprising films about women have been made by men -- and vice versa -- you start to realize that directors should dare to speak for the other gender more often. Few filmmakers know the ritual bonds and betrayals of men...
Caught in the Same Wrong Net I wish to thank New Times and Michael Freedman for printing the article on the troubles of net fisherman Everett Hobby ("Bait and Shackle," February 26). It so happens that the same officer who arrested Mr. Hobby arrested me on a cast net charge...
Mention feng shui to someone who's never heard of it, and you'll most likely get a "Gesundheit" in return. Discuss feng shui with an interior designer, and you'll receive one of two responses: an enthusiastic nod of recognition or a sigh of exasperation. The ancient Chinese art of placement, feng...
There is a certain fear that as Broward County matures it will become as dull as the Sun-Sentinel; thus spirited readers rejoice when they discover deep within the paper signs of rip-roaring life. Such a moment came last week in the pseudo-expose of Pompano Beach Commissioner George Melcher, who violated...
Jono Manson Little Big Man (Paradigm Records) If you've never heard of Jono Manson before, it's understandable. Though he's been playing the club circuit for two decades, Little Big Man is only his second album on a major label (following 1995's soulful Almost Home). Manson, who's collaborated with Blues Traveler,...
Purely economic" is how Broward Clerk of Courts Robert E. Lockwood defends his decision to use more than $1.3 million in tax money to end a racial discrimination suit by African-American employees. He really wanted to fight on, Lockwood insists, but a trial would be too costly, and you just...
In his 1993 book Sarajevo: A War Journal, the Bosnian journalist Zlatko Dizdarevic reported on an eleven-year-old who was waiting in line for water when snipers killed his mother and father: "After the shooting, this boy started to fetch and pour water over the bodies of his dead parents. He...
Why are people bothering with getting colds anymore? The site www.coldcure.com has been around for a couple of years now, and the product for stopping common cold symptoms is available in many places (Wal-Mart for one). Could you check out that site and apply your skill either (1) to debunk...
Pulp This Is Hardcore (Island) Jarvis Cocker's songs are much like Martin Amis' novels: The characters are distasteful, the situations sordid, the sex unsavory, and the humor cruel. It's an ugly picture of mankind stripped to the skivvies, its immorality dangling in the wind. Amis hides his obvious titillation at...
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Crystal Ball (NPG Records) "I've got grooves and grooves on the shelf," a cocky Prince boasted on 1990's best-selling Batman soundtrack. He wasn't kidding. Never a minimalist, His Royal Badness rarely seemed to lack inspiration or the means to capture it on tape. Following...
Sipping a Coke and munching fries at Hooters, David Muskowitz doesn't look much like fearsome Big Brother. More like nerdy nephew, a 25-year-old with a pudgy face and baggy jeans, laughing with the waitress about old school days at Piper High. He's a nice guy; it's his power that's scary...
Around midnight on October 27, 1990 -- the last minutes of the 101st Congress -- Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts amended a bill designed to create 85 new federal judgeships. The House approved the amendment, and so did Kennedy's exhausted fellow senators. President Bush promptly signed the bill, eager as...
On the evening of his retirement party, October 31, 1990, Delray Beach Police Chief Charles L. Kilgore pulled out a pistol, and without much forethought, took aim and pulled the trigger. The result: a direct hit on the forehead of 69-year-old Virginia Snyder. But the shot produced no blood, no...
Heading north on I-95 toward her home in Fort Lauderdale, Mary Karlzen takes a sip from a bottle of Miller Lite and returns it to the cup-holder hanging from her dashboard. It's well after three o'clock on Sunday morning, and Karlzen has just finished headlining a Saturday-night show at Tobacco...
Ben Folds Five Naked Baby Photos (Caroline) This is the proverbial "contractual obligation" album: When Ben Folds Five signed to Sony, the band still owed its first label, Caroline Records, one more full-length album. This kind of circumstance usually results in a hastily assembled collection of "rare" tracks (a euphemism...
This Message Sponsored by the "Coleman for Mayor" Committee Your microscopic report ("Face Off," February 5) by Sean Rowe on the mayor of Hollywood and her battle to retain an ironclad grip on the city is sensational. Finally a reporter who tells it the way it is in Hollywood government...
