Moor than meets the eye
Meticulously prepared Moroccan meals await in MetroWest
Debt collectors
A post-bailout thriller that needs oversight
Mindless
Almost 40 years later, Jason is still a rip-off
This Little Underground
I’m all for anything that’ll chase the yuppies out of downtown after happy hour, but the recent rash of club violence isn’t what I had in mind. Like Ice Cube said, check yourself before you wreck yourself. R.I.P. Lux A big pour on the floor for recently fallen Cramps frontman Lux Interior. Damn. Festival shuffle…
Live Active Cultures
Raise your hand if, like me, you once dreamed of becoming a secret agent. (OK, put your hand down now, everyone in the coffee shop is staring at you.) “International spy” was high on my list of youthful occupational ambitions, falling somewhere between “roller coaster designer” and “ice-cream flavor tester.” I eventually realized that MI6…
Police Beat
Feb. 1 (2009-51863) 11:57 p.m.: An early nominee for the year’s Best Copspeak: Officer Michael George. In describing a shooting, George tells us, “The gun was recovered to be stolen from Oviedo. There were no witnesses who fired the gun.” Feb. 3 (2009-53501) 2:09 a.m.: God, I feel old. See, I remember when the Back…
Happytown
We got an excited voice mail this week from a self-proclaimed heterosexual, redneck Billy Manes fan (Hi, Willie!) who had a beef with the Orange County Regional History Center’s Black History Month exhibit. Seems that our friend — who wanted to make it clear that he is in no way prejudiced, just a redneck in…
Comments
A columnist’s job My name is Brian Parker, and I am writing to you in response to a recent article written by Bao Le-Huu detailing his apparent satisfaction with the departure of Cori Yarckin from Orlando to Los Angeles `This Little Underground, Feb. 5`. Although his opinion is his own, his lack of tact and…
The audacity of nope
Dissent at Orlando’s city council is a rare thing. In fact, it’s so rare that we can list every single no vote over the last 18 months or so, starting when the interlocal agreement between Orlando and Orange County for the new arena, performing arts center and renovated Citrus Bowl passed. That day — July…
Undistilled acid
It’s midnight on a Monday evening and I’m sharing a loveseat with two dogs that have made this piece of furniture a dugout of their own. The rest of the place bears all the markings of a musician’s pad: a coffee table covered in music sheets and jazz magazines; drumsticks and dumbbells finding their happy…
Left brain, right brain
The Year of Magical Thinking Through March 1 at Mad Cow Theatre 407-297-4788 www.madcowtheatre.com $20, except “pay what you wish” on Wednesdays Thanks to The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, first published in 1999, readers can learn how to emerge unscathed from a plane crash, a bear attack or a submerged automobile. But no one has…
Bending the President’s ear
It was less than two weeks after the election that Quincy Jones told John Schaefer on WNYC radio, “The next conversation I have with President`-elect` Obama is to beg for a secretary of the arts.” The legendary composer and arranger wasn’t the first to promote that idea, but his comment juiced the possibility like no…
The politics of FREE
They got in and out quickly, and that clunky couch was finally gone. But I think these takers were pros, experienced at the art of getting something for nothing. Not many words were exchanged; nothing got weird or personal; no sob stories were offered. It’d been a couple weeks of waiting, but I finally hooked…
What Buddy wants, Buddy gets
It’s not easy being an Orlando city commissioner. Every other Wednesday or Thursday someone slaps a 3-inch-thick binder on your desk detailing the minutiae of civic stability: the roll-off franchises, the rights-of-way, minor annexations, major wastewater expenses, etc. In just four or five days — including weekends of neighborhood barbecues and ribbon cuttings — you’re…
Waltz with Mussolini
“Fascism” was a term bandied about frequently and casually in reference to the reign of George W. Bush. Usually, it was brandished in service of a logically deficient but emotionally charged argument by someone ill-equipped to succinctly document the numerous power-grabs and rights-reductions that took place over the past eight years. While the term itself…
Blister
Ah, the smell of pigskin. The grunting rush of man-meat pounding together while joints crack and cartilage oozes, bodies thrown against the ground, grass-stained asses and Gatorade hair. Does it get any better than this? Let’s hope so. It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I’m an indifferent mess, at best a thought balloon — or Goodyear…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) I invite you to get all the mind-blowing sex you can this Valentine season. The entire cosmos will be on your side if you generate erotic wonders that rearrange your thought processes. For best results, cultivate the attitude described by the philosopher Voltaire in a letter to his partner Marie Louise…
Savage Love
Recently, I celebrated my first year of marriage to the most amazing man. When we first began dating, he told me that he enjoys open sexuality and wants swinging to be part of any partnership he’s in. I regard myself as free-spirited and agreed to explore this with him. We delayed experimentation because I had…
Want to hop aboard the Streetcar?
One of the saddest casualties of the recent cancelation of Plaza Theatreâ??s theatrical season was Gramercyâ??s scheduled production of Driving Miss Daisy. Iâ??ve given less-than-glowing reviews to some of Gramercyâ??s earlier outings, but I was looking forward to Daisy because it planned to pair Michael â??Mamma Waltonâ?� Learned as Daisy Wortham with Russ Blackwell as…
