Apr 28 – May 4, 1999

Apr 28 - May 4, 1999 / Vol. 15 / No. 17

Commercial messages

I have seen the future of downtown Orlando nightlife, and it has a trademark notice stamped all over it. After 10 days in which the Orlando International Fringe Festival momentarily advanced the illusion of the area as a hotbed of the independent performing arts, last weekend’s choices made it clear that corporate interests will continue…

Steve Schneider

Rays of hope

A few thousand fans soak up the sun and breezes that grace a spring training game at St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Field. The smells of sunscreen and barbecue smoke fill the air. The crowd chatters more than cheers. Most of them have no clue who is pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the…

Eric Snider

Club takes artistic license

Club Juana bills itself as “the finest in adult entertainment,” with 11:30 a.m. happy hours and plenty of female dancers who, until recently, undulated in the buff. Seminole County’s anti-nudity ordinance has changed all that, and the vicious legal battles over that law (and a similar Casselberry-only ordinance) have become the stuff of local legend.…

Ericson, Edward Jr.

Neighborhood watch

Pastor John Beasley is hopeful about a meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 23, at Ward Chapel. A Winter Park official calls it “an opportunity for west side residents to preview the draft” of the Westside Neighborhood Housing Task Force’s report. But Beasley says, “It’s going to be a different kind of meeting.” He pauses…

Ericson, Edward Jr.

Tort tied up

To everyone’s surprise, the Republican-dominated state Legislature has fumbled in its effort to craft a workable tort-reform bill. Big business has for years pushed for restrictions on the ability of consumers to sue companies for negligence, and for caps on damage awards; a bill to do that passed the Legislature last year but was vetoed…

Orlando Weekly Staff

No to union at Universal

Last Friday, Universal Studios turned back its fifth union drive this decade, when park performers voted 129 to 97 to reject representation by the Actors Equity Association. Union organizers had thought they had a good shot: 75 percent of the actors, singers, dancers and stunt people signed authorization cards asking for the election. But relentless…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Glazed cops

Cracks about cops and doughnuts aside, it looked last week like Winter Park Police had developed a new beat: Krispy Kreme. Business was so brisk at the new doughnut shop that officers on foot were positioned in the parking lot and in the traffic lanes of Orlando Avenue/Highway 17-92, where cars were backed up as…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Getting the love bug

According to an April New York Times report, the purchase price in Japan of giant stag beetles has dropped recently to about $300 from a typical price in the early 1990s of about $6,000. The beetles, which resemble 4-inch-long cockroaches, are traditional Japanese pets that, according to insect salesman Katsutoshi Misaki, “have different personalities.” Added…

Chuck Shepherd

Corporate fantasies of PBS

Out in Nebraska, when they say something is “janked,” they mean it’s all messed up. Well, PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, seems to be janked. The original idea of establishing a “public” network was that it would present a noncorporate view of the world. But in recent years, PBS has been taking more and more…

Jim Hightower

Club takes artistic license

Club Juana bills itself as “the finest in adult entertainment,” with 11:30 a.m. happy hours and plenty of female dancers who, until recently, undulated in the buff. Seminole County’s anti-nudity ordinance has changed all that, and the vicious legal battles over that law (and a similar Casselberry-only ordinance) have become the stuff of local legend.…

Ericson, Edward Jr.

Family reunion travels in harmony

Canadian folk duo Kate and Anna McGarrigle don’t take their striking harmonies and warm acoustic songs out on the road all that often, but their Tuesday, May 4, show at Sapphire will be unique for other reasons as well. The premise of their recent album, “The McGarrigle Hour,” and the tour is that this is…

Garaud MacTaggart

Outside ‘Circles’

Love at first sight wasn’t exactly the sentiment shared by the members of Soul Coughing, back when the four future bandmates gave an impromptu performance at the Knitting Factory, the trendy New York venue and informal hangout for denizens of the downtown music scene. Poet and failed folk singer M. Doughty, then a doorman at…

Philip Booth

Creative overflow pours off Los Lobos

Los Lobos named their 1978 debut, “Just Another Band From East L.A.,” out of sheer frustration. They got tired, the story goes, of having to explain their music and their ethnic roots. All these years later that title remains a lie spiked with the truth. Los Lobos has gloriously survived changing tastes with their lineup…

Philip Booth

Boys will be boys unless …

I know it’s wrong, narrow-minded, some even think dangerous. But when the subject of babies comes up my response is immediate and always the same: “Boy. I want a boy.” The word pops out like something from a toaster. Whether he’s a senator or janitor doesn’t matter; me, only younger and with no ovaries, that’s…

Liz Langley

Making art with an airtight seal

“I am not contain’d,” Walt Whitman cried in “Leaves of Grass.” Well, join the club. He thinks his life is a mess? We’re all faced with life’s detritus slopping over: the dismay felt at leftovers shoved into rinsed-out, bent-up yogurt cups then marooned in the fridge’s corners. The sad fate of cookies going stale. And,…

Theresa Everline

Dawson ignites retro-roots fire

Ronnie Dawson doesn’t perform an archival art; he just plays a foot-stompin’, leg-shakin’ music powered by chicken-scratch guitars and straightforward drum beats. Calling it rockabilly is just attaching a name to a good time. At nearly 60 years old, Dawson is too young to fade away and too old to transform his act into anything…

Garaud MacTaggart

Rich treasures

We arrived early for dinner — about 5 p.m. — at Passage to India, and although the restaurant was virtually empty of customers, we still had a sense of the countless people who have enjoyed meals within its four walls. The foyer was studded with framed photographs of celebrity regulars. We spotted one of Shaquille…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Culturally rich Cinco de Mayo

Nuevo Latin cuisine makes its official debut at Universal Studios CityWalk on Wednesday, May 5, during the Cinco de Mayo soiree, which also serves as the Latin Quarter’s grand opening (363-5922), and continues through May 12. Festivities kick off at 5 p.m. at CityWalk’s plaza stage, with vignettes by the famed Ballet Folklorico de Mexico,…

Colleen Moore

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