City’s Parramore policy null and void
BREAKING NEWS: The city’s decade-old policy of forbidding social service agencies from expanding or locating in Parramore is dead as of March 19, when the city attorney’s office sent a letter to the Florida Commission of Human Relations stating that they realized – after only eight years – this policy violated the state’s Fair Housing…
CLIPPED WINGS
Flightly service offsets buzzworthy dishes at upscale Baldwin Park taqueria
Small pond: Baldwin Park fish-and-chip shop lures locals
Across the street from Colibrí sits Grouper & More, a fish-and-chip shop with all the appeal of a motel lobby and the smooth-jazz stylings of the bus station downtown. Picturesque Lake Baldwin is just out of view, but photographs of sunrises and sunsets taken from the lake’s shores make up for the vista-less surroundings, and…
ISRAELI DRAMA FULL OF FUN
The Band’s Visit Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: PG-13 Cast: Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour, Ronit Elkabetz, Rubi Moscovich, Imad Jabarin Director: Eran Kolirin WorkNameSort: Band’s Visit, The Our Rating: 3.50 The Israelis had enough faith in The Band’s Visit, the feature debut from writer/director Eran Kolirin, that they offered it up to the Oscars as…
COUNCIL WATCH
The beginning of this week’s putting-together of civic heads featured deafening silence; the mayor was late, the speakers weren’t on and one could easily glean the actual sense of what it feels like when nothing is happening. Even the pronounced ticking of commissioner Betty Wyman’s political denouement was absent. It was eerie. But then District…
POLICE BEAT
??? (2008-??????) ???: Again with the incomplete police reports. Guys, is it that hard to make sure there’s a case number and date when you’re scanning them in? Help me out. Anyway, the cops pulled over two guys in a Pontiac. They had 118 grams of the good herb on them and went to jail.…
HAPPYTOWN
Exclusive! The mayor hates fags! Well, OK, not really. At least we don’t think so. Maybe. Either way, Buddy Dyer’s relationship with the gay-rights movement – specifically, with Florida Red and Blue, the group fighting the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage – became the subject of a controversy this week. According to an…
MAILSACK
SMACKDOWN UPS I just wanted to say thank you for writing this article `“Smackdown!,” April 3`. Most of these guys are good friends of mine and are very proud of their sport. Thanks so much for representing them in such an honest light. Alicia Mercado, via the Internet FRIPPERY I’m glad to see that Billy…
THE POWER OF LOVE
Esteemed Canadian music critic Carl Wilson’s recent entry into Continuum’s 33 1/3 series – an ongoing collection of books devoted to hyperanalyzing canonical pop albums – is framed by an irresistible concept. Instead of exhausting another classic record whose impact and context has been well-covered by the critical elite (Pet Sounds and Let It Be…
MR. MANES GOES TO TALLAHASSEE
It’s where ideas go to die, presumably, or worse, where people of certain character quality – one that is one part comb-over and two parts moral extroversion, with a dash of acronymic uniformity – spin from futility to apathy and back again until their legislative wheels come off. Either way, Tallahassee is a joke. And…
NOTHING MATTERS
For years, American audiences watched raptly as Jerry Seinfeld and his television comedy troupe delivered half-hour shows “about nothing.” Of course that was always an oversimplification. The Seinfeld oeuvre actually had many plots and subplots over its nine-year run, but much of the series’ subject matter did concern itself with the trivialities and tics of…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
Ladies, germs and herms: hats off, please. By the time you read this, local band Jeanie and the Tits will be history. An important part of Orlando’s music history, yes, but history nonetheless. I’m totally crying over spilled, ahem, milk, but that’s because their amicable demise – brought on primarily by the upcoming relocation of…
FIRST SHOT
Yearning for a truly luxurious movie experience? A consortium of interests headed by Village Roadshow Ltd. has announced plans for a nationwide chain of “Gold Class Cinemas” that would make attendance enjoyable again. Amenities would include digital projection, reclining armchairs and high-end foods like sushi (orderable at the touch of a button). The idea is…
SMALL POND: BALDWIN PARK FISH-AND-CHIP SHOP LURES LOCALS
Across the street from Colibrí sits Grouper & More, a fish-and-chip shop with all the appeal of a motel lobby and the smooth-jazz stylings of the bus station downtown. Picturesque Lake Baldwin is just out of view, but photographs of sunrises and sunsets taken from the lake’s shores make up for the vista-less surroundings, and…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) High-definition TV makes everything look more vivid than standard broadcast technology. Images almost appear 3-D. While this is enjoyable to viewers, some performers are uncomfortable with the way it reveals their imperfections. Did you know that Brad Pitt has acne scars? I predict a metaphorically similar development for you in the…
SAVAGE LOVE
I thought I could bang out a column today – a regular column, a column about my readers’ problems and their freaky fetishes and all those asshole politicians out there. You know, the usual. The day my son was born, I managed to slip out of the maternity ward and write a column; I wrote…
BLISTER
It used to seem so glamorous then: an ingrown glitter-eyelash fusing a cranial combustion to last precisely three days. A tiptoe-to-stumble bar entrance on a Friday evening happy hour that would rip the golden ticket from fate’s clenched fist and set off a pixilated series of events that might involve a penile pony-ride that night,…
LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES
Just yesterday, it seems, he was sweet and loving – waking me in the morning with a whiskery nuzzle, greeting me joyfully when I came home from work. Now, my every attempt to get or give attention or affection is met with a cold shoulder. He’s happy to eat my food and live under my…
