Time to take a real International drive and head up to Elsie’s Bakery in DeLand. Slightly off the path of the downtown redevelopment, Elsie’s is an oasis in a somewhat neglected strip mall at 658 W. New York Ave. (356-785-0065), where Carlos and Elsie Mendez, and Elsie’s dad, baker Bolivar Guim, create magic out of…

Joseph Hayes

Alive and Picking

That high, lonesome sound is coming back around again. No, those good vibrations you hear aren’t the weeping and gnashing of teeth and postponing of major concert tours as pop-music’s boy-band phase begins its overdue commercial decline. We’re talking about the picking, plucking and bowing of fiddles, mandolins, banjos, guitars, dobros and string basses, all…

Philip Booth

The sight of music

This month, MTV celebrated the 20th anniversary of its on-air debut with a big party, broadcast live from New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. Among other shenanigans, a series of the channel’s on-camera personnel interviewed a series of rockers, hip-hoppers and various other entertainment types about what MTV has meant to their lives. Other than learning that…

Lee Gardner

Immaterial girl

“Wow, Madonna’s a Rock Star!” grumbles a friend to my right, with only an applique of irony. She’s playing a guitar these days, you know. We’re once again traveling the distance from anticipation to realization with our favorite heroine of image control, Miss M, as she racks up high-ticket ratings with the Sunday night HBO…

Billy Manes

Tall, dark and handy

It’s the kind of sign that turns heads, like if you saw a naked person or an escaped lion on the side of the road. It saysÃ¢ “Rent-a-HusbandÃ¢” and when I saw it I did what everybody probably does: a Little Rascals double take. I wondered what kind of a business it could be and…

Liz Langley

No man’s land

It was one of those gatherings made for the city’s chief cheerleader, Mayor Glenda Hood. Two weeks ago she hosted a budget workshop with neighborhood leaders of Districts 5 and 6, which lie in the predominantly African American sections of the city. Leaning on a podium in city-council chambers, the cuffs of her dapper yellow…

William Dean Hinton

Force feeding on abortion

With its conservative leanings, Central Florida has long been a hotbed for anti-abortion fanatics. Politicians, including House Speaker Tom Feeney, are ardently “pro-life.” Local governments try to run abortion clinics out of town. In 1998, Operation Rescue staged a week-long protest outside an Orlando clinic, where protesters yelled obscenities to patronsÃ?they called it “sidewalk counseling.”…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Levine: a moving story

Count neighborhood activist Tom Levine as among those unhappy with the redistricting process. The reason? His south Orlando home was redrawn from District 1 into District 4. Levine, though, wants to run against District 1 Commissioner Don Ammerman in next spring’s election. Levine, a freelance writer and engaging oddball who won 3,000 votes in last…

Orlando Weekly Staff

What’s in it for me?

The late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, doyen of the Massachusetts Democratic party and longtime speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, once opined: “All politics are local.” What O’Neill meant to suggest was that — even in matters of great national import — decisions made by our elected officials would eventually be based upon what…

Al Krulick

Raptor, can you spare a dime?

Listen closely, because I’m going to tell you how you can spend the night on Jurassic Park Island at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure. You just have to duck into the men’s room in the Mythos restaurant, hide there until the park closes, and … No, on second thought, that won’t work. What you need…

Steve Schneider

How to stick out in a crowd

In Naples, Fla., city councilman Fred Tarrant has demanded that local artist Ted Lay’s “Famous Tongue Mona Al Monica” painting (side-by-side impressions of Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein and Monica Lewinsky sticking out their tongues) be removed from its place at a municipal art center because he thinks Lewinsky’s “tongue” too much resembles a penis (which…

Chuck Shepherd

Cho and tell

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no second acts in American life. He never met Margaret Cho, who’s currently on her third and counting. The San Francisco-born, Korean-American comedian’s rise to the top of the stand-up profession culminated in the 1994 debut of “All-American Girl,” her starring TV vehicle and the first Asian-American…

Steve Schneider

Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2001

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