Weekend Ahead Feb. 27-March 1
This has got to stop. No more sitting around, letting your weekend disappear into a foggy, unexamined, vaguely erotic fever dream, pretending the world will get better around you. You have to make a difference, starting with yourself. You have to become â?¦ the Nu Uâ?¢. Orlando Green Festival Nu U (NU) is all about…
Cuban evolution
Palatable dishes keep conventioneers content
Dysfunction junction
The real Revolutionary Road streams into living rooms
Hooked on DLC?
Nobody doesn’t like a gift that keeps on giving — especially not gamers, whose passion often cash-straps them with only slightly more ruthless efficiency than a Bernie Madoff—fronted investment. That’s why Burnout Paradise, the most recent entry in Electronic Arts’ long-running drive-and-crash series, has become one of the most gamer-friendly titles of the last few…
Immaculate deception
For a minute it seemed like something had finally given. State budget cuts of $1.2 billion engendered spirited debate among legislators during January’s special session as to what could be cut from the Department of Health’s budget. After a recent history of the Republican majority trying to insert anti-abortion clauses into the most obscure of…
Like a criminal
On a cold Friday morning I strap on my guitar case and walk down the not-so-busy streets of downtown Orlando, settling on a vacant spot in front of what used to be Scruffy Murphy’s, now a boarded-up, desolate building at the intersection of Orange Avenue and Washington Street. I take out my guitar and lay…
The magic homo
In last year’s indie comedy Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, the title character, Nick (Michael Cera), has just met Norah (Kat Dennings) at a concert. He’s trying to get over his ex-girlfriend and she wants to stick it to her stuck-up friend, who happens to be the ex. She makes out with him in front…
Blister
Way back in the ’90s, I remember strolling the sickly lit aisles of a small town West Virginia porn shop with a tinge of trepidation in my gut. Sure, I’d seen it all before — some of my earliest flashbacks involve Bo Derek naked in my stepfather’s Playboy next to his bottom-drawer cigarettes, and the…
Free Will Astrology
; ARIES (March 21-April 19): Beware of people who act like polite jerks or tone-deaf music critics or emotionally numb lovers. While they may be able to teach you a lot about what you don’t need, they’re not worthy candidates for enduring relationships. Now let’s turn our attention to the question of who exactly does…
Savage Love
My boyfriend of 16 months and I have a great relationship. He loves my blowjobs, but he will not kiss me if I have his come in my mouth. It grosses him out. We have talked about this, and he won’t even try. I have no problem if he kisses me after going down on…
This Little Underground
Well, hellooooo, Maitland! The beat Uh-huh, Maitland was kickin’ on a recent Sunday. Headlining the popular country-centric Southern Fried Sundays were honky-tonkin’ rockers the Painted Ladies (Feb. 15, Copper Rocket), who bore such a crowded production that they sometimes veered into “more is less” territory. But what’s subtlety and finesse to a good-time band like…
Live Active Cultures
I should have known I was in trouble when he asked for the Jäger. “He” is Frankie Messina, founder of the Apartment E culture network, manager of the Office Gallery & Art Studios, and bayou-accented godfather of the Orlando arts scene. I’ve been sadly negligent of late in my observance of downtown’s monthly Third Thursday…
Council Watch
It was a top-heavy nightmare of photo-op accolades at this week’s municipal mind meld, beginning with the unexpected (but hilarious) impromptu call-and-response testifying to Bishop Allen T. D. Wiggins’ heady invocation. Amen! City chief administrative officer Byron Brooks then tried to make sense of the federal stimulus that might be coming our way by talking…
Happytown
Remember when ACORN was just that little harmless tree nugget registering voters while working to stop foreclosures (you know, before it became the Republican devil)? Well that little nugget has grown into a scrawny sapling. In an attempt to keep people facing eviction in their homes, the group launched its “Home Staying” campaign in seven…
Police Beat
Feb. 5 (2009-56987) 1 a.m.: Hey guess what! After only a year of nagging, I convinced art director Shan Stumpf to give this page an overhaul. You like? You’ll notice that this week’s Beat has a brand-new feature, our Mug Shot of the Week. These mugs, I should note, are apropos of nothing in particular…
The homecoming
‘It goes up in smoke but I know it’s coming back around/Every 28 years/Saturn comes back to town.” Orlando singer-songwriter Holly Riggs is less than a minute into her first song at the 2008 ELLA Music Fest, one of her first live performances since leaving town a couple of years ago, and already she’s made…
Scallywags of rock
Sometime around 1300-1500 B.C., there was a group of folks referred to as the “sea people.” Not much is actually known about them other than that they were a ship-robbing, slave-taking, treasure-stealing pain in the ass for kingdoms in and around the Mediterranean, particularly for the pharaohs of Egypt. In the three or four millennia…
OTP’s brave take on the ultimate taboo
Blackbird Through March 29 at Winter Park Playhouse; 407-491-1397 www.otp.cc; $28 Ray is a man in his mid-50s and Una is 27. While a relationship between two people at those disparate ages might raise eyebrows in some circles, Ray and Una cohabited 15 years earlier, when he was 40 and she, just 12. That union…
