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Jan 24-30, 2001

Jan 24-30, 2001 / Vol. 17 / No. 4

Tiny downtown deli still a winner

The day I went to Champs Deli across the street from the downtown library, there were just five people in the place. Still, I almost didn’t make it in. The little phone-booth-sized established for quite a while, with Chef George serving his famous pulled-pork sandwiches, and even though it’s now owned by Lilia’s Catering, George…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Single file

I’m single and I smoke, which means on some subconscious level, I’m more comfortable with getting into an iron lung than a committed relationship. Why I’m like this I’m not sure, but when I look around at my single peers it seems both weird and valiant that we have resisted the alleged two-ton influence of…

Liz Langley

Circus maximus

Ever since Circus World exited Orlando’s peripheral amusement ring, the corporate mongers of Universal and Disney have remained busy only with the exploitative fiberglass of imaginary cartoonishness. There’s been no side show, no humility, and worst of all, no risk. Thank god, then, for the occasional visit of the three-ring Ringling Bros. and Barnum &…

Billy Manes

Tiny downtown deli still a winner

The day I went to Champs Deli across the street from the downtown library, there were just five people in the place. Still, I almost didn’t make it in. The little phone-booth-sized establishment has been at 132 E. Central Blvd. (407-649-1230) for quite a while, with Chef George serving his famous pulled-pork sandwiches, and even…

Joseph Hayes

Between the accessible and the complex

The more things change, the more they sound the same: Plain Jane Automobile is actively pursuing that space of pop metaphoria that has kept the song supreme throughout inevitable trendy stylistic intrusions. The music’s hooky and increasingly popular, but can you call it pop anymore? “I was sitting around with the band the other night,…

Billy Manes

Rob Mazurek is in with th…

Rob Mazurek is in with the in crowd. Although he’d been a working musician in Chicago for more than a decade, mostly playing in hard-bop jazz bands, Mazurek didn’t start really making the scene until about five years ago when he met guitarist Jeff Parker (a member of Tortoise as well as about a half-dozen…

Daniel Piotrowski

Living high on the hog

To help the Netherlands’ meat-exporting business (already No. 3 in the world), but recognizing the country’s small land area (half the size of South Carolina), Agriculture Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst recently endorsed a think tank’s proposal to build a six-story “agropark” of pig pens, chicken coops and salmon pools. An Animal Protection Society spokesperson likened the…

Chuck Shepherd

Rights and responsibility

The problem of identifying — and properly purging — felons from Florida’s voter rolls is not new to Patricia Hollarn. “Some voters are being unfairly rejected,” asserted the Okaloosa supervisor of elections, speaking Jan. 23 in Orlando to a state panel created to help reform Florida’s now-famously flawed election system. That panel was called by…

Jeffrey C. Billman

Game face

On Sept. 30, 2000, four young African-American men took a mere 37.61 seconds to pass a baton around a 400-meter track in Sydney, Australia, and win Olympic gold. About two months later, visitors to the heavily trafficked sports-news website CNNSi were asked to choose “the biggest turkey” in American sports in 2000. With more than…

Jay Ulfelder

Taking liberties

In Latin America they might have called them votantes desaparecidos, “disappeared voters.” On Nov. 7 tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters were prevented from casting their ballots — some purged from the voter registries and others blocked from registering in the first instance. Nearly all were Democrats, nearly half of them African American. The…

Gregory Palast

City Hall’s poor relations

As syrupy farewells go, Grace Chewning’s final Orlando City Council meeting was an insulin-inducing affair. In a Dec. 11 proclamation to the retiring city clerk, Mayor Glenda Hood described Chewning as “singularly distinguished,” “admirable and productive” and “an inspiration to the entire Orlando community.” “`Chewning` was so enthusiastic about her service to the city of…

Orlando Weekly Staff

A ready warrior

Mel Martinez might not be Central Florida’s only link to the Bush White House. Former campaign workers for rejected Senate candidate Bill McCollum are giddily assessing the 20-year conservative congressman’s chances to become the nation’s drug czar. That’s horrid news for anyone whose views on drug issues are the least bit progressive: In Congress, McCollum…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Animal distraction

Did you hear the blood-curdling howl that came roaring out of Disney’s Animal Kingdom earlier this month? It didn’t come from the lions in the park’s Africa section or from the tigers in the Asia enclosure. It didn’t even come from visitors who’d just learned about the recent $2 ticket price increase. No, this anguished…

Jim Hill

Art night hones its sound vision

If you can’t walk into a nightclub or gallery these days without wondering where to cast your eyes, when to prick up your ears or in which direction to turn your head, don’t blame Levi McConnell. He didn’t invent the concept of sensory overload as entertainment; he merely helped to popularize it. Last February, disc-spinner…

Steve Schneider

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