Jul 14-20, 1999

Jul 14-20, 1999 / Vol. 15 / No. 28

Season of the ‘Witch’

The highly anticipated The Blair Witch Project opened at Maitland’s Enzian Theater last Friday, and for the entire day, it seemed as if you couldn’t swing a dead college student without hitting someone who was going to see it. Record crowds greeted the film’s official opening, with viewers reportedly coming as far away from Tampa…

Steve Schneider

Orlando Weekly pushes resources to Edgie

A small fish swimming proudly in a big pond, the Orlando Weekly netted a glass-cut Digital Edge Award — or Edgie — at the Newspaper Association of America’s CONNECTIONS 99 annual electronic-media conference, held July 16 in Chicago. The award, given for Best Feature Presentation, recognizes “outstanding achievement, accomplishing the most with the means at…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Natural selection

U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Altamonte Springs) called for a congressional investigation last week into the Coast Guard’s June 30 sinking of a 14-foot boat with six Cuban refugees on it, calling it a “horrific incident.” The men survived, but the incident set off a firestorm in Miami’s Cuban community, which represents deep pockets and conservative…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Putting the ‘boy’ in boycott

Members of a well-equipped surveillance group called Christian Action Network vowed to boycott Disney yet again last week upon release of a videotape that the group’s president, Martin Mawyer, made depicting two male Disney employees dancing together suggestively in Mannequins Dance Palace during the June Gay Days celebration. “This homosexual debauchery will be the final…

Orlando Weekly Staff

One small fortune

If “The Little Midget” is never released as a full-length animated Disney feature, blame former Disney minihoncho Jeffrey Katzenberg, who settled a long-running dispute with the media giant last week for an undisclosed sum. Katzenberg, who left the company in a snit in 1994 after Evil Chairman Michael Eisner refused to name him to the…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Featherweight champions

Earlier this year, the Purina Philippines subsidiary of the Ralston Purina animal-food company introduced power chicken feed, designed to build muscles in roosters for the popular “sport” of cockfighting. According to a June Wall Street Journal report, the market for Rooster Booster chow is huge: The Philippines has 5 million “gaming” roosters. Milk it for…

Chuck Shepherd

White-collar crime pays

TOWN CRIER Aug. 7, 2003 ROLLIN’ AROUND MY NOGGIN’ By Zachary F. NewhallEditor-in-chief Greetings, dear friends. Ordinarily, I’d start this column by expressing my heartfelt gratitude that the passing of another month has found us all safe, healthy and well. But that’s simply not possible, given the grave business I have to discuss with you.…

Jim Hightower

Light beams

Just like the national and international electronic scenes, Orlando’s artists are still experimenting with seemingly endless possibilities. And while some of the home-town techno-pioneers broke out years ago, many continue to pursue their uncompromised sound visions — to lesser public avail, perhaps, but certainly with promise: Eyelight is such a project. Eyelight is voice-centric music…

Steven Garnett

Water torture

The dead guy was hard to get. It was 6 a.m. Tuesday, July 6, and Sea World employees were horrified when they spotted the body of Daniel P. Dukes draped over the back of Tillikum, an 11,000-pound killer whale. An emergency worker on the scene later said it took quite some time and effort to…

Ericson, Edward Jr.

Witnessing the time to kill

The death chamber at Florida State Prison occupies two rooms, in mud/pastel tones common to all institutions. Like the rest of what visitors see of the prison, it’s spotlessly clean. One room is for the 30 or so witnesses, who sit in four rows of chairs with roughly carved backs vaguely suggesting angels with outspread…

John F. Sugg

Declining years

When St. Cloud police responded to a recent domestic dispute, the scene was a surreal mix between “Cops” and “Cocoon.” A 66-year-old woman had allegedly punched and pushed her 75-year-old husband after tying him to his bed with a dog collar and leash. According to police reports, the woman withheld her husband’s heart medication and…

Steve Helling

The short ‘Route’ to the screen

Blinking is not an option while watching “The Paper Route.” Miss a few seconds of this fast-paced, locally produced short film, and you’ll either lose the punch line of one of its brief comedic vignettes or fail to spot one of the numerous cameos that make it a “who’s who” of struggling Orlando talent. In…

Steve Schneider

Dropping the prom on teen activism

Cops involved in the routine raid of Cleo’s adult nightclub a few days before Christmas 2001, have probably long since forgotten the events of that Sunday evening. As is custom with such operations, the officers stormed the medium-sized club, which is decorated in Egyptian décor, and immediately took over the DJ booth. They cut the…

Steve Schneider

Rock’s power puff girls

“People probably think we’re really negative, because we complain a lot,” suspects Donna C., on the phone from Portland, Ore. “But we just like to complain. It’s fun for us.” Not that The Donnas have much to quibble about these days. The group’s latest (and third) release, “Get Skintight,” aroused rave reviews from Details and…

Billy Manes

Attention grabber

“Never?” “Never.” “NEVER?” “NEVER!” I have this exchange whenever I tell someone I’ve never been to a male strip show. I’ve seen male strippers, but mostly at gay clubs, plus one club in East Incest, Ga., or some “Deliverance”-like town, that featured both men and women. Sexual ambiguity in the rural South: Who knew? But…

Liz Langley

Bilingual take on fast food

Chinese fast food delivered in Spanish is the deal at Chirico, a tiny place that cropped up in a strip shopping plaza near the airport. The dining area looks more Texas than Taiwan, with stone dividers and wood accents. Aside from a few stray tostones and pollo frito (fried chicken) dinners, the aromas leave no…

Colleen Moore

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