McCain – Mel Martinez is the “greatest senator in all of the history of the United States”
No, really, he said it!!! While we’ve had no such superlative praise to heap on him, we should note that we have had a few choice words for the homophobic head of the GOP. For instance, we’ve called the junior senator “an unflinching Bush sycophant”. We’ve called him “a robot programmed by the evil, evil…
goodbye, ruby tuesday.
… and hello, Ruby Tuesday! Against a backdrop of failing chain restaurants, Ruby Tuesday is struggling to stay afloat. A keystone of their plan to stay competitive includes redesigning their restaurants, and now they’re blowing up the last battered-trumpet-and old-steering-wheel-covered-wall, dusty-Tiffany-lamp-filled restaurant. Literally. They will broadcast live the explosive destruction of the last “old Ruby…
Last chance to feed a Red Chair
If you haven’t been to IKEA for a couple weeks (shame on you! consumer credit spending is the only thing holding this economy together!), stop by this weekend to see the Red Chairs before they’re gone. 43 child-sized chairs sit prominently at the top of the main escalator, each decorated by a different Orlando arts…
the scent of green papaya.
Damn, it’s steamy out there this week. (And it doesn’t help that we’re trying to save money at Salivation Army barracks by keeping the thermostat at 79 degrees â?? so it’s pretty steamy indoors as well.) When it’s this hot, I only have two solutions … 1) Unfortunately, my employer prefers us to wear clothing,…
OPEN SESAME
Mediterranean delights await behind Maraya’s doors.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Boston’s other great punk band comes into its own.
SLY TUNES
Arty jokers aren’t above making good songs.
COMMENTS
The Dick Knight In the article “Cape, cowl and Camelot” [July 24], the only one grasping for hope is [writer] Steve Schneider. We all know it’s a lot of fun to see things blow up, but let’s be honest: Batman’s most recent incarnation, The Dark Knight, is morally bankrupt. Through his directing, Christopher Nolan doesn’t…
SAVAGE LOVE
First, the formalities: I adore your column, I’ve been reading it since I was a single fundamentalist far-right wack job and I read it now that I’m a married far-left feminist with kids. Secondly, the problem: I’m married (not the problem) to a wonderful, funny, hardworking, sensitive-yet-manly dude, and the mother to two little ones…
FASTER, PUSSYCAT! POO! POO!
So the world’s most expensive coffee is passed through the digestive tract of the same creature linked to the SARS outbreak – don’t let that stop you from, ahem, dropping $30 and sampling an 8-ounce cup. Kopi luwak is an Indonesian specialty coffee that’s collected from the poop of Asian civet cats that feast on…
HAPPYTOWN
You know what’s fun? Having your head dipped in a chocolate fountain with strawberries up your nose. You know what isn’t? National politics played out by local politicians in a law-office boardroom with no chocolate or strawberries in sight. Still, the five Democratic candidates vying for Ric Keller’s District 8 congressional seat did their best…
BLISTER
Tonight, everything is in glossy shades of black and white, with only tasteful clots of red and glassy green peppered throughout to give the social illusion of healing or growing or anything, really, that can offset this fashionable, binary severity of being. Tony and I are doing what we do, huddling around our vanity bonfire…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Work can be hazardous for the actors at Disney theme parks. The U.S. Health and Safety Administration reports that one-third of them have suffered on-the-job injuries. A prime cause of the mayhem: kids who kick and punch, sometimes out of misplaced exuberance and other times out of Lord of the Flies–style…
DOOGIE SINGS!
Academy Award–nominated writer Joss Whedon (Toy Story) has a way with words. As pointed out in the PBS documentary Do You Speak American?, Whedon’s legendary TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “challenged linguistic taboos and introduced new words and phrases in nearly every show.” But to Whedon, musicals are where the truest words are spoken.…
THE MEAT OF THE MATTER
Ask most Americans about what causes global warming, and they’ll point to a coal plant smokestack or a car’s tailpipe. They’re right, of course, but perhaps two other images should be granted similarly iconic status: the front and rear ends of a cow. According to a little-known 2006 United Nations report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, livestock…
ABUNDANT ANGLOPHILIA
Sir John Mortimer was beside himself over rumors that the feature-length adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited might ignore religion, homosexuality and Aloysius. (Mortimer wrote the screenplay for the 1981 TV miniseries adaptation.) He needn’t have worried. All are evident in the film, and so is another Brideshead essential: charm. Charm was stressed…
THE KINDEST CUTSCENE
Sometimes, the answer to a single question tells you everything you need to know about where a person stands on a topic. The Los Angeles Lakers: Do you like Kobe Bryant? Coldplay: Do bombastic Chris Martin solos turn your musical crank? Metal Gear Solid: Dude. How do you feel about cutscenes? Anyone who’s spent any…
FREE BILL DILLON!
Bill Dillon has spent the last 27 years in Florida’s Hardee Correctional Institution for the vicious 1981 murder of James Dvorak `see “26 years,” Oct. 11, 2007`. Dvorak was bludgeoned, his lips were peeled off and he was left for dead in a wooded portion of Canova Beach. Following a trial that could generously be…
WHITEWASH?
It seems logical that if Orange County Public Schools discovered that a contractor was bilking them for thousands of dollars, maybe more, they’d do something about it immediately. But that apparently didn’t happen. In fact, sources inside the school district say OCPS officials knew that contractor CPM Technologies had overbilled the school board on at…
FIRST SHOT
It’s official: Movies are still your best entertainment value. Especially if you stop counting everything else. Someone with little direct knowledge of economics – a community-college freshman, say, or Phil Gramm – might look at the record-breaking box-office take of movies like The Dark Knight and assume this country is on pretty sturdy financial footing.…
LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES
Mad Cow Theatre made a strong case for the theater as the last refuge for rational political discourse with last Sunday’s politics-themed entry in their ongoing Salon Series, occasioned by their opening weekend of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara. Host Alan Bruun’s introduction quoted Louis Brandeis: “The most important political office is that of the…
POLICE BEAT
July 4 (2008-289299) 9 a.m.: This week marks a special edition of Police Beat. Worry not, dear readers. We’ll soon be back to spilling ink on copper thievery and aborted home invasions. But this week, we’re going to venture off the beaten path just a little. Sometimes, a crime is so heinous, so incomprehensible to…
Hobbing the Nobs
Are you tired of the political oligarchy being a cadre of old white men? Wish it was a cadre of young white men? Then you’re probably a Young Republican! This Thursday is the Orange County Young Republican’s Candidate HobNob. Here, you can rub elitist elitist-bashing elbows with the best and brightest this county has to…
Shocker: St. Pete, FL not as “hip” as they claim!
When L.A. beach-rockers OPM played Jannus Landing in St. Pete with their tourmates, the gawd-awful band (hed) p.e., they might’ve read this St. Petersburg Times story from July 4 by Sharon Kennedy Wynne (“Graffiti art puts writing on the wall”) and thought, “Hey, St. Pete is mad cool! They celebrate alternative art! C’mon fellow white…
