Driving down West Colonial Drive, a small sign proclaiming “Coming Soon — Chinatown” may catch the eye. A project financed by Chinese investors, the former Wal-Mart shopping center will eventually house 60 pan-Asian businesses and restaurants. For now, our first taste of the mall (and why it’s called Chinatown remains a puzzle) is the 1st…

Joseph Hayes

Homegrown’s all right

This summer was a joyous time for Neil Young fans. Not only has his new release, “Greendale,” hit the shelves, but four titles of Young’s earlier work — “On the Beach” (1974), “American Stars ‘n Bars” (1978), “Hawks & Doves” (1980) and “reactor” (1981) — have also been reissued. Since Young had stated several times…

Kelly Burnette

Road to redemption

Jason Molina moves restlessly over the musical landscape like an itinerant traveler or an out-dated Willy Loman, staking out territory that echoes the desolate, winding rural roads, parched gray skies and rusted factories of his Midwestern youth. Hawking this stark sound under the moniker of Songs:Ohia, the Ohio/West Virginia native sings with a tender, aching…

Chris Parker

Oblique energy

“Oh, my God, look at him.” Jenny Hoysten sounds horrified. Her band, Erase Errata, recently left their home in San Francisco for a month of touring and has pulled off the highway for a bite to eat. Then Arnold Schwarzenegger comes on the restaurant’s television. “He’s just scary,” she says of the action-hero-cum-gubernatorial candidate. “I…

Nate Cavalieri

I’m a monkey, babe

Between the twice-dead skin under my finger nails and jagged tooth imprints in my lower lip, I’m not a pretty sight right now. I know you’re thinking that’s just standard Sunday fare for the little boy who never knows when to go to bed or when to stop spending his Weekly allowance on, um, candy.…

Billy Manes

Got light bulb?

Like the rest of Orlando Weekly, Dog Playing Poker is thrilled to the shorthairs by the return of Light Up Orlando, the freewheeling street festival that was once a highlight of the local entertainment calendar. But we’re frankly troubled by the reports that its new incarnation will be a cleaner, family-friendlier event purged of certain…

Steve Schneider

Ax Ax the Tax

A colleague poses an interesting question: Is a vote against Mobility 20/20 — the county’s multibillion dollar plan to alleviate gridlock — a vote for anti-tax crusaders like Doug Guetzloe and Ax the Tax? And if so, can one vote against 20/20 and still respect oneself in the morning? A thick, chewy quandary indeed. First,…

Bob Whitby

I fought the towing company, and I won

There should be one less docket bouncing around the Orange County Courthouse, now that my personal run-in with the notorious TowTruck Co. has been settled (By hook, crook, or the book, June 19). To refresh, on Feb. 11, my car was towed from the 7-Eleven on Summerlin Avenue in Thornton Park. A quick visit to…

Lindy T. Shepherd

Mickey’s rock

The American Heritage Foundation Rock is big, bulky and heavy. It took seven workers six hours to move the two-ton block of granite from the curb of the south entrance of the Polk County Administration Building into the lobby, where three hours before its unveiling Sept. 11, it is hidden underneath a blue sheet, forming…

William Dean Hinton

An open letter to the mayor

Mayor Buddy Dyer One City Commons 400 South Orange Ave. Orlando, FL 32802 Dear Buddy: The fact that you have convened a task force to study the problems and potential of downtown Orlando is admirable, and I for one wish you nothing but success. Your predecessor did her level best to kill downtown to save…

Bob Whitby

Sep 17-23, 2003

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