1. Dish

Yes, We Have Guacamole

But try the puff pastry too at El Chamol

By Gail Shepherd

Published: March 27, 2008

Read anything about Mexican mole (pronounced MOLE-ay), a sauce so contrarian few have been able to define it, and you'll probably run across at least two origin stories. One involves...

2. Dred Scott!

Live Nation Swallows Fantasma

By Jonathan Cunningham

Published: March 27, 2008

After longtime concert promoter Jon Stoll succumbed to cancer in January, at 54 years old, realizing that he'd suffer no more was probably a bittersweet relief for those who knew him...

3. Feature

Revenge of the Nerd

Perez Hilton, a pure product of South Florida, makes bitchery pay

By Francisco Alvarado

Published: March 27, 2008

It happened in 1996. Mario Lavandeira Jr. can't recall the exact date, but it was late in his senior year at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, the all-boys Catholic institution that...

4. Film

Counting Sheep

21 doesn't hit the jackpot. Doesn't even come close

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: March 27, 2008

Ben Mezrich's 2002 bestseller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas For Millions was a smart narrative about... well, you did see the subtitle,...

5. Film

Apolitical Theater

Iraq War movie Stop-Loss does its best not to mention the war

By Scott Foundas

Published: March 27, 2008

Considering that the war in Iraq has proven to be Washington's shot-by-shot remake of Vietnam, it's only natural that Hollywood has followed suit, giving us a series of Iraq-themed...

6. Game On

Online Turnoff

Who said first-person games need a second person?

By Gary Hodges

Published: March 27, 2008

Developers seem to believe that their first-person games are required to include online modes. Blame it on the few narrow-minded gamers (and critics) who constantly hammer away with...

7. Live Wire

Nick Catchdubs

By Tamara Palmer

Published: March 27, 2008

This New Yorker is a DJ who has the talent to venture from rap to rock to house to electro to whatever, without losing people or sounding strained. He was formerly an editor at knowledgeable...

8. Live Wire

Soulphonics and Ruby Velle

By Jonathan Cunningham

Published: March 27, 2008

Within the genre of soul music there's been a certain revival of late, with modern artists making music that sounds like it was penned and recorded several decades earlier. The best...

9. Live Wire

Colette

By Tamara Palmer

Published: March 27, 2008

L.A. is full of starlets, celebutantes, and wannabe Playboy bunnies. Wannabes that are only too happy to besmirch the name and good reputation of a real female DJ like Colette Marino,...

10. Live Wire

Dave Navarro and DJ Skribble

By Jonathan Cunningham

Published: March 27, 2008

During his heyday in the late '80s and mid '90s, nobody embodied the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle more than Dave Navarro. The former Jane's Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers...

11. Music

Justice on the Dance Floor

An erstwhile hobby spells success for this Parisian duo

By Eryc Eyl

Published: March 27, 2008

Xavier de Rosnay's honesty is refreshing — even if the words he's just uttered won't exactly go down as the most artistically inclined assertion ever made. "We make electronic...

12. News

Cane Collapse

How Florida's only team in the NCAAs almost did it

By Sam Eifling

Published: March 27, 2008

On Sunday, you, dear University of Miami fan, watched the Hurricanes nearly claw their way past the favored Texas Longhorns into the Sweet 16. And as you did, you probably thought...

13. Night Watch

Spring Brake

What's the world coming to when you can't even find any college girls to get hosed down in their T-shirts?

By Tara Nieuwesteeg

Published: March 27, 2008

With the month of March drawing to a close, a bar-hopping people-watcher like me has had her fill of sightings of sunburned youths in Greek-lettered T-shirts. Scores of them. They...

14. Bob Norman

Trailer Trashed

Hallandale draws a bead on its most vulnerable citizens

By Bob Norman

Published: March 27, 2008

Serge Leon sits on a step in his recently renovated mobile home. He has clear plastic tubes running into his nose and a rather dazed, faraway look in his eyes. Then it changes to something...

15. Outtakes

Erykah Badu: the Plebeian, Militant Homegirl

No songs per se, but plenty of deep grooves on Mama Gun's latest

By Miles Marshall Lewis

Published: March 27, 2008

New Amerykah, the first real Erykah Badu record in eight long years, kicks off with agitated funk guitar and the Roy Ayers brass-horny blaxploitation groove of "Amerykahn Promise." With...

16. Outtakes

Twilight Zone

Detroit's DJ Godfather wires up the ghetto

By Tamara Palmer

Published: March 27, 2008

Soulja Boy may know how to "Crank Dat," but Detroit's DJ Godfather still had to crank the kid up several notches — and maybe Superman that ho — for his unofficial remix...

17. Outtakes

Rap Reggae Revolution

Black Chiney takes mash-ups to a higher level

By Jonathan Cunningham

Published: March 27, 2008

Back in the day, a good mixtape was filled with enough variety that it could make you dance, sing aloud, or crack up laughing, depending on what tracks you were listening to at the...

18. Short Cuts

Maceo Parker

Roots & Grooves (Heads Up/Telarc)

By Mark Keresman

Published: March 27, 2008

Outside of jazz, there aren't many alto saxophone playing star-types left. In fact, aside from Maceo Parker, none come to mind. In the 1960s and '70s, Maceo was one of the central...

19. Short Cuts

Truckee Brothers

Double Happiness (Populuxe Records)

By William Michael Smith

Published: March 27, 2008

With amps turned to thunder-and-lightning levels and enough instruments on hand to open their own music store, San Diego's Truckee Brothers take a blowtorch on Double Happiness to...

20. Short Cuts

Chica Libre

Sonido Amazónico (Barbés Records)

By Jason Ferguson

Published: March 27, 2008

Kicking off with a statement of intent — a cover of the Los Mirlos track, "Sonido Amazónico" that opened the groundbreaking 2007 Barbés compilation of Peruvian...