It was 1995 when a friend gave me the usual “Dude, you have to hear this” about his latest aural love affair. The song he stuck on the stereo turned out to be “Mama’s Got a Girlfriend,” off Ben Harper’s debut album, Welcome to the Cruel World. The lyrics caused…
The African American Research Library wraps up its month-long Negro League Baseball Showcase on Saturday with appearances by more than a dozen players who gained fame in the Negro League — or at least, the little fame there was to gain. The one thing mainstream America seems to know about…
Dickey Betts is not supposed to be here. The man’s life went completely sideways early in 2001, when he was fired from the legendary long-running Allman Brothers Band, a group he cofounded. Moreover, Betts wrote most of the songs familiar to Allmans fans today — “Ramblin’ Man,” “Jessica,” “Revival,” and…
What’s New York City’s longest-running show? Most people would guess Cats (18 years) or Les Miserables (16). Hardly anybody would mention Chicago City Limits. Chicago? Yep, the comedy troupe has been performing, week in and week out, at its theater in New York for 22 years. Now, that’s longevity (though…
Yachting and Palm Beach County enjoy a long history only hinted at by this week’s Palm Beach Boat Show. When Henry Flagler finished his visionary (some say thoroughly insane) quest to build a railroad to South Florida and turn the Town of Palm Beach into a private resort for him…
Along Dixie Highway, just west of Young Circle Park, an innocuous strip mall with the usual strip-mall businesses sits quietly at the side of the road. V.I.P Hair Salon. Interactive Solutions Inc. — for all your signs, marketing, and web design needs. Stamped Concrete, featuring one-way concrete delivery. As in…
Imagine, if you will, a president whose sexual peccadilloes get him into huge amounts of trouble. Sure, it sounds as if it could never happen, but bear with us. Now add to the mix a group of relentlessly greedy corporate CEOs. OK, OK. Also, admittedly, a bit hard to believe…
Thursday, March 6 If there’s one thing every home needs to spruce up the décor, it’s somebody naked. A print of My Naked Wife Watching Her Body by Salvador Dalí may be a good bet, if you like your nudes tastefully done and devoid of full-frontal nudity. But then, maybe…
Deep in the distant rock ‘n’ roll past, great and mighty festivals once ruled the Earth. Lollapalooza, Woodstock, H.O.R.D.E., and Lilith roamed the world’s venues, bringing dozens of bands to thousands of fans. But that was a long time ago (in rock ‘n’ roll years, at any rate, where trends…
Headlines nowadays seem like some trite combination of action comics and Jerry Bruckheimer movies, and the dire happenings they talk about are usually presented by anchors who speak of death and destruction with a gleam in their eyes. Is it any wonder, then, that news satire has become a popular…
That movie Rock Star should have been based on Black Flag, not Judas Priest. Sure, Judas Priest replaced Rob Halford with an unknown, but that was well after the band’s prime. By contrast, punk pioneer Black Flag replaced its lead singer with an unknown man who jumped up on stage…
Thursday, February 13, 2003 The City of Deerfield Beach’s Founders’ Day Celebration kicks off today. Although this is the 66th-annual event, the city traces its history back much further. A post office was first established at Deerfield, so named for the numerous deer that grazed along the Hillsboro River at…
Saint Valentine’s Day, created by the Hallmark company in the early part of the 20th Century, takes its name from an ancient religious feast day of the same name. According to legend, Valentine was a bishop who was clubbed and beheaded by Roman soldiers on or around February 14, 270…
With all the Latin immigration to South Florida over the decades, many times we forget our dear neighbors to the north. Canada! Yes, Canada. There’s the barren wilderness in the Northwest Territories, the snow-capped peaks of the Yukon, and a massive percentage of its population planted just north of the…
One might think that the Florida Toy Soldier and Action Figure Show would consist primarily of Star Wars dolls and vehicles from the original trilogy wrapped in the original packaging. “For God’s sake, you can’t take that Han Solo doll out of his plastic casing!” you might imagine some collector…
One thing you can say consistently about Super Bowls, especially since around XXVI or so, is the high quality of the commercials in between all the action. Not soon will gridiron fans forget the simple pleasure of offering your deluded buddy, already into you for a few hundred bucks on…
The Irish have a long tradition of killing each other off. For the past century or so, it’s all been about religion and home rule, though that wasn’t always the case. Now, however, peace seems to have finally come (aside from the occasional isolated incident) to the Emerald Isle. Of…
South Florida Folk FestivalIt’s that time of year again, when the groves and meadows of Easterlin Park are filled with the strains of acoustic guitars and folksy lyrics. More than 100 performers are set to perform at this year’s South Florida Folk Festival. Eight stages boast everything from the aforementioned…
If your New Year’s Eve festivities were neither sufficiently lengthy nor debauched enough for your party-connoisseur tastes, maybe it’s time to swing simian style with the third-annual Monkey Ball. The Monkey Krewe, a South Florida-based organization dedicated to bringing the inebriation of N’Awlins closer to home, offers this annual costume…
“Hopefully the economy will start to be on the upside a little bit,” Christopher Makos says in a slow, deliberate tone. “Soon as we go to war… so that Americans can drive their big, gas-guzzling SUVs so they can protect their princesses and their children. Those are really good things…
About a millennium and a half ago, Buddhist teachings from India began seeping over the Himalayas and into China. Yuan Hong, an emperor of the Wei dynasty, had a Buddhist monastic institution set up for an Indian scholar monk known as Bhadur. The temple, built in the forest at the…
Pauly Shore is to actors as Ed Wood is to directors. Shore, of course, began life in the limelight as an MTV veejay. That, we can understand — MTV has a long proud history of hiring only the most annoying of pinheads to introduce its latest videos. From Shore to…
