As lighthearted as Will Rogers was, Doug Watson takes his role as the great cowboy philosopher seriously. In his program Conversations With Will Rogers, he plays the humorist to the hilt. Dressed in a double-breasted suit and Stetson, he delivers wisecracks about the politics and culture of the ’20s and…

Thursday May 6 As if the TV show, magazine, mail-order catalog, and books weren’t enough for her fans, the Martha Stewart Good Things Group meets once every three months at Barnes & Noble in Plantation (591 S. University Dr.) to discuss the homemaking maven’s latest revelations. The group is named…

After a massive stroke paralyzed Sandy Simon’s left side in 1993, his doctors told him that if he lived — which they doubted — he would be a mental and physical invalid. Today, at age 61, a slight hitch in his walk is the only hint of Simon’s ordeal. The…

When you spill something on a couch or a chair made by Sas and Colin Christian, there’s no need to worry about spot remover. Just break out the tire cleaner and wipe down the piece of furniture, and it shines like new. “Actually, we’ve found that Son of a Gun…

Thursday April 29 The band hasn’t signed to a major label yet, but tonight might be your last chance to see the pop-punk outfit River Fenix — at least with that name. The quartet, which in fact has been courted by the majors since the kickoff in early April of…

Thursday April 22 England’s King Henry VIII wasn’t taking chances with wife number four. The Catholic Church had banned divorce, so he created the Church of England in order to legally unload Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Displeased with wife number two, Anne Boleyn, he had her beheaded. His…

Some adventurous souls are more adventurous than others. So are some boat cruises. When a recent cold front sent 20-knot winds whipping across the Atlantic Ocean, Capt. Tom Tiernan and his wife and first mate, Cathie, canceled a catamaran trip. The winds weren’t too strong for the 53-foot, double-hulled sailboat,…

Thursday April 15 Talk to imaginary friends, and you’ll be viewed as wacky. Actor John Davidson, however, is winning accolades for such behavior. Only he’s talking to fake friends and family members on stage as the 26th President of the United States. In Bully! An Adventure With Teddy Roosevelt, Davidson…

To some folks a Volkswagen isn’t a VW unless the engine’s in back, emitting that telltale chirp with each burst of acceleration. Old-schoolers, explains VW enthusiast Sandi Barrett, think the German cars were at their best when Beetles, Karmann Ghias, and buses were propelled by air-cooled engines mounted in what…

Thursday April 8 If you’re going to do a musical, focus on the music. Writer and lyricist Dean Pitchford learned that lesson with the movie Footloose. He wrote the screenplay and collaborated on the nine-song soundtrack, which was the real star of the film about a town where dancing is…

As the protege of George Balanchine, dancer Edward Villella followed the path of the great ballet choreographer in one unfortunate way, albeit one that turned out great for South Florida dance. Balanchine (1904-1983), who began dancing at age nine in his native Russia, hurt his knee in the mid-’20s, shifting…

The late Keith Haring was anything but secretive about his homosexuality. During the mid-’80s, when AIDS was still considered a “gay” disease, the popular New York City artist was one of the first to address the issue in his work, and graphically so. A cartoonish, two-panel Haring piece from the…

“Hemp Factory. Be hemp,” says a cheerful female clerk answering the phone in the Boca Raton boutique. Or was that, “Buy hemp”? It doesn’t matter, really. In the shop, everything in sight — hemp-seed-oil shampoo, hemp-fiber clothing, hemp-flour tortilla chips — is made from marijuana’s impotent cousin. So in order…

Thursday April 1 Here’s a twist. For ten years Suzanne Miller of Fort Lauderdale was known as Vivian Saint John, professional wrestler. But then she quit the ring and became a student at the New York School of Occult Arts and Sciences. She’s now known as Lady Suzanne Miller, teller…

Thursday March 25 Ready to sacrifice your liver for other people’s lungs? Check out the Las Olas Wine Festival. Now, sipping spirits in moderation is probably nothing compared to the damage your liver suffered during your high-school and/or college years, but with wine being poured at 24 shops and galleries…

The FLO Film Fest is as unpretentious as they come. Organizer Kris Kemp doesn’t go for the glitzy gala thing. He wants you to plop down on a cushioned couch, sip coffee or soda, and munch some popcorn — maybe even a Pop-Tart — while checking out short films by…

When you’re writing true-crime novels, you have to be picky about your subject, says Carol Soret Cope, author and assistant dean for external affairs at the University of Miami School of Law. “You are bound by the facts,” she explains. “You can’t just make up something sexier.” Her first book,…

Thursday March 18 When you think Mattel, you don’t think clothing, but the toy company is actually one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the world. Since the introduction of Barbie back in 1959, more than 105 million yards of fabric have been used to make 120 new outfits each…

A large machine called a planer screams in the background as it turns a rough piece of wood into a smooth-sided plank, and the smell of fresh-cut wood shavings fills the air. But the noise doesn’t seem to bother Roy Lapidus, who’s busy fitting new wooden handles onto some antique…

When Joan Mazza was growing up in Brooklyn during the ’50s, her mom thought that searching for underlying meanings in dreams was a bunch of baloney. She discouraged her daughter from discussing the disjointed scenes that played out in her adolescent brain at night. “My mother hated dreams,” recalls Mazza…

Thursday March 11 The actors and producers of Miami’s City Theatre company have the producing and acting part down. They just find it difficult to decide what to perform at their annual Summer Shorts festival at the University of Miami. The company receives hundreds of entries from playwrights around the…

Chatting with Jim Reed, it’s easy to assume the guy watches too much X-Files. But between his job as a graphic designer and his obsession with Maya culture, he barely has enough time to watch TV. Actually it’s his interpretation of Maya prophecy that might cause some to think he’s…