Russian Attitude Adjustment Friday was making me feel foreign. What was with these women? Dressed in shimmery sequins, clingy velvets, and silk ruffles, they looked like they´d dressed for the Vegas casino or a swanky hotel lounge rather than the family restaurant we found ourselves in. I was beginning to…
Tropical Storm Barry kicked off hurricane season by pissing all over my Friday-night plans. When the forecasters promised more weekend water works, this Night Rider decided the Hurricane Bar & Lounge would be the perfect place to hunker down. Despite the Delray spot´s low profile (it faces the alley rather…
When I heard that Respectable Street was holding a Super Cheesy ’80s Prom on Memorial Day weekend, my hair bristled with psychic energy. Such an event was clearly foretold in a recent haircut when, instead of giving the mod shag I´d asked for (think: Panic at the Disco!), my stylist…
It was an unusual come-on for a place named after the Greek god of lust and fornication: free food. I guess to some, nothing says “loving” like a full belly, garlic breath, and a little chunk of something lodged between the teeth. While I wondered how such a promotion would…
Growing up in a large family, I missed out on some of the things in our proverbial backyard here in the Sunshine State. While other families went to theme parks and tourist traps, my parents took their tribe of five to state parks and historic and cultural exhibits, which were…
A sort of heaven on Earth tucked away in the Himalayan mountains, Bhutan has been revered as home to gods and Bhutanese mortals. Buddhist since the Seventh Century, the culture reveres all life, so the natural splendor of this Asian nation is well-preserved. Until the late 20th Century, the country…
When you grow up in paradise, it’s easy to take natural beauty and a moderate climate for granted. A breathtaking beachfront moonrise? Hey, I’ve got work to do. A gorgeous beach day? Just a hot, sweaty inconvenience that can melt my makeup, wilt my hairdo, and deep-set the wrinkles in…
When I heard there was a once-monthly goth night at a pirate bar, I was intrigued. Was someone finally admitting that the goth scene had a touch of the scurvy? The fact that the event was taking place at what was once the Duke Lounge in Lantana made it an…
In this odd, burbling crowd of alien species, I felt as if I’d stepped into the cantina in the original Star Wars. But wait. I was in Fort Lauderdale at the Inverrary Resort, surrounded by hordes of spastically enthused teenagers dressed in costume for the Anime Super Con. Thankfully, as…
A pay-per-view sporting event will never be my idea of a great way to spend a Saturday night, but when you have an out-of-town guest, sometimes a person has to make this sort of sacrifice. This was how I found myself at Beer Goggles for Ultimate Fighting Championship 69. “It’s…
“Have a few beers and you never know where you’ll go with it.” That was the advice I received from a radio DJ when I called in to ask if there were a better Sunday-evening option to entertain my Canadian guest than reggae at the Banana Boat. So Brant and…
“Don’t make me go to the Hard Rock,” my friend groaned when I asked him to come with me to Tequila Ranch. “It’s college night! Drunk co-eds undulating on a mechanical bull!” I said enticingly. I was hardly sincere about my enthusiasm, I must admit, but I needed a story…
You might think you’ve stumbled into a taxidermy exhibit of stuffed birds, they look so damned real. Many are flocked together, but “The Brilliance of Birds: The Sculpture of Grainger McKoy” isn’t birds of a feather. Nope, despite the realistic appearances, these fine “feathered” friends are just painted wood and…
I was riding high in the afterglow of a weeklong bacchanal as my new chum Martin and I headed down to Fort Lauderdale for one last spring-break hurrah. After a lunatic week of festivities, naturally, we were destined for the Mental Ward. When we found the place just south of…
So this is paradise? Apparently so, if you take the title and intention of Jeanne Hilary’s documentary photographs, “Eden: A New Media Project,” as any indication. Both video and stills document small town America often with playful juxtapositions (like a huge print of five yellow flashlights in the foreground of…
“Why say no when it’s so much easier to say yes?” It was the perfect spring break motto. The fact that it was uttered at the Elbo Room gave it a nostalgic twist. The landmark destination still celebrates its heyday as a spring-break mecca, with vintage photographs around the bar…
The stuff is bizarre enough that you might expect to see it pried from the clinging fingers of a vintage shopping virtuoso on an episode of BBC America’s What Not to Wear and tossed into the trash barrel by hosts Trinny and Susannah. It’s feisty duck feathers, kinky Moroccan lamb…
The Rum Shack and I go way back. I’d enjoyed the place when it was Rosie’s, but in its second incarnation as Ray’s Key West Grill, the place was just weird. The people were as unpredictable as the food and service. You might hear a guy growling “I am the…
American politics has pretty much become a mockery of itself, but that doesn’t mean that art can’t celebrate the sad state of our nation, which — founded on truth, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — is collapsing into spin, gluttony, and the pursuit of world domination. “John Alexander: New…
Playing on the utopian Golden Age, Mark Twain had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he named the United States’ gaily garish post-Restoration era “the Gilded Age.” A visit to the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach provides a glimpse into the lifestyles during the age that birthed the extravagant…
I was on a mission. One of my favorite local bands was playing and I was late, thanks to Hollywood’s downtown Mardi Gras street festival. The chaos outside Club M barely registered as I ducked between bead-laden drunks to get to the neighborhood bar where, through the storefront windows, I…
It’s not only first impressions but Impressionists that are important. So the dozen works that comprise “Collecting the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute” are given the star treatment. Exhibited in a shrine-like experience where each work is illuminated, they radiate with light — the very thing…
