Courtesans, as opposed to prostitutes of today, commanded respect in European society centuries ago. They sold themselves for sex, but they also mastered upper-class decorum and amassed fortunes. Many doubled as artists or actresses. Kings – and even queens – called upon their rarefied services. Were Laura Bush a courtesan,…
Rick Derringer is rock ΄n’ roll’s cockroach: Dude has been everywhere, produced everything, played in all your favorite hit songs, and probably will outlast all of us. Plus, his resume is like the real-life version of Spinal Tap: His first break came in 1965, when his cheeky pop rock band…
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, if you were a kid in the 1970s or ΄80s, you remember watching the Harlem Globetrotters on TV. Each week on their Saturday morning TV show, the ΄Trotters would travel from city to city, inevitably running into some dastardly…
Every so often, a band comes along that refuses to be easily categorized. Jacksonville’s Whole Wheat Bread is a great example. Listening to their music you’ll hear a brand of catchy, uptempo punk rock more frequently perfected by suburban white boys than by a Miami-raised Trinidadian transplant and his friends…
If you’re a sentient twenty-something-year-old woman, chances are you remember your first trip to J’s Bar (2780 Davie Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). For the last nine years, a night at J’s has been a rite of passage for many budding lesbians and their supportive-but-straight BFFs who end up there for everything…
Sometimes, safeguarding historical monuments from enemy hostiles is a lot like watching paint dry. For the poor soldier doomed to such tedium, those moments in between explosions and such are filled with nose picking, loitering, foot patrols, and fantasies of banging loose American women. Such is the plight of Israeli…
Amy Winehouse may be righteous, but the biggest name among Dionysian divas will always be Janis Joplin. When it came to living life as a spectacular public meltdown, nobody outdid the Queen of Rock. Janis certainly cut a dash in her motley get-ups, all blotto on Southern Comfort and happy…
We’re of the belief that any excuse to party is a good one: On November 19 each year, we pack up the coolers and give praise to the porcelain gods; that would be World Toilet Day. On Left Handers Day, August 13, we celebrate the southpaw – hopefully by double-fisting…
Sado-masochist couples, dark satire, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: these things are hardly ever discussed in the same room. And if you were to find a foyer where all three collide, you will most likely be in the most uncomfortable emotional state of your life. So it’s interesting that the play “Dirty…
They say blood is thicker than water, that the family bond is the tightest one can share with another human being. Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to serve your family a tall glass of shut-the-hell-up every now and again. Especially when personal politics are involved: Jimmy…
Your week is stressful. Aside from your professional daytime gig, you spend your evenings taking care of everyone in your life (translation: Those cats don’t feed themselves). This can build up aggression that, if left unchecked, could reveal itself in unpleasant ways. You could, for example, eventually become so bitter…
What do you get when you take six unemployed steel workers, add in a dash of suicidal depression and a chunk of unpaid child support? Well, you get exposed male genitals, of course. The Full Monty is a play based on the Academy Award winning movie (Best Original Music Score)…
You hate the way she looks at you when you leave: muzzle quivering, eyes begging, ears popped up like little camping tents. But what can you do? You’re hungry and your fridge is empty; if you stay home to appease her you’ll both be eating doggie biscuits for dinner. Well,…
Is it possible for you to honor your history while simultaneously blowing it into oblivion? Can you give tribute to the conventions that helped form your identity and, at the same time, call for their disassembly? These are some of the questions surrounding the new exhibit “Exploding the Lotus,” a…
When Nicolas Roeg’s film Bad Timing was first released in 1980, its distributor Rank Films disowned it. Now, you don’t typically think of movies as orphans, especially one that opens as promising as this one: a lovely couple (Art Garfunkel and Theresa Russell) examining a Klimt painting while Tom Waits…
Owen Ashworth, AKA Chicago-based Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, is inspired by collecting used shoes and strange Florida wildlife. We would tell you more about him, but we really don’t know that much – after all, his bio totals nine words. What we do know is this: Vice Magazine called…
It’s tough being comedian Dom Irrera; people always want stuff from him. “I’ve been doing interviews all day,” he says over the phone from his California home. “The first guy’s call woke me up this morning; he wanted to know if I wished that I hadn’t broken up with my…
With his long white hair and beard, Leon Russell looks like ZZ Top’s albino brother. Or maybe an American cousin to that cranky kung fu master who taught Uma Thurman to punch through boards at close range in Kill Bill. Whatever his earthly blood ties, Russell clearly belongs to the…
There are two Gay Mafias. The one is a criminal syndicate that lords over Hollywood and, through that, the nation. Its membership includes Calvin Klein, Tom Cruise, Anderson Cooper, and Tinky-Winky of the Teletubbies. Dick Cheney, always a man for conspiracies, holds an honorary chair on the Board of Elders…
I once went to a Bingo game in Cranston, Rhode Island. I was 13, and I was not only the youngest person in the room, I was the youngest person in the room by something like sixty years. The exception was my father, who had driven his own great aunt…
You know what was awesome about Shaquille O’Neal? When the Heat rode him to the title. You know what else? When they FedExed him to Phoenix in exchange for Shawn Marion. In his first three games as a member of the Heat, Marion (nicknamed “the Matrix” for abiding by a…
Crawl over to the IMAX Theater at the Museum of Discovery and Science (401 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale) to experience The Spiderwick Chronicles. Based on the series of bestselling fantasy adventure books with the same name, this movie illustrates some strange happenings surrounding the Grace family in its new…
