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Chicago natives Plain White T's have been making the ladies swoon since their 2007 number-one hit "Hey There Delilah" went platinum and lead singer Tom Higgenson made every guy feel dumb they hadn't come up with such sweetly simple metaphors for their own gals.

Two Grammy nominations and two more platinum singles later, the sentimental pop-punk rockers have proved that their intimate, infectious tunes have real staying power. On the eve of a summer tour in support of their latest release, Should've Gone to Bed, making one of the first stops headlining at Mizner Park Amphitheatre this Saturday, Higgenson sat down with us for a few minutes to talk about the inspiration behind the single (hint: ever heard of drunk sexting?), the band's fresh direction since guitarist Tim Lopez has taken a more active role writing and singing, and what his career path might've been had the whole rock star thing not panned out.

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The eyes are up here boys and gals...

Gianna Michaels' story is a typical "girl next door" one that took her from her native Seattle to sunny California, though a series of regular jobs before falling into the career we know her best for, porn. Naturally endowed with some incredible, gravity-defying attributes, we love her best for her beautiful, Bette Davis eyes that are as sultry and deliciously deadly as the best femme fatales of the silver screen.

We had a chance to catch up with Gianna before her upcoming appearance at the Exxxotica Expo, now in Fort Lauderdale, and this is how it went down.

See also
- EXXXotica Is Moving to Fort Lauderdale
- Joslyn James's Tips for Lube Wrestling, Ping-Porn, and Surviving Exxxotica 2012
- Exxxotica: Porn Stars' Favorite Miami Restaurants

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Brendan Eldom

Tony Turbo teaching at DRUMS

The word "drums" doesn't just stand for those round things you hit to make noise in a circle under the full moon, anymore. Not in Fort Lauderdale, at least. Nope. Nowadays, DRUMS indicates "Dancers Raw Underground Music Session," a free dance class that incorporates percussive elements, worldwide cultural moves and sounds, and your body. DRUMS offers every kind of movement you can think of, from Zumba to yoga, to capoeira to dancehall.

Each class starts with a half hour of proper instruction, then continues to freestyle dancing, where you can bust any move, pop, lock, whatever. "The concept of this half hour class is to expose different ideas of movement, as well as open the minds of our youth and give them positive outlets for expression," says Brendan Eldom, founder of the Oceans Deep music label and, this, the House of DRUMS.

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via Richard Patrick instagram

Richard Patrick left his post as Nine Inch Nails touring guitarist to form Filter during the Nails' recording of the Downward Spiral album. His gamble paid off with hits like "Hey Man Nice Shot," global tours, a 20-plus year recording career, and an industrial rock sound that's still fresh today thanks to crushing guitars, electronic programming, and resonantly angry lyrics.

Filter's sixth album, The Sun Comes Out Tonight, explores the minds behind our violent society in an explosive blast of distortion. We caught up with founder Richard Patrick before the band's show at Culture Room. Here's what he had to say about volleyball, spree killers, and going to war.

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Fidgeting in her seat outside of Brew Coffee House in Fort Lauderdale, Sophie Sputnik
checks her text messages with one hand and holds a Camel light in the other. Her dog Astro, a terrier mix of some kind, paces beneath the table and mimics her energy. Meanwhile, her Killmama band mate, Rob Kingsley sits perfectly still, except that he's swirling the straw of his iced coffee.

The sky is heavy with the threat of rain, when finally Sputnik looks up, waving the mobile device in her hand with disbelief, "I thought this guy was gay, but I guess he's not?" Kingsley laughs, and this seems to be the dynamic of the pair. Sputnik is the more outspoken of the two, while Kingsley seems more than happy to let her take the spotlight. As if for him, she is the finest form of entertainment.

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Gus Wenner's Facebook

Gus may look like a baby but... Well, OK, he's still a baby.

From: Esther Park
Date: Mon, May 20, 2013 at 8:07 PM
Subject: Dear Gus, please hire me!
To: Gus Wenner

Dear Gus,

So I heard the epic news over the myriads of nasty Twitter handles (#gussucks #spoiledbrat #daddysboy #guscantwrite #guscantread) and Gawker newsfeed spewing much haterade towards your new appointment as the editor-in-chief at RollingStone.com.

First off, congratulations on the BIG COUP! I mean, you deserve it. Clearly, your Tumblr and Facebook feed was just a small window into the unlimited depths of your journalistic soul. Granted, the job description on the Wenner Media LLC website clearly showed that you needed: 7+ years experience as lead web editor with the ability to conceive, assign and edit high-level pieces that cover the world of pop music and pop culture.

But folks forget that at the tender age of 10, you were on your first apprentice assignment with the late Hunter S. Thompson. And as you covered the war in Libya...

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Bob Hakins

Although it was Jim Morrison who hoarded the spotlight and dominated their image, no single musician contributed more to the Door's iconic sound than keyboardist and co-writer Ray Manzarek. Manzarek -- who died in a German clinic yesterday after succumbing to bile duct cancer -- was not only an integral part of the Doors' musical persona, but one of the most influential organists of all time.

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It's 11 p.m. on a pleasant early May evening at Havana Hideout in downtown LDub and Tom Regis and his boys are hitting a slow, bluesy version of "Mercy Mercy Mercy," the Joe Zawinul tune made famous by Cannonball Adderley. Jon Zeeman's guitar is easing away for some sly, muted trumpet work by Steve Ahern. Tom's shimmering at the keyboard on clouds of Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, then everyone's down in N'awlins, drummer Gary Berman and bassist Ilkin Deniz popping a groove, and finally all pick up and bounce through the home stretch, a nice gavotte between cubist wafts of sound and the funk.

Two more standards round out the evening -- Miles's moody, soulful "So What" and Thelonius Monk's sprightly "Straight, No Chaser." The quintet dissolves, breaking down their gear and chatting with the crowd. In the space about the size of a public school classroom, walled off from the street by a long-ish tiki hut, with a scramble of tables and chairs on a sand floor under an open sky, the patrons have been right in the players' laps, practically. It's the way jazz should be -- a cozy, collective voyage.

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The sun beats down on the concrete and lifeless buildings right outside of Las Olas in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The least likely place anyone would suspect to find five strangers who stopped being polite and started getting real.

The truth of the matter is that all of those actual strangers standing in line are nice enough and fantastically unreal -- two concepts that go seamlessly hand in hand in Fort Lauderdale where, despite being the Sunshine State, it often seems like ninety-nine percent of the time, only one percent of the population have real tans.

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Alex Markow

"Um, where the fuck am I?"

It was a rhetorical question. I asked myself this as I stared slack-jawed at the driveway of a mansion I very well knew was in Weston. Out there, by myself, I was hunting down what was supposed would be a wild pool party full of Miami socialites, but all I saw were construction workers.

"Excuse me," I called through the window of my car, "I'm looking..."

Before I could finish, they waved me towards the back. So I had found the place after all.

See also
- Photos: Pelvic Thrust Pinky Up Pool Party in Weston

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