The Art After Dark event at the Norton Museum of Art last night had many highlights: free chocolate martinis, a tour of the New York, New York: The 20th Century exhibit, lovely guitar strumming by Miami troubadour Jesse Jackson.
But perhaps the sweetest moment was when my friend Christina DeNardo, a 31-year-old from Delray Beach, decided to join the sculptures in George Segal's Depression Bread Line. The gray-and-green men ahead of her stood stoically, looking worn and haggard in their imitation of those dreary lines from the '30s.
An elderly couple stopped and questioned DeNardo. She explained that she was posing with the sculptures because she, too, is unemployed.
It was a balls-to-balls battle, with Joey "Jaws" Chestnut squeezing out a victory over Pat "Deep Dish" Berletti at Sunday night's Masters Meatball Eating Championship in Las Vegas. The competitive-eating marathon was sanctioned by Major League Eating and hosted by Broward restaurateur Steve Martorano, the tattooed hulk we recently profiled here.
Martorano, whose celeb-heavy Fort Lauderdale Cafe Martorano was named "Best Restaurant in Broward" by New Times this year, insisted that competitors honor his oversized meatballs by using utensils. Fork in hand, the six-foot, 218-pound Chestnut edged out Berletti by putting away 50 to Berletti's 49.
And the 105-pound Sonya Thomas swallowed 42 meatballs to finish third. It was all over in ten minutes.
Chestnut is currently ranked number one by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. But we don't think Sunday's contest was too much of a burden: Martorano's meatballs have been known to reduce hard-nosed Juice reporters to tears. We'll be heading over there tonight to stage our own mini-meatball-eating contest.
Now that Chad Henne has twice dusted the rival Jets this year and revived what looked like an atrocious season, sports outlets all over South Florida are discussing the man. They debate his arm strength, his ability to lead a team, his fit in this offense, his Marino-ness. Some have crowned him the franchise savior.
Most sensible sports writers would tell you they wouldn't want to judge him so early. They wouldn't want to wax poetic on the work of such a young player, no matter how impressive his wins might seem.
Not here though. Waxing poetic sounds just fine to us. So, in honor of number seven in aqua and orange, seven haikus about Chad Henne:
For the past six years, downtown Delray Beach was home to a rare luxury -- classic and kiddie movies, screened for free under the stars.
All you had to do was pack a lawn chair, some popcorn, and your favorite 8-year-old, and you could enjoy Top Gun or the latest Harry Potter flick in Delray's historic Old School Square. In 2006, New Times named these monthly Friday Night Flicks the best free movies in the area.
But this fall, tough economic times have forced the screen to
Sam: Leg-humping is a hobby; painting is his passion
Two months after "the world's preeminent canine painter," a Jack Russell terrier named Tillamook Cheddar, wrapped up his exhibition at the Hollywood Art and Culture Center, it's only a matter of time till the next paintbrush-wielding mutt comes along: Meet Sam the painting hound mix. He just sold a painting for $1,700!
I think it's fair to guess that the buyer isn't an art collector, per se, but rather an evil SOB determined to break the spirit of every starving artist who can't sell a genuine piece of art to pay the rent.
If you happened to be a highly prominent person of color visiting West Palm Beach in the first half of this century, chances are you would have stayed at Haley Mickens's house at 801 4th Street.
Mickens and his wife Dr. Alice Frederick Mickens, a well known civil rights activist, played host to dozens of African American athletes, musicians and political figures during the years they lived in their spacious two story wood frame house, in part because no local hotel would give black dignitaries a room. The celebs that slept in the Mickens's guest room included Coretta Scott King, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Ralph Bunche, and Count Basie.
Now a local group of historic preservationists headed by attorney and historian Harvey Oyer III are
With the first (and likely only) season of Police Women of Broward County all wrapped up, I thought the first South Florida-centered mom-kid-cop docudrama-ality show deserved some sort of special send off.
But instead of, oh say, a recap of the show's high points, I thought it might be nice to go over 10 (it would be easy to list 50) scenarios that either the cameras did not capture, the producers did not want to publicize, or did not happen at all. P
erhaps, if there is a second season, some of these scenes will make the final cut.
It's lewd. It's crude. It's a few years old. And damn, it's funny. In a press conference this afternoon, the Miami Dolphins new resident badass, Chad Henne, discussed some disparaging comments made by Jets players after Monday night's amazing come-from-behind victory. The remarks were nothing compared to a song created by Ohio State University fans while Henne played for rival Michigan. (Henne went 0-4 against OSU during his college career.)
"If you haven't heard that, it's a pretty good song," Henne told reporters. ""My fiancé actually has it on her iPod and she listens to it. She loves it. We just joke around, it's a good one."
This is the song. Lyrics, which include speculation on Henne's sexual abilities, after the jump.
That's some recently posted footage from the 25-year-old heavy metal band's appearance this weekend at Revolution. I'm not fluent in "GWAR," but I'll give this a try: An Obama figure who gets his head torn off and spits geysers of blood through his neck means that a heavy metal band should have been invited to sing at the inauguration. Admittedly, GWAR has better fashion sense than Aretha Franklin.
Near the beginning of Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, the filmmaker calls upon Wallace Shawn, an actor/writer friend of his, to explain our economic system in terms he could explain, presumably because Shawn is one of the more knowledgeable people Moore knows when it comes to that subject.
With that in mind, I invited a real-life, flesh and blood, Ron Paul-supporting, Glenn Beck-watching, tea party-attending capitalist (who happens to be a well-paid financial consultant specializing in currency markets, extremely well-versed when it comes to the economic collapse of 2008, and a very good friend of mine for many years) to see the film with me and "fact check" Michael Moore.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hellarrives in Boca Raton this weekend, the site of the original inspiration of the book that became the movie. What are the critics saying about the magnum opus of Tucker Max, our local frat boy made good?
Let's start with our own Village Voice Media critic, Vadim Rizov who calls the film, "visually incompetent to a painful extreme and almost never funny, but,
worst of all, it doesn't have the courage of Max's unadulterated
convictions."
The Hollywood Reporter raves that Beer in Hell, "achieves a certain cinematic distinction by outdoing 'Dumb and Dumber' in sheer grossness and detail with its depiction of the unfortunate effects of explosive diarrhea."
"The Magical World of M.C. Escher," January 20 through April 11 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
Below, New Times offers up a glimpse of the upcoming arts season with previews from our reviewers.
"Off the Needle" Now through October 10 at the Bear and Bird Boutique + Gallery, 4566 N. University Drive, Lauderhill. Call 954-748-0181, or visit tatescomics.com.
You've spent hours in the chair listening to the buzz of the drill, but have you ever wondered about the artistic accomplishments of your trusted tattooist, the talents that go beyond the obnoxious guy who just had to manifest his love for Mary Jane via neck ink? Tattoo artists go "off the needle" for the Bear and Bird Boutique + Gallery exhibit of the same name. If you have gotten tattooed in the tricounty area, there's a good chance one of the "Off the Needle" exhibitors will be your artist. Work from more than 25 local inkmen and -women who are employed in shops around Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach counties will be on display, like JR Linton from Hellcat Tattoo, Kreepy Jaksin
Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort Lauderdale houses one of the nation's greatest pipe organs, but this week it no longer has an organist. Tipsters to the Juice say that Sam Metzger, the church's senior organist, playing in the video above, left his post last week, along with the church's Minister of Music Dr. John Wilson, apparently in defiance of the new pastor, Rev. Tullian Tchividjian.
For the last few months, the legendary church has been caught in a civil war between Tchividjian's new school approach and the old school members who seem to think he and his young followers lack respect for the ministerial tradition of Rev. James Kennedy.
Despite the effort by those traditionalists to send Tchividjian packing, on September 20 the church members voted overwhelmingly to keep Tchividjian as pastor, leading to talk that the old schoolers will split off to form their own church.
But to one of Metzger's non-Presbyterian colleagues it's hard to imagine a dispute that would lead an organist to abandon an instrument like the one at that church. "It's the most prestigious organist job in Broward County -- because it's the biggest organ in the region," says the local organist, a member of Broward's chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Metzger and Wilson did not be immediately return messages seeking comment.
UPDATE: Neither Metzger nor Wilson have returned calls, but in a church letter circulated to members Tchividjian confirmed the departures of the two. He says he didn't ask for their resignations, that he "loves both men" but that Wilson felt called to serve another church and that Metzger simply lost his own call to serve Coral Ridge Presbyterian.
For the most part, what little drama Police Women of Broward County had is gone. The show has devolved into a series of awkward edits and oddly illogical B-roll set to overdramatic background music. It's mostly harassing low-level drug dealers and repetitions of the theme: "being a cop and a mom is hard." (At least Shelunda Cooper is about the coolest deputy you could ever get called to your house.)
But all this doesn't mean we can't still learn something from the show. (It does appear on the Learning Channel.) Let's take crack, for example. Sure, they bust other users and sellers on the show, but you can't watch for more than eight minutes without someone whipping out a crack rock.
So here is a list of lessons both for crackheads and about crackheads (for the potential noncrackheads reading this) from this week's episode of PWBC.
For crackheads: From Detective Ana Murillo, "The best thing about a takedown is the element of surprise." So if you have $500 in cash from drug sales, don't claim you earned it today laying bricks.
About crackheads: Crackheads, when confronted with their own crack, will inevitably claim some variation of "that's my friend's crack rock, officer."
For: Claiming the crack is a friend's works only for Michael Irvin. And honestly, quit saying that anyway. You ruin it for people who honestly just carry a lot of crack rocks for their friends.
About: Owning the ubiquitous prescription drugs isn't illegal. The police often have to use undercover cops to buy pills to make a case against dealers who may have dozens of bottles in their name.
Hedge fund manager Seth Tobias was a regular on CNBC.
Hedge fund manager Seth Tobias was found dead, floating in the pool of his massive Jupiter mansion, after Labor Day weekend 2007. The $5 million, nearly 7,000-square-foot estate is in gated Bear's Club, literally situated on a golf course. Tobias, who was 44 and involved in a tumultuous (to put it nicely) marriage, had a lot of drugs in his system. His wife, Filomena "Phyllis" Tobias, a three-time divorcee with expensive tastes, was accused of murder... by the 300-pound gay "psychic" con man who said he had counseled the couple and, among other things, helped secure young male strippers (including one named Tiger) for Seth.
The horrible/glorious details of the case are chronicled beautifully in this New York Magazine story by Stephen Rodrick that was selected for this year's edition of Best American Crime Reporting. I spoke to Rodrick this week as he relaxed after finishing this story on the professionalization of little league. Surprisingly, the writer didn't receive too much negative feedback from the glitterati in Palm Beach.
If you've spent your life wondering if you might ever see a High-Definition screening of The Wizard of Oz at a cineplex, tonight you have you're answer. To honor the 70th anniversary of the film's premiere, Turner Classic Movies is having a nationwide, one night-only showing at movie theatres across the country.
We wrote about the event in this week's calendar section, a refined preview discussing the film's historical significance. In honor of Dorothy and the gang discovering the man behind the curtain, The Juice wanted to give you a peek behind our own flimsy bit of fabric (sorry about the smell).
Calendar Editor Mickie Centrone, in all her editorial wisdom, chose to print the item linked above instead of another, more quirky item for the same event. This movie has a special place in the heart of many of the most colorful South Florida characters (who also have a propensity to dress in costume). So, joking that the New Times calendar section often employs, as Mickie puts it, "the You," this item was written from the perspective of a munchkin living in the Land of Oz. (For more quirky prose, not using "the You," see this Best-Of item written from the perspective of the chicken wing.)
After the jump: the alternative calendar item, in which you the reader play the part of a munchkin (sorry). Though you could never be as cool as this munchkin.
Leonard Cohen has to do everything the hard way. The singer and songwriter collapsed on stage Friday in Valencia, Spain. He still performed in Barcelona last night, on his 75th birthday. He also had plans for a bold twofer in Israel -- scheduling shows in Tel Aviv and the West Bank city of Ramallah, both of which had to be canceled after Palestinian protesters followed him around Europe demanding that he boycott Israel in exchange for permission to play in Ramallah.
Jack Carpenter is the protagonist of Night Monster, a novel released Monday by Florida writer James Swain. An excerpt posted on Swain's website begins with Carpenter's fielding a call about a college student, Naomi Dunn, being assaulted at a condo.
I tested the door's handle. It was locked, and I lifted my leg and kicked three inches above the knob. The door splintered, but did not come down. As I lifted my leg to kick it again, the door opened into my face. I heard my nose break, and flew backwards to the ground.
I lay on my back with raindrops splashing on my face. My gun had left my hand and was lying somewhere nearby. Fighting the urge to pass out, I lifted my head, and saw a giant emerge from the apartment carrying an unconscious Dunn over his shoulder. From my vantage point it was hard to tell exactly how big he was. What registered was how small Dunn looked in comparison. She was a big woman, yet looked tiny slung over his shoulder.
"Police," I muttered. "You're under arrest."
The giant gazed down at me, his face round and bloodied. He had wide eyes and pursed lips, and reminded me of the crazies that I often encountered on the mean streets of Fort Lauderdale. When he spoke, the words only confirmed my suspicion.
After losing a corporate job in the computer industry last year, Julie Murphy realized that the tanking economy gave her more time for loftier causes.
The native South African, who now lives in Gulf Stream, discovered a business venture close to her heart: Jewelry that fights poverty, unemployment, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
She began selling silver, gold, and copper bracelets, called bangles, made by workers in South African townships. About 68 percent of the proceeds go to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, whose programs work to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. It's an urgent cause in South Africa, where 5.7 million people are living with the disease -- making it one of the hardest-hit countries in the world.
The story begins, as they say, with the end. And in this end, 44-year-old hedge-fund manager Seth Tobias was floating dead in the pool behind his Jupiter mansion. His wife, Phyllis, a thrice-divorced party girl with an affinity for the finer (by "finer," of course, I mean "insanely expensive") things in life, was accused of murdering Seth by her gay psychic adviser -- who, it turns out, had been blackmailing Seth.
Sensational? Yes, in all the right ways. "Dead Man's Float," written by Stephen Rodrick, was published in February 2008 in New York Magazine. And this week, it appears in the annual anthology The Best American Crime Reporting 2009. The series is edited by Otto Penzler, and this year's guest editor (who traditionally selects the final pieces for the book and writes an introduction) was Jeffrey Toobin, an author, staff writer at the New Yorker, and senior legal analyst for CNN.
Rodrick's story is an exhaustive investigation into a case that captured local headlines for weeks. And during his reporting, Rodrick came face-to-face (several times, it turns out) with psychic adviser/scamster Billy Ash, who has an extensive criminal history in South Florida. Rodrick even references a 2001 New Times story by Wyatt Olson chronicling Ash's long, sordid history in which Ash (whom Rodrick proves is a big, fat liar) calls himself "Mister Madam."
Rodrick told me he is battling a deadline but would share his thoughts on the honor tomorrow.
Meanwhile, for information about a South Florida writer who also appears in this year's anthology, click here or here or here.
He's mean-looking, but how will he fare against the big boys?
The last time we saw Kimbo Slice (aka Kevin Ferguson) he was on his knees at the BankAtlantic Center getting punched in the head by a pink-haired smoothie salesman. In 14 seconds, it seemed his mixed martial arts career - and the entire league built around him - was done. As it turns out, yeah, Elite XC folded, but Kimbo didn't.
The former backyard brawler appeared on ESPN's First Take minutes ago, announcing that he would appear on The Ultimate Fighter, the reality show owned by UFC - the largest and most lucrative MMA league. Dubbed a fraud by most hard-core MMA fans, South Florida's most famous former homeless man will now have the opportunity to battle fighters nobody would call phony.
First, host Jay Crawford asked about the Seth Petruzelli fight. "Fourteen seconds, wow," Kimbo said. "I change my kids' Pampers faster than that. I just wasn't there mentally...I didn't feel the hit. It was quick."
He says the fight doesn't haunt him though: "For some reason, it's not a haunting feeling. There's no fear. It's almost as if it were like a dream." (That won't do much to silence stories that he took a dive for cash, but what are you gonna do?)
On behalf of the men of my generation, I submit the video above along with my petition to remember Patrick Swayze not for his twinkle-toed turn in Dirty Dancing but for his ass-kicking, mullet-flaunting performance in Roadhouse.
Judging by the headlines that say "Dirty Dancing Star Swayze dead at 57," the women who revere that movie have won the first skirmish in this battle of the sexes. But Dalton would not have us give up the fight so easily.
To admit defeat now would be to abandon those friends who, after consultation with their fellow man, decided that a career as a barroom bouncer was a higher calling than a career in medicine. Or education. Or law.
Seriously, though. Has there ever been actor who made both a classic chick flick and a classic guy's guy movie? And in the span of just three years?
A couple buxom Brits who volunteered for a reality show that's approximately as sexually exploitive as the fake reality show.
In a region of the country that's home to Bang Brothers and other amateur pornographers, the only shocking part of this story is that it hasn't happened yet in South Florida.
But if a fake Big Brother could happen in Turkey, it could happen here. So watch out, ladies.
Then again... Reading this article, it says the women weren't sexually harassed or assaulted. Just ogled.
So how's this phony Big Brother different than the real Big Brother, which in Europe is much more popular and much more risque? Check it out:
[F]amily members became concerned they were being prevented from contacting the women.
That's a condition of the actual Big Brother, isn't it? Let's continue:
According to local media, naked images of the women were sold on the internet.
Every time a Boston movie comes out, it's thick with accents, and always the Bostonians complain that the actors didn't quite get it. So I admire the ambition of Thom Jones, an actor from West Palm Beach who became captivated by regional accents and since making it his specialty has become a go-to guy in that field. In particular, the nuanced pronunciation along the Eastern Seaboard. Which means he'll have to please those demanding New Englanders. From an article in this weekend's Boston Globe:
Thom Jones isn't from these parts. But he knows that in Southie you ride on a hahs, in Rhode Island you ride on a hawse, and in Maine you cahnt get theyah from heyah, but if you could you'd ride a howas.
At the end of the video above, Jones makes a point about how accents are being decimated by mass media, and I think he's right. It's a depressing idea, isn't it? Or maybe I just have a sentimental attachment, having been born in Chi-cag-o and growing up in Wis-can-sin. Sure, compared to the dulcet tones of our British forebears, our regional American accents are hideous, but they're ours, damn it. And if they fade away, it would mean losing part of local culture.
This is what happens when you unleash a cover considered so vile by many. We have pushed a lot of buttons in the past, but who knew a picture of man French-kissing (natch) a dog would irk so many people? So it was only a matter of time before the controversial cover would get picked up by the interwebs and transformed into an internet meme.
After the image was posted on Buzzfeed, users reacted mostly with EW, WTF and TRASHY comments, but some went above and beyond, opting to Photoshop the image to their liking.
After the jump, some examples of the creativity that only the internet could spawn.
Much to the chagrin of local authors, we do not do book reviews here at New Times, but on this blog, we do like to give some free pub to those who pick the most provocative subjects and titles.
So this one goes out to you, Art Greenwald, the local author of Anal Probe: A Penetrating Peek Into the Gay Life. Here's a portion of the email he sent us:
Part autobiographical, "Anal Probe" features a mixed bag of high drama, humor, personality profiles, social commentary and closet adventures with a strong South Florida flavor.
Greenwald tells us that Anal Probe is "internationally available internationally in over 25,000 book stores." No doubt it will get some action in Wilton Manors. But the title might not be quite ambiguous enough for a closet case who's shopping in Ames, Iowa. So you lads may want to take advantage of Amazon's discreet packaging by going here.
Detective Andrea Penoyer cooks, kicks ass, and makes a great quote.
So after the first four episodes of Broward's double-X chromosome cop show, the main characters are getting a little more fleshed out. We've seen Detective Andrea Penoyer scream at crack heads, mother her son (sometimes seconds before screaming at crack heads), go to the beach in a hot pink bikini with some fellow attractive BSO women (where she explained that she isn't afraid of crack heads, but sea urchins are too much), shop for guns (instead of purses, she explains), and generally wheel around Broward county cracking skulls and hauling people to jail (at which time Penoyer is likely to say, "you're going to jail, have a nice day!").
We've seen Detective Ana Murillo make a man just done patronizing a prostitute wet himself of a public sidewalk, chase down several scrambling drug dealers, and pull a bag of weed from a woman's vagina. Sex crimes Detective Julie Bower has dressed up like a hooker, investigate a hideous four-way rape scene, and comfort a "jiggy" stripper. Deputy Shelunda Cooper has mostly discussed her sweet husband (also a Deputy Cooper), talked about how she's seen a lot of weird stuff, and resolved entertaining (and sometimes sad) petty disputes.
So it's in this context that we can examine the ten best quotes from last night's episode.
The day is upon us. Yes, every Simpsons fan knows Whacking Day started in 1924 as an excuse to beat up the Irish. And yes, technically Texas has had organized snake whacking for years. But now Florida's bravestmost cunning snake-hatingest citizens will descend upon the swamps of this state in search of Burmese Pythons (and other "reptiles of concern"), in order to studylearn fromphotographkill them.
Last month the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began issuing permits allowing individuals to search for and euthanize these snakes for the sake of scientific study. (Early studies indicate extremely high levels of mercury in the animals.) This weekend those permit holders (there are less than 20 in the state) will be joined by, well, just about anyone who wants to whack a snake. Technically, it's anyone with an alligator hunting license, though a statement released by the commission says those rules could open up even more soon.
"All art is quite useless," Oscar Wilde once declared. But in Palm Beach Gardens, maybe not.
The Palm Beach Gardens city council has $440,000 burning a hole in their pockets: They're planning to spend the money commissioning eight works of public art that will also function as bus stops. The council is calling for proposals through August 31st, which doesn't give designers a lot of time: artists are advised that their sculptures/shelters/happenings have to be friendly to amenities like trash cans and benches.
The money comes from the city's public art fund, paid into by developers, so what looks at first glance like a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars is in fact a sort of neat way to get public art to do something more useful than, say, piss in the wind** (see examples below). Shelters have to be built to last 20 years, and to use material acceptable under city codes.
Here's hoping the council and PBC artists can come up with ideas less creepy and annoying than these sculptural public flashers and sphynxes, compiled from across the globe:
Contributors: Eric Barton, Michelle Centrone, Deirdra Funcheon, Keith Hollar, John Linn, Michael J. Mooney, Bob Norman, Lisa Rab, Nicole Rodriguez, Gail Shepherd.
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