Younger Sister Blog Is Cooler, Hotter

By Thomas Francis Wed., May 26 2010 at 10:12 AM

Categories: The Arts

Photo by Francesco LoCastro

You'll be seeing plenty of Alicia Olink on the County Grind.

If you regularly read this blog -- and Bob Norman's Daily Pulp -- then you're liable to develop a slightly cynical perspective, expecting that this will be the day you click over to learn your Broward or Palm Beach neighbor had been plotting murder and/or political mayhem. That feeling of dread, despair, and social alienation can be treated expensively with psychotropic drugs. Or it can be treated cheaply with a psychedelic blog. Meet the County Grind.

New Times Music Editor Reed Fischer cut the ribbon last Friday, bidding farewell to Crossfade, the Miami music blog that will now stop at the Broward border. In County Grind's first week, it has introduced us to much more artistic, affable, and attractive characters than you're liable to find on our politics blogs.

County Grind makes it to all the cool local shows, like this weekend's Heineken-sponsored rock-out with the Hold Steady. It hangs out with the hot chicks, like the Saran-wrapped frontgrrrl of Kill Miss Pretty, Alicia Olink. And if the writers occasionally seem a tad hung over, that just proves that they're willing to make sacrifices to ensure that readers are fully informed about what's happening on the Broward and Palm Beach nightclub circuit.

In short, it's the (mostly) chemical-free cure for the jaded local soul.