Miami, a floating surrealistic circus, breaking loose from the constraints of reason and propriety. A satellite republic of weirdness, a banana republic without cash-flow problems, the brave new American city of the future. Terminally democratic, a duty-free zone on the brink of anarchy, embracing a twisted interpretation of the Jeffersonian…
It was Kennedy A and you know I don’t mean John F. A who said it best: some people are powered by greed, some are powered by need. I don’t need much, and I don’t get it, but before I go I would like to thank each and all of…
Tumbling into a different dimension, the party zone, suspended in time and space, a parallel universe of insatiable desires and twisted pleasures. Lawless and unforgiving, the operating policy, oddly enough, succinctly defined by a three-year-old of our acquaintance, absorbed in a fit of psychotic whining: “I need it because I…
Miami, fashionable and fickle, a game of chance and improbability, a whimsical yet deadly postmodern landscape, kind of disgusting but kind of fun, too. You’re up, you’re down, you don’t know where the hell you are. Ocean Drive magazine throwing a party at The Forge with Jacques and Pascal, the…
This is it, folks. I ain’t pretending. Next week’s is definitely the last “Program Notes.” Cleaning out my office, I just came across an old note from band manager Mike Eiseman. “About the new religion based on Rooster Head music,” Eiseman wrote, “I think you need a little vacation, or…
Miami, the town that care remembered, but somehow neglected to worry about, allowing the subjects of Babylon to cavort with the abandonment of wayward Olympians. “Pops in the Park,” the New World Symphony’s gala dinner dance at the Omni Hotel, the upper classes in the throes of decorous merriment. The…
Spring sprung? God, I hope so. My great friend of twenty years, Ben Bank, is in town with his family, and we have plans to watch his alma mater lose the NCAA basketball championship (quick, Chris, call a time-out!) but my car breaks down and this time I can’t rig…
Schizophrenia is a serious illness not to be made fun of, but I can’t think of a better term or a better way of giving in to the impossible (or at least implausible) pushing and pulling of planetary life. Probably most people feel this way. Which means I’m normal. Schizo…
The Avenue — production of “Rondo” at Mario’s South Beach, a very loose adaptation of Miriam Schapiro’s book, many spirits unraveling, awash in the “melodrama of being,” the solving emptiness that lies beneath everything we do. The evening hours, a world where everything is permitted, but nothing, at the very…
Proto-reality, the high-concept world of television, as alluring, addictive, and curiously entrancing as clubs, the inevitable distancing of the cool medium making the alternating anxiety and boredom of nightlife slightly more palatable, and somehow more real than actually being there. Visions of pitch meetings, lucrative guest appearances on infomercials, starlet…
The lessons they are hard. In the March 10 installment of this alleged column, I claimed there is no God, other, perhaps, than Greg Brown. Yeah, I guess you could say I was fairly fired up for Brown’s skedded visit to Stephen Talkhouse that weekend. It was something to live…
There is a price to be paid for freedom, many ways every day. Like my homey Dog, who is not dark-skinned, although you’d never know it from the way the pigs treated him. At least they didn’t beat him this time. And Lord knows the Dog deserves that and more…
Pain and pleasure, misery and joy, the twin polarities of existence, locked in eternal struggle. Seized by an inexplicable desire for fresh air on a pretty day, hauling the pasty carcass out to a public park in the throes of a Purim-theme kids birthday party, the poisons of the night…
The toll taken, the sensibilities dulled to the point of oblivion, the physical infrastructure nearing collapse. The imminent autopsy no doubt revealing a suicidal insult to the brain, composed of ill-conceived liquor consumption, attitude assaults, and sustained exposure to Why-I’m-so-fabulous monologues and model-type conversations: “No, I’m not going to Europe…
I’m sitting and sipping in an upscale boozery as an olderly couple is walking out. The old man says to his woman, “Do you realize it’s three o’clock already?” Oh, God. Someone please smash me across the face with a tire iron. These people are from someplace I’ve never been…
A weird world, getting weirder by the minute. Donald Trump, thwarted by the reactionary forces of Palm Beach, the town fathers reluctant to have Mar-A-Lago turned into another Trumpland development. The Donald now working on turning the place into a private club, based on the success of his recent girls-girls-girls…
Few nights ago my homes Frankly Frank brought me some crawfish (pronounced crowfish) personally cooked by zydeco king Terrance Simien. The man can cook, literally and figuratively, and more importantly, he helped add extra spice to an important event: Stephen Talkhouse and Camillus House teamed to raise some money to…
Lost weekend, gone completely party crazy, wallowing in flash and gossip. Sliding in gently with a Valentine’s Day/last gasp of the Miami Film Festival cocktail reception at the Marlin hotel. The Scull sisters beyond baroque, with matching hairdos embalmed in beeswax. Publicist Susan Magrino, talking about the American Booksellers Association…
Beyond life, the truth will out. And I think corporate behemoth Warner Bros. showed its true colors by wimping out once the air cleared. Warners sort of stood up for Ice-T when “Cop Killer” was being maligned by people who want to tell you how to live your short and…
Do you believe in magic? Then make the Skels appear. No, you haven’t heard of the Skels, few outside the urban Northeast have, and I’ve been dogging them for years, trying to track down the mysterious Mystery Fez Productions mentioned on the sleeve of their tape Be with That. Had…
Miami in February, an ideal circumstance, the best of all possible worlds. The Tenth Miami Film Festival kicking off with a winter-themed gala, replete with the standard celebrity firepower. Club One opening in the short-lived Ocean Club space on Fifth Street, with fire-eaters, S&M dance routines, and the usual festivites:…
Cactina, Saturday night. Rat Bastard making up wild stories about a childhood spent pursuing Pacifico beer, forcing me to try it, us emptying the place of every last full bottle before Rooster Head even took the stage. Bartender won’t make change for a paying customer, namely my pal Lenny; bro,…
