Once more into the breach of Trashland USA, wallowing in the lurid and lewd, the frenzied countdown to the half-baked resolutions of the new year especially punishing, fueled by an ugly itch to wrest every conceivable diversion from the dregs. The process of simply going out, anywhere and everywhere, eventually…
You wanna play Xmas with me, buckwheat, I’ll play ya some freakin’ Xmas. So it turns out Luke Campbell is a nigger. Jesus Christ — speaking of which, Jesus was a black man, but no one disses Him (especially this time of year), although the government did back then –…
More than a few El Nuevo Herald staff members were impatient. Publisher Roberto Suarez, accompanied by editor Carlos Verdecia and Herald publisher Dave Lawrence, had called together about 60 staffers for a hastily arranged meeting. Granted the news was significant: After more than five years at the editorial helm, Verdecia…
There is one good thing about this. People can find me. Even if I’m not lost, were that ever the case. I try to avoid righting, or writing, or usually ranting, about racism. Don’t believe in it. All blood’s mixed. Stop me if you’ve heard this one — so these…
Oh by gosh, by golly, it’s Christmas time, the town that never stays home plunging headlong into a marathon of high-octane socializing. The populace mawkish and sort of forgiving, a regimen of endless bonhomie and goodwill taking its toll, mankind not naturally given to extended bouts of charity. Another seasonal…
The Miami story, wired up and ready to roll, the city functioning on scatterbrained creative circuity. Ordinary life, as of late, coming to resemble a pulp-market rewrite of Naked Lunch with touches of magical realism, outright pornography, and assorted knock-’em-dead gimmicks drawn from the cheaper forms of fiction. On the…
Yeah, so there’s this thing, like when you ask someone if they like a certain song, say Joshua Kadison’s “Jessie” (yo, Brother Chuck, check it, that’s the best I can do to plug the tune you turned me onto ’cause I think it’s overproduced, but it’s nice, bro, a tinge…
White Party week, a crush of the noble and base, the pure and putrid, undercut by the frenzy of renown, from Prince to the luminaries of the gay universe. Off to a rousing start at Paragon for “An Evening of South Beach,” coordinated by nine different AIDS organizations and the…
The other day I received one of the most articulate and thoughtful letters I’ve ever got and I wish I had space to sling the whole thing. Reis Baron wrote it to tell me how stupid I am to use the phrase “hottest street buzz in town” to describe bands…
Settle back and relax, it’s Prozac time. Life just doesn’t get any weirder — or much worse either — than this. A dicey proposition of alternating repulsion and fin-de-siäcle pleasures, the city drifting into a bizarre free-trade zone of arrested development, floating somewhere between St. Tropez, pre-war Berlin, and an…
This is time for no rock and roll, it’s time for gluttony and invasion. Time for football and fawning over whichever grandfather has the most money. Pass the mashed and die. Thanks. I’m lucky enough to have some corn (liquor) and to be lost in this maize. And to have…
Miami, a tumble through fortune and folly, the celebrated making random unscheduled cameo appearances, propping up a rapidly faltering production. Lincoln Road on a crushingly banal afternoon, the staff at Books & Books casually detailing their brushes with fame: Sinead O’Connor, Bill Murray, John Waters, Madonna buying glamour magazines, Mickey…
For the next six weeks or so, Americans will occasionally and collectively be nice to each other. It happens every year around the time it starts getting dark early — give, be generous, be kind, care, Thanksgiving, Xmas, all that rot. Pangaea lead singer Ani Espriella will begin appearing on…
Show business, the new opiate of the masses, rife with ritualized pageantry and comforting recreational delusions, enveloping and pernicious as a cult. Everyone’s favorite industry pursued with the fervor that English intellectuals of the Twenties once brought to the Catholic Church, communism, and buggery, the nuances of devotion lost in…
A whole new era for “Program Notes.” Yes, kids, we’ve moved up to baby photos. Oh, stop crying. In September 1989 Meat Loaf told me about his latest project, an album being written by Jim Steinman, who had authored the monster smash Bat out of Hell LP in 1977. It…
The best thing that happened to me last week was getting to see my dad. Trust me, you don’t want to hear about the worst. That Natural Causes thing’s pretty cool, they won some money and support from Tanqueray, good for them, they deserve it. Just one little payback is…
Halloween weekend, the national holiday for the nightlife industry, a surreal but profitable refraction of ordinary club existence, sort of like Christmas without basic human values. The same pervasive air of forced jollity and indulgence — a twisted pomade of resentment, longing, and touches of genuine good feeling — piled…
The breaking filth beat, learning too much about people, most of it unpleasant. Lurk around enough crowded rooms, nod politely at appropriate conversational junctures, and a pitiless deluge of errant behavior will sweep over the unwary: distasteful personal revelations, the private hell of celebrities-I-have-known, the dank secrets of friends and…
Now do I get it, now do I have a clue? Doubtful, but I heard hope. Lots of it. I was pretending I was dreaming that I was a normal person, heading out after work for a few beers (very few, actually) and to hear some people play guitar and…
A surrealistic sojourn in the City of Angels, the American dreamscape, glittery and cruel as a mirage, an eerie augury of Miami’s destiny. Mired in the sheer exhilaration of modern vulgarity — all small-change renown and bargain-basement chic — and tumbling headlong into an uncertain future, haunted by the glorious…
Forgot all about this nonsense, didn’tcha? In between the $250 brake job (first estimate: six bills) at Meineke (where you pay less or they screw you) and the home fuel-pump replacement (thanks for the assist, Carlos), my wife and I sought brief respite in Naples, and no I don’t mean…
In late August the news staff of El Nuevo Herald filled out an employee survey, conducted every three years by Knight-Ridder, Inc., at each of its 29 dailies. The poll is designed to measure employee satisfaction and to seek solutions to problems. Results gathered from El Nuevo’s news staff of…
