These are good days to be a revolutionary socialist. Just ask Mary Ann Schmidt, of Miami’s chapter of the Socialist Workers Party. “We signed up four new members at that demonstration,” Schmidt boasts, referring to the 100,000-strong rally on October 26 in Washington, D.C., to protest the looming war with…
It’s safe to crack jokes inside Miami Beach City Hall again. That much was clear at November’s meeting of the Nightlife Industry Task Force (NITF). In a fourth-floor conference room, the group’s chairman, attorney Steve Polisar, gazed out at a long table’s worth of clubland figures and then motioned toward…
“I feel like such an asshole,” joked Rilo Kiley guitarist Blake Sennett to appreciative hoots from the packed audience at Churchill’s. Stepping back from the microphone, he stared incredulously at his broken guitar strap — which had come apart for the fourth time in just as many tunes. It’s hard…
Philip John Clapp should be smiling. He’s the star and producer behind Jackass the Movie, one of the hottest films in America right now. In just the past two years Clapp has transformed himself from a struggling Hollywood actor whose career peak was a Bud Ice commercial into Johnny Knoxville,…
Open mouth, insert high-heeled foot: If you’re speaking at a swanky dinner for a gay community organization, it’s a sure bet your audience will be filled with die-hard liberals, right? Not if it’s the Dade Human Rights Foundation. At its October 19 fete, the eight-year-old foundation celebrated its expansion into…
“A lot of people say I’m difficult,” Robert Rosenberg muses with an awkward smile, pausing over a description he’s been hearing quite a lot lately. Leaning forward at a table inside the Beach’s Wild Oats market, he continues: “Look, it takes a certain kind of obsessed person to want to…
Vaclav Havel arrives in Miami on Sunday, as much a visiting rock star as a sainted political leader. The Czech president, who’s jammed with both Lou Reed and Frank Zappa, even has a snazzy tour name for his South Florida jaunt — ready-made for souvenir T-shirts: “Cuba Libre.” And at…
Attention aspiring South Beach power brokers: Wanna learn how to game the system like a pro? Hollywood macher Michael Bay was more than happy to provide an easy lesson, schooling one of Kulchur’s clubland spies as she shimmied up to the Bad Boys 2 director inside Lincoln Road’s Rumi lounge…
Give former supermodel Janice Dickinson points for a sense of humor. In her new tell-all memoir No Lifeguard On Duty, the enfant terrible of the late-Seventies fashion world writes: “Models are supposed to be dumb, right? But most of us can actually walk and talk and snort coke at the…
South Beach isn’t exactly known as a literary mecca, making the standing-room-only crowd inside Lincoln Road’s Books & Books this July evening all the more eyebrow-raising. But then Nick McDonell, the bookstore’s guest of honor, isn’t your typical literary wunderkind. Forget the tweed and horn-rimmed glasses. With his artfully tousled…
There’s a specter haunting South Beach. Actually it’s just haunting two people: Danny and Tanya, a pair of delicate-looking Cabaret-style blonds affectionately known to their fellow clubland habitués as “the witches.” Given that this threat takes the form of Wanda, one of our burg’s most notorious drag queens, there’s ample…
Enron, WorldCom … Billboardlive? Amidst a wave of recent staff departures and murmurs of cash-flow difficulties, the mood inside the beleaguered South Beach club is jittery, according to employees both past and present. Of course, intimations of “creative” accounting are nothing new at Billboardlive — they’ve dogged the $20 million,…
It’s pretty hard to ruffle Andrew Yeomanson (a.k.a. DJ Le Spam). After all, this is a man who can keep a straight face while asserting that the inspiration for assembling his Spam Allstars band was seeing Mr. T’s Ten Commandments video. “Come on, ‘I pity the fool who doesn’t have…
Balancing your own film career with that of your husband isn’t easy. Just ask up-and-coming actress Lesley Zen. “I have jealousy issues,” Zen admits during a break in the shooting of her latest picture. She sprawls in the back-yard hammock of the waterfront Miami Beach home of a local hotelier…
What does Jorge Diaz look like? “I’m just your average Cuban,” he jokes over the phone before a lunch meeting with Kulchur. Well, not exactly. True, Diaz arrives at Coconut Grove’s Monty’s restaurant dressed in a crisp white guayabera and slacks. And despite apologizing for what he calls a sweaty…
It’s a recent Saturday night, you’re tucked behind a VIP table inside Lincoln Road’s Spin nightclub, and the hip-hop beats are thumping. Supermodel Naomi Campbell sashays over — she hasn’t seen you since her birthday party last summer in France — and snuggles in to share a glass of champagne…
“You want my prediction for Memorial Day Weekend?” asks Rudolf with a mischievous grin. The Billboardlive nightlife director pauses a beat for dramatic effect and then cracks to Kulchur: “It’s not going to be nearly as interesting as last year.” That’s certainly the message the city of Miami Beach was…
Britney Spears is many things to many people. To her label executives at Jive Records, the midriff-baring singer is a recording artist who pulled in more than $35 million last year. To the advertising honchos at both Pepsi and the Dairy Council, she is the nymphet pitchwoman whose “I’m Not…
If you stand outside Miami Beach’s City Hall and listen carefully, you’ll hear the distinct sound of gnashing teeth, followed by the anguished turning of calendar pages. “We’re not doing anything other than Memorial Day weekend for the next two months,” groaned Christina Cuervo, Beach assistant city manager, at a…
“Is there a Banana Republic here?” Manolo Blahnik calls out to a nearby Neiman Marcus staffwoman inside the Bal Harbour mall. Turning briefly to Kulchur he gushes, “I love Banana Republic!” Then he begins hollering out again: “I need underwear! Can you go to Banana and bring me twenty pair?”…
Is it Billboardlive or Billboard dead? That was the question the Los Angeles Times asked in a series of stories probing the troubled club’s health. Billboardlive’s opening-night party was certainly auspicious enough, with a glitterati-packed crowd spilling out into the street. However, “a few weeks later, it quickly became clear…
Rudolf has a novel idea for returning that elusive “cool” factor to the Beach’s nightlife. “We need more homeless people here,” he insists in his clipped German accent. Strolling down Ocean Drive with Kulchur, he casts a mischievous eye at a few lost souls crashed out in Lummus Park. “The…
