Decapitated goats floating in Biscayne Bay, teens arrested for rapping at the drive-thru, knife-wielding psychos turning berserk because the jukebox isn’t loud enough, teachers crafting geometry lessons based on “hypothetical” Obama assassination plots, daddies trading their babies for beer, robots replacing priests … It’s a weird, weird, weird world indeed…
It’s totally unrealistic to expect this weekend’s Exxxotica Expo to unspool like some kind of real-life porn movie. Or is it? Indeed, the Miami Beach Convention Center will be packed with approximately 115 people who make their living by putting their privates to very graphic use on an almost daily…
When bow-tied architect Morris Lapidus unveiled the Fontainebleau Hotel in 1954, he was labeled a half-baked hack pushing neo-baroque architectural mishmash. Basically, the arch-modernist establishment despised his proclivity for excessive ornament. And maybe they had a point. The problem: Lapidus’s maximalist aesthetic had huge popular appeal, eventually worming its way…
Certain unimaginative, greasy-palmed greedheads think all those old, broken-down buildings lining NE Second Avenue should just be firebombed, shoveled into a dumpster, and replaced with shiny new condos. But there are others, like local artist Autumn Casey, who would rather rescue one dead edifice after another by stuffing them so…
In a fundamental way, Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa kicked off the cinematic cycle that eventually led to today’s hyperaware, genre-hopping, metatext-obsessed actioners. Here’s an overly simplistic version of that lineal progression: John Ford’s cowboy flicks gave birth to Kurosawa’s beautiful bastard Yojimbo, which spaghetti Western director Sergio Leone kidnapped and…
No matter what your mama says, Miami-Dade isn’t all about freestyle, booty bass, and hip-hop grind. Near the edge of the Everglades, the 305 is awash in a superpotent type of primordial ooze that breeds stoners and sludge rockers by the thousands. And these end days, the local distorto-demons of…
Now 82 years old, Tampa native Ferdie Pacheco has spent his life pursuing a half-dozen careers: pharmacist, physician, painter, writer, poet, actor, and TV talking head. But there’s a reason he’s nicknamed “the Fight Doctor”: Pacheco will always be most famous for his time at Chris and Angelo Dundee’s 5th…
A conundrum: What kind of sound would a morbidly obese, four-titted, screaming Cyclops make while being probed by multicolored psychic lamprey? Hmm … That’s a mind-bender so deep and twisty it could put you into a permanent coma, turning certain centers of your brain into scorched-out pudding. Thankfully, the New…
Author Mara Shalhoup discusses BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family.
Domestic life can be really stressful. Sometimes you just wanna stuff your head into a Tupperware container full of Cheerios or mash a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so deep into your face that the world evaporates. And if anyone knows, it’s Miami-based artist Lee Materazzi. The Central Saint Martins…
Why do human beings always see themselves in everything: craggy rock formations, diffuse cloud clusters, dense swirls of paint on canvas? Basically, we’re just a bunch of unhinged egomaniacs with a raging god complex. But besides that bitchy breakdown, there are also higher-minded possibilities including introspection, auto-analysis, and self-discovery. The…
By the bright light of day, Miami resident Clarence Reid is a mild-mannered 65-year-old songwriter who once penned hits for Top 40 stars such as KC & the Sunshine Band and Betty Wright. By night, though, he becomes Blowfly, a masked, caped, and pussy-crazed rapper-slash-superhero fighting for our collective right…
If you’re a manic fan of things like metal, musical comedy, and Satan, it’d be tragic if you missed BroadSword at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater. Written by Marco Ramirez, directed by Paul Tei, and starring members of the Mad Cat Theatre Company, this ridiculously funny festival of…
Even when you’ve got a good book, bus rides can be really, really, really boring. But you know what would turn that supershitty morning-transit trek into a full-blown fiesta? Pornography. Now, in the past, enjoying explicit sex pictures in public could be kinda tricky. But now, thanks to brand-new technology…
In case you hadn’t already noticed, Dave Barry isn’t just a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist. He’s also a shameless self-promoter and gratuitous merchandiser whose online store is packed with all kinds of useless, overpriced crap, including “Dave Barry for President” T-shirts, hoodies, baby bibs, trucker hats, tote bags, teddy bears,…
On November 21, 2006, a 25-year-old woman named Doris Jiménez was raped and strangled at Sol Fashion, the clothing boutique she owned in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. The same day, her American ex-boyfriend, Eric Volz, a relatively wealthy and successful magazine editor, was 55 miles away in the capital…
Only one in every million boys is blessed with a 9.75-inch penis like gnomish über-mensch Ron Jeremy. For the rest of us short, fat, greasy-haired hedgehogs, the closest we’ll ever get to starring in a sex flick is this weekend’s Exxxotica Expo at the Miami Beach Convention Center. If you’re…
One of the monsters spawned during the earliest days of New York hardcore, Agnostic Front is an unnaturally brutal beast that eats the streets, drinks diesel, and bleeds black blood. Like Cro-Mags and Murphy’s Law, AF probably could have retired after releasing its debut 11-track LP, Victim in Pain, and…
After four commercially uncertain years together, the teen punk catfight known as the Runaways finally ended in 1978, and guitarist Joan Jett was the only member to survive that pop apocalypse with her music career intact. Singer Cherie Currie made a few movies and then disappeared. Drummer Sandy West floated…
What exactly does it mean when one discovers the severed head of a giant, garlanded Buddha resting on a sand patch in the middle of a Wynwood gallery? Is this some kind of ancient Far East spiritual riddle? Nope. It’s just the centerpiece of “10 Years” at Charest-Weinberg Gallery, the…
Listen, if you’re under the impression that the gay bear is a furry woodland creature with a fondness for honey, salmon, and same-sex members of its own species, you are totally mistaken. Go buy tickets to the new documentary Bear Nation, which will screen tonight as part of the Miami…
Working out of Brooklyn, Cory Arcangel first earned critical props for artwork such as 2002’s Super Mario Clouds, a modded Nintendo cartridge that played nothing but a constant stream of pixilated nebulousness. (Check below for a video.) And ever since, he’s made it his mission to retool and subvert the…
