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,…
Low life, high life, it’s all pretty much the same thing in the brave new American bordello, this tropic of psychosis. A social career standard set with a bizarre party at Mar-A-Lago, hosted by Donald Trump and Jason Binn of Ocean Drive magazine, the worlds of downtown and uptown colliding…
The social circuit, plowing along heedlessly, the party monster sick, literally and existentially, from a regimen that would kill more sentient beings. A reception at the Doral Hotel for the South Florida International Wine and Food Festival, both ballrooms crammed with our favorite concept: free food and alcohol. Booths from…
A bit of trivia as we relax and reflect. Last week we exulted Professor Griff’s new one, mentioning in particular the lead track “Phuck the Media.” We’ve just obtained an advance demo (although we already had the finished release). On the demo, the song “Phuck the Media” is titled as…
Phuck tha media! I heard dat. You hear it everywhere these days, words of wisdom from the world outside. Ice Cube’s stepping to it, mailing a press release headlined “Fuck Billboard and the Editor; #1 Is the Predator” behind his third LP, the smashit The Predator, which debuted at No…
The pop culture world, completely superficial and curiously irresisitible, a movement rolling over all moral, intellectual, and spirtual concerns. Dangerous, offensive, and debilitating as a drug addiction, but still strangely compelling. Sinatra Bar opening in a frenzy of fashion and celebrity, with an Elite Models party and Donald Trump, former…
The media “stars” are the worst, mostly because I don’t get to be one. My admirable colleague, Todd Anthony, however, gets a song written about him, performed live at Washington Square recently by its authors, Paul Roub and the one-named Zac. “Todd Anthony’s Here Tonight” references a bunch of the…
The shake out, reputations and fortunes rising and falling, clubs opening and closing. Club One in the Miracle Center shutting down and eventually evolving into a department store, with Norman Bedford, who booked in some great acts, looking at a space on South Beach for another Latin-music operation. The Id…
The headless flight toward the New Year, tumbling pell-mell into a world of possibilty, fighting the pull of the mundane. The city popping, clogged with the rich and famous, one big celebrity shooting gallery. New Year’s Eve assuming the competitive dimensions of pret-a-porte week in Paris — designers, celebs, and…
ZenCon is the name of my new religion. It was inspired by the music of Rooster Head, though not directly. It’s about pain. We don’t sacrifice barnyard animals, or even humans; there is, in fact, no ritualism involved, no gods either. And we never get angry. The secret is, when…
Ah, the psychosis deepens. I swear to three gods I had this dream the other night, more like a vision, a dream so real about a beautiful blond-haired teen-age girl, and I knew that for some reason her parents were worried or upset, and for no reason I felt guilty,…
The party zone between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, another dance to the music of time, more clubs, more thematic one-nighters, more lunges at style and senseless pleasure. Saturday night in Coconut Grove, the young and horny cruising the streets, operating on sheer gonad power. An overinflated shopping mall, weird…
The holiday season, the entire populace reduced to a state of low-grade manic depression, the general mood randomly veering between a positively Russian bleakness and giddy elation. Eating too much, drinking too much, the yearly dance before the apocalypse of New Year’s Eve and the prospect of yet another crummy…
Between Hurricane Andrew and the holidays, it’ll be a miracle if there are survivors. This is what we celebrate on the eve of 1993: skyrocketing numbers of reports about domestic violence (a true holiday tradition), thousands of homeless in South Dade (40 percent — I say 40 percent — of…
BUT WILL THEY GET BIGGER DESKS? New Times is pleased to announce the promotion of three veteran staffers. Former advertising director Greg Stier has been named publisher. Senior account executive Patrick Flood replaces Stier as advertising director. And general sales manager Irene Bustamante assumes the added responsibilities of general manager…
Pandisc prez Bo Crane knows the music biz. Bo knows hit records. And boy does Bo know how to toss a pah-tay. It’s not Bo’s fault, either, that “Swelter” wasn’t around to chronicle these fine adventures, although a crew from Wire brushed in, then ran screaming out the door after…
The party boy, helpless in the face of an ugly addiction, driven by sensation and the gnawing fear of missing the remotest semblance of a social occasion. A week or two of absolute frenzy, setting a personal worst with ten events in one day. Stop him before he kills again…
Ah, the piney smell of Christmas trees, the lights twinkling and decorations shining, the spirit of the holidays glowing everywhere you go. Makes me want to hurt people. Can’t help it, just a feeling. Jack ’em up with a rock sock. Fry days this year, it’ll be a buster from…
