Artest Strikes Again
Ok, so I've been following the latest Ron Artest saga pretty closely because he's on my fantasy basketball team (it's my first season and yes, fanstasy sports is more addictive than crack). For those of you who don't know, Artest was the Indiana Pacer who last year went into the stands and clocked a fan…
Arab-American Comic Wins Bill Hicks Spirit Award
New York City stand-up comic Dean Obeidallah has won The Bill Hicks Spirit Award for Thought Provoking Comedy. Obeidallah, whose mother is Sicilian and whose father is Palestinian, peppers his act with stories of living in post-9/11 America as an Arab-American, from having every cashier who sees his credit card ask him "exactly what kind…
Best Subhed Ever!
Phil B. pointed this out to me last night, and it's the funniest headline/subhed combo I have seen in many a moon. From CNN's website comes this story: Could this have been a written warning? Do Bishops carry some form of sin ticket book? Are the clergy really God's police force? How can I get…
Silly Planet Ads
From an ad in the Planet, pimpin’ upcoming shows at the Forum: Holiday Packs as low as $57 (which ain’t low for me). “Purchase 2 packs and receive a section of the Authentic Stanley Cup Final Game 7 Goalie net.†A minimum of $114 for what I’m guessing is a 1-inch-by-1-inch square piece of netting…
Just Part of the Continuing Secularization of Christmas
Photo credit: Max Linsky, Weekly Planet
I’m Gay, Too.
What does it mean to be gay? Really, in the political sense and in the personal sense. The issue has been raised by our favorite (as one staffer so delicately put it) 'poon hound,' nude dancing impresario and folk hero Joe Redner. The King of Strip has filed papers in a federal court case insisting…
Hiya homes!
It's good to be back in Tampa, if only for a night. And how charmed was I to see my Stella glass still in circulation in the kitchen? I share with you this: my official Weekly Planet breakfast. Totally excited for the Planet holiday party tonight. Are we drinking scotch again? Or was it whiskey?…
Horsing Around
They’re off and running as Tampa Bay Downs opens its 80th season.
So-so silverman
A lot of people who caught Sarah Silverman's show-stopping turn in The Aristocrats are already calling her the new Lenny Bruce, but it takes a lot more than a filthy mouth and a knack for provocation to sustain great comedy. And though Silverman's comic timing is almost always impeccable as she revels in taboos from…
The Conversation
Mom told you not to talk to strangers for a reason.
The Endless Bummer
The image of Juror 32 — emotional, near tears, hugging a fellow juror as they fled media cameras and questions after essentially acquitting Sami Al-Arian — lingers even a week later. The anonymous juror was mobbed as he left the courthouse, answering a few questions, saying briefly that he felt no pressure to change his…
Laugh it UP
Laughing Stock, performed by the Asolo Theatre Company, earns chuckles by telling the story of a New England theater company attempting to put on a summer stock set of shows. The fictional troupe includes a group of characters recognizable to anyone who's done time in the theater world: the hopelessly ditzy actress and the swaggering,…
Camp Fire
The jerk sauce packs heat, but Coconut Bay’s mostly just warmed-over.
Monkey Love
ATTRACTION
Perpetual Motion
MUSIC
Outtakes
RECENT RELEASES AEON FLUX (PG-13) Based on the popular MTV animated series of the '90s, Aeon Flux takes us 400 years into the future to the last city on Earth. Charlize Theron, making her debut in the sci-fi action genre, stars as an underground operative leading the rebels against totalitarian rule of a seemingly perfect…
Spins
Kicking Television: Live in Chicago WILCO Nonesuch Wilco's last two records — 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and last year's A Ghost Is Born — are often described with terms like "groundbreaking" and "experimental." And while the former country-rock band's most recent work is certainly outré by mainstream standards, it's difficult to peg the band's work…
Götterfunken?
MUSIC
The Morning After
Comparing coverage of the Al-Arian verdict.
Going Postal
DONATION UNDER DURESS Just a note regarding your remarks (Political Whore, "Tainted Love," by Wayne Garcia, Dec. 7-13) on Congresswoman Harris' donating the RISCORP money to charity. She 1. Put up a major fight about giving the money to anyone. 2. It was not until after my letter to the editor suggesting she donate the…
Sonoma or bust
Tips for travel in wine mecca.
Stuck on You
ART
Suspicious Mind
Why the heir to a Tampa home-building fortune has spent millions trying to prove that the 9/11 attacks were a U.S. government plot.
Wine List
Got an upcoming or ongoing wine event? Send information to: The Wine List, 810 N. Howard Ave., Tampa, FL 33606, fax 813-739-4801 or e-mail winestuff@weeklyplanet.com. DOWNTOWN AFTER SIX Tampa Bay Uncorked joins up with over 30 of Tampa Bay's other groups at various venues around downtown Tampa. Uncorked will be at the Sheraton Riverwalk Hotel.…
Less is More
ART
Brooklyn Dodges
FST’s latest is literate and well observed; just don’t expect any epiphanies.
Oh Boy, John Prine!
Amid its standard onslaught of holiday fare, Eckerd Hall manages to squeeze in a set by John Prine, one of the most respected singer/songwriters of the last three decades. His literate, clever and emotionally potent tunes and ragged voice have enchanted a cult of fans since he released his self-titled debut album in 1971. The…
Losing Out
Richard Pryor dead at 65 In heaven, the pipe never flares. Midwest reality America's Next Top Model is from North Dakota; Survivor winner from Kansas; Biggest Loser from Iowa. Florida is losing its reality-show edge to the corn-fed minions. Democrats rally in Orlando Annual state convention's theme? "Staying Out of Third Place." About face Howard…
Music Menu
THURSDAY, DEC. 15 LEE GREENWOOD/CRYSTAL GAYLE Whatever Greenwood's intentions were when he recorded "God Bless the U.S.A." back in the mid-1980s, it couldn't have been too big of a surprise to the artist when the song became the right-wing anthem of the last quarter of the 20th century. But the song's real crime isn't the…
Take a Memo
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful, Tribune and Prosecutors.
Let It Happen … or Made It Happen?
What the 9/11 Truth movement believes.
Club Hoppers
No Clubs celebrates 20 years of filling venues big and small with sounds.
Langston’s Nativity
THEATER/FREEBIE
Essence of Ape
Forego The Cloying Family Stone In Favor Of A Bigger, Badder Kong.
