Twisted Sisters
Jane Martin's Talking With … is half-brilliant and half ho-hum. It's brilliant when it's most perverse — when its subjects are a fanatically religious snake handler, a neophyte sadomasochist, a baton twirler who bleeds for Jesus and a woman giving birth to a dragon. It's ho-hum when its subjects are more mundane: a nervous actress…
Spins
Solomon Burke Don't Give Up on Me He's been called the greatest soul singer of them all. Given that there's some pretty stiff competition for that crown, let's narrow it a bit: Solomon Burke is our greatest living soul singer. Don't Give Up on Me bears testimony. Proves it. We've reached 2002's midpoint, and Don't…
Arrested Development
When Tampa police officer Lois Marrero was killed in the line of duty last year, the question of who would receive her pension benefits became national news. Marrero's longtime partner Mickie Mashburn filed to receive the benefits|but the pension board denied her claim in a nearly unanimous decision. Mashburn is now taking the matter to…
Age of Riesling
During the summer, sometimes it's hard to get excited about red wine. There's something about having to choke down a heavy, room-temp beverage that makes me flee to an air-conditioned wonderland and down a beer. But give me a frosty, chilled glass of white and let the games begin. There are so many wines to…
Orbitals
God's Skating Room Blighted land beneath interstate highway overpasses affects neighboring homes and businesses, decreasing property values and inviting those undesirable elements that make city life so interesting. In St. Petersburg's North Downtown (NoDo) neighborhood, the interstate-covered block at Martin Luther King Street North and Fourth Avenue is among the last seedy parcels in a…
Campaign Cleaners
It should be the best of times for a committee of idealistic Pinellas County residents called the Citizens for Fair Campaign Practices. The volunteer-run, non-governmental committee has negotiated a truce of sorts with the county Republican Party for the first election cycle since its 1994 founding. If committee members rule on a dispute about unfair…
Sinking Ship
Jedi knights, cheeky web-slingers and pre-crime cops aside, the summer of 2002 may turn out to be best remembered for the long nuclear shadow it cast. Granted, the movies we have in mind might not have carried nearly the same sort of weight had our fragile, post-9/11 psyches not already been so damaged, but that's…
World Sexual Records
The World Wide Web is filled with sex. You can get text, photos, video, audio. You can solicit advice, information and even liaisons. I don't know the figures, but I'd take a stab in the dark and say sexual content makes up the largest percentage of subject matter available on the Net. In a 10th…
A Kind of Blue: Aqua Blue Grill
You don't know what love is Until you've learned the meaning of the blues Until you loved a love you had to lose You don't know… —"Flirting With Twilight," Kurt Elling Chicago jazz great Kurt Elling's mournful tune came to mind as I sat among the cobalt blue glasses, the aquamarine lighting and the transparent…
Unclear for Takeoff
St Petersburg leaders will have a hefty price to pay if they want to develop over Albert Whitted Municipal Airport. A study commissioned by the city estimates the price of removing Albert Whitted Water Reclamation Facility (AWWRF), a sewage plant adjacent to the waterfront airport that must be removed to make way for development, at…
All Told
Bill Stevenson, drummer and songwriter for two of punk rock's most enduring and respected acts, Descendents and All, is 38 years old. He's been at it for two decades, ever since Descendents all but invented pop-punk by tempering fledgling hardcore's rudimentary fury with melody and disaffected wit. Every fast 'n' catchy band to rise from…
Outtakes
Australia: Land Beyond Time (PG) The film takes us Down Under to the flattest, driest continent on earth, immerses us in parched, otherworldly landscapes and introduces us to tons of incredibly odd and supremely adaptable animals — from cute koalas and feisty dingoes, to an endless variety of bizarrely shaped lizards, to the amazing and…
DVD Pick
The Royal Tenenbaums Tragedy has rarely been so much fun as it is in Wes Anderson's sprawling black comedy extravaganza. This time out, Anderson (director of cult faves Bottle Rocket and Rushmore) and co-writer Owen Wilson (who also stars) give us the epic tale of the rise and fall of a brilliant, relentlessly bizarre and…
The Black Veil
According to the National Mental Health Association, clinical depression affects some 19-million Americans each year. For acclaimed writer Rick Moody, the way into and out of his own severe depression leads to the mythology of his family history and, strangely enough, deeper into the history of the nation. The Black Veil is a brainy, honest,…
Letters
Almost Famous Re: "Rockin' Serendipity" by Scott Harrell (July 3-9) I can agree with you completely about The Urbane Cowboys and their serendipitously good music! I've been a fan of theirs before they were ever as big a hit as they are today. Take it from someone whose whole life was music; this group is…
