Planet Picks
Thursday 5.31 Come On Feel the Noize Eardrums are highly overrated, especially if you have lots of people yappin' in your face like we do. With that in mind, State Theatre does its part to speed up the hearing-loss process with an 8 p.m. mix of really loud bands. The lineup includes hardcore Toronto punks…
Freebie of the Week
Like the shifty buggers we are, occasionally we sneak in a freebie that does, in fact, eat into your pin money. This week's choice, the 15th annual Taste of Pinellas, is just such an event. It's not like you'll have to re-mortgage the house or dip into your kid's college fund. But just so you'll…
Books
Billy Ray's FarmBy Larry Brown Algonquin Books/$22.95 Larry Brown's writing is grittier than gravel, and there's a truckload of the stuff in the 10-essay collection Billy Ray's Farm. Some pieces are about writerly subjects (book tours, literary pals) but the prevailing theme is far more hard-knock: Namely, the small farm experience. Getting his training firsthand…
The List
Visual Arts OpeningsAdrian Howard Galleries, at the Suncoast Resort Hotel, 3000 34th St. S., St. Petersburg (727-865-6906). Just Around the Bend begins Friday, June 1, and continues through July 1. A wide variety of media is showcased at this exhibition, including multicolored glass mobiles by Steven James, metal sculptures by Mark Perhot, water fountains by…
Dining Guide
HILLSBOROUGH Tampa Carrollwood/Northwest Tampa Kaisen Sushi, 12785 N. Dale Mabry, in Mission Bell Square (813-969-3848). This friendly, casual and tiny cafe offers exceptionally fresh, artfully prepared, delicious and value priced sushi. What more can you ask for? A must-try is the calamari, thick slices of succulent grilled squid served in a dark, smoky sauce. Sweet…
Soundboard
<font Thursday, May 31 Events Royalty Theatre Abstract w/Days After/Brothers of Tampa State Theatre Grade/Ensign/The Impossibles/The Movielife/Next Season Bars/Small Stages AJ's Ale House Deep Emily Alley Cat's Cafe Diane Bahama Mama's Ricardo Beach Place (Whitey's) Baby Huey Big J.R.'s Johnny Charro Band Brass Mug Crash Mitchell Cadillac Jack's Josephine's Machine Carlie's Stormbringer Club Hedo Gemini/Passthamic/Ryan…
Letters to the Editor
Revolution No. 9 Re: "A Raw Deal" by Bonnie Boots (May 10-16) I am thoroughly convinced that Bonnie Boots must have had a really bad day the day she chose to visit No. 9 Bangkok Thai. I am a two- to three-time-a-week diner at their sushi bar and a frequent Thai takeout customer, and I…
Spins
Buddy GuySweet Tea This is an important album. Here's why: Contemporary blues is all but flat-lined, dominated by a battalion of faceless Strat-slingers rehashing decades-old licks over 12-bar shuffles. They holler the same weary lyrical cliches — but without the gut-level experience to evince true conviction. These keepers of the flame have their staunch supporters,…
Cuba Good’un
They say life isn't fair, and I believe it's true. Take you and me, for instance. You're an industrious, upright and responsible member of your community, and I'm a slothful, apathetic and frequently overhung social parasite, and yet, between the two of us, I'm the one the gods smile upon. Why, just look at this…
Outtakes
15 Minutes (R) Robert De Niro and Ed Burns play the pistol-packing good guys on the trail of a pair of mad-dog killers with a mania for videotaping their crimes. Tough, exciting and just off-kilter enough to keep us guessing, 15 Minutes is a thriller that transcends the buddy movie genre and even says a…
Someday, Under the Rainbow
Forget about the call to execute former St. Petersburg Mayor David Fischer. That was the old Omali Yeshitela. The new Yeshitela, the one who finished fifth in a 2001 mayoral primary field of nine, yearns only to beat Fischer's successor at the polls next time. When Rick Baker defeated Kathleen Ford in the March 27…
Web Site of the Week
Oh, Hells yeah. If you're like me, getting some free time to comparison shop is a lot like finding porn in a rectory: It's there; you just gotta look really hard. DealTime not only offers a wide variety of consumer goodies from electronic gizmos to books to toys (oh, the Lego shopping was long and…
Cattle Call
The tax assessor says a well-heeled partnership got a dubious agricultural exemption in New Tampa. If so, other Hillsborough County taxpayers had to make up the $1.6-million that these real estate investors avoided paying. By Francis X. Gilpin Two retired University of Florida extension service professors trucked 25 head of cattle from Mulberry to New…
That’s Entertainment!
As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Baz Luhrmann's lushly cinematic Moulin Rouge, it's impossible to ignore that there's something more than a little ludicrous about the whole affair. Once, twice, maybe even a handful of times we can rationalize hearing pumped-up versions of classic rock and show tunes coming out of the mouths of characters…
Music Menu
Grade/Ensign/The Impossibles/ The Movielife/Next Season Toronto's Grade is one of those rare bands that blends emo angst in equal parts with pop songcraft, hardcore energy and metal edge. The quintet — whose music the 'zine Splendid called thinking man's punk — has a new early-material comp out on Victory Records, The Embarrassing Beginning (now there's…
Secession Players
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The Young and the Angsty
I wish I could say that Snakebit, currently playing at Gorilla Theater, always rises above soap opera in its evocation of the complexity of straight-gay relations in the age of AIDS. After all, there are moments in David Marshall Grant's play when no one is shouting, no one is bursting into tears, and something insightful…
Public Life
Conference on ViolenceSaturday, June 2 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A 1997 study found that 153 animal abusers were five times more likely to commit violent crimes than a matched group of 153 non-animal abusers. In order to help combat violence in Tampa, community leaders, child and animal welfare professionals and members of the public…
Culinary Events
FOOD Lunch Is On The House Join Home Gourmet for a free lunch and product demonstration. See the Home Gourmet chefs prepare panko-crusted chicken breast salad with bleu cheese, spinach and walnut vinaigrette, sun-dried tomato biscuits and green apple creme brulee. Free with a $10 deposit towards any purchase. Noon-1 p.m. Wednesday, June 6. Home…
TAMPA BAY NOTEBOOK: Bucks Behind Bars
Mulberry isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, just close. The Polk County hamlet is a few miles east of the Hillsborough line, a few miles south of Lakeland at the intersection of State Road 60 and S.R. 37. Its main economic engine was phosphate, and as that motor sputtered, so did Mulberry. Then a…
The Unclutchables
Contrary to what their names might lead you to believe, Jon Cougar Concentration Camp aren't Nazis, The Cocktail Honeys are not some throwback lounge act, Lords of Acid ain't lords of anything, and Clutch are extremely, well, hard to handle. Not only is the Maryland-spawned quartet practically impossible to genrify, they change labels more often…
