Opinion & Commentary

There are moments in American culture when I just want to shut my brain off. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — the first siting congressional leader to ever be indicted — hoofing it up on Dancing with the Stars is one of those moments. The guy should be practicing…

The world is full of awful noise and sometimes one’s sanity depends entirely upon getting a teensy bit of quiet time. But it should never be too quiet. That’s where Sharlyn Everetsz’ unsteadily strummed guitars and whispery vocals come in handy. Hers is singer-songwritery stuff that’s better than silence.  Yesterday,…

Here is a roundup of a few interesting posts around the local music blogosphere. For a lot more, visit the sites on our blog roll. It’s on the right-hand side of this page when you scroll down. If you run a blog based in South Florida that covers music, and…

To read past installments of Jacobs Ladder’s tour diary, click here. This is the final installment, by bassist Sammy Gonzalez. Now that the band is back home, you can stay updated on their shows and releases by checking out the Jacobs Ladder MySpace page. Driving home from Tampa at 12:30 a.m…

Wisin y Yandel were one of the first breakout reggaeton success stories. Now they’re claiming they’re not reggaeton, just pop, or Latin hip-hop, or whatever. Fair enough. Nobody wants to be associated with a one-dimensional genre, and the survivors are all stepping up their game and trying out new styles…

Moving Units is a weekly column on Crossfade tracking the best-selling albums at South Florida independent record stores. Click here to view past top-sellers.Best-sellers for the Week of September 13 – 19:Radio-Active Records, Ft. Lauderdale1. Backspacer, Pearl Jam2. Temporary Pleasure, Simian Mobile Disco3. We Hear You, Luke Vibert4. Man on…

​The Mauxms (pronounced “moms”) are five guys out of Miami who list themselves as “Progressive / Punk / Latin” on their MySpace page, and claim Sublime and the Police as influences. Sure, you might think sounds like the potential for jazz-band-nerd, noodling disaster. But the band, which has seemingly popped…

Seattle’s Sunny Day Real Estate can’t really be blamed for the tearful bombast behind today’s biggest-selling emo bands. Still, a direct line can be drawn from the band’s ’94 debut, Diary, to indie label Deep Elm’s 11-volume set of compilations called The Emo Diaries, which ran from 1997-2007. And in the…

At one time, 57-year-old civil engineer Richard Mendez was a very powerful man — as Miami-Dade’s assistant aviation director, he oversaw construction projects at one of the nation’s busiest airports. But in 2001, he resigned shortly before being indicted by the feds for steering multimillion-dollar contracts to three county vendors…

The week started out with news that Miami was the second worst place to raise your kid. Unfortunately a stabbing at Coral Gables High proved that. In the wake of that tragedy YouTube videos surfaced that showed the school’s courtyard had a history of violence. Oh, and a camera man…

The pitfalls of teen stardom are legend — sex, drugs, burnout, overexposure, the dreaded 20th birthday, or even a simple case of the incurable crazies à la Wacko Jacko. Way back in ’79, Leif Garrett hit the ‘ludes, crashed his car, and almost killed his friend while, more recently, we’ve…

I don’t know about you, but when I was in high school I would sit in class and daydream, often whisking myself away to a magical place in my mind. Sometimes I would imagine myself less fat and awkward. Other times I’d see myself flying all over the world meeting…

Lox, Stock, and BagelYo: Brooklyn Bagels is slated to open this December in the “$2.3 billion urban lifestyle neighborhood of Midtown Miami.” Actually, the press release announcing this was written awhile ago — by now it’s probably just a $1.7 billion urban lifestyle neighborhood. Owner Ashraf Sahaltout promises “a quality…

A man walks into a bar with a duck on his head. The bartender says, “What can I do for you?” The duck says, “Get this man out of my ass!”Two cannibals were eating a clown. One said to the other “Does this taste funny to you?”Grasshopper walks into a…

A man of many beards and a million sunglasses, local blues rocker Uncle Scotchy is so rarely seen — truly seen — that some of you have begun to doubt his very existence. Admittedly, the guy’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a nutshell buried at the center of…

Kareem Zarwi, manager and beverage director of Au Pied de Cochon recently sent a very gracious email in which he thanked me for the “clear assessment” of Pied in the New Times review. But the real reason he was writing was to let me know that he had “come across…

After the Fall Be strong: It’s sad to read about people taking their own lives (“Legends of the Fall,” Natalie O’Neill, September 10). Many suffer from feelings of loneliness and emptiness. How does one fill that emptiness? I wish I knew the answer. For years, I too have struggled with…

Tomorrow evening, Miami-Dade County Commissioners will finally set the budget for the upcoming year. We already know that Mayor Carlos Alvarez is proposing some seriously draconian cuts and will make good on his promise to lay of 1,700 employees, which does not bode well for south Florida, where the unemployment…

It’s high time we gave some link love to the other local music blogs out there. Look out for a weekly roundup here on Wednesdays. Know of another site we should add to our blog roll? (It’s on the right, scroll down). E-mail me and let me know. Here are…

The last time New Times caught up with New York transplant DJ Elle, she was still in the middle of transitioning down from the Big Bad Apple. But her Thursday residence at the Catalina (alongside Self Born) is now a bona fide success. And with her recent slot at both…

I generally let criticisms of my writing go unanswered, the attitude being that everyone has a right to gripe. Plus sometimes the criticisms are correct, and those that aren’t can be especially fun to read. I fully expect to raise a bit of a fuss when I write a post…