ELECTORAL KINDERGARTEN: Tip of the Day!

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Change your political party to “Republican” and then vote for Obama!

America Needs You!

MONKEY VILLAGE goes BANANAS at TRANSIT LOUNGE

ENTERTAINMENT – REVIEWS

by L. Grant Pooka
The Palmetto Patriot

MIAMI – Tonight, my tropical compatriots, you may know one of the greatest reasons for which I miss my Miami so dearly. No, not because the writer of Dexter keeps stealing my one-liners… I am writing this as a PERSONAL TESTAMENT to the AWESOME GROOVELICITY of Monkey Village, because many of you know how strict a connoisseur of music both fine and funky I am, and that the altar of my church is in fact a subwoofer.

If you have never seen or heard of the Monkey Village, I am at Miss Anne’s behest letting you in on one of Miami’s VERY BEST music secrets. Believe you me, Europe has NOTHING on these guys!Tonight on the longest night of the year, Monkey Village is having their PHASE IV CD RELEASE PARTY, which erupts tonight from 10pm-2am at the Transit Lounge (729 sw 1st Ave, Brickell) for an AMAZING $0 cover!

Monkey Village is a collaborative sampling of Miami’s best music, a swirling blend of irregular appearances of various band members from SUENALO, SPAM ALL-STARS, LANZALLAMAS MONOFONICA, ELASTIC BOND, LOCOS por JUANA, AFROBETA, SHE SAID, CLEVELAND JONES, JUST THE TIP, JESSE JACKSON, OUT OF THE ANONYMOUS and RAW B JAE.If that’s not impressive enough, then those of you who also know my tendency to RAMBLE should also be made aware that the SHEER TALENT of this musical ensemble has for rendered me happily and utterly SPEECHLESS for many years now.

Tonight’s select ensemble celebrates the newest Monkey Village CD, Phase IV, and the ensemble tonight includes the following performers: Emiliano, Lasim, El Negro, and Lakambra of Locos Por Juana; Rodrigo of Juke; RaRa Kuyu; Cristy, Angela & Geneva of She Said; Ulysses of Out Of The Anonymous; Brian of Raw B Jae; and trippy visual art by Eva Ruiz and Arlene Davila.

If by chance you’re a PUNK and can’t make it to the show, I strongly advise keeping an ear or at least a GOOGLE ALERT out for this protean party wagon wherever it turns up! Violators will answer to me. Papa Pooka wouldn’t steer you wrong, at least not on music anyway!

MUSIC MASKS MOODY MIAMI MONDAYS

ENTERTAINMENT – REVIEWS

NOTHING TO DO IN MIAMI ON MONDAY NIGHTS?
Prayers Born from Adult Boredom Have Been Answered
by L. Grant Pooka
The Palmetto Patriot

For many years I have suffered the Monday blues in Miami… the beginning of the work week is not only bright and full of assholes, but a sharp contrast to the weekend nightlife that has raked billions of pookied-out dollars into the local economy for over a decade. It’s like chocolate withdrawal, a taxing rehabilitation for the Miami-born Night Owl. However, I am now able to declare, using a quote from Red Dwarf: “‘Tis p’shaw and nonsense!”

For starters, grab a buddy and head on down to Laundry Bar [701 Lincoln Lane North, South Beach] for a quick drink and larf… Ask bartender Ernie to blow fire from his mouth with some 151. Yes, it’s primarily a lesbian venue, so there’s plenty of appeal for you wannabe-lesbian straight dudes out there. But it’s no cover and 2-4-1 until 9pm, after which it gets kind of un-interesting anyway, so how can you go wrong?

Then once your spin cycle is finished, cross over to the mainland and hit the Transit Lounge [729 SW 1st Ave @ Calle Ocho, Brickell District] for JAM Night. There’s no cover, the drinks are cheap, and as the night suggests, it’s a jam! Locals armed with loaded instruments get up and grind with regulars and irregulars from the local latin jazz & funk scene, Spam All-Stars, Suénalo, Smurphio, Lanzallamas Monofónicas… the deep resulting rhythms are enough to awaken my art directors’s self-dubbed volcanopussy. See big daddy Chad prove himself the best trombonist this side of the Mississippi and a smokin’ hot mac daddy to boot!

If the fire’s ready to cool off, then may I suggest the most pleasant surprise of all? Miami Jazz Jam at, of all places, Churchill’s Hideaway [5501 NE 2nd Ave, Little Haiti], lays down a smooth game in the unlikeliest of places. We went for a quick swoop thru Sweat Records, but instead of the usual, cheap and desperate punk-meets-G-Unit fare that has infested Churchill’s for a decade, we were enticed inside by the refreshing vocals of Renée Fiallos and her jazz ensemble. Fiallo’s easy-breezy songbird voice soars thru the air like the ghost of Ella, Billie or Nina, with as much appeal. The band, which will release a new CD this September, is noticeably more eclectic, utopian and talented than anything we’d seen in the Miami underground, and is not to be missed. That’s an order.

So, little Miami kiddies, your prayers for something to do Monday nights have been answered in the most surprising of ways. Where once was silence now is jazz. The axis runs hot on the South end, cool on the North end, and wonderful at both. Dust off your fannies, summon up your cognac-lust, and enjoy.

JAM night at Transit Lounge starts at 10pm.

Miami Jazz Jam at Churchill’s Hideaway starts at 9:30.

Renee Fiallos & Ensemble play at 1:00am.

SOUTH BEACH ANNIE CRASHES ROSWELL ANNIVERSARY

CULTURE – NATIONAL

PROBING ROSWELL: 60 YEARS STRONG
Special Report by South Beach Annie
The Palmetto Patriot

ROSWELL (NM) – Modern Americans have hyped the Roswell UFO crash into the most important mythological event of the 20th century. We send South Beach Annie, our expert on the Strange-And-Unusual and no stranger to alien probulation, to cover the 60th anniversary of this event to question and assess the Roswell Crash Mythology!

Following up on her lead about a secret, secondary crash site outside Roswell about which the public was not informed. South Beach Annie to investigates locally to confirm that the downed vehicle and its occupants crashed on a ranch near Corona. These remnants were allegedly transported to a hangar in Roswell for preliminary analysis by the military.

South Beach Annie receives a cool reception from the local fauna, unable to secure an interview about the alleged crash, and discovers two local subtexts. One, that the government instilled too much fear of retribution upon the good folks of Roswell to keep their mouths shut; and two, that the locals find the tourist attraction, which drives much of Roswell’s economy, laughable and absurd as tourists routinely defame themselves with camp, kitsch and mediocrity.

Today, the Roswell UFO Crash of 1947 is perhaps the foremost legend in modern American mythology. We at the Palmetto Patriot believe that a well-executed military and govermental cover-up is certainly plausible. There remains suggestive evidence, both for and against, that either an extraterrestrial vehicle and one living alien were recovered, or that it was a US experiment into flying saucer technology reverse-engineered from alleged Nazi technology. We believe that all of these conclusions are potentially valid.

A VERY SKURRY CHRISTMAS

SKERMANY: Teaching Germans about Christmas in the ‘Hood
by Shelbric Fuller, Foreign Correspondent
The Palmetto Patriot

As previously concluded in our last article, Germany is scary. Very scurry. However, as I inform my newfound countrymen as to life in America, it seems abundantly clear that they have no clue whatsoever.There is also no explanation for inner city American culture, and Germans are not happy when perplexed.

There is a great cry of shock and outrage as to why the American people go out and spend hundreds of dollars on Christmas decorations while completely ignoring devastated Hurricane Katrina victims. America spends billions on other things too: breaking treaties, building WMAs and oil pipelines; the Christmas giving spirit really does live on and on.

Anyway, I’ve reached deep into my trousers to whip out this slice of life, a visualization if you will, an experiment in linguistics, for the benefit of readers in any country to experience a proletarian oeuvre of ghetto living. So sit back in your chair, let the sounds of jingle bells and drive-by reindeer gunfire fill your mind and enjoy:

“DA NIGH’ FO’ CRIMMA’”
As Told by Rev. Wallace Kumquat to Shelbric Fuller

INTERIOR – CHRISTMAS – DILAPIDATED GHETTO HOUSE – NIGHT
We see the back of an old, torn up, ugly recliner facing a warm lit fire. The fireplace mantle is decorated with Christmas stockings and mistletoe, with a wreath hanging above. Next to the recliner is a small side table with a plate of brownies, an ashtray, and a forty of the Bull. Camera pulls around to the front of the recliner to reveal a fat, sloppy, joint-smoking, black Santa Clause with his belly hanging out of the bottom of his suit top. As soon as he sees the camera is watching him he puts out the Joint, exhales his last hit, trying to waive the smoke away with his hand, straightens up a bit, and clears his throat.

SANTA CLAUSE

Nah yall best shut up n lisen.

Santa picks up a carol book, opens it to the first page and starts reading out loud.

SANTA CLAUSE

Wuz de night befo Cremma an all ovah da hood,
Er body wuz sleepin, dey wuz sleepin good.
We hung up r stockin and hope like da heck
Dat ole Sandy Claw gona bring da welfare check.

All de family wuz lay in dey beds
While Funderberd wine dance in dey heads.
I passed out on de flo, right next to Ma,
When I hear such a fuss I tink it wuz de law!

I looked frew da bars dat covered ma doe,
Spectin da sheriff wif a warrant to show,
And what I seen den made me say “Look at DAT”
Dey wuz a huge wallamelon pulled by sum rats!

All ober de worl, Sandy Claw be white,
But he look like us niggaz come dis Cremma night!
Fastah dan a poleeze car de homeboy he came
He hollah at dem wharf rats, he call dem by name:

“On Leroy, On Roosevelt, Jonterious Lee,
On Willy, On Ray-Ray and Malcolm” – Dey’s summnin to see!
He landed dat melon out dere in da screet.
I knew fo sho den wuz de damdest I seent.

He ain’t come down no chimley
He picked de lock on ma doe
An I says to myself “Sheeit!
He dun dun dis befoe!”

He hat dis big bag fulla presents I spec,
Wif Air Jordans and bling to wear ’round ma neck.
But He lef no good presents, jus stoled all my shit,
Got ma drugs and ma guns and ma burgla kit!

Wif ma stuff in dat bag out da winda he flew
I wuda chased him but he dun took ma knife too!
He hop in dat melon and whooped out a switch
He were gone in one second – Dat Fat Sum a Bitch!

Next year I be hopin
A white Sandy we git
Cuz dat black Sandy Claw
He ain’t wurf a SHIT!
(Pause)

Aight, de end! Now git da hell outta ma house!

FADE OUT

[Ed. Note: 'Da Nigh Foe Cremma' was originally published in the pilot episode of "Don't Go There!" written and developed for television by DeGeorge, Fuller and Stoetzer, ©1999, 2006. Used by permission. Additional work on this article was provided by L. Grant Pooka]

MANNY G’s FLICK PICKS 2006

ENTERTAINMENT

FLICK PICKS FOR 2006
by Manny Gomez
The Palmetto Patriot

2006 hasn’t been a great year for film. I’ve been racking my head for the last few days to find ten films I thought were amazing, but for now I could only come up with a mere five. Please feel free to respond with your own lists, or maybe amend this one if you come up with something I haven’t seen, or perhaps forgot.

In some what of an order (but really what’s in a number?):

1. The Departed- Martin Scorsese returns to what he does best, being mean on the streets (pardon the pun). In what is perhaps his best film in years, Scorsese brings back the frantic pace, catholic guilt, brilliant use of music, character duality and explosive violence that marked his best films. It also features what maybe be Leonardo DeCaprio’s finest performance. Based on Hong Kong potboiler Infernal Affairs, The Departed elevates the street cop drama into a pathos driven story of two men who are living each other’s lives, hunting for each other, and in the end hunting for themselves. No one is spared in the film, and violence serves as a catharsis. The pacing is so tight that your jaw will drop open several times, right up to the bullet-in-the-heads-filled climax. The cast includes Martin Sheen, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Mark Walhberg, and of course in a much talked about role, Jack Nicholson. Let’s hope that this one earns Marty the little gold man he’s been robbed over and over again.

2. United 93- Peter Greengrass serves up what might be the most emotional movie of the year. In this mostly improvised documentary style film, Greengrass puts us right in the cabin of that plane. The terrorists words are not subtitled, yet their reluctant moves and wide eyes talk more about uncertain feelings and fear, and paint them less as vile villains and more as men perhaps corrupted and manipulated into embracing an ideal they see as both heroic and worth dying for. The tension builds, and even though we all know how this sad story ended on September 11, we can help but gasp and shed tears as the plane goes down in the end. Short, tight, simple and beautiful, United 93 will perhaps go down as the defining movie of one of our country’s most tragic events.

3.Brick- ever since the much talked about year of the Independents, film fans always wait for the one small movie to come out that some how reinvents a genre or perhaps creates a new one. Brick takes the clichés and archetypes of pulp novels and film noir and flips them around by setting the whole damn thing in what appears to be a Southern California high school. This is 90210 by way of Phillip Marlowe and Dashiel Hammett. Essentially a re-working of The Maltese Falcon, the film is driven by sharp dialog (“Keep your specs on,” “It was you Angel,” “You ever read Tolkien?”) and characters that you will never forget, from the Rubik’s cube solving sidekick, The Brain. To the crippled, villainous and mysterious The Pin ( a gothed-up cane-wielding drug kingpin who orchestrates his drug deals and hits over snacks in his moms kitchen. Joseph Gordon Levitt, continuing from his brilliant work in Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, skids, gets punched, talks back and investigates his way through a story that ultimately leaves him alone, wounded, and just a bit more jaded. This is film noir plain and simple.

4. The Three Burials Of Melquades Estrada- Tommy Lee Jones writes and directs this bloody tale of morality, male bonding, and what it means to keep a promise. A ranch owner agrees to carry the murdered corpse of his ranch hand to Mexico, dragging along the thuggish border patrol man who needlessly shot him. Like the film’s Peckinpah, (and obvious inspiration) Burial’s deals with men who are perhaps driven by codes and ideals from another time. Brutal in it’s justice and morality, the film isn’t one for the faint of heart no for some one seeking an easy answer to good and evil and the nature of man. Redemption isn’t easy in this world. It comes with blood, tears, and bullets. Barry Pepper pulls in an amazing performance, and Tommy Lee Jones shows us that perhaps he should step behind the camera more often.

5. Little Miss Sunshine- The indie darling of the tear, Little Miss Sunshine turns the family road movie on it’s head and raises it from the slums of Chevy Chase antic filled movies. Here we have a truly dysfunctional family who find out that they truly have no one but each other. It’s a lesson we all learn in life, that family be difficult, that maybe we don’t like them all the time, but we always love them and most certainly always need them. Steve Carrel gives and understated and subtle performance that shows you he has more in him that his equally funny over the top antics in his bigger roles (Anchorman and The 40 Year Old Virgin). This is a family movie of a new kind, and you’ll find yourself, laughing, cringing, smiling, and feeling satisfied as you would after any true family outing.

That’s the best of what I can remember. Some battery films where plain fun: Mission Impossible 3 turned out to be the best in the series, featuring a magnificent scene-chewing villain by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and the best use of a McGuffin since old Hitchcock coined the term. Superman Returns was also very good, filled with an elegance and beauty rarely found in superhero movies. X-Men 3: The Last Stand was just that; the last stand for most fans.

I would like to add Volver to my favorite films of the year. This is Almodovar at his best. No one makes films about women like he does and the women in this film are quite unlike anything in any film period. Penelope Cruz is both breathtakingly beautiful and just plain amazing. Like the rest of his cinematic output, Almodovar fills the story with eccentrics and family, which as anyone can attest, the two go hand in hand. The film is about many things, but most importantly about returning (hence the title). Returning to a moment in your past, to your home, to your family and in a sense accepting what role you play in the lives of those you love. Haunting, giddy, beautiful and perfectly entertaining, Volver is the the type of foreign film that should achieve success not only in it’s homeland, but at US box offices as well.

Let’s hope 2007 knocks them out like last year.