#The Miami Herald

[thislovintime]

Performing in Houston on October 27, 1979; photo via RockinHouston dot com.

“The Great American Food and Beverage Company is an institution in [Santa Monica, Calif.]. […] A waiter in his ‘30s, older than the others, made his way to the podium, banjo in hand. He seemed strangely familiar in an unusual outfit whose suspenders gave him a whimsical air. He was very thin, with an angular, almost bony face and straight, mid-ear length dirty blond hair that was parted in the middle. That was all fine. But he also had a mustache and bags under his eyes that somehow didn’t seem quite right. […] Then came the memory of who he was. His name was Peter Tork, and more than a decade ago he was one of the four Monkees […]. And now Tork was a singing waiter. I assumed that few would recognize him — and that he’d probably rather not be recognized. So I decided to respect his privacy. But then, on the way out, he overheard me mention to someone that I was a writer visiting California to do some celebrity interviews, and he said to me, just a trace of bitterness in his voice, ‘Hey, how’d you like to do a story on a former great?’ Peter Tork now lives with his wife and two small children in Venice, Calif., […]. His home is a ramshackle duplex with badly chipped white paint on the outside and a gate that’s locked by a clothes hanger. Inside, the apartment has second-hand furniture with wobbly legs and sports bare wood floors of the kind it’s not fashionable to leave uncovered. An old sheepdog with a very doggy smell lies under an even older piano. In 1965, Peter Tork was washing dishes in Huntingon Beach, Calif., for $50 a week when he was recommend for the Monkees by a musician friend named Stephen Stills […|. ‘In those days we were both folksingers, and we were known as the two cats who looked alike,’ Tork said. ‘He turned me on to the situation.’ […] Today Peter Tork is 36. In his three years as a Monkee, he guesses he made a million dollars. Except for a trust he can’t touch until 1985, it’s all gone. ‘It just poured through,’ he recalled, without being at all maudlin. ‘It was like a tidal wave after a drought. The amount was so grotesque that I didn’t know what to do with it. I spent hundred-dollar bills like quarters.’ He calls himself a socialist now and says he’d be ‘philosophically and religiously prone to give that kind of money away anyway. But I dribbled it away.’ And that bothers him. ‘
I lived in Studio City in a big house that cost too much. I didn’t know how good I had it. I had no basis of comparison. I never got competent professional advice (from his producers, on how to invest his money). I’m bitter about that. They didn’t know how to handle a flash rather than someone who’d clawed his way to the top. Now I’ve been on the fringes. Now I know what it’s like to claw.’ Among other things, the fringes found him busted for alleged dope dealing. ‘It was ‘72. I was caught coming across the border from Mexico with some hash in my pocket,’ he said. ‘For a while, they thought they’d get me for a big smuggling rap. I ended up spending just three-and-a-half months in custody. I recommend it to all my good friends.’ After that experience, he worked for three years as a teacher. Then the school closed in the midst of a strange embezzlement scandal. So Tork decided to take another stab at show business. He has reactivated some old contacts and recently tried out at Paramount for comedy spots on ‘Happy Days,’ ‘Laverne and Shirley’ and ‘Mork and Mindy.’ ‘
I’m trying comedy because I know I’m glib, and I know I’m good at it,’ he said. ‘And I’m taking acting lessons. I’ll be glib one day in drama too. ‘Maybe first I can get a walk-on, then some solid comedic roles, then maybe in time a feature role in another series, then films, then maybe I can make enough to finance my music, which is really what I want to do,’ he said, the bounds of his quite sincere fantasy mushrooming in a minute. […] In the meantime, while he waits for a casting call, his show-business career still consists of The Great American Food and Beverage Company, where he has worked since last summer. ‘It’s something to do with my hands while I’m waiting,’ he said. ‘It’s a place where you’re allowed to sing, and everybody uses it to keep their chin up while waiting for their big break — like “The Gong Show” or something.’ A touch of bitterness there, again. ‘It’s just that the people don’t shut up (at the restaurant). I wish they would. You basically have to drown them out. But… it is a chance.’ With that, Peter Tork picked himself up to go to work. It was his turn to wash dishes.” - article by Steve Sonsky, The Miami Herald, February 18, 1979

“Well, what I thought was great was that [Peter] always seemed to be humble and very, very gracious in his actions and his attitude. He always treated everybody with respect. He stayed low-key until we would kick up with a group number and then he would join in. […] Everybody else has been joking about how he wasn’t Pete, he was Peter. You can tell a lot about a person when they do whatever they need to do for their family. And the only thing else that I would add is that the fact that he stayed so humble and so gracious after a lot of us had grown up with him as an icon means a lot.” - D J Barker, Tales of the Road Warriors, 2019 (x)

“I worked with Peter in the mid seventies. A kinder, gentler, gracious and giving human being you could never find. His sense of humor and positivity was a gift to all of those lucky enough to be around him. He loved his life, (in spite of it sometimes!)[.]” - D J Barker, Facebook, February 13, 2023 (x)

“There was a period where I was broke. And I called home, I said, ‘Send money.’ ‘No, sorry, kiddo, you’re on your own.’ So there was a restaurant, a two-restaurant chain, there were two restaurants — a short chain, a very small chain, two links — in L.A. called The Great American Food and Beverage Company. And the trick to this establishment was that you had to be a musician, you had to audition to work at this restaurant. And I really, really, really, really, really didn’t want to work there, but I really, really, really needed the money. Anyway, so I’m standing in the kitchen, it’s my first day, and I’m dressed in this ridiculous outfit, and a bunch of us are lined up. And the coked up manager was marching up and down in front of us like a drill sergeant. And as we’re standing there listening to this madman, the kitchen door swings open, and who should walk in but none other than Peter Tork from The Monkees. And I watch Peter Tork walk by me, take a time card and punch in the time clock and get in line right next to me. And my mouth dropped open. And it became evident at that point that he was working as a waiter at the restaurant. And this is Peter Tork from the fucking Monkees. This man was, you know, as big, if not bigger, than The Beatles in the U.S. at one point in his career. And I watched my whole life pass before my eyes.” - Matthew Wilder, Speaking of Music with Jason Faber

More about Peter's time at the Great American Food and Beverage Company in a second post.

[belascoainyneptuno]

The Power of Names — Op-Ed in The Miami Herald

Earlier last month, I visited an independent school in Connecticut, to speak on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, about Hispanic Heritage Month, the power of names, and the power of naming. Names are a critical component of our identity. Names reveal or conceal...

The Power of Names Alexis Romay  Earlier last month, I visited an independent school in Connecticut, to speak on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, about Hispanic Heritage Month, the power of names, and the power of naming. Names are a critical component of our identity. Names reveal —or conceal— who we are. Let’s start with “Connecticut,” which takes its name from an Algonquian word that means “land on…

[krispyweiss]

Roger Daltrey Cuts Florida Show Short

- “I’m going to do myself some serious damage here and I’m not going to do it because I’ll never sing again,” vocalist tells audience

Roger Daltrey cut short a solo performance in Florida after complaining of health issues.

The Who frontman was playing with his solo band Feb. 11 when he walked off stage after an hour, saying “it ain’t fun” to sing when you have indigestion.

“I’m going to do myself some serious damage here and I’m not going to do it because I’ll never sing again,” he reportedly told the audience at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

“I am not a robot. I’m definitely not a robot. I’m not doing this to myself anymore.”

Daltrey is scheduled to play Feb. 13 and 20 in Florida and has tour dates with the Who on tap in June. All dates are still listed on the band’s website.

“I’m down to my boots,” he said. “If I ain’t careful, I’ll have no voice. We’ve got a lot of shows coming up and I don’t know what to do, because what I really need is a fucking doctor.”

Information from The Miami Herald and Creative Loafing Tampa Bay was used for this report.

2/13/23

[adribosch-fan]

Vino en bote por el Mariel y ahora triunfa con un ron inspirado en una triste historia 

POR SARAH MORENO Janet Díaz Bonilla con el maestro ronero cubano, Francisco Fernández Pérez, “Don Pancho”, que se encargó de la elaboración de La Marielita en una destilería en Panamá. Cortesía Janet Díaz Bonilla El éxodo del Mariel ha producido algunos de los mejores y peores momentos para la imagen del exiliado cubano en Estados Unidos. La llegada de 125,000 cubanos entre el 15 de abril y el…

[mysharona1987]

[tkachuktkaching]

A feature on Matthew in the Miami Herald as he reached 600 NHL Games

“It’s crazy,” Tkachuk said ahead of the game. “I don’t even feel like I’m even close to hitting my prime yet. I’m at 600 [games] right now and it’s just flying by. I’m 26 years old. For me to hit this at this age I think is a very cool accomplishment. It just makes you reflect when you hit something like how fast time has gone and how many great players I’ve been able to play with.”

Tkachuk has logged 589 points (222 goals, 367 assists) so far in his career. That’s the 12th-most among U.S.-born NHL players through 600 games played.

He already has 207 points in 169 games with Florida, scoring 70 goals and adding another 137 assists. He has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 10 games this season. But his value extends beyond the scoresheet. Ever since Florida acquired him in the blockbuster trade with the Calgary Flames before the 2022-23 season, Tkachuk became an instant leader in the Panthers’ dressing room. His boisterous, outgoing personality formed a perfect yin-and-yang with Florida captain Aleksander Barkov. His ability to get under opponents’ skin added a dimension of physicality, grit and toughness the team lacked before his arrival.

The results have been evident ever since. He posted a career-high 109 points in his first season and added another 24 points, including 11 goals and four game-winners, in the playoffs as Florida made it to the Stanley. Cup Final for just the second time in franchise history. The Panthers lost the series in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights, with Tkachuk missing the final game due to a fractured sternum sustained in Game 3 when he absorbed an open-ice hit from Vegas’ Keegan Kolesar.

Tkachuk’s pure numbers dipped last season, logging just 88 points (26 goals, 62 assists), but he stepped up in the playoffs with a team-high 16 assists and team-high-tying 22 points as Florida returned to the Cup Final and ultimately won it all for the first time by beating the Edmonton Oilers in seven games.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Florida reviewers of AP African American Studies sought ‘opposing viewpoints’ of slavery

This excellent article from the Miami Herald, looks at some of the previously unreported objections Florida had to the AP African American Studies course.

“It’s not really about the course right? It’s kind of about putting down Black struggles for equality and freedom that have been going on for centuries at this point in time and making them into something that they are not through this kind of distorted rightist lens."

--Alexander Weheliye, African American studies professor, Brown University

When Florida rejected a new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies, state officials said they objected to the study of several concepts — like reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement and “queer theory.” But the state did not say that in many instances, its reviewers also made objections in the state’s attempt to sanitize aspects of slavery and the plight of African Americans throughout history, according to a Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times review of internal state comments. For example, a lesson in the Advanced Placement course focused on how Europeans benefited from trading enslaved people and the materials enslaved laborers produced. The state objected to the content, saying the instructional approach “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity.” In another lesson about the beginnings of slavery, the course delved into how tens of thousands of enslaved Africans had been “removed from the continent to work on Portuguese-colonized Atlantic islands and in Europe” and how those “plantations became a model for slave-based economy in the Americans.” In response, the state raised concerns that the unit “may not address the internal slave trade/system within Africa” and that it “may only present one side of this issue and may not offer any opposing viewpoints or other perspectives on the subject.” “There is no other perspective on slavery other than it was brutal,” said Mary Pattillo, a sociology professor and the department chair of Black Studies at Northwestern University. Pattillo is one of several scholars the Herald/Times interviewed during its review of the state’s comments about the AP African American Studies curriculum. “It was exploitative, it dehumanized Black people, it expropriated their labor and wealth for generations to come. There is no other side to that in African American studies. If there’s another side, it may be in some other field. I don’t know what field that is because I would argue there is no other side to that in higher education,” Pattillo said. Alexander Weheliye, African American studies professor at Brown University, said the evaluators’ comments on the units about slavery were a “complete distortion” and “whitewashing” of what happened historically. “It’s really trying to go back to an earlier historical moment, where slavery was mainly depicted by white historians through a white perspective. So to say that the enslaved and the sister African nations and kingdoms and white colonizers and enslavers were the same really misrecognizes the fundamentals of the situation,” Weheliye said. [emphasis added]

The entire article is well worth reading, and I encourage people to do so.

[trapdoornumberthree]

A whole bunch of headshots for the character page of a comic series my guy's been working on ^^ Deerg and Skyler [top row] are his, the rest are my freaks <3

[weaponizedhorse]

‘Large’ creature — with 20 arms — found lurking in Antarctic sea. It’s a new species

Scientists aboard a research vessel near Antarctica pulled their nets out of the chilly ocean water. Among their catch, they found a 20-armed creature with a distinctive body shape. It’s a new species.

Researchers trawled the Southern Ocean on several research expeditions between 2008 and 2017, according to a study published July 14 in the journal Invertebrate Systematics. They were searching for a group of “cryptic” sea animals known as Promachocrinus, or Antarctic feather stars.

Antarctic feather stars are “large” animals that can live anywhere from about 65 feet to about 6,500 feet underwater and have an “otherworldly appearance” when swimming, researchers said. Although both are invertebrate ocean animals, feather stars are distinct from more well-known sea stars

During their surveys, researchers collected eight feather stars with a distinctive body shape and discovered a new species: Promachocrinus fragarius, or the Antarctic strawberry feather star.

The Antarctic strawberry feather star has 20 arms branching off its central “strawberry-like” body, the study said. It can range in color from “purplish” to “dark reddish.” Researchers did not provide measurements of the animal’s overall size.

Photos show the new species has two types ofappendages. Its lower, shorter arms appear almost striped and bumpy, while its upper, longer arms appear almost feathered and soft

A close-up photo shows the Antarctic strawberry feather star’s lower body. It has a roughly triangular shape, wider at the top and tapering toward a rounded bottom tip. The texture appears bumpy with circle-like indents likely left from broken-off arms.

Researchers named the new species after the Latin word for “strawberry” because of the “resemblance of the (body) shape… to a strawberry.”

[galerymod]

NFL star in handcuffs:

It remains to be seen what the consequences of the incident will be for the players involved.

Shortly before the start of the NFL season, superstar Tyreek Hill was temporarily taken into custody as part of a traffic stop. As a result, the pass receiver and his team were asked to take a critical stance towards the player. The police justify their actions.

The police had previously released video footage from bodycams documenting the stop. The published video footage shows Hill sitting in a black sports car. A police officer approaches his vehicle and Hill hands the officer something through the lowered window. The window is then rolled up again.

The police officer then asks him to lower the window again, but Hill does not do so. Another police officer then forcefully opened the driver's door, whereupon Hill was pulled out of the vehicle and pinned to the ground. An officer pressed his knee into Hill's back, whereupon he was handcuffed.

‘I still don't know what happened,’ Hill said after the NFL opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars (20-17) and criticised: ’What if I wasn't Tyreek Hill? God knows what those officials would have done.’

The Dolphins wrote in their statement that this was ‘a reminder’ that ‘not every situation like this ends peacefully, and we are grateful that it did in this one.’

There are ‘some officers who confuse their responsibility and dedication with misguided power’, it continued: ‘We commend the MDPD (Miami Dade Police Department, ed.) for taking the proper and necessary action and releasing this footage so quickly, but also urge them to take equally swift and decisive action against the officers who behaved so abhorrently.’

Hill uncooperative according to police

No, Power abuse in its purist form.

It's interesting how many cops turned up on the tray for a normal traffic stop!

Any non-POC citizen would have had no problem getting into his car and the traffic stop would not have happened, this is structural racism!

The black man with the big fat car fits the image of police officers abusing their power.

Throw them out, they have no place in the police force, at most as security guards in a shopping centre car park.

mod

Of course, first investigate properly and then throw them out, that's just our opinion, then jobs will open up for more capable people with a greater sense of responsibility and the appropriate de-escalation skills.

Cops on Steroids?

Is that the problem? It's interesting when a professional athlete looks like an untrained citizen against a normal patrolman, isn't it?

I can only puke for the steroid pumped up cops with their bullshit core spirit.

Do a test on steroids with one of them - I bet you'll be surprised.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

DeSantis administration aims to ‘curb’ diversity, equity, inclusion in state universities

BY DIVYA KUMAR

Florida will be looking to “curb” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the state’s colleges and universities, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez said Tuesday, offering a preview of what higher education leaders can expect from lawmakers during the upcoming legislative session.

Her statements, delivered at a state Board of Governors meeting at Florida International University in Miami, marked the first time the DeSantis administration has explained why its budget office this month requested a detailed accounting of how much colleges and universities spend on such efforts.

“I can give you a few insights as to what we’re working on coming this session,” Nuñez said before mentioning a statement last week from the presidents of Florida’s 28 state colleges. It pledged to root out any policy or practice that “compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts.” The lieutenant governor then suggested that effort would soon extend to the state’s 12 universities.

“I believe [the colleges are] looking at ways to curb those initiatives, and I think we’ll look at ways to more broadly curb those initiatives as well,” she said.

In a speech that earlier praised the university system for its high rankings and relatively low student debt, Nuñez said “real forces” were “undermining the good work taking place” at the state schools.

“These new threats that are creeping and taking hold are things that we need to face,” she said. “I believe one of the biggest threats that’s infiltrating our universities is a permeating culture — one might call it woke culture, one might call it woke ideology, one might call it identity politics. ... We don’t need to get into all the names, but I do believe that some of these issues are taking hold. The policies they advocate are based on hate and based on indoctrination.”

Nuñez also previewed proposals to review general education courses and give university presidents more control over faculty hiring.

“We want to further empower our presidents to make sure that they own the responsibility of hiring individuals to work in their campuses and make sure it stays in the hands of the leader of the institution more so than in hidden hiring practices and faculty committees,” she said.

The legislative session begins March 7.

In their responses to the governor’s budget office, the 12 public universities said they collectively are spending about $34.5 million this year on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. About $20.7 million came from state funds.

The University of South Florida reported the highest expenses at $8.7 million, though only $2.5 million came from state funds. Money was spent on initiatives such the university’s supplier diversity program; non-mandatory trainings; a list of 10 courses including “Theatre Appreciation” and “Language in the USA”; and funding for its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Florida A&M University had the highest amount of state funds used at $4.1 million. The school’s expenses included a research center and museum for Black archives and its Center for Environmental Equity and Justice, created by the Legislature in 1998.

Shortly after those responses were submitted, the governor’s budget office sent out a second request requiring universities to report details on any procedures and treatments they had offered related to gender affirming care since 2018. The request did not specify how the information would be used.

[subsidystadium]

The Miami Heat continue to screw over Miami-Dade County by refusing to follow through on their promised waterfront park

In 1996, the Miami Heat were losing the PR battle for a new basketball arena. The Miami Heat were trying to justify to the public why the team should be given a new sports arena on the public’s dime. As a former Heat political consultant wrote in 2004, as the referendum date got closer, the “arena project appeared to be doomed”. So how did they turn it around and win the vote? They did everything…

[derekhernandezfuentes]

I had the GREATEST Time in High School, College and University as a Teenager during Our United States Republican Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Tenure during Bush-Cheney Eras! 🍟💵❤️🇺🇸☀️🌈🥞🍊🍋🍑🍉🍌 “Mangoes…” says George W Bush! I miss the Scents of Peaches and Mangos in my Family Home! Since Obama Era, I can’t find Peach Scents in Home Depot anymore… We must Bring Back Peach Scents for Happy, Family Memories! Cut Taxes so we All have many more Festivities and Fiestas! ��🍱🍰🍿🍪🍫 US Gay Men and Our Fellow Lesbians benefited SOOO MUCH from the Republican Tax Cuts from President George W Bush and Governor Jeb Bush that Our Celebrations and Gay Parades were filled with LIGHT — but now Lady Gaga’s, Lady Antebellum’s, and Rihanna’s Dark Gloomy Gravity Music have brought down Movies with Netflix’s Black and Bloody Red Logo and more terror. CUT THE TAXES!

[albertcapraro]

March 16, 1975 - Miami Herald Page 4-BW For big moments, you might want to waft around in, say, this cotton voile, quite bare when you slide off the jacket.  Casual but elegant, by Albert Capraro for Jerry Guttenberg and exclusively ours.  Fifth Avenue Shop.

[dreamquestofunknownkadath]

This is just how they’re describing creatures over there

hey don't cry, ‘large’ creature with 20 arms found lurking in Antarctic sea, okay??

[tkachuktkaching]

Matthew Tkachuk has told media he wasn't sick he actually had to get a procedure done.

“I just had to get a little procedure done but been good since then. Had to take a few days just to make sure everything was all settled. So feeling good right now, and ready to get back in the lineup and help.”