What's Hot in CF

Nightmare! Couldn't get onto blogger for the past two days...my apologies for the lateness with What's Hot in Central Florida on WMFE 90.7 - the Festival of India already passed today but the lovely Hindu temple is still something to take in even if you missed the celebration. Also, you can still take in Free Fridays at the Morse Museum  - free admission to those glorious galleries from 4-8pm through the month of April, a must-do, but go at least by 6:30 so you don't have to rush and can take in all they have to offer at a leisurely pace. You'll be so glad you did. Also Mad Cow Theatre debuted Private Lives this weekend, a Noel Coward play about two 1930's-era couples with some very modern problems. We need a little of the kind of class Noel Coward brings to the table - and by we I mean me - so I'm looking forward to it. Hope you're having a great weekend!

"Bawdy Houses" - aka brothels - legalized in Ontario

Some people in the U.S. are quibbling about contraception while our grown-up, non-Chicken-Littling, safe-and-sane neighbors to the north have legalized "bawdy houses," aka brothels and relaxed other restriction in an attempt to make prostitution a safer profession to practice. Sigh.
It's a pretty interesting subject and certainly not all settled yet - read all about it here in my story on SeXis, "Ontario Legalizes Brothels,"... so wisely put under the website's "Safer Sex" category.

Photo is the brothel scene from one of my Woody Allen favorites, "Shadows and Fog".

Is Reality TV making you a jerk?

I grew up with enough yelling, fighting and tension to last me a lifetime so I don't watch Reality TV.

Most of what I've seen of Reality TV is an embarrassing time suck - and I don't mean embarrassing for the people doing it and getting rich - I mean for the viewers. I've never watched the aforementioned (in the previous post) The Real Housewives because I've seen just enough of of other Reality shows to get the idea. I just find them depressing.
But then, I could say the same thing about the news and news-related shows where the only point seems to be which guest (or host) can shout down the others. It's like being the only sober person in a bar with a bunch of drunks who all think they have a point. Again, it's depressing.

And now there's a study that shows watching nasty people can make you a nastier person.  Watching aggressive people can make us feel more aggressive in real life and one Time magazine reporter points out that Reality TV if full of that, as I got to write about in the link above for MyPleasure.com blog - check it out.

And don't watch Reality TV before you ask for a raise.

(Nice, huh? Photo is one girl spitting on another from the reality show Flavor of Love. I'm glad that's not my reality.)

Celebs who are making adult novelties...and those who should

A couple of weeks back I got to go to Fairvilla Megastore, our local family-owned-and-operated, beloved adult novelty shoppe. They had a huge party, the biggest I've ever seen there (which is saying something) in honor of Kandi Burruss, a grammy winner and one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, who was there to launch her lline of sex toys, Bedroom Kandi. The toys sold out in less than an hour (seriously - it was a heck of a party), so I can't tell you what they're like, but the whole idea of well-known people having their own sex toy lines gave my editor at MyPleasure.com an interest in talking about famous people who do have lines of sex toys....and famous people who should, a list I decided included Lady Gaga and William Shatner to name a few. Whaddaya think? Would you buy a "Little Monster"? Anyone you'd like to see lend their name to one of these things?

What's Hot in Central Florida! Vintage/Vinyl, Arab Fest and Orlando Shakes turns "Red"

You can click right here to listen in early to What's Hot in Central Florida on WMFE, airing at 4:32 pm Friday afternoon and this weekend is going to be a good one - I might even break out my finger cymbals for the The Arabic American Festival at Lake Eola on Sunday from noon til 7pm with Arabic dancing, art and food - you know I can't resist Arabic music and why would I even try? The video above is Hader Tarab, who is on the bill for this Sunday - it's one of those still-shot videos but the music is delicious   - frankly getting all caught up in it is why my blog post is a little later than usual today!
     Also this weekend go to TheFoodTruckBazaar.com for the skinny onf Vinyl, Vintage and Food trucks on Saturday evening in the Audubon Park Garden District - you can bring vintage & vinyl stuff and sell or trade plus check out some of the best food trucks in town. I'm still trying to sell off some of my rattan furniture - maybe I'll have some luck down there!
      Finally this week Orlando Shakespeare Theatre premieres Red a multiple 2010 Tony winner about artist Mark Rothko and what could be a great endeavor - or a great downfall - one of the quandaries artists face all the time and something I'm keen to see played out onstage. Orlando Shakes always does a great  job and I'm very curious about this one, so, as I'll be sure to see you there!

Mark Rothko's Untitled (Red) 1958, image from PopArtUk

Gay men arrested for "buggery" on cruise ship

     Welcome aboard it's loooo-oooooo-oooove! Except in Dominica, where two men were initially prosecuted for "buggery" because there it's illegal for two men to have sex. Those charges were dropped and they eventually plead guilty to indecent exposure - but there's more to the story - including a poetic defense from their attorney explaining why the intoxicating Caribbean atmosphere lead them to the alleged public canoodling. Booze & beauty....the human will is no match for them at all is it? Sigh. Been there.

Check out my story (which gives you the full skinny)  here on SeXis in "Gay men arrested for 'buggery' on cruise ship. And if you're concerned about the level of tolerance of the country you're traveling to the story also includes a link to GaysOnTour.com's list of countries according to gay-friendliness. Bon voyage!
 

Buy my book, even though it's Casey-Anthony free!

When I was flying home to Orlando after my first book signing for Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad, who was on my plane but Jeff Ashton. Of course he was. Every time I turn around I seem to see Jeff Ashton, either in person or scheduled to be at some event. He pops up around Orlando like the town is one big game of whack-a-mole. Ashton was part of the team that prosecuted Casey Anthony who was found not guilty of almost everything...a verdict people called the biggest upset since OJ. It was actually the biggest upset since the tortoise beat the hare. Ashton’s book on the case was selling furiously well. And his team lost. 

“Maybe you should write a book called The Time I Didn’t Climb Mount Kilimanjaro,” my friend Charles Martin said when I related my bitterness at the fact that Ashton’s big-budget hardback was doing so well while mine…well, let’s just say I wish I’d called it Crazy Little Thing: Why Love And Sex Drive Us Mad. PS: Casey Anthony. 

Am I jealous? Of course. My book is excellent - charmingly written, well researched and it has a higher user rating than Ashton’s. Check out a line from a user review of his book:

“At about chapter 13-16 (somewhere around there) it starts getting really good.”

You know where my book starts getting really good? In the preface. 

I’ve got nothing against Jeff Ashton personally and this isn’t to say you shouldn’t buy his book. It was written with Lisa Pulitzer, after all, and her books on Joran van der Sloot (alleged killer of Natalee Holloway) and with Elissa Wall (child bride under the Fundamentalist LDS regime of Warren Jeffs) were riveting. Truly - I’m a fan.                                                                                          So buy their book - but buy mine first. It’s filled with gripping tales and nosey interviews, including several true crime stories of people whose love lives drove them to murder and assault plus lesbian birds, sex-mad apes, circus freaks, reptilian aliens, grave-robbers and people survived soul-deadening break-ups to go on to dizzying artistic acclaim . It also gets into the science of why we do the mad things we do in love, so if your romantic life is troubled it will make you feel less alone….and even if your romantic life is as smooth as an egg you’ll be fabulously entertained.

   That’s because my book has one thing there’s no way you can get in a Casey Anthony book: laughs. Tons of them. There may be some grim tales, but you’ll still giggle like you’re in a blooper reel. And you can trust me: I’m not Casey Anthony.

But I do live in Orlando and may have been unknowingly been in the same room with Casey Anthony at some point….would that make you more interested? It would? Great! I’d love for this book to sell nicely. Then maybe I won’t have to not climb Mount Kilimanjaro. 
Casey caricature by Plinio M. Pinto for  The Orlando Weekly. See more of Plinio Pinto's work at Grape Soda Studio Inc.

What's Hot in Central Florida: TONIGHT! Jay & Silent Bob Get Old at Hard Rock, Thomas Dolby brings us to the future on Sunday, Leu Gardens colors our world all weekend & the "Horrible Portrait Series"

I know it's St. Patrick's Day weekend but there's so many things to do - and besides you know where your favorite pub to go get the green beer is going to be this weekend, so I thought you'd want to know a few things outside of the orbit Erin Go Bragh (or, as Miss Sammy says, "Erin Go Bra-less"). So this weekend on WMFE 90.7 FM's What's Hot in Central Florida - which you can click HERE to listen to if you just can't stand to wait to tune in to 90.7 FM today at 4:32 pm we have:


FIRST STOP the Hard Rock Live where Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes will be on stage with Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, which I don't believe, because I could watch them all day every day and never stop being entertained. I'm a huge fan of all four of them - Kevin and Jay and Jay and Silent Bob - and I'm so glad they decided to take their act as far down the road as us. This is TONIGHT at Hard Rock so whatever you were going to do, do it fast and head out early because they go on at 8pm and you don't want to miss it!

Going far, far into the future - Sunday! - The Social presents Thomas Dolby's Time Capsule Tour, featuring something every steampunk in town and beyond is going to plotz over: a chrome- and brass-plated trailer where fans can go in and record their message to the future, messages which will be uploaded to YouTube and to the fan's Twitter and FB pages. 
       "If you had 30 seconds to explain to an alien visitor what went wrong with our civilization, what would you say?" Mr. Dolby asks and I like the assumption that the future will be so bleak that it requires explaining, "Our species may not be around on this planet much longer so you might as well leave a welcome message for the next guys!" he says and I've been wondering what mine would be. How about "Bring sunscreen." "Or All you need is love....and sunscreen." Or "Don't invent agriculture. It's all down hill from there...." 
        Weirdly Thomas Dolby would give anybody reason to hope for the best for the world. He was a cornerstone of the 80's experience for anyone who was alive then, went on to invent the polyphonic software used in billions of cell phones and now he's going to be here so the future doesn't seem that bad, at least not until Monday morning, but isn't that usually the way? Thomas Dolby will be at the Social on Sunday night so don't miss it!

       We'll still have at least a few green days before that dystopian future arrives and Leu Gardens Plant Sale is going to make them greener....their plant sale is going on this Saturday and Sunday with free admission to the gardens both days and lots of gorgeous flora and fauna to buy or just look at. Leu Gardens is one of my favorite peaceful spots in town and since it's free this weekend this is the perfect time to check it out.

Also tonight, though it's not in the broadcast I have to tout "The Horrible Portraits Series 1: Featuring the staff of Stardust Video & Coffee." by Danny Rhodehamel, who (full disclosure) is the brother of my best friend Doug Rhodehamel. Danny has his own, whimsical, cartoonish style of painting, which will be at the show but that's not the focus. The focus is his portraits which as the press release explains:  "are really bad.... Oddly enough, they are also hilarious."

     I'm so impressed with this - sometimes the most difficult thing can be to have a sense of humor about yourself or anything else, so kudos, congratulations and thanks to Danny for bringing us all some much-needed lightness with this excellent event. I like the idea so much I'm considering having a Bad Writing Reading....but I don't have the heart to put you all through that.

      See you there!

The Bonobo Status Update

Most of us are familiar by now with the bonobo, the 'make love, not war,' sex-happy primates who literally romance each other into avoiding conflict and staying relaxed. Now scientists have observed that female bonobos have a particular way of letting everyone know what their status is, which I wrote about for MyPleasure.com: by calling out during sex to let everyone know what they're up to.

We Tweet our way, they tweet their way....

Smarty-pants: Stephen Hawking visits sex clubs

There's really nothing more intriguing than a subtle combination of intellect and extreme horniness. That's why Stephen Hawking continues to be a charmer, not just because he's smarter than most of us could be in three or four lifetimes, not just because he's been on Futurama but because his enthrallment with women - and the recent revelation that he likes swing clubs, which I wrote about for MyPleasure.com last week. Big brains, big appetites....they go together more often than anyone thinks.

Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams!

Douglas Adams was a genius, one of the greatest and wittiest writers that ever lived and certainly one of the most endearingly curious. In addition to all the brilliant sci fi and holistic detective stories you know all about of course (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency), he wrote non-fiction just as astonishingly well, which also makes him a superb journalist. One of my favorite things he ever wrote was an interview with Straun Sutherland, a medical researcher and expert in venomous creatures, whom Adams met with en route to Komodo for the book Last Chance to See about endangered species. The interview is reprinted here on Life in the Fast Lane and  the last line of this story is one of my favorites of all time - short and sweet and everyone has been there.

It's one of the funniest interviews ever and I'm so glad to have found it online.

Happy Birthday, Douglas!

What's Hot in CF!

Listen for me on What's Hot in Central Florida  on WMFE 90.7 FM today at 4:32 pm for what's up this weekend: we've got things that are fishy - The Central Florida Koi Show - Salty Sally's Burlesque Babes presenting High Teach with the Queen of Hearts at Bombshel''s Tavern, with proceeds to the American Cancer Society and one of my all-time favorites Dan Aykroyd at ABC Liquor on Apopka-Vineland this Saturday promoting his Crystal Head Vodka.

Couldn't you just listen to him talk all day? 

If you can't wait to hear the broadcast you can click right here right now!

ALSO, NEXT WEEK!!!!

Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are at the Hard Rock next Friday night with "Jay and Silent Bob Get Old" - I'm psyched to see them together. I once saw Kevin Smith on his own and for me to want to leave my house to see something twice you know the first show must have been good - I just imagine the funny will double with Jason Mewes on hand. I wanted to give it a bump early because next Friday will be here before you know it and you don't want to wait til the last minute. 

My other blog is a Rolls Royce....

I've got another blog entirely dedicate to those crazy things that people do in love...

Crazy Little Thing: Why Love & Sex Drive Us Mad

Check it out!!!

Icelandic database of genealogy...and dating

Iceland is so small that the dating pool can be a little dangerous...you might be distantly (or even not-so-distantly) related to someone you'd like to go out with. Now Icelanders can consult an Icelandic genealogy database, which I got to write about for MyPleasure.com, to make sure they're not already too close to someone they'd like to get close to.

What's Hot in Central Florida on WMFE

Well, there's a first time for everything and this is the first time I've been late posting my segment on WMFE 90.7 FM, What's Hot in Central Florida, but luckily for me two of the three things I covered go on long after the weekend is over including the Central Florida Fair and the play "A Behanding in Spokane" will have it's final run next weekend. The only thing I missed out on telling you about on the blog was The Delusionaires at Will's Pub on Friday night so my apologies about that but I console myself with the fact that it was probably a hugely well-publicized event anyway and hopefully even in the absence of  blog post the radio segment helped anyway.
I'm thankful to have been so crazily busy that I'm falling behind in damn near everything BUT I promise to be a little quicker on the draw next week!

Plan B in College Vending Machine! Fabulous.

     I was thrilled to be able to report for MyPleasure.com about a college that put Plan B in a vending machine in it's self-care medical center. How brilliant! Women should be able to get this helpful pill - which relies on the same hormones as birth control pills and which I've used myself - in peace and privacy. This school's approach is a sane and gentle reminder that it's nobody business how women control their reproductive health except the women themselves.
     Which is why it enraged me to read that a Washington state federal judge ruling that pharmacists in that state can opt out of dispensing Plan B or other emergency contraceptives on grounds of religious beliefs.
      That's a disgrace. Emergency contraception does not cause abortion, it prevents pregnancy from occurring - why is anyone's"belief" allowed to subvert this fact? Why should anyone seeking preventive care be the victim of someone else's "belief"? And why is it only ever women's reproductive rights that pharmacists have a "conscience" about? I've never heard of a pharmacist refusing to sell cholesterol meds because they don't want to interfere with "god's plan" that the buyer drop dead of a heart attack. If you don't want to dispense legal drugs for preventive care you shouldn't be a pharmacist. Period.
       On an up note - because this issue infuriates me so much that I need one - let's take a lesson from the idea of vending machines that stocks Plan B and get more of them out there. At $25 the Plan B dispensed by that machine considerably less expensive than it is at regular pharmacies, plus you get to bypass Stranger Danger - the danger of some stranger's "beliefs" interfering with your rights.
       That sounds like a Plan A to me.