12/25/13

Northeast Florida’s News & Opinion Magazine • December 25-31, 2013 • 111,191 Readers Every Week • Sorry Not Sorry

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Inside / Volume 27 • Number 39

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MADIBA BEHIND BARS: The always-engrossing Idris Elba stars as the late South African civil rights leader and president in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” directed by Justin Chadwick.

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INDEPENDENT THINKING IN NORTHEAST FLORIDA DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 3

Mail What Year Is It?

Crime City columnist Wes Denham’s piece, “The Myth of Medical Marijuana,” surprised me with its scolding tone, physician-like diagnoses and patronizing conclusion.

To wit: “What medical marijuana advocates really want is legal marijuana” (scolding). “A black speck of melanoma” was aggravated by Bob Marley’s use of pot and killed him (really, Dr. Denham?). And worst of all, Denham opposes “legalized marijuana [because] it snuffs out goals and ambitions.”

What is this, 1970? Tell Denham to wake up from whatever non-pot-induced cloud he’s in and get with the program.

Marijuana should be legal for medicinal and recreational use. Enough with the Prohibitionera speakeasy-like underground that exists every minute of every day as millions of Americans light up, while the law generally averts its eyes.

But because pot is still classified as a Schedule I drug — right up there with heroin, ecstasy and LSD — all the young people (and their parents and grandparents) who smoke it risk serious legal penalties. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have already suffered egregious jail sentences, fines, criminal records and needlessly complicated work histories on account of pot. Patients have suffered needless pain, convulsions, nausea and death itself because they couldn’t use pot.

As for the insulting declaration that pot snuffs out goals and ambitions, I personally know doctors, lawyers, CEOs, CFOs, professors, engineers, you name it, who smoke weed. How does Mr. Denham explain that?

And what business is it of his, anyway?

Pot-smoking for recreation and medicinal purposes is here to stay; the laws will catch up eventually, but not soon enough. For his part, Denham better hope nobody he cares about ever suffers from the conditions pot treats so well.

— Cary Herold

Resign Already

Just ran across the compendium of ignorance you published called “The Myth of Medical Marijuana.” You would think the nefarious Harry Anslinger had risen from the grave and

found a publisher/editor willing to publish his ignorant drivel. I have had prostate cancer for over 10 years, and chronic back pain for nearly 15. I will tell you now, it is the pharma meds that deserve attention for the harm they do, not cannabis.

When I learned that the meds Big Pharma was pushing on my doctor were destroying my liver, I stopped using all Big Pharma meds and switched to cannabis and diet to deal with those health issues. I can tell you firsthand that Marinol is useless and totally ineffective, and that science has shown that cannabis stops the spread of cancer to the brain, and helps stop its spread in the body.

As an editor, for you to publish such dribble is a reflection on your own inability to do your job properly, to the detriment of those of us who use the most effective drug (cannabis, which has no harmful side effects) as our own choice.

The totally fabricated garbage spewed by your Obama Hater Xian is absurd. You should resign your post as editor for publishing this page full of lies.

— Mel Zimmer

Well, This Guy Liked It

Thank you for your well-written article, “The Myth of Medical Marijuana.” I completely agree with everything that you wrote concerning marijuana use for medicinal purposes. It’s funny that I should read your article. Just a few moments ago, I was stuck in Orange Park traffic. When I looked in my rearview mirror, to assess the closeness of the car behind me, I saw the two young women in this car smoking pot. Their radio was blasting loud; they were delirious with laughter. I thought to myself how brazen these two women were to be openly smoking weed, out in public.

When I see people on the Buckman Bridge and on I-295 driving all over the place — doing some crazy stuff, at high rates of speed — I often wonder if these individuals are stoned or drunk or both. You are absolutely right about marijuana’s effect on ambition and drive; it does impair judgment.

— Benjamin E. McConnell

FULL EXPOSURE / DENNIS HO

INTO THE SUNSET: After 14 seasons, Jaguars center Brad Meester waves good-bye to the crowd following his final home game. No. 63 holds franchise records for most games played, most games started and the longest streak of consecutive starts.

4 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 5

News

The Way Home

In this season of holiday homecomings, we highlight the stories of four Northeast Floridians who left, only to come back

O

ther than St. Augustine, which exists on a plane all by itself, the Northeast area has long been the ugly duckling of Florida’s regions, a wallflower neglected in the shadows behind glamorous, multicultural South Florida; dazzling, animated Central Florida; and the bipolar Gulf Coast, which alternates among serenity, wildness and bureaucracy. The region’s largest city, Jacksonville, is so overlooked that a few years ago, the best slogan the marketing geniuses could come up with was “Come to Jacksonville.” As far as our sister regions (and more than a few of our local residents) are concerned, Northeast Florida may as well be — shudder — South Georgia.

While the rest of Florida has been stocking up on retirees and mouse ears, and Georgia has maintained its dominion over all things redneck, Jacksonville has cultivated an environment of innovation, entrepreneurship and opportunity, and become younger, richer and more metropolitan.

We are, by all metrics, headed in the right direction.

The winds of change that are blowing through the country have taken a circuitous route through and back to Jacksonville. Flocks of Generation Xers and Millennials who left here in search of, well, something else are finding their way back to an increasingly diverse region, a region that is growing up and changing along with them.

These are a few of their stories.

The hipster When Blythe Duckworth moved to Jacksonville for a fellowship with the Jessie Ball duPont Fund in 2007, the Cincinnati native thought of Northeast Florida as a pit stop on her way to 6 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

NOT SOUTH GEORGIA: Our often-overlooked city has a knack for bringing people back home. Photo: Dennis Ho

becoming an attorney. But, as she sat taking the LSAT with scores of other law school hopefuls a few years later, Duckworth had an epiphany: The bar wasn’t for her. She put her pencil down, walked out of the room, joined the Peace Corps and never looked back.

“Those decisions don’t come easily, but I have to follow my heart,” she says.

A year later, in March 2010, Duckworth left Jacksonville to embark on a fulfilling, rewarding, frustrating and occasionally dangerous assignment in the Ukraine. “When I left, I never thought I would come back,” she says.

During her 27 months working with a nonprofit to increase homelessness awareness and create a women’s shelter, however, Duckworth began to appreciate what she’d left behind. She saw how living under tyranny and then chaos in the former Soviet state could change a culture’s tone, conditioning people to be suspicious, resistant and fearful.

“It was a challenge because of our cultural perspectives,” Duckworth says. “These [Ukrainian] women are survivors.”

While in the Peace Corps, Duckworth also met and fell in love with Dennys Zayets, a Ukrainian and longtime resident of Italy. After her service ended, the couple spent 10 months in Italy before moving to Jacksonville earlier this year.

“I decided to come back to Jacksonville because this is where my network is,” she says.

In June, they were wed beneath the shade of the Treaty Oak on the Southbank.

Today, the versatile 28-year-old and her husband consider Jacksonville home.

Duckworth has a consulting contract with the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center, helping the nonprofit develop a social media strategy. She can often be found sporting a Grace scarf by Rethreaded, drinking coffee at Riverside’s Bold Bean or catching a movie with Zayets at SunRay Cinema in 5 Points.

“Having been a foreigner for so long, I

really value community — and that’s what I have here,” Duckworth says.

The Entrepreneur Ida Metzger is living her American dream in a city she has grown to love. The 41-yearold New Jersey native moved to Jacksonville in 2000 to be closer to her parents, who’d relocated here so her father could work for CSX. But soon she was off again, moving first to Tampa and then on to Lakeland with her then-husband.

“I left Jacksonville thinking I was going to have this married life,” Metzger says. These things don’t always work out the way we imagine, however.

Freshly single in 2008, Metzger met Daniel Day, a single father of a young daughter. Before the couple could start a life together, the economy collapsed and both lost their jobs. With her parents’ help, they finally settled in Jacksonville.

Metzger completed her bachelor’s degree as the economy hit bottom, then began the slow climb that continues today. As she and Day contemplated their next move, they started asking themselves, “Why are we working so hard for someone else?”

After attending their first Art Walk in 2010, the couple decided to meld her 20-plus years of retail experience with his knowledge of yoga

and alternative lifestyle products. Their store, Diversions, was born.

What began as a table at Art Walk soon became space in Brenda Kato’s gallery. When the gallery closed, Metzger, adrift again, found herself looking in the window of a shop at 201 N. Laura St. and getting a tingly feeling. In October 2012, the couple put everything they had into opening a storefront Downtown.

“It’s been nice seeing the transformation,” she says. “Downtown is not what you think it is.” It’s not just a place people come to work or for occasional events, she says. It’s a community that includes full-time residents, as well as a solid core of shops, business and other attractions. And it’s growing all the time.

Today, just over a year later, the store is thriving and the couple, now engaged, have become firmly entrenched Downtown.

Beneath a sign that reads, “Stress is not the problem, it’s the lack of recovery,” local merchants and Downtown ambassadors often stop in for a chat, to pick up some Healer Tea or ask advice. Diversions isn’t just their livelihood; it’s their lifestyle.

The artist Liz Murphy Thomas, a professor of web design at Florida State College at Jacksonville, grew up in Daytona Beach and attended the University

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RUN DATE of Florida before moving to Baltimore for grad school in 2001. It was there that Thomas began to appreciate what she’d left behind.

“I started to understand why people would get so excited when they would come on vacation to Florida — the friendliness, the landscape itself, just being near the ocean,” says Thomas, 34.

Though she started planning her return almost immediately, it was several years, jobs and states before she found her way home.

Finally, in August 2012, she and her husband, Damon, moved from Cumberland Gap, Tenn., to the Southside. Right away, the city welcomed them with open arms.

“Everyone was really friendly,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s Floridians or what. It’s almost like falling into friendships, much easier than in other places.”

Last spring, Thomas — whose photography is featured in various collections, including the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach — was contacted by a museum in Poland to serve as the American curator of an exhibit on street art and street artists. The request brought to mind the artwork she’d recently seen at One Spark, in particular Yarn Bomb Jax. “I contacted the group and they agreed to let me film, to do the curatorial piece,” she says.

After a couple of meetings, she became less of an observer and more of an active participant. Today she’s an officer with the group, whose work is on display through Dec. 31 at the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens’ second annual ZOOLights event.

When she’s not teaching, knitting or photographing the Florida most tourists never see, Thomas and her husband are happily sampling the flavors of Jacksonville at area concerts, in the stands at Jaguars games or at Northeast Florida Veg Fest, First Coast Music Fest and Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, where they have memberships.

“There’s so many things, you can’t do everything,” she says. “It’s the best problem ever.”

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The Doctor “I remember the big deal was when Ponte Vedra got a McDonald’s when I was in high school.”

Jacksonville bears little resemblance to the town where Dr. Nitesh Paryani, 31, grew up.

The Bolles School graduate attended Princeton University, then moved to Washington, D.C., where an unfulfilling job as a management consultant made him change direction. “I decided I was allergic to making money, so I went to med school instead,” he says.

In 2010 Paryani, now a radiation oncologist, returned to complete his medical training at Mayo Clinic and found himself in a whole new city.

“When I left in 2001, the Town Center was an undeveloped plot of land,” he says.

“The idea of working for a bank or financial institution in Jacksonville didn’t exist when I was a kid. I think that’s great. We’re becoming a place where there’s more opportunity for young people.”

In 2010, Paryani met Mara Cvejic, a pediatric neurologist. They’ll marry in March.

“She was not expecting to [stay here] when she moved here from Wisconsin, but she’s grown to like the place,” he says.

Jacksonville offers more benefits for Paryani than being able to spend time with his parents, bike to the beach or go to Jags games. He is contributing to a family legacy begun in 1957 by his late grandfather, Dr. B.T. Paryani, a radiation oncologist who helped oversee the creation of the Edna & Charles Williams Cancer Center at Baptist Medical Center.

“I would say we’re one of the best cities in the country for health care,” he says. “We have the best of the best here.”

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Claire Goforth themail@folioweekly.com

© 2013

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 7

NewsBuzz

Stoners Get Shit Together, Become Productive Citizens. Man Contra our own Wes Denham [Crime City, “The Myth of Medical Marijuana,” Dec. 11, 2013] – whose recent foray into the science of pot caused the lot of you to flood our inboxes with ALL CAPS MISSIVES about what ILL-INFORMED JACKASSES we are – it looks like, every so often, our bong-ripping friends are indeed capable of ambition, especially when said ambition involves (partially) legalizing the aforementioned bong-ripping.

To wit: Last week United for Care, the brain child of Orlando megalawyer and Charlie Crist patron John Morgan, announced that it has captured enough signatures to get a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2014 ballot, where polls show it’ll pass easily.

An email the group sent out last week announced that its petition gatherers have garnered nearly 700,000 signatures, including nearly 100,000 in just the few days surrounding the group’s first Day of Action, on Dec. 14. (That doesn’t include numbers from the second Day of Action, on Dec. 21, which took place after we hit the eggnog and stopped caring.)

Then again, only a quarter or so – about 165,000, as of Dec. 18 – of those signatures have been verified, and the state requires 683,149 verified signatures by Feb. 1 to make the ballot. Even if all those sigs are legit, there’s still the matter of the Florida Supreme Court, which has to approve the ballot language. Earlier this month, you’ll recall, representatives of Attorney General and all-around buzzkiller Pam Bondi warned the court that the amendment’s loosey-goosey language will unleash a zombie horde of script-writing Dr. Feelgoods upon our unsuspecting public (and this would be a bad thing).

The court has until April to rule.

In the meantime, United for Care is still seeking signatures, and would still love to add your name to its rolls (unitedforcare.org). But be warned, reefer-toking degenerates: Wes Denham is judging you.

Um, What Documents?

Speaking of degenerates, let’s talk politicians. If you’ve not been following the ongoing saga of the League of Women Voters’ lawsuit challenging the congressional and legislative districts the Republican-dominated Legislature drew a couple years back, here’s a quickie primer: In 2010, in one of our citizenry’s few acts of electoral sanity that year – ahem, Rick Scott – voters approved two constitutional amendments prohibiting partisan gerrymandering, or the carving of districts to bolster one party’s political fortunes. And then the state’s Republicans lawmakers shrugged and did it anyway.

The LWV and its allies sued. As part of that lawsuit, they asked the Florida Supreme Court to order legislative leaders to turn over all documents – emails, text messages, voice messages, handwritten notes, etc. – related to those redistricting decisions. Legislative 8 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

Republicans argued that these records should be exempt from public scrutiny. Earlier this month, the Court rejected that claim.

Oops, state lawmakers responded last week. Some of those records have already been destroyed. Sorry ’bout that.

“Any accusation that the Florida House of Representative thwarted the law and destroyed documents is completely false,” House Speaker (and Jacksonville University alum) Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, declared in a statement. “The opponents in this lawsuit have received thousands and thousands of documents. They should know better.”

To recap: Some documents that state Republicans didn’t want anyone to see – documents that federal law required them to keep if there was even a chance they could be evidence in a lawsuit, by the way – have now vanished into the ether.

How dare you accuse them of hiding stuff.

Get Your Own Damn Water Central Florida, thanks to its various county governments’ long-standing acquiescence toward any developer who wants to line the exurbs with McMansions, is running out of water. Now home to 2.7 million people – not to mention tourists – a number projected to rise to more than 4 million by 2035, the region drains roughly 800 million gallons of water a day from the all-important Floridan aquifer, about half of which goes to irrigation, lawn watering and golf courses. To keep up, Central Florida will soon suck up 1.1 billion gallons a day.

That is, in a word, unsustainable. To put it in bureaucrat-speak: “Based on modeling results and the assessment of groundwater availability, it was concluded that fresh groundwater resources alone cannot meet future water demands in [Central Florida] without resulting in unacceptable impacts to water resources and related natural systems,” according to the Central Florida Water Initiative, an outfit comprising staff members from three state water management districts.

In other words, they’re screwed. And now they want to make it your problem.

Among the 139 suggestions in the group’s planning document are three that would drain water from the St. Johns River. This has Lisa Rinaman, the St. Johns Riverkeeper, livid. “It’s a horrible idea,” she says. “Their focus on withdrawing 155 million gallons a day [from the St. Johns] is irresponsible.” Any such withdrawals, Rinaman contends, would have deleterious effects on the river’s water quality – and all the things that depend on it.

“They are not looking at the bigger picture, the damage being done to the St. Johns River,” Rinaman says.

The CFWI’s report dismisses such complaints, citing a 2012 study “indicating that the St. Johns River can be used as an alternative water supply source with minimal to negligible environmental effects.”

Nothing to see here. Move along.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 9

Crime City

The Power of the Project

Give your kids a sense of the future, keep them out of jail

F

10 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

rom the depths of Police Zone 1, I offer a Christmas gift to the parents of teenagers throughout Northeast Florida. This gift cannot be bought in stores. Its price is spiritual, mental and physical; its value is beyond price.

This gift cannot be given, only encouraged.

When it appears, it will come, mysteriously, from the depths.

The gift is a project, a difficult and worthy goal for your children. As they mature, nature will push them away from you and out into the world. They should stride into life with direction and purpose. They should never wander, lest they enter my world of jails, prisons, courts, cops, guns and corpses.

As I research a book on the death of Trayvon Martin and look at other, eerily similar cases involving other young men, one thing stands out: boredom. Bored, too, are all the kids locked up in that horror house on Eighth Street we call the Duval Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

Absent a project, human beings regress to simple biological imperatives. Boys need to be manly, so they become tough. Sometimes, as with Trayvon, things go horribly wrong.

The girls? Biology tells them to have men and babies. So they do.

You can’t push a project. You can only encourage it. More important than the achievement itself is developing character, discipline and the habit of hard work. The fire must come from within. Remember, to a young person, ambition is an absolutely new experience. Unlike a wish, it doesn’t evaporate with the next phone call or text. It stays, burning warm or hot, day after day. A worthy project, powered by ambition, forces the development of a mental ability rare in young people: the ability to project oneself mentally into the future.

Kids with projects can say, “In two years, I will have accomplished this. I will no longer be here. I’ll be there.” With future projection comes prudence and the ability to make choices. Goal-oriented kids have less trouble with drugs and sex because these things mess

up the project. They keep their noses in the books because, almost always, education is essential to reaching the goal. When their friends want them to stay out all night, they say no.

When you talk to teenage murderers, robbers and drug dealers, you notice that they all lack any sense of a personal future. When you ask, “What are you going to be doing in five years?” they reply, “I’ll be dead” or “I’ll be in jail.” I don’t think they mean this literally. Rather, they’ve never thought about a future. Mental projection is not a skill they possess. Instead, they have impulses instead of mentation. So, if they’re hungry, they eat. If they’re horny, they fuck. If they’re pissed off, they fight.

This project can be small or large, as long as it’s interesting and worthwhile. Sports work if your child is athletic. So do learning languages, working in the family business, building model rockets or learning ballet. Huge is good. In college, I met kids who had already climbed Mt. Everest and translated the 100,000 verses of the Mahabharata from the original Sanskrit.

Kids can astonish you.

The other day, I talked with a young girl, a junior in high school. When I asked her about her future plans, she said this: “I will become” — not “I dream of being” — “a nurseanesthetist or anesthesiologist. After graduating with a bachelor of science in nursing, I will enlist in the United States Navy and request flight nurse school in Norfolk, Va. I will serve aboard an aircraft carrier. If my grades are good enough, I’ll apply for med school. …” This girl was 5 feet, 2 inches — but mentally and spiritually, she was much bigger than that.

She made me cry.

So, from the depths, more than they who watch for the morning, I wish for you and your children worthy projects, not for Christmas, but for life. When they get going, get busy and get ambitious, they will never have to suffer or die, In Crime City.

Wes Denham themail@folioweekly.com

Sportstalk

Photo: Dennis Ho

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W

e’ve all seen the commercial where the kid gets really excited about receiving Gator Bowl tickets. This, after all, is at least the second year it’s run in the local market.

Every time I see it, I find myself laughing.

In reality, what kid would be excited over any Gator Bowl matchup, especially this year’s?

The not-so-hidden secret is that no one gives a healthy damn about the Georgia vs.

Nebraska matchup on New Year’s Day. But then again, what did they expect, given where the Gator Bowl falls on the pyramid of college bowl games these days?

The days when the Gator Bowl could front like it belonged high atop the second tier are a distant memory, joining toll booths on the Fuller Warren Bridge and two daily papers in Jacksonville.

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Share your thoughts at folioweekly.com/sportstalk.

Murray tore his ACL, and it was just one of many injuries to bedevil the Bulldogs this year. The Bulldogs also lost their two best (arguably) wide receivers — Justin ScottWesley and Malcolm Mitchell — to injury this PROMISE OF BENEFIT year, and injuries affected two best tailbacks as well. If the Bulldogs had managed to keep those guys healthy, they wouldn’t be schlepping to Jacksonville on New Year’s Day. Many prognosticators, in fact, thought they could have made a title run.

That said, no matter the personnel problems the team from Athens has had, at least they’ve had a reliable presence on the sideline in the form of Mark Richt, who was more than diplomatic when addressing the team’s selection for the Gator Bowl, for the benefit of the media: “Oh, I don’t know, I think it’s becoming a good rivalry,” Richt told ESPN. “… It was a great battle last year and we’ll see what happens this year.”

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“Nebraska again? You kidding me?”

— Georgia Bulldogs wide receiver junior Michael Bennett, via Twitter An indication of where the Gator falls in the pecking order these days: The Big Ten bowl selections, after Michigan State to the Rose Bowl and Ohio State University to the Orange, are as follows: Wisconsin to the Capital One Bowl; Iowa to the Outback; and Michigan to the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. (That’s a real thing, by the way.)

After all that, the Gator Bowl ended up with Nebraska — and as great a Springsteen album as “Nebraska” is, it doesn’t add up to football that you care to watch.

For one thing, everyone who wanted to see this matchup would’ve seen it a year ago, when Georgia and Nebraska locked up in the Capital One Bowl. Aaron Murray lit up the scoreboard last New Year’s Day, throwing for five touchdowns and nearly 500 yards as Georgia drove to victory.

On the other side of the ball, Taylor Martinez threw for two TDs, and Nebraska kept the game competitive for three quarters and some change.

As meaningless New Year’s bowl games go, this one was at least diverting.

Will this year’s Gator Bowl be as good as last year’s contest between these two squads?

Possibly. Maybe. But I’m not counting on it.

Sal

It could be worse, ’Dawgs fans. At least they aren’t coached by Bo Pelini.

Not to be confused with his brother Carl, who lost his job at Florida Atlantic University earlier this year amid allegations of illicit drug use and horrible coaching (the team had a 5-15 record during his time there, which puts him in the dreaded Gabbert Zone), Bo has had some, um, issues with anger management.

During the Nebraska-Iowa game a few weeks back, Pelini went ape-shit on a referee after a pass interference call he didn’t like, and “nearly hit the official with his hat during the tirade,” as ESPN put it. The school was hit with a $10,000 fine. After the loss, Pelini struck a pugnacious pose before the assembled media.

“If they want to fire me, go ahead,” he told reporters after the embarrassing threetouchdown defeat. “I believe in what I’ve done.

I don’t apologize to you.”

If nothing else, at least the Gator Bowl might gin up a decent post-game presser.

AG Gancarski themail@folioweekly.com DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 11

FILL

I

12 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

saw it Halloween night, this maw of racial animus that seems to be the putrid compost of Jacksonville’s magnolia blossom gentility.

It was at a party in Riverside, a gathering of neighbors on a wide front porch festooned with spider webs and jack o’lanterns, handing out candy to costumed children. On a porch swing sat a Jacksonville grand dame decked out as a witch. Another aging, inebriated Southern Belle of old-timey Jacksonville was seated beside her, dressed as an antebellum ancestor.

The hostess, a lady who’s not one to mince words, brought up a news story in which a self-proclaimed chapter of the Ku Klux Klan had asked the Duval County School Board to keep the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School despite the ongoing objections of the city’s black community. Forrest, of course, was a slave trader and Confederate general whose troops massacred surrendering black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, Tenn. After the Civil War, he became the Klan’s first grand wizard.

The KKK’s endorsement, the hostess contended, was reason enough to change the school’s name.

The witch wasn’t having it. If Forrest High is changed, she snapped, what’s next? Robert E. Lee High School? Jefferson Davis Middle School? Why not change the name of the city itself ? Andrew Jackson, after all, begat the Trail of Tears. Where does it end? She then transitioned into the Trayvon Martin story, going on about how he should have known he’d look suspicious walking around a gated community on a rainy night wearing a hoodie.

The woman in the Southern Belle costume piped in, complaining that blacks are permitted to say the n-word, but whites can’t. “Tell me, why do they call each other niggers?” she bellowed over and over again, as tiny, multihued princesses and bumblebees padded up the stairs in search of a sugar rush.

This was the party killer. A mild-mannered retired psychologist tried to hush her, to no avail. Alarm flashed across his face. “I’m out of here,” he said to the air as he left.

The witch stormed off, too, feeling triumphant. After she learned the hostess was a Daytona Beach native, there was nothing more to discuss.

If she’s wasn’t from Jacksonville, her thoughts about Forrest High were irrelevant. The Southern Belle soon followed, distracted enough by the promise of food to stagger on to the next party.

Through the many months — years — of debate over Forrest High, which the School Board unanimously voted to rename Dec. 16, I kept hearing, behind the talk of Southern heritage, the edifice of the white privilege that is the scaffolding upon which so much of the city’s civic life hangs. The voices of this Jacksonville dismissed those who took offense at the school’s name as simpletons who’d been deceived by rumor and disinformation. If you only bothered to learn the truth, they’d tell you, you’d realize that Nathan Bedford Forrest was really a hero for our age, a great man, someone whom white and black students alike should revere.

That’s simply not true.

“Nathan Bedford Forrest was a homicidal criminal,” says Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University and one of the country’s foremost experts on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

More important, he says, this pervasive historical revisionism, this insistence on glossing over the sins of yesteryear, prevents long-standing psychic wounds from healing.

“Reconciliation requires truth,” Foner says. “You have to have one to have the other. It’s not, ‘Slavery is over. You need to get over it.’

Reconciliation requires facing the truth, and facing the truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest.”

MAN FOR THE AGES: To Jim Shillinglaw of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Nathan B. Forrest is a hero for white and black students alike.

Men of Southern States A few weeks later, I set my book bag down at a conference table at the Museum of Southern History, opened my laptop and made a little spot where I could spend the day.

The Kirby-Smith Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans founded the museum in 1975. It was dedicated to telling the “real” story of the Civil War, a version in which the South sought to defend liberty against a foreign invader. I was told that if I wanted to understand the truth about Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Confederacy he fought for, absent the propaganda, this is where I should be, encamped in the museum’s 6,000-volume research library.

Jim Shillinglaw, a tall, personable man with sleepy eyes and an easygoing manner, made me feel welcome. The Sons’ Northeast Florida heritage coordinator was possessed of the belief that if I really dug into the historical record, I would reach the same inescapable conclusion that he had: Forrest was a great warrior and defender of country, not a racist monster. The media and the activists and the School Board have it all wrong.

As volunteers a table away stuffed enveloped with reminders to renew museum memberships, I dived into Forrest’s 1871 testimony before Congress about the origins of the Ku Klux Klan. It is this testimony, which covers 31 pages of fine, almost translucent linen paper, that Shillinglaw and other Sons of Confederate Veterans

members argue exonerates Forrest of the worst charges against him: He wasn’t involved in the KKK, and he certainly wasn’t the grand wizard he’s made out to be. He said so himself.

In reality, Forrest’s testimony didn’t clear anything up. He both denied being involved in the Klan and told his inquisitors quite a lot about it. He admitted that the Klan was a secret organization and that it had secret passcodes, but said he couldn’t remember any. When prodded, he declined to answer questions because he didn’t want to incriminate himself. When asked who joined the organization, Forrest answered simply, “Men of Southern states.”

Southerners’ fears of a black insurrection drove them to organize, he explained.

“The negroes were holding night meetings; were going about; were becoming very insolent; and the Southern people … were very much alarmed.”

He told Congress that he wasn’t the Klan’s leader, but also said that he ordered the group’s disbandment in 1868 because its members had taken to dressing in hooded costumes and riding at night to intimidate former slaves. In Shillinglaw’s telling, the Klan was originally a fraternal organization that only later evolved into a terrorist group.

In this version of history, Forrest actually became a proto-civil rights activist toward the end of his life, and blacks should

Unexampled in the Record of Civilized Warfare Let’s deconstruct this revisionist mythology one element at a time.

Forrest wasn’t just a slave trader. He was a man who made his fortune on the backs of others’ coerced labor. He not only called the Civil War a battle over slavery, but also was so passionately behind the pro-slavery cause that he paid for his own cavalry to fight the Union.

As for Forrest’s later involvement with the Klan, the commonly accepted notion that Forrest was the group’s first grand wizard didn’t originate with a liberal Northerner bent on sullying his good name. Instead, it’s clearly stated in a friendly 1914 history of the Klan written by Laura Martin Rose, the historian for the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The revisionists’ history relies heavily on the general’s own denials to Congress. But Forrest had every reason to lie. “The Klan was a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda,” Foner says. “Nobody is going to admit they’re a member of Al Qaeda to Congress.”

And then there’s the most noxious event in the Forrest story: Fort Pillow. In April 1864, some 300 Union soldiers — including more than 200 black soldiers, along with civilian women and children — were

“Reconciliation requires truth.

Reconciliation requires facing the truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest.” recognize him as their champion. On Independence Day, 1875, two years before his death, Forrest gave a speech about racial reconciliation to a gathering of some 5,000 African-Americans. Free blacks, he said, should be able to rise to whatever level in life they were capable of reaching.

David Nelson, a Sons member and owner of a Civil War memorabilia store on St. Augustine Road, sums the argument nicely: Yes, Forrest was a slave trader, but that was perfectly legal back then, and it’s not right to judge historical figures by modern morality.

Also, he was nice to his slaves. He tried to keep slave families together.

massacred in cold blood after Forrest’s Confederate troops had overrun and secured the fort. “Not only had the Confederates murdered most of the garrison after it had surrendered,” wrote Civil War historian Albert Castel in 1959, “but they had buried Negro soldiers alive, set fire to tents containing Federal wounded, and committed other terrible atrocities.”

A month after the massacre, a congressional committee report put it this way: “The atrocities committed at Fort Pillow were not the result of passions committed by the heat of conflict, but were the results of a deliberately decided upon and unhesitatingly

Jacksonville’s

Confederate

Monuments and Memorials

MONUMENT TO WOMEN OF THE CONFEDERACY Confederate Park, 956 Hubbard St. This monument is a bronze sculpture of a mother with two children inside a 47-foot-tall granite rotunda. Atop the dome is a second figure of a young woman clasping a half-furled Confederate flag. The city of Jacksonville changed the name of Digman Park to Confederate Park after the 24th United Confederates Veterans Reunion here in 1914. The United Confederate Veterans raised $12,000 for the memorial. The state legislature paid the remaining $13,000. It was dedicated in 1915. When, decades later, the city opened a small dog park on the edge of Confederate Park, it too took the Confederate name.

FLORIDA CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS MEMORIAL Hemming Plaza, 117 Duval St. This is a 62-foot granite shaft topped by a Confederate soldier at rest. A bronze plaque at the base honors Florida Gen. J.J. Dickinson and Gens. Kirby Smith, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, as well as all Confederate soldiers. The $20,000 memorial was paid for by Confederate veteran Charles G. Hemming and his wife, Lucy Key Hemming. The city renamed its town square from St. James Park to Hemming Plaza to honor them. The statue was dedicated in June 1898.

CAMP CAPTAIN MOONEY CEMETERY Ellis Road South and Harold Avenue Camp Captain Mooney Cemetery contains five Confederate graves owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It sits on the site where Confederate soldiers were killed by 500 mounted members of the 40th Massachusetts on their return to Jacksonville after being defeated at Olustee in 1864.

OLD CITY CEMETERY East Union and Cemetery streets More than 250 Confederate veterans are buried here, many from the Old Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Home opened in Jacksonville in 1893 to care for aging and disabled veterans.

YELLOW BLUFF FORT New Berlin Road Yellow Bluff Fort, built in 1862 as part of the Confederate defense of Jacksonville, is now a state park. In 1950, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument there to “Confederate defenders of Jacksonville.”

THE LOST CAUSE: David Nelson, a Forrest defender who owns a Civil War memorabilia store, argues that civil rights groups targeted Forrest High because they’ve already won all the important battles.

— Susan Cooper Eastman DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 13

announced policy.” Forrest and his troops viewed the black soldiers as less than human; they did not “recognize the officers and men of our colored regiments as entitled to the treatments accorded by all civilized nations to prisoners of war.”

In the words of U.S. Army Major Gen. Stephen Hurlbut, then the commanding officer of the 16th Army Corps, “The information which I have from all sources, official and otherwise, is that — whether by permission of their officers, or contrary to their permission, I cannot say — a butchery took place there that is unexampled in the record of civilized warfare.”

after Nathan Bedford Forrest five years after Brown v. Board of Education made a statement, a statement more about 1959 than about 1865.”

And there that statement stood for more than five decades, even as the world around it changed — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the integration of Forrest High (finally) in 1971, the elections of a black president 37 years later and the city’s first black mayor three years after that. Occasional efforts to change the school’s name fell short, including the most recent one in 2008, which ended when the School Board voted 5-2 along racial lines in favor of the Forrest appellation.

“The Klan was a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda.”

Forrest’s defenders seize on that caveat. All this happened before the general arrived at Fort Pillow, they say, and when he discovered the massacre, he immediately put a stop to it. Had he authorized it, Nelson says, Forrest surely would have been hanged as a war criminal. Instead, President Andrew Johnson pardoned him.

“Every war criminal in history says that he didn’t know,” Foner counters. “He was in command. He was responsible for what happened. That’s why his name was on a school. He was the commander. If you’re in command, you’re responsible.”

But 2013 proved to be different. This time, word spread through social media, triggered by a Change.org petition started

by Duval parent Omotoya Richmond, an African-American who moved to Jacksonville from Long Island and was shocked to find a school named for a Klan leader. Richmond’s petition drew nearly 200,000 signatures from people all over the world, as well as news stories in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera and The Guardian. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League voiced their support. The Jacksonville Progressive Coalition made this cause its first concerted

An Emphatic Middle Finger Even if you accept the Sons’ version of history as gospel, there’s no getting around the circumstances under which Forrest High School got its name.

The Duval County School Board’s 1959 decision to name a school after him had nothing to do with the general’s military genius or his later repudiation of the Klan’s intimidation tactics. It was an emphatic middle finger to the federal government, whose Supreme Court had recently ordered school desegregation nationwide.

“These names aren’t just pulled out of a history dictionary,” Foner says. “They often make a statement. Naming a school

OUTSIDERS: The Change.org petition Long Island transplant Omotoya Richmond (above) posted ultimately led Superintendent Nikolai Vitti (right), who moved here last year from South Florida, to recommend changing the school’s name.

14 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

campaign. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a protest, featuring children holding signs that greeted Forrest students arriving for school.

The fire spread, and on Dec. 16 the School Board, citing students’ wishes — in a survey conducted by school administrators, 64 percent of students voted for a change — acquiesced. This was an almost entirely different body than the one that had voted to keep the name five years earlier. Nikolai Vitti, the superintendent who recommended renaming Forrest High, was also new, having started the job in September 2012.

Vitti saw the furor over the name as a distraction and an embarrassment. But

The General, in Black and White

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME: Opio Sokoni, head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, hopes the School Board’s decision portends a more progressive tomorrow.

there was more to it. Throughout his time here, Vitti has made a point of reaching out to Jacksonville’s black community, of attending meetings in black neighborhoods and listening to complaints from black leaders. He reassigned a spokeswoman for “the use of words that have racial

Black Jacksonville knew the stories of Fort Pillow, of the river there turning red with the blood, of the Confederates under Forrest’s command killing so many that they grew weary from it. Their opinions never registered — not then, not for another 54 years.

hurtful and racist, and it’s not. It’s a song for people of the Southern region. It’s just as much his song as your song if you’re Chinese or Hispanic and you were born in the South.”

The day of the vote, Nelson, the memorabilia store owner, told me that

“If they had won, we would not be in a better world today.” connotations” and “other conversations that are inappropriate for the workplace,” according to school district records. Vitti came to Jacksonville from Miami, where multiculturalism is a fact that cannot be ignored. His wife is African-American.

Their Grandfathers Were Wrong White Jacksonville is deeply, proudly rooted here. Theirs is a world of diaphanous Southern heritage, a graciousness fortified with giant live oaks dripping with Spanish moss — a place where you might find homemade pimento cheese sandwiches on the menu, where green grapes and pecans are mixed into quality chicken salad, where you know how to hunt for your dinner.

Black Jacksonville has roots here, too, though it’s not something most of them brag on. Their families made their livings as the doctors and lawyers and ministers and teachers who served the black community during segregation. They also worked for the white elite, doing their ironing, taking in their wash, cleaning their homes, cooking their big meals, taking care of their children.

In 1959, the School Board didn’t ask Black Jacksonville what it thought about Forrest High’s name. It didn’t matter that

“We have to begin searching our souls about what happened throughout our history,” says Opio Sokoni. A Jacksonville native who graduated from Howard University School of Law, Sokoni is now the head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “Decent white people have changed their minds and have evolved. They may have hated Dr. Martin Luther King and called him a communist, but they now realize their children live in a better world as a result of him, and their grandfather and their greatgrandfathers were wrong. If they had won, we would not be in a better world today,” he says.

Throughout this debate, there’s been a blasé dismissal from vocal corners of White Jacksonville of Black Jacksonville’s real pain, an indifference that all too often seemed cruel and self-satisfied.

When an African-American Forrest alum recounted at the Dec. 16 School Board meeting how he and his band mates had refused to play “Dixie” at pep rallies and school games, a white man responded that it was Abraham Lincoln’s favorite song.

Why doesn’t he just get over it? There was no effort to understand why this song — the anthem of the Confederacy — would bother someone.

Shillinglaw says much the same thing: “They’ve told blacks that this stuff is

the NAACP had made a decision to target Confederate memorials and namesakes in the South because all the other, more important battles of the civil rights era have been won. The battle of Forrest High, from this perspective, is trifling, a way to inflame passions by pissing on the icons of Southern heritage.

In other words, Black Jacksonville’s aggrievement shouldn’t matter.

The name change, when all is said and done, will cost the school district as much as $500,000, though Vitti hopes private investors will foot some of the bill.

That’s a lot of money. But the costs of the status quo — in perpetuating AfricanAmericans’ lack of agency, in painting Jacksonville as a racist backwater — would have been much higher.

“Jacksonville happens to be this wonderful town that has missed the mark so many times before,” Sokoni says. “It’s got the beaches, the river, the landmass, but the city is still looked at as a small hick town. Last week, Leno was making fun of it. And then all of a sudden it takes a stand against a school named after the KKK, something people have been trying to change for 50 years. Now people are thinking there might be a little progressive streak going on and they wonder, ‘What is this town going to do next?’ ” Susan Cooper Eastman themail@folioweekly.com DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 15

SCAN WITH LAYAR TO SEE JACKSONVILLE DUO FLAGSHIP ROMANCE’S “HIT THE GROUND” MUSIC VIDEO

Our Picks Reasons to leave the house this week

NYE PARTY BEACH BLAST OFF

Attending an event called “Blast Off,” you might expect to be strapped to a rocket. Not to worry. The two-day event actually features strapless fireworks, a chili cook-off, a fire dancer, ice sculpting and a kids’ zone with those inflatable bounce houses.

Ever wanted to run in a human hamster ball? The St. Augustine Beach Blast Off has those, too, along with performances by the Dance Company, and live music by The Big Picture, Midlife Crisis, Those Guys, Man of Color, Falling Bones, Mojo Roux and Seven Nations. Chili Cook-off Dec. 30. Blast Off, 2-10 p.m. Dec. 30-31; fireworks display 8:30-9 p.m.

New Year’s Eve at St. Augustine Beach Pier Park, 350 A1A Beach Blvd., free admission, $5 parking with free shuttle from Anastasia State Park, free parking and shuttle from other locations, 829-5681, beachblastoff.com.

BENEFIT PARTY 333NYE: POP!

When they call a party a fête, you know it's “très sophistiqué.” Don’t let the French intimidate you; this New Year’s Eve bash features specialty drinks and eats, gambling, a ball drop countdown and live music. The Contemporaries – young professionals raising funds for the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville – boast $23,000 raised for MOCA’s educational programs last year. 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Dec. 31 at MOCA, 333 N. Laura St., Downtown Jacksonville, admission for nonmembers $100; $180 couples; 366-6911, mocajacksonville.org.

NYE PARTY MASQUERADE

“We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” That cautionary adage attributed to Canadian author André Berthiaume can be ignored for one mysterious night. DJ Hu and DJ Natural of Classic Bends join guest DJ SP for a New Year’s Eve Masquerade. The traditional costume ball begins with pre-show cocktails under the stars before partiers receive their masks. 9 p.m.-2 a.m.

Dec. 31 at The Standard, 200 Anastasia Blvd., St. Augustine, $8-$10, 274-2090, thestandardfl.com.

SURE FOLK FLAGSHIP ROMANCE

Shawn Fisher and Jordyn Jackson – the popular harmonic folk duo Flagship Romance – are known as much for their talent as their commitment to the annual Clean Water Music Fest. The $24,374 raised this year arrived this month in Rwanda to provide access to clean drinking water. Fresh off a crowd-funding campaign, Flagship Romance heads to the studio in January to record the full-length “Fee-Fie-Foh-Fum,” expected to drop in the spring. The duo shares the stage with three other Northeast Florida favorites: rockers Oscar Mike, minimalist indie rock duo The WillowWacks and singer/guitarist Leah Sykes, Miss America’s Outstanding Teen 2014. Doors 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $5 in advance, 398-7496, jaxlive.com.

PRINCE TRIBUTE THE FRITZ

Morphing into The Artist Formerly Known as The Fritz, the five-piece band pays homage to His Royal Badness on New Year’s Eve. Complete with a horn section, The Fritz plays a full Prince tribute set in “Prince-inspired attire” and a late-night second set.

A champagne toast, balloon drop, surprises and two stages are featured. Chroma, S.P.O.R.E and The Politix also appear. 8 p.m.-1:45 a.m. Dec. 31 at 1904 Music Hall, 19 Ocean St., Downtown, $20 in advance, $25 at the door, 1904musichall.com.

16 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

ROCK NEW YEAR’S EVE EXTRAVAGANZA

Call ’em the hardest working animals in Northeast Florida. Six-piece Antique Animals – Milan Algood (from left), Michael Boff, Joe Shuck, Daniel Hunting and Angel Garcia – fuse alt rock with folk and Americana. The EP “All That’s Sure Is Death & Texas” dropped in July, but for New Year’s Eve, they promise a few “very special super-secret covers.” Progressive hip-hop group Universal Green, a favorite at last year’s One Spark, joins The Groove Coalition in support. 8 p.m. Dec. 31 at Underbelly, 113 E. Bay St., Downtown, $10, 353-6067, underbellylive.com. Photo: Luis S. Rivera, Miguel Emmanuelli Photography

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 17

Movies

DEPRAVITY SELLS: Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio, right) and Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) enjoy the spoils of making millions on bad stocks in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

No Morals, No Problem

Meet (and hate, but also enjoy) Jordan Belfort, for whom debauchery is a way of life THE WOLF OF WALL STREET ***G Rated R

M

18 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

oney, drugs and hookers are a dangerous combination for anyone. When they’re put in the hands of a hotshot young stockbroker without a conscience, they can be deadly.

In the case of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” he has a mansion, yacht, private jet, six cars, a steady supply of cocaine and everything else money can buy. Debauchery isn’t a habit for him; it’s a way of life.

Jordan is not an easy person to like, but he is fun to watch. He doesn’t believe in excess; there’s no such thing as “taking it too far.” It’s the late ’80s, so anything goes. He’s a terrible role model in many ways, but, man, does the guy know how to have a good time.

Right-hand man Donnie (Jonah Hill), who’s socially awkward yet just as big a party animal as Jordan, masturbates in public the first time he sees Jordan’s stunningly gorgeous future wife, Naomi (Margot Robbie). Yes-men, well-wishers, enablers and moochers surround Jordan and Donnie. There are a few brutally honest voices: Jordan’s father, Max (Rob Reiner), is a temperamental voice of reason; attorney Manny Riskin (Jon Favreau) gives a few reality checks; and most important, FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) makes it clear he’s watching.

How did Jordan get this way? His first day on the job he meets Mark (Matthew McConaughey), who (Jordan is impressed to hear) earned $1 million last year. Mark takes him to lunch, tells him how the business really works and how to succeed in it. McConaughey is an absolute treat in these scenes, oozing sleaze and style with puffy hair and a perpetual grin of self-satisfaction. The only shame is that he doesn’t return after teaching these important lessons.

Director Martin Scorsese’s (“The Departed”)

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THE WOLF INSIDE Share your review of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and other films at folioweekly.com/movies.

film is based on a true story, with the screenplay adapted by Terence Winter from a book of the same name by the real Jordan Belfort. One imagines, given the source, that there’s some embellishment in the craziness of the parties and stories depicted here, but so be it — truth is not imperative for our enjoyment.

What is important, and at least feels authentic, is the rollercoaster life Belfort led and how well his story is told.

Scorsese is on top of his game here, perpetually finding something new for Jordan to take to an extreme. Because Jordan is out of control for so much of the three-hour movie, we often laugh at his craziness, knowing that ribald boys will be boys. In some ways, the film has a similar structure to “Goodfellas,” in that it chronicles a lavish life of grandeur that anyone would want, followed by a precipitous and inevitable fall. The regret in the end is not for sins committed, but rather for not covering tracks better so they can continue to be committed.

Watching Jordan, it’s easy for us to imagine he saw Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street” (1987) and said, “That’s what I want to be!” Greed is indeed good for a while, but in the end, as it often does, avarice becomes his undoing. Scorsese doesn’t lay it on too thick in condemning Jordan for his misdeeds — doing so would, by extension, throw scorn at the audience for enjoying watching him be so naughty — but Scorsese and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker do maintain the proper energy and tempo throughout.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” is full of shocking moments you won’t soon forget. It’s an absolute trip.

Dan Hudak themail@folioweekly.com

Movies

EYE TO EYE: Nelson (Idris Elba) and Winnie Mandela (Naomie Harris) have different views on liberation in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” directed by Justin Chadwick.

The Price of Dignity

ADVERTISING PROOF

How Mandela’s love disintegrated a hateful system MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM ***@

Rated PG-13 • Opens Dec. 25

W

atching the press screening of “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” (based on the South African leader’s 1995 autobiography) the morning after his Dec. 5 death was a bittersweet experience, but nothing compared to what his daughters Zindzi and Zenani had to go through — they were at the movie’s London premiere and were informed of their dad’s passing minutes before the movie began. Offered the chance to postpone the screening, the Mandelas instead allowed the debut to proceed as planned.

Adapted by Oscar-nominated screenwriter William Nicholson (“Shadowlands,” “Les Misérables,” “Gladiator”), the film follows Mandela from his childhood and early (and often violent) scuffles with the white regime, his trial and 27 years in prison, his victorious release and election as the nation’s first black president in 1994. In reality, he was South Africa’s first fully democratically elected president, period. The movie effectively examines the many battles Mandela had to face throughout his life, not only against the white rulers but against members of his own African National Congress and, even more difficult, his wife Winnie Mandela, who had remained loyal to the by-any-means-necessary approach many people held, in direct opposition with her husband’s more conciliatory approach.

The film doesn’t dodge Mandela’s appetite for women and his early entanglements with sabotage activities; even though he never personally killed anyone, one of the movie’s most poignant and disturbing scenes shows Mandela (a solid Idris Elba, of “The Wire” fame) hearing the news of the death of a comrade because “the bomb exploded too soon.” In just a few seconds, you can tell there’s a transformation going on inside Mandela by looking at Elba’s eyes. In the last part of the film, Elba — in fully convincing Saint Mandela mode — negotiates with South Africa’s white regime as a pure pragmatist, even though the ANC begged him to obtain full equality instead of the “shared power” deal the government was offering.

But Mandela knew better — as a true leader, he could sacrifice his family and his freedom, but not his principles, and was willing to pay the ultimate price for it. He knew something

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LIVING UP TO A LEGEND Share your review of “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” and other films at folioweekly.com/movies.

was better than nothing and that the power of love would soon deliver more. After 27 years PROMISE OF BENEFIT in jail, he came out even stronger than before, but in his heart there was no room for revenge.

That inability to cause harm, his capacity to listen and make himself heard, coupled with his great political intelligence, allowed him to sit down with the very same people who had imprisoned him and successfully negotiate the liberation of South Africa. But that was only the beginning of the battle with Winnie.

It’s hard to digest the fact that Elba received a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for his role as Mandela, while Naomie Harris (“Skyfall,” “28 Days Later”) did not. As Winnie, she steals the movie with her fierce portrayal of a woman whose dedication to the cause of freedom turned into uncontrollable rage (and many later scandals not dealt with in the movie). Once she began to see Mandela as “soft” after his liberation, their separation was just a matter of time.

“Mandela” is no “Gandhi,” but an honest portrayal of an honest man who didn’t mind reinventing himself and following his own conscience instead of those who were demanding blood for blood. Best of all, the father of South Africa and, arguably, the most beloved political figure in history, never set out to become a hero and never felt like one.

“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people,” Mandela wrote in “Long Walk to Freedom.” “There was no particular day on which I said, ‘Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people’; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”

In that sense, the movie (gorgeously shot

by Lol Crawley, “Hyde Park on Hudson”) is a triumph because it shows how a man can stand up to injustice, suffer for it and emerge from it all, full of scars but with his dignity intact.

For questions, please call your advertising representative at 260-9770.

FAX YOUR PROOF IF POSSIBLE AT 268-3655

RUN DATE: SUPPORT

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Enrique Lopetegui themail@folioweekly.com DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 19

Movies **** ***@ **@@ *@@@

FILM RATINGS

ASA PHILIP RANDOLPH EDWARD WHITE PEDRO MENENDEZ NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST

NOW SHOWING 12 YEARS A SLAVE **** Rated R Chiwetel Ejiofor is great in the powerful fi lm based on real events. He plays Solomon, a free black man in pre-Civil War New York who’s abducted, then sold into slavery for 12 cruel years. He meets a Canadian abolitionist and hopes his misery is over. Co-stars Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Quvenzhané Wallis.

47 RONIN **@@ Rated PG-13 He’s a long way from his excellent adventure, but Keanu Reeves seems to be clawing his way back up. In this action-fantasy-adventure, he plays Kai, a half-Brit/halfJapanese man recruited by Oishi, the respected leader of the 47 Ronin, a band of awesome samurai. Even if you don’t follow the intricate plot, you’ll like the visuals and the score.

AMERICAN HUSTLE **G@ Rated R Writer-director David O. Russell has fashioned a beautiful, cinematic junk heap that’s likeable and engaging despite its overly long running time, sloppy screenplay and rambling structure. For professional scam artist Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale, with the best comb-over we’ve seen in years), working with the Feds is tougher than running cons.

He’s helping the FBI (Bradley Cooper) nab public officials on the take in the infamous Abscam operation. Co-stars Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence; look for a cameo by Robert De Niro. The sets, the hairstyles and the costumes are spoton; looks like they raided a thrift shop in Cherry Hill.

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES ***G Rated PG-13 The most-ballyhooed comedy this year reunites the quartet of newsmen – Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), Brick Tamland (Steve Carell, who is indeed thick as a brick), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd, charmingly smarmy) and Champ Kind (David Koechner) – as they blithely blunder toward the ’80s.

Co-stars Christina Applegate, Kristen Wiig, Vince Vaughn and James Marsden.

THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY **@@ Rated R This comedy, just in time for the holidays, has the bestlooking cast we’ve ever seen. Really: Monica Calhoun, Morris Chestnut, Melissa De Sousa, Taye Diggs, Regina Hall, Terrance Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Eddie Cibrian and Atif Lanier.

THE BOOK THIEF **** Rated PG-13 Amid the chaos and horror of WWII, Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) steals books – before the Nazis can burn them – and shares them with the folks around her. Based on the novel

by Markus Zusak, the drama co-stars Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB ***G Rated R The drama, based on a true story, is sparking serious Oscar talk for stars Matthew McConaughey, who plays redneck electrician Ron, and Jared Leto, who plays transvestite Rayon in Dallas, 1985. Ron is shocked when he learns he’s HIV-positive, with only one month to live. He’s even more stunned to find out the drugs that might save his life aren’t for sale in the U.S. Co-stars Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn.

DELIVERY MAN **G@ Rated PG-13 Underachiever David Wozniak discovers that his 691 sperm donations to a fertility clinic in the early 1990s have resulted in 533 children, 142 of whom filed a court action seeking his identity – they want to meet the man known only by a donor nom d’essence, “Starbuck.” Co-stars Cobie Smulders and Chris Pratt.

20 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

WHOA: In “47 Ronin,” a band of 47 leaderless samurai turn to the half-breed Kai (Keanu Reeves) to help avenge the death of their master. They face all the fearsome beasts, witchcraft and terrors the special effects guys can throw at them.

FROZEN ***G Rated PG Disney’s latest animated feature introduces sisters Anna and Elsa, royalty of the northern land of Arendelle. Princess Anna (Kristen Bell) and Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) are strong characters in this newest version of “The Snow Queen.”

GRUDGE MATCH ***G Rated PG-13 No, it’s not Rocky vs. LaMotta (wouldn’t that be awesome?).

It’s two old – as in former and years – boxers coming out of retirement for one last fight. Money may be the motive but of course there’s that macho pride thing, too. And they’re out to settle old scores. Co-starring Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Kim Basinger, Alan Arkin and Kevin Hart.

Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield pop up, too.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG ***@ Rated PG-13 Co-writer and director Peter Jackson has stretched J.R.R. Tolkien’s books into lucrative movies and made stars of the cast members, including Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans – Ian McKellen was already a star but now he’s amassed a whole new fanbase. Then there’s the titular Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), a villainous fire-breathing dragon who lays claim to Bilbo’s homeland. The film sings with vibrant colors and stunning images.

HOMEFRONT ***@ Rated R Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay and Jason Statham

is the hero, DEA agent Phil Broker, who kicks ass and looks cool doing so. Co-stars James Franco (who’s in danger of over-exposure), Kate Bosworth and Winona Ryder.

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE ***G Rated PG-13 In Part 2 of the saga, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a celebrity warrior hero manipulated by the Capitol’s leader Snow (Donald Sutherland). There’s revolution in the air due to her win at the Games. Co-stars Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson and Stanley Tucci.

INEQUALITY FOR ALL **G@ Rated PG • Sun-Ray Cinema As the 1 percenters get richer and the rest of us don’t, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich seeks to raise awareness of the yawning chasm that separates us.

JUSTIN BIEBER’S BELIEVE G@@@ Rated PG The Beebs in all his glory. Billed as the “real story” behind the megastar’s rise to fame, this documentary is no doubt a must-see for his screaming fans.

A MADEA CHRISTMAS *G@@ Rated PG-13 Tyler Perry is wringing every last ounce from his megastar creation Madea; now she’s celebrating Christmas in her own unique style, with her brutal panache. Co-stars Chad Michael Murray (OMG!), Tike Sumpter, Larry the Cable Guy, Kathy Najimy and Anna Maria Horsford.

AREA THEATERS

AMELIA ISLAND Carmike 7, 1132 S. 14th St., Fernandina Beach, 261-9867 ARLINGTON & REGENCY AMC Regency 24, 9451 Regency Square Blvd., 264-3888 BAYMEADOWS & MANDARIN Regal Avenues 20, 9525 Philips Highway, 538-3889 BEACHES Regal Beach Blvd. 18, 14051 Beach Blvd., 992-4398 FIVE POINTS Sun-Ray Cinema@5Points, 1028 Park St., 359-0047 GREEN COVE SPRINGS Clay Theatre, 326 Walnut St., 284-9012 NORTHSIDE Regal River City 14, River City Marketplace, 12884 City Center Blvd., 757-9880

ORANGE PARK AMC Orange Park 24, 1910 Wells Road, (888) AMC-4FUN Carmike 12, 1820 Town Center Blvd., Fleming Island, 621-0221 SAN MARCO San Marco Theatre, 1996 San Marco Blvd., 396-4845 SOUTHSIDE Cinemark Tinseltown, 4535 Southside Blvd., 998-2122 ST. AUGUSTINE Epic Theatres, 112 Theatre Drive, 797-5757 IMAX Theater, World Golf Village, 940-IMAX Pot Belly’s, 36 Granada St., 829-3101

Movies MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM ***@ Rated PG-13 Reviewed in this issue.

NEBRASKA ***G Rated R Cantankerous Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, getting longoverdue Oscar buzz) gets a piece of junk mail declaring him the winner of $1 million, so he convinces David (Will Forte) – the son who’s never quite synched with his old man – to drive him to Lincoln, Neb. to claim the prize. Co-stars Stacy Keach, June Squibb, Rance Howard and Bob Odenkirk.

OUT OF THE FURNACE ***@ Rated R Everyman Russell Baze (Christian Bale) takes care of his terminally ill father while working at the steel mill. When his brother Rodney (Casey Affleck), an Iraq War vet, joins a crime ring then disappears, Russell seeks justice. Directed

by Scott Cooper, the film co-stars Forest Whitaker, Woody Harrelson and Zoe Saldana.

PHILOMENA **** Rated PG-13 Journalist Martin (Steve Coogan) needs to boost his career.

Philomena (Dame Judi Dench) wants to find the son she gave up for adoption, forced by not-so-holy nuns decades earlier. Stephen Frears directed.

SAVING MR. BANKS ***@ Rated PG-13 P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), author of the popular “Mary Poppins” series of children’s books, travels to Disney Studios in Los Angeles to collaborate on adapting the book for film. For 20 years, she’s rebuffed Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) efforts to make this happen, not wanting her beloved characters to be altered. The Mr. Banks character – the father of the children Mary Poppins nannies – is based on Travers’ own papa, a bank manager and a drunkard who died when she was 7 years old. Hanks doesn’t try to mimic the avuncular businessman, but he seeks to capture the essence of the man. Thompson is excellent as P.L. Travers; expect her among the next round of Oscar nominations.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY ***G Rated PG The versatile Ben Stiller plays James Thurber’s classic

dreamer, Walter Mitty, who puts himself in fantasy situations with daring femme fatales and dastardly villains, with him as the hero who saves the day. Then he gets the chance to be a real hero on a real adventure. Co-stars Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott and Shirley MacLaine, with cameos from Andy Richter and Conan O’Brien.

THOR: THE DARK WORLD ***@ Rated PG-13 The sequel, with more action and special effects, stars Chris Hemsworth as the golden-tressed Thor and Natalie Portman as his Earth-time girlfriend Jane. Co-stars Christopher Eccleston, Anthony Hopkins and Kat Dennings.

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS **@@ Rated PG This animated feature about dinosaurs is not the usual kiddie film of cute-but-doomed characters. The realistic 3D depiction of prehistoric creatures features the voices of Charlie Rowe, Karl Urban, Angourie Rice, John Leguizamo and Justin Long.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET ***G Rated R Reviewed in this issue.

OTHER FILMS LATITUDE 30 MOVIES “Last Vegas” and “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” screen at CineGrille, Latitude 30, 10370 Philips Highway, Southside. 365-5555.

WORLD GOLF HALL OF FAME IMAX THEATER “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - The IMAX 3D Experience,” “Great White Shark 3D,” “Tornado Alley 3D” and “The Last Reef 3D” are screened at World Golf Hall of Fame Village IMAX Theater, 1 World Golf Place, St. Augustine, 940-IMAX, worldgolfimax.com.

© 2013

For more focal film events, go to folioweekly.com/calendar.

For details on how to add your cinematic events, go to folioweekly.com/eventhowto.html. Folio Weekly doesn’t accept emails for print listing events. Deadline for print is 4 p.m. Monday, 10 days before publication. Due to space constraints, not all events appear in print.

WAIT … SO THIS ISN’T ANOTHER ROCKY?: Retired boxers Henry “Razor” Sharp (Sylvester Stallone, left) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (Robert De Niro) – past their primes both on-screen and off – are ready to brawl in a final effort to settle a decades-old rivalry in “Grudge Match,” directed by Peter Segal.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 21

Music

Photo: Ebet Roberts

No Simple Man

After 20 years calling himself John Wesley Harding, the singer-songwriter and novelist owns up to his given name WESLEY STACE with JOE PERNICE 8 p.m. Jan. 5, Mudville Music Room, 3104 Atlantic Blvd., St. Nicholas Tickets: $15 352-7008, raylewispresents.com

W

esley Stace is a complicated man. Under his John Wesley Harding nom de guerre, he’s released nearly 20 incisive folk-pop albums.

Under his real name, the 48-year-old Brit has written four award-winning novels. He’s taught songwriting courses with poet Paul Muldoon at Princeton. Convened Bruce Springsteenoriented literary festivals at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Organized highbrow “Cabinet of Wonders” variety shows in New York City — even snookered NPR into syndicating them.

Central Connecticut State University perfectly encapsulated Stace’s kaleidoscopic career with a spring 2013 class, “The Allusive John Wesley Harding/Wesley Stace.”

Those intriguing stats make Stace’s decision to release a 2013 album “Self-Titled” under his given name feel so revelatory — so surprisingly honest for a man usually seen smirking through literary smoke and mirrors. As he told Folio Weekly in a recent phone interview from his home in Philadelphia, “I just got bored with having two identities.” We totally understand.

Folio Weekly: As an Englishman who’s lived in the Northeast U.S. for decades, do you have much experience touring in Florida?

Wesley Stace: I used to come quite a lot at the beginning of my career. I had a friend who owned a record store in Tampa, and I remember playing in Miami with the Barenaked Ladies in 1993 or 1994 and winning some award for best gig of the year.

Now, Florida is just not on my circuit. But I know Steve [Kistulentz], who runs the writer’s program at the University of Tampa, so Joe Pernice and I decided to make a trip of it.

F.W.: You’ll be co-headlining with Joe here. Do you have experience collaborating with him?

W.S.: I do. Although he’s a relatively recent friend from the last four or five years, we have a very nice rapport, so rather than doing two sets, we’ll sit onstage together telling stories and playing songs. We’ve both written novels and music, so it should be a nice, relaxed experience.

22 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

F.W.: How about the “Cabinet of Wonders,” which you’ve been organizing since 2009?

W.S.: That brings the music, which is social and public, and the writing, which is basically private, together in an environment that makes both of them better, with comedy right in the middle of it. I also teach at university, which I really like. But for me, it’s all part of

&&&

MORE WONDERS See a video of Wesley Stace at folioweekly.com/music.

the same project — all part of a day’s work, if you will. I’m busy all the time, which I like, so it doesn’t matter if I’m coming to Florida to read from a new novel — I have one coming out in March — or sing songs from an album, or put on a “Cabinet of Wonders.” It’s all just me living as pleasant a life as I can, doing the artistic things I like to do to express myself.

F.W.: Tell us about your new novel.

W.S.: It comes out in March, is called “Wonderkid” and is the first novel I’ve set in the present day. When I wrote my last novel about classical composers, I kept remembering things that had happened to me and writing them down, and by the end of it, I thought, “I should write a novel about rock music.”

But the slant was that, since I have kids and listen to a lot of rock music made for kids, I thought, “What if I’d done that 25 years ago?

Made completely normal New Wave music — just rebranded for kids between four and eight years old?” So it’s really about rolling with the punches in an artistic career. Artistic compromise. Making great music. Fathers and sons. All the things that my novels are normally about — just set in the weird world of gigs for toddlers.

“I was writing a lot of very autobiographical songs to cheer myself up.”

F.W.: Is it hard for you to delineate between writing in the mindset of character versus writing autobiographically, which you’ve obviously embraced?

W.S.: Well, that’s not quite right — I’ve never really written from a character’s point of view.

I always wrote what I call “idea songs,” where I take something I consider worthy, and bash that idea around. It just so happens that when I was considering the name change [back to Wesley Stace] — or perhaps it was why I considered it — I was writing a lot of very autobiographical songs to cheer myself up, which I had never done before so simply and so straightforwardly. That’s a whole new thing for me. Very different from my other material.

It seemed ridiculous to put it out under John Wesley Harding and not Wesley Stace. I just got bored with having two identities.

Nick McGregor themail@folioweekly.com

Live Music

CONCERTS THIS WEEK

NOCTURNAL STATE OF MIND, REACH FOR THE SKY, FINDING EVERY ALTAR RUINED, KNOCK FOR SIX 8 p.m. Dec. 25 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $5, 398-7496.

FIT FOR RIVALS, THE EMBRACED, RYAN RAW 8 p.m. Dec. 26 Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $8, 398-7496.

FUSEBOX FUNK, PARKER URBAN BAND 8 p.m. Dec. 27 at Freebird Live, 200 N. First St., Jax Beach, $8, 246-2473.

MICHAEL RAY, CLEMONS ROAD 6 p.m. Dec. 27 at Mavericks at the Landing, 2 Independent Dr., Downtown, $5, 356-1110.

MINDLESS BEHAVIOR, OMG GIRLZ, GUDGUD, HI-RIZ, NOVA THE PRINCE, JACQUES JOHNSON 7 p.m. Dec. 27 The Florida Theatre, 128 E. Forsyth St., Downtown, $48-$88, 355-2787.

NORTHE, MINE ALL MINE, TEXAS RANGER, A WAY WITHOUT 8 p.m. Dec. 27 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $8, 398-7496.

CANARY IN THE COALMINE, THIS FRONTIER NEEDS HEROES, PILOTWAVE, FJORD EXPLORER 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Freebird Live, 200 N. First St., Jax Beach, $8, 246-2473.

FLAGSHIP ROMANCE, OSCAR MIKE, LEAH SYKES, WILLOWWACKS 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $5, 398-7496.

THOMAS WYNN & the BELIEVERS, THE WOODGRAINS 9 p.m.

Dec. 28 Underbelly, 113 E. Bay St., Downtown, $10, 353-6067.

SOUL GRAVY 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Dog Star Tavern, 10 N. Second St., Fernandina Beach, 277-8010.

NOBODY ON LAND, GREENBEAUX, ARTILECT, HELIOS HAND 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Murray Hill Theatre, 932 Edgewood Ave. S., Murray Hill, $10, 388-3179.

BRYCE ALASTAIR BAND, SUNSPOTS 8 p.m. Dec. 29 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $5, 398-7496.

ASKMEIFICARE, BIG BOI MONEYMAKERS, DENVER, YT, FOREST PEYTON 8 p.m. Dec. 30 at Jack Rabbits, 1528 Hendricks Ave., San Marco, $5, 398-7496.

YANCY CLEGG 9:30 p.m. Dec. 30, The Palace Saloon, 117 Centre St., Fernandina Beach, free, 491-3332.

GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE with MARK SCHIMICK, CORBITT BROTHERS BAND 8 p.m. Dec. 31 at Freebird Live, 200 N. First St., Jax Beach, $10, 246-2473.

PARKER URBAN BAND 8 p.m. Dec. 31 at Dog Star Tavern, 10 N. Second St., Fernandina Beach, $5, 277-8010.

POST-JUNK FESTIVAL: Garrett Walters, Mitch the Champ, Robbie Freeman, Dylan Tietze, Alex Dougherty Dec. 31 at Shantytown Pub, 22 W. Sixth St., Downtown, 798-8222.

GREGG ALLMAN, JJ GREY & MOFRO 9 p.m. Dec. 31 at The Florida Theatre, 128 E. Forsyth St., Downtown, $53-$103, 355-2787.

NEW YEAR’S EVE EXTRAVAGANZA: Antique Animals, Universal Green, The Groove Coalition 8 p.m. Dec. 31 at Underbelly, 113 E. Bay St., Downtown, $10, 353-6067.

THE ARTIST Formerly Known as the Fritz (Prince tribute), CHROMA, S.P.O.R.E., THE POLITIX 8 p.m. Dec. 31 at 1904 Music Hall, 19 Ocean St., Downtown, $25.

FreebirdLive.com

/ TU 4U +BY #FBDI '- r #*3%

FRIDAY DECEMBER 27

FUSEBOX FUNK

PARKER URBAN BAND SATURDAY DECEMBER 28

CANARY IN THE COALMINE

THIS FRONTIER NEEDS HEROES

PILOTWAVE/FJORD EXPLORER

SCAN WITH LAYAR TO SEE GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE

TUESDAY DECEMBER 31

THE DEVIL’S S MUSIC MUSIC: G Grandpa’s d ’ C Cough Medicine brings frenetic, gospel-free outlaw bluegrass to Freebird Live in Jacksonville Beach on New Year’s Eve.

UPCOMING CONCERTS

GRANT PEEPLES, REBECCA ZAPEN Jan. 2, Mudville Music Room NEW MASTERSOUNDS, ORGONE, MONOPHONICS Jan. 2, Underbelly POST-JUNK FESTIVAL: Rubrics, Egos, Sweaty, Jamison Williams, Sad Pest, Velma & the Happy Campers Jan. 2, Rain Dogs MUD TEA, YANKEE SLICKERS Jan. 3, Underbelly DEVIL IN THE OASIS, PRANAYAM Jan. 3, Freebird Live POST-JUNK FESTIVAL: Giggle Giver, Kid Aids, Trailer Park Princess, Lake Disney, Loudon Jan. 3, Burro Bar MIKE DILLON BAND, SQUEEDLEPUSS Jan. 3, 1904 Music Hall MASTER RADICAL, GROWN UP AVENGER STUFF, TRAE LANDON Jan. 3, Jack Rabbits DALTON STANLEY Jan. 3, Murray Hill Theatre PARKRIDGE, ROSEDALE, PALM TREES & POWER LINES Jan. 4, Jack Rabbits POST-JUNK FESTIVAL: Holopaw, Memphibians, Honey Chamber, Sleepy Tree, Jackie Stranger, Yes Ma’am No Sir Jan. 4, Burro Bar JACK WILLIAMS Jan. 4, Mudville Music Room

JOHNNY KING JR. Jan. 4, Freebird Live CLUTCH, THE SWORD, CROBOTS Jan. 5, Freebird Live THE SCREAMING J’S Jan. 5, Jack Rabbits JOHN WESLEY HARDING, JOE PERNICE Jan. 5, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall POST-JUNK FESTIVAL: The Golden Pelicans, The Mold, Mr. Clit & the Pink Cigarettes, Moon Cheese Babies, Dolly Rocker Ragdoll Jan. 5, Shantytown Pub NIGHT IDEA, FLIGHT CLOUD Jan. 6, Burro Bar B.B. KING Jan. 7, T-U Center’s Jacoby Symphony Hall THERA ROYA, FURNACE HEAD Jan. 8, Burro Bar MALCOLM HOLCOMBE Jan. 9, Mudville Music Room SPEEDY ORTIZ, GRASS IS GREEN Jan. 9, Jack Rabbits THE MICHAEL ALLMAN BAND Jan. 10, Underbelly WINTER JAM: Newsboys, Lecrae, Tenth Avenue North, Thousand Foot Krutch, Plumb, Newsong, Colton Dixon, Love & The Outcome, Everfound, Derek Minor Jan. 10, Veterans Memorial Arena INNUENDO, PRIDELESS, DUDES on a RUG Jan. 10, Freebird Live HELIOS HAND, BONUS OCEANS, OUTEREDGE Jan. 10, Jack Rabbits YO MAMA’S BIG FAT BOOTY BAND Jan. 11, Underbelly NATALIE MERCHANT Jan. 11, The Florida Theatre

NEW YEAR’S EVE

GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE CORBITT BROTHERS FRIDAY JANUARY 3

DROPSHOT

DEVIL IN THE OASIS/PRANAYAM SATURDAY JANUARY 4

JOHNNY KING JR. SUNDAY JANUARY 5

CLUTCH THE SWORD C R O B OT S FRIDAY JANUARY 10

INNUENDO/PRIDELESS DUDES ON A RUG SUNDAY JANUARY 12

MARCH FORTH Mon-

TuesWed-

MEN’S NIGHT OUT Beer Pong 9pm Free Pool DJ BG ALL U CAN EAT CRABLEGS Texas Hold ’Em STARTS AT 7 P.M. HAPPY HOUR ALL NIGHT BAR BINGO 6PM KIDS EAT FREE FROM 5 P.M. TO 9 P.M. BUY 10 WINGS GET 10 WINGS FREE 1/2 PRICED APPETIZERS (BAR ONLY) 5 P.M.-CLOSE

Thurs-

OPEN MIC NITE 9PM CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT 1/2 PRICED DRINKS 10 P.M-12. A.M.

Fri-

LIFT 9:30pm 1/2 PRICE APPS-FRI (BAR ONLY) 4-7PM DECK MUSIC 5 P.M.-9 P.M.

Sat-

LIFT 9:30pm DECK MUSIC 5 P.M.-9 P.M.

Sun-

LIVE MUSIC 4:30-8:30pm

MARCHING BAND TUESDAY JANUARY 14

REGGAE LEGENDS

THE WAILERS (PLAYING “LEGEND� IN ENTIRETY) THURSDAY JANUARY 16

GALACTIC AND GUESTS

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22

AGAINST ME! THE SIDEKICKS/THE SHONDS THURSDAY JANUARY 23

MARTYPARTY(of PANTyRAiD)

VLAD THE INHALER THURSDAY JANUARY 30

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND

T R AV E L I N ’ M c C O U RY S UPCOMING 2-1: Sidereal/Prime Trees 2-15: Start Making Sense (Talking Heads) 2-19: The Expendables/Stick Figure 2-20: Shpongle/Desert Dwellers 2-23: Toubab Krewe 2-27: G.Love & Special Sauce/Sosos

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 23

Night Eye

1

2

3

Taps on the Ceiling

W

ith the impending expansion of Kickbacks Gastropub, folks from all over Northeast Florida are stopping in to get a sneak peek at the progress. Only true insiders are able to take the highly coveted tour, but that doesn’t stop the beer-drinking masses from hanging out on the patio for a chance to glimpse inside the Riverside hot spot. As in the original space, there’s still the promise of dim lights, heavy beers and familiar red faces. Kickbacks has the most beers on tap in town — so many, in fact, extra taps are kept on the ceiling. It also rules in the inclusivity department. There’s a diverse crowd — any given night, you’re likely to see bikers, punks, drag queens, hip hop artists and, yes, even yuppies — all in one awesome place.

&&& 24 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

NIGHT EYE ONLINE For more photos from this and other events, check out the Pictures & Video link at folioweekly.com.

Text and Photos: Abigail Wright themail@folioweekly.com

1. Beer Wall 2. Geoff Mullins, Dan Rollan 3. Madi Michael, Ched Chidester

ALLEN SHADD Jan. 11, Mudville Music Room QUEENSRYCHE Jan. 11, Brewster’s Roc Bar EDWARD APPLEBY, BEACHWHEATHER Jan. 11, Burro Bar BREAKING THROUGH, THE EMBRACED, TOM BENNETT BAND Jan. 11, Jack Rabbits MARCHFORTH MARCHING BAND Jan. 12, Freebird Live ANTIQUE ANIMALS Jan. 12, Rain Dogs BIG DADDY LOVE Jan. 12, Underbelly ULTRA BIDE Jan. 14, Burro Bar THE WAILERS Jan. 14, Freebird Live 12th PLANET, PROTOHYPE, FLINCH, SON OF KICK, STEADY Jan. 15, Pure ABBA THE CONCERT Jan. 16, The Florida Theatre JOSHUA BOWLUS TRIO Jan. 16, Mudville Music Room TAB BENOIT Jan. 16, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall GALACTIC Jan. 16, Freebird Live SEA WOLF Jan. 16, Jack Rabbits THE HOWL Jan. 16, Burro Bar THE FRED EAGLESMITH TRAVELLING STEAM SHOW Jan. 16, The Original Café Eleven THE FIRST WEEK OF AUGUST Jan. 17, Murray Hill Theatre EMPIRE THEORY, GEORGE STEVENS Jan. 17, Jack Rabbits WORTH ROAD, THE BLANK CANVAS, JOHN BALL, CATALYST Jan. 17, Murray Hill Theatre GURF MORLIX Jan. 18, Mudville Music Room MARCIA BALL & HER BAND Jan. 18, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall SMELLS LIKE GRUNGE Jan. 18, Underbelly JOHN CARVER BAND, FJORD EXPLORER Jan. 18, Jack Rabbits SEEKER, DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR Jan. 19, Atticus Bar CHEAP TIME Jan. 19, Nobby’s RICHARD SMITH, JULIE ADAMS Jan. 20, Mudville Music Room ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK Jan. 21, The Florida Theatre BILLY JOEL Jan. 22, Veterans Memorial Arena BIG SOMETHING Jan. 22, Jack Rabbits TURBO FRUITS Jan. 22, Nobby’s AGAINST ME!, THE SIDEKICKS, THE SHONDS Jan. 22, Freebird Live ANTIQUE ANIMALS Jan. 23, Mellow Mushroom Jax Beach PEOPLES BLUES OF RICHMOND, TROPIC OF CANCER Jan. 23, Jack Rabbits RONNY COX Jan. 23, Mudville Music Room BARRY MANILOW Jan. 23, Veterans Memorial Arena SHAWN COLVIN Jan. 24, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall RODNEY ATKINS Jan. 24, The Florida Theatre GREEN SUNSHINE Jan. 24, Underbelly THE CORBITT BROTHERS, GRANDPA’S COUGH MEDICINE, JACKSONVEGAS, PARKER URBAN BAND Jan. 25, Underbelly ROBYN HITCHCOCK, ED COTTON, SHANE MYERS Jan. 25, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall GAELIC STORM Jan. 26, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall TURBO FRUITS Jan. 26, Burro Bar KEB’MO’ Jan. 29, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall DAVID SOLANO, CORPORATE SLACKRS, DJ AMP Jan. 29, Pure REBECCA LOEBE, ROBBY HECHT Jan. 30, Mudville Music Room YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND, THE TRAVELIN’ McCOURYS Jan. 30, Freebird Live SOME KIND OF NIGHTMARE Jan. 30, Burro Bar DAVID WILCOX Jan. 31, The Original Café Eleven THE MANTRAS, BROCK BUTLER Jan. 31, 1904 Music Hall THE DELUSIONAIRES Jan. 31, Nobby’s THE STEEP CANYON RANGERS Jan. 31, P.V. Concert Hall MERLE HAGGARD Feb. 1, The Florida Theatre VIO/MIRE’ Feb. 1, Burro Bar THE NEKROMANTIX, TWISTED GRAVES Feb. 2, Jack Rabbits LIOTTA Feb. 2, Burro Bar TURQUOISE JEEP, YIP DECEIVER Feb. 3, Jack Rabbits QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Feb. 3, The Florida Theatre THE SLACKERS, THE DUPPIES Feb. 4, Jack Rabbits ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES, GRACE AND TONY Feb. 5, Jack Rabbits PAT MATHENY UNITY GROUP Feb. 5, The Florida Theatre RIGOLETTO, TWIN RADIO Feb. 5, Burro Bar TIM GRIMM Feb. 6, Mudville Music Room J BOOG, LOS RAKAS Feb. 6, Jack Rabbits OF MICE AND MEN, BRING ME THE HORIZON Feb. 6, Brewster’s CRAIG MORGAN Feb. 7, Mavericks at the Landing LADY ANTEBELLUM, DARIUS RUCKER, THOMPSON SQUARE, KIP MOORE, KACEY MUSGRAVES Feb. 8, Vets Memorial Arena LARRY MANGUM, BARRY DRAKE, MICKEY CLARK Feb. 8, Mudville Music Room SEBADOH Feb. 9, Jack Rabbits ABANDON ALL SHIPS, THE BROWNING, MY TICKET HOME, I AM KING Feb. 11, Jack Rabbits BLAST & THE DETERGENTS Feb. 11, Shantytown Pub HUNTRONIK Feb. 11, Underbelly BUDDY GUY & JONNY LANG Feb. 12, The Florida Theatre BIG SANDY & HIS FLY-RITE BOYS Feb. 12, Jack Rabbits BOOG Feb. 12, Burro Bar DARLENE LOVE Feb. 13, The Florida Theatre SHOVELS AND ROPE, SHAKEY GRAVES Feb. 13, Jack Rabbits NOBUNNY Feb. 13, Nobby’s ANTIQUE ANIMALS Feb. 13, Mellow Mushroom Jax Beach LA FIN ABSOLUTE DU MONDE Feb. 13, Burro Bar KENNY LOGGINS Feb. 14, The Florida Theatre THE IRISH ROVERS Feb. 15, The Florida Theatre START MAKING SENSE: Talking Heads Tribute Feb. 15, Freebird Live ENGLAND IN 1819, FOUR FAMILIES, SHONI Feb. 15, Burro Bar MASON JENNINGS Feb. 16, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall TIM DAISY, MIKOAJ TRZASKA Feb. 17, Karpeles Museum THAT 1 GUY Feb. 17, Jack Rabbits THE BEACH BOYS Feb. 17, The Florida Theatre BRONZE RADIO RETURN, RED WANTING BLUE Feb. 18, Jack Rabbits SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS Feb. 19, Jack Rabbits THE EXPENDABLES, STICK FIGURE, SEEDLESS Feb. 19, Freebird Live

YOUNG THE GIANT Feb. 19, Mavericks at the Landing THE TEMPTATIONS, THE FOUR TOPS Feb. 20, Florida Theatre SHPONGLE, DESERT DWELLERS Feb. 20, Freebird Live MELLOWDIME Feb. 20, Jack Rabbits TOMMY EMMANUEL, MARTIN TAYLOR Feb. 20-21, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall STEPHEN KELLOGG Feb. 21, Mudville Music Room EL DUB Feb. 21, Dog Star Tavern JOHN BROWN’S BODY Feb. 21, Jack Rabbits DELBERT McCLINTON Feb. 22, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall DARK STAR ORCHESTRA Feb. 23, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall SNARKY PUPPY Feb. 23, 1904 Music Hall TOUBAB KREWE Feb. 23, Freebird Live JENNIFER NETTLES Feb. 25, The Florida Theatre THE EAGLES Feb. 26, Veterans Memorial Arena FILMSTRIP Feb. 26, Burro Bar G. LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE Feb. 27, Freebird Live MATT OWEN & THE ELECTRIC TUBA Feb. 28, Jack Rabbits SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY & THE ASBURY JUKES Feb. 28, The Florida Theatre LOVE AND THEFT Feb. 28, Mavericks at the Landing ART GARFUNKEL Feb. 28, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall GREAT GUITAR GATHERING March 1, The Florida Theatre IRON AND WINE March 1, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall JULIO IGLESIAS March 2, T-U Center’s Moran Theater TWO COW GARAGE March 4, Jack Rabbits HOPSIN, DJ HOPPA, FUNK VOLUME March 5, Freebird Live AMY SPEACE March 5, Mudville Music Room THE KENNEDYS March 6, Mudville Music Room CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS March 6, P.V. Concert Hall DROPKICK MURPHYS, LUCERO, SKINNY LISTER March 6, Mavericks at the Landing DARSOMBRA, NATIONAL DIARY March 6, Burro Bar MATRIMONY March 8, Jack Rabbits AGENT ORANGE March 9, Jack Rabbits SCOTTY McCREERY March 9, The Florida Theatre MICHAEL BOLTON March 14, The Florida Theatre MICHAEL RENO HARRELL March 15, Mudville Music Room WE THE KINGS, THIS CENTURY, CRASH THE PARTY March 16, Freebird Live GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS March 19, The Florida Theatre WE BUTTER THE BREAD WITH BUTTER, LIONS LIONS, HONOUR CREST March 19, Jack Rabbits LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO March 22, The Florida Theatre MOORS & McCUMBER March 22, Mudville Music Room WE ARE THE IN CROWD, WILLIAM BECKETT, SET IT OFF, STATE CHAMPS, CANDY HEARTS March 22, Jack Rabbits THE MOODY BLUES March 22, St. Augustine Amphitheatre MARY OCHER March 22, Burro Bar MARC COHN DUO March 23, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall THE TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS March 24, Jack Rabbits DAVE HAUSE, NORTHCOTE March 26, Jack Rabbits

GET THE LED OUT March 27, The Florida Theatre LINDSAY LOU & the FLATBELLYS March 27, Mudville Music THE BRONX WANDERERS March 28, Thrasher-Horne Center KB March 28, Murray Hill Theatre STILL ON THE HILL March 29, Mudville Music Room STEVE HACKETT April 2, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall JESSE COOK April 3, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall PAUL ANKA April 3, T-U Center’s Moran Theater THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA April 11, P.V. Concert Hall RAY WYLIE HUBBARD Jack Rabbits, April 12 JON VEZNER April 13, Mudville Music Room THE ZOMBIES April 13, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall LOCAL NATIVES April 17, Freebird Live MERCYGIRL, WHOSOEVER SOUTH April 19, Murray Hill Theatre ANTIQUE ANIMALS April 27, Mellow Mushroom Jax Beach SANTANA April 27, St. Augustine Amphitheatre THE FAB FOUR May 9, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall CHER May 14, Veterans Memorial Arena GLADYS KNIGHT May 16, T-U Center THE 1975 May 19, Freebird Live ANTIQUE ANIMALS May 22, Mellow Mushroom Jax Beach FLORIDA COUNTRY SUPERFEST: Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Florida Georgia Line, Little Big Town, Big & Rich, Easton Corbin, Colt Ford, Joe Nichols June 14-15, EverBank Field

CLUBS AMELIA ISLAND, FERNANDINA BEACH

DAVID’S RESTAURANT & LOUNGE, 802 Ash St., 310-6049 John Springer every Tue.-Wed. Aaron Bing every Fri.-Sat. DOG STAR TAVERN, 10 N. Second St., 277-8010 Soul Gravy 8 p.m. Dec. 28. Parker Urban Band 8 p.m. Dec. 31. Working Class Stiff with real vinyl every Tue. GREEN TURTLE TAVERN, 14 S. Third St., 321-2324 Dan Voll and Friends, 7 p.m. every Fri. Live music every Sat. HAMMERHEAD TAVERN, 2045 S. Fletcher Road, 491-7783 Buck Smith, Jim Barcaro every Thur. A DJ every Sun. O’KANE’S IRISH PUB, 318 Centre St., 261-1000 Dan Voll 7:30 p.m. every Wed. Turner London Band every Thur.-Sat. THE PALACE SALOON, 117 Centre St., 491-3332 Wes Cobb 9:30 p.m. Dec. 25. Live music 9:30 p.m. Dec. 26. Ivey West 9:30 p.m. Dec. 27. Dirty Pete 9:30 p.m. Dec. 28 & 31.

Schnockered 9:30 p.m. Dec. 29. Yancy Clegg 9:30 p.m. Dec. 30. Buck Smith Project Band every Tue.

ARLINGTON, REGENCY

BREWSTER’S MEGAPLEX/PIT/ROC BAR/THE EDGE, 845 University Blvd. N., 223-9850 Nigel Richards, Larry Banks, Kinesis, Rocks N Blunts, DJ Aware, DJ Zero 8 p.m. Dec. 31 MVP’S SPORTS GRILLE, 12777 Atlantic Blvd., 221-1090 Live music 9 p.m. every Fri.-Sat.

AVONDALE, ORTEGA

BLUE FISH, 3551 St. Johns Ave., 387-0700 Paul Haftel every other Fri. for Elevated Avondale CASBAH CAFE, 3628 St. Johns Ave., 981-9966 Goliath Flores every Wed. Live jazz every Sun. Live music every Mon. ECLIPSE, 4219 St. Johns Ave., 387-3582 DJ Keith Karaoke every Tue. DJ Free every Fri. DJ SuZi-Rok every Mon. MOJO NO. 4, 3572 St. Johns Ave., 381-6670 Live music Fri.-Sat. TOM & BETTY’S, 4409 Roosevelt Blvd., 387-3311 Live music every Fri. Karaoke every Sat.

BAYMEADOWS

COFFEE GRINDER, 9834 Old Baymeadows Road, 642-7600 DJ Jenn Martinello every Tue. DJ Allen every Thur. DJ Mark Mallory every Fri. DJ Smoke every Sat.

BEACHES

(All venues in Jax Beach unless otherwise noted) BILLY’S BOATHOUSE, 2321 Beach Blvd., 241-9771 Kurt Lanham Dec. 26. Billy Bowers Dec. 28. Live music Wed.-Sun. BRIX TAPHOUSE, 300 N. Second St., 241-4668 DJ R3IGN every Thur. Live music, DJs every weekend CULHANE’S IRISH PUB, 967 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 249-9595 Boogie Freaks Dec. 27. Spirit of St. Brigid Choir, Road Less Traveled Dec. 29. DJ Vito every Karaoke Thur.

Karaoke every Sat. Irish music every Sun. FLYING IGUANA, 207 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 853-5680 Tom Bennett 10 p.m. Dec. 27-28. Stephen Carey 8:30 p.m. Dec. 29. Red Beard & Stinky E 10 p.m. every Thur.

FLY’S TIE IRISH PUB, 177 E. Sailfish Drive, Atlantic Beach, 246-4293 The Firewater Tent Revival 10 p.m. Dec. 27-28.

Songwriters every Tue. Ryan Campbell every Wed. Wes Cobb every Thur. Charlie Walker 10:30 p.m. every Mon. FREEBIRD LIVE, 200 N. First St., 246-2473 Fusebox Funk, Parker Urban Band 8 p.m. Dec. 27. Canary in the Coalmine, This Frontier Needs Heroes, Pilotwave, Fjord Explorer 8 p.m. Dec. 28. Grandpa’s Cough Medicine, Mark Schimick, Corbitt Brothers Band 8 p.m. Dec. 31. Pranayam, Devil in the Oasis Jan. 3 ISLAND GIRL CIGAR BAR, 108 First St., Neptune Beach, 372-0943 Aaron Kyle Dec. 27. John Austill Dec. 28 KC CRAVE, 1161 Beach Blvd., 595-5660 Live music 9 p.m.

Thur.-Sat. LANDSHARK CAFE, 1728 Third St. N., 246-6024 The Firewater Tent Revival 7 p.m. Dec. 31. Open mic every Wed. Matt Still every Thur.

LYNCH’S IRISH PUB, 514 N. First St., 249-5181 Bread & Butter Dec. 27-28. Uncommon Legends every Wed. Ryan Campbell every Thur. Be Easy every Mon. Split Tone every Tue. MELLOW MUSHROOM, 1018 N. Third St., 246-1500 Firewater Tent Revival Dec. 26 & 31. Mark O’Quinn Dec. 28 MEZZA LUNA, 110 First St., Neptune Beach, 249-5573 Neil Dixon every Tue. Mike Shackelford & Rick Johnson every Thur.

5)634%": %&$ Smith and Dixon

'3*%": %&$ The Company

4"563%": %&$ The Company

Atlantic Blvd. at the Ocean "UMBOUJD #FBDI r

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 25

MOJO KITCHEN, 1500 Beach Blvd., 247-6636 Spade McQuade 10 p.m. Dec. 27 MONKEY’S UNCLE TAVERN, 1850 S. Third St., 246-1070 Wes Cobb every Tue. DJ Austin Williams Karaoke Wed., Sat. & Sun. DJ Papa Sugar every Mon., Thur. & Fri. NIPPERS BEACH GRILLE, 2309 Beach Blvd., 247-3300 Fat Cats Dec. 26. Kevin Ski Dec. 27. 7 Street Band Dec. 28. Donnie Miniard Dec. 29. Paul Lundgren Band Dec. 31 NORTH BEACH BISTRO, 725 Atlantic Blvd., Ste. 6, Atlantic Beach, 372-4105 Job Meiller 7 p.m. Dec. 26. Mickey Mouth 7:30 p.m. Dec. 27. Sidekick Dec. 28. DJ Chris L Dec. 31 OCEAN 60, 60 Ocean Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 247-0060 Erin & the Project 8 p.m. Dec. 27-28 PIER CANTINA, 412 N. First St., 246-6454 Ryan Campbell & Charlie Walker every Fri. Split Tone every Sun. RAGTIME TAVERN, 207 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 241-7877 Smith & Dixon Dec. 26. The Company Dec. 27-28 THE SHIM SHAM ROOM, 333 First St. N., 372-0781 Live acoustic 10 p.m. every Mon. Karaoke 10 p.m. every Tue.

DOWNTOWN

1904 MUSIC HALL, 19 Ocean St. N., 1904jax.com The Artist formerly known as The Fritz (Prince tribute), Chroma, S.P.O.R.E., The Politix 8 p.m. Dec. 31 BURRO BAR, 100 E. Adams St., 677-2977 Woven In 9 p.m.

Dec. 28. Ghost Police, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy Dec. 31 DOS GATOS, 123 E. Forsyth St., 354-0666 DJ NickFresh 9 p.m. every Sat. Rock ’n’ Roll Karaoke 9 p.m. every Mon. FIONN MacCOOL’S, Jax Landing, 2 Independent Drive, Ste. 176, 374-1247 Braxton Adamson 5 p.m., Bryan Ripper 8:30 p.m. Dec. 27. Chris C4Mann 8:30 p.m. Dec. 28. Beau Knott & the Burners Dec. 30. Something Distant 9 p.m. Dec. 31 JACKSONVILLE LANDING, 2 Independent Drive, 353-1188 Cupid’s Alley 8 p.m. Dec. 27. Spanky 9 p.m. Dec. 28. Steve & Ken 4 p.m. Dec. 29. Boogie Freaks 9 p.m. Dec. 30. Radio 80 6-10 p.m., Sun Jammer 10:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Dec. 31 MARK’S DOWNTOWN, 315 E. Bay St., 355-5099 DJ Roy Luis 9 p.m. every Wed. DJ Vinn 9 p.m. every Thur. DJ 007 9 p.m. every Fri. Bay Street 9 p.m. every Sat. MAVERICKS, The Landing, 2 Independent Drive, 356-1110 Michael Ray, Clemons Road 6 p.m. Dec. 27. Smokin Aces 6 p.m. Dec. 31. Joe Buck, Big Tasty spin every Thur.-Sat. SHANTYTOWN PUB, 22 W. Sixth St., 798-8222 Andy Jacobs, Pamela Affronti, Jacob Hudson Dec. 29. Post-Junk Festival: Garrett Walters, Mitch the Champ, Robbie Freeman, Dylan Tietze, Alex Dougherty 8 p.m. Dec. 31 UNDERBELLY, 113 E. Bay St., 353-6067 Thomas Wynn & the Believers, The Woodgrains 9 p.m. Dec. 28. Antique Animals, Universal Green, The Groove Coalition 8 p.m. Dec. 31

FLEMING ISLAND

MELLOW MUSHROOM, 1800 Town Center Blvd., 541-1999 DJ BG 10 p.m. Dec. 26. 7 Street Band 10 p.m. Dec. 27 MERCURY MOON, 2015 C.R. 220, 215-8999 Chilly Rhino

10 p.m. Dec. 27-28, 8 p.m. Dec. 31. DJ Ty every Thur. Blistur every Wed. WHITEY’S FISH CAMP, 2032 C.R. 220, 269-4198 Lift 9:30 p.m.

Dec. 26-27. Deck music 5 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 4:30 p.m. every Sun.

INTRACOASTAL WEST

CLIFF’S BAR & GRILL, 3033 Monument Road, 645-5162 The Remains 9 p.m. Dec. 31. Live music every Fri.-Sat. COPPER TAP HOUSE, 13500 Beach Blvd., 647-6595 Live music every Fri. JERRY’S SPORTS GRILLE, 13170 Atlantic Blvd., 220-6766 Karaoke Dude every Wed. Live music every Fri.-Sat. SALSA’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 13500 Beach Blvd., Ste. 46, 992-8402 Live guitar music 6-9 p.m. every Tue. & Sat.

MANDARIN, JULINGTON

AW SHUCKS OYSTER HOUSE, 9743 Old St. Augustine Road, 240-0368 Open mic every Wed. Live music 7 p.m. every Fri. HARMONIOUS MONKS, 10550 Old St. Augustine Road, 880-3040 Jazz 7 p.m., Karaoke 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Mon.-Thur.

Dennis Klee & the World’s Most Talented Waitstaff Fri.-Sat. RACK ’EM UP, 4268 Oldfield Crossing Drive, 262-4030 DJ Randall Karaoke Sun., Wed.

ORANGE PARK, MIDDLEBURG

THE HILLTOP, 2030 Wells Road, 272-5959 John Michael every Wed.-Sat. PREVATT’S SPORTS BAR, 2620 Blanding Blvd., 282-1564 Lucid 9 p.m. Dec. 27. Karaoke with Tammy every Wed. THE ROADHOUSE, 231 Blanding Blvd., 264-0611 Blistur 10 p.m. Dec. 27-28. Live music 9 p.m. every Thur.-Sat.

PALATKA

DOWNTOWN BLUES BAR & GRILLE, 714 St. Johns Ave., 386-325-5454 Lee Kelly Dec. 25. Middleground Dec. 28

PONTE VEDRA, PALM VALLEY

ISLAND GIRL CIGAR BAR, 820 A1A N., Ste. E-18, 834-2492 Lance Neely Dec. 27. Paxton Stark Dec. 28 PUSSER’S GRILLE, 816 A1A N., 280-7766 Aaron Koerner 7 p.m. Dec. 27. Live music every Fri.-Sat. SoundStage Sun. SAUCY TACO, 450 S.R. 13, Ste. 113, 287-7226 Live music Thur.-Sat. TABLE 1, 330 A1A N., Ste. 208, 280-5515 Gary Starling Jazz Band 7:30 p.m. Dec. 26. Brady 7:30 p.m. Dec. 27.

WillowWacks Dec. 28

RIVERSIDE, WESTSIDE

KICKBACKS, 910 King St., 388-9551 Ray & Taylor 8:30 p.m. every Thur. Robby Shenk every Sun. THE LOFT, 925 King St., 476-7283 DJs Wes Reed & Josh Kemp every Thur. Josh Kemp every Fri. DJ Wes Reed every Sat. MURRAY HILL THEATRE, 932 Edgewood Ave. S., 388-7807 Nobody on Land, Greenbeaux, Artilect, Helios Hand Dec. 28.

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MORE LIVE MUSIC

Find more live music events and submit yours at folioweekly.com/calendar.

ST. AUGUSTINE

ANN O’MALLEY’S, 23 Orange St., 825-4040 Strumstick Dec. 27. Tony Paul Neil Dec. 28. Scuttered the Bruce Dec. 31 CELLAR UPSTAIRS, San Sebastian Winery, 157 King St., 826-1594 Mojo Roux Dec. 27-28. Vinny Jacobs Dec. 29 DOS COFFEE, 300 San Marco Ave., 342-2421 Taylor Roberts & Co. every Fri. The Residents spin every Sat. MILL TOP TAVERN & LISTENING ROOM, 19 1/2 St. George St., 829-2329 Todd & Molly Jones every Wed. Aaron Esposito every Thur. David Strom every Mon. Donny Brazile Tue. MOJO OLD CITY BBQ, 5 Cordova St., 342-5264 Live music every Fri. PIZZALLEY’S CHIANTI ROOM, 60 Charlotte St., 825-4100 Dennis Fermin Spanish Guitar 3 p.m. every Mon. SANGRIAS PIANO BAR, 35 Hypolita St., 827-1947 Mitch Kuhman 6-10 p.m. Dec. 26. Live music every Fri.-Sat. SCARLETT O’HARA’S, 70 Hypolita St., 824-6535 One Hit Wonder Dec. 27 & 31. Amy Vickery, Stu Weaver Dec. 28.

THE STANDARD, 200 Anastasia Blvd., 274-2090 DJs Natural & Hu 9 p.m. Dec. 31 TRADEWINDS, 124 Charlotte St., 829-9336 Red River Band 9 p.m. Dec. 27-28. Matanzas Sun.-Thur. Elizabeth Roth every Sat.

ST. JOHNS TOWN CENTER

BLACKFINN GRILLE, 4840 Big Island Drive, 345-3466 Live music 5 p.m. every Wed., 9 p.m. every Thur.-Sat. SUITE, 4880 Big Island Drive, 493-9305 Live music every Fri.-Sat. WHISKY RIVER, 4850 Big Island Drive, 645-5571 DJs 8 p.m. every Sat.

SAN MARCO, SOUTHBANK

JACK RABBITS, 1528 Hendricks Ave., 398-7496 Nocturnal State of Mind, Reach for the Sky, Finding Every Altar Ruined, Knock for Six 8 p.m. Dec. 25. Fit For Rivals, The Embraced, Ryan Raw 8 p.m. Dec. 26. Northe, Mine All Mine, Texas Ranger, A Way Without 8 p.m. Dec. 27. Flagship Romance, Oscar Mike, Leah Sykes, WillowWacks 8 p.m. Dec. 28. Bryce Alastair Band, Sunspots 8 p.m. Dec. 29. Askmeificare, Big Boi Moneymakers, Denver, YT, Forest Peyton 8 p.m. Dec. 30 MUDVILLE MUSIC ROOM, 3104 Atlantic Blvd., 352-7008 Tommy Talton 7:30 p.m. Dec. 28. Grant Peeples, Sarah Mac, Rebecca Zapen 7:30 p.m. Jan. 2 THE PARLOUR, 2000 San Marco Blvd., 396-4455 The Snacks Blues Band 8 p.m. Dec. 27 RIVER CITY BREWING CO., 835 Museum Cir., 398-2299 DJs spin every Thur. Live music every Fri.

SOUTHSIDE

AROMAS CIGARS & WINE BAR, 4372 Southside Blvd., Ste. 101, 928-0515 Will Hurley every Fri. Bill Rice every Sat. ISLAND GIRL, 7860 Gate Pkwy., Ste. 115, 854-6060 Bill Rice Dec. 27. Billy Buchanan Dec. 28. Live music Fri.-Sat. JOHNNY ANGELS, 3546 St. Johns Bluff Road S., 997-9850 Karaoke 7 p.m. every Sat. LATITUDE 30, 10370 Philips, 365-5555 VJ Didactic 9 p.m.

Dec. 26. Dance Express 9 p.m. Dec. 27-28 SEVEN BRIDGES, 9735 Gate Parkway N., 997-1999 Live music Fri.-Sat. TAVERNA YAMAS, 9753 Deer Lake Ct., 854-0426 DJ Night 8 p.m. every Fri.-Sat. WILD WING CAFE, 4555 Southside Blvd., 998-9464 David Luthra 5 p.m. Dec. 27. Pop Muzik Wed.

SPRINGFIELD, NORTHSIDE

DAMES POINT MARINA, 4542 Irving Road, 751-3043 Mr. Natural Dec. 28-29. Black Creek Riz’in Dec. 31 HIGHWAY 17 ROADHOUSE TAVERN, 850532 U.S. 17, Yulee, 225-9211 Live music Fri.-Sat. SKYLINE SPORTS BAR, 5611 Norwood Ave., 517-6973 The Fusion Band 8 p.m. Dec. 26 For a complete live music list, go to folioweekly.com/calendar. For details on how to submit your event, go to folioweekly.com/eventhowto.html.

Folio Weekly does not accept emails for events to appear in print listings.

Deadline for print is 4 p.m. Monday, 10 days before the issue. Due to space constraints, not all submissions appear in print.

26 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

The EYE

1

2

4

3

Until Next Time S 5

ome 10,000 happy people enjoyed the final Riverside Arts Market of 2013 on Dec. 21.

The shorts-and-sandals weather meant perusers got to spend the morning with their dogs (and pigs!), kids and each other under the Fuller Warren Bridge. A scaled-down version of the bazaar, called Winter RAM, runs Jan. 4-Feb. 22; the full-sized RAM resumes March 1.

Text and Photos: Dennis Ho 1. Brad Knickel (from left), Tylar Salem, Kevin Bacon (that’s the pig), Corkie, Stewie 2. Chelsea Duga, Winston, Jeff Owejan 3. Sally Keiser 4. Omi Ortiz, Lily 5. Larry Eisenberg 6. Matt Miller, Titus

6

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THE EYE ONLINE For more photos from this and other events, check out the Pictures & Video link at folioweekly.com.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 27

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“Caryatid”(left), a 41-inch white Alabama marble on a red granite base, and “Puella”, a 43-1/2-inch pink striated Georgia marble on a variegated base, are featured in “The Human Figure: Sculptures by Enzo Torcoletti,” the inaugural exhibit in the Sculpture Garden at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.

Chiseled from the Gods

Retired Flagler College professor’s sculptures inspired by human form, religion and mythology THE HUMAN FIGURE: SCULPTURES

BY ENZO TORCOLETTI

© 2013

Displayed through September Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, 829 Riverside Ave., 356-6857, cummer.org

MYTHOS: FROM CONCEPT TO CREATION Displayed through Jan. 19 UNF Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, 333 N. Laura St., Downtown 366-6911, mocajacksonville.com

S

©

28 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

culptor Enzo Torcoletti’s perspective and skill are inspirations for both artists and art lovers alike.

Amara McMann, coordinator of University of North Florida Art Galleries, says Torcoletti can thrive with very little. She believes this is a valuable lesson for her students.

Torcoletti says he creates because it’s what he loves and stops when it’s no longer fun.

“It is like breathing,” Torcoletti says. “You do it because it is necessary to stay alive as an individual or an artist. You do it for yourself.”

2013 His love of art began early. He attended art school in Italy before moving to Canada, where he learned English and majored in English literature and fine arts at University of Windsor in Ontario. After meeting art students there, he began to study stone carving, a practice which became a fascination.

He later earned a masters in fine arts at Florida State University, then moved to St. Augustine to teach at Flagler College. His plan was to stay a couple of years and move back up north, but he’s never left.

“Over time, I spent more time here than anywhere else in my life,” Torcoletti says.

He hasn’t slowed down since he retired from teaching. Inspired by history and mythology, Torcoletti creates sculptures inspired by God and Icarus. Other fragment pieces are abstract depictions of the human form, many of which feature the torso.

Torcoletti has worked on commission pieces, creating or restoring sculptures in Florida and in Europe. In 2011, he joined

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FIND YOUR MARBLES See more photos of Enzo Torcoletti’s work at folioweekly.com/arts-stories.

Northeast Florida sculptor Joe Segal, a former student, to restore the twin marble lion statues at the foot of the Bridge of Lions.

Torcoletti also designed the La Florida sculpture, the award given to inductees into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Torcoletti’s appreciation for natural materials is evident. He works primarily with stone for most of his pieces. He has his own home foundry for casting bronze, creating sculptures there and using simple tools when possible: chisels, hammers and mallets. For larger tasks, he uses pneumatic chisels and diamond blades.

His home, much like his life, centers on his love of art. Torcoletti and his wife, Gayle Prevatt, share a love of art and creativity.

Prevatt is a potter, painter and jewelry maker.

On their St. Augustine property, there’s one building for honeybees and honey extraction and another for pottery, in addition to the foundry. There are several citrus trees in the yard and even a chicken coop.

Torcoletti now has works on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens and Southlight Gallery.

“Mythos: From Concept to Creation,” featured in MOCA’s UNF Gallery through January, includes both Torcoletti’s sculptures and the sketches that inspired them. Torcoletti often sketches out his pieces before he begins an actual sculpture.

Some of Torcoletti’s works, with the theme of the human form, are featured in the Cummer’s new sculpture garden; 11 pieces are displayed in the Cummer, including two in the permanent collection.

“His pieces push the idea of the human form a little farther into abstraction,” Cummer Museum Chief Curator Holly Keris says.

Amanda Long themail@folioweekly.com

Arts PERFORMANCE

THE GAME’S AFOOT The comedic mystery, subtitled “Holmes for the Holidays,” is staged 7:30 p.m. Dec. 26-28, Jan. 2-4; 2 p.m. Dec. 29, Jan. 5 at Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Ave., St. Augustine, $10-$25, 825-1164, limelight-theatre.org.

SPOKEN WORD Local poets and wordsmiths sound off 7 p.m. Jan. 2 at The Ritz Theatre & Museum, 829 N. Davis St., Downtown, 632-5555, ritzjacksonville.com.

AMATEUR NIGHT AT THE RITZ Modeled after Harlem’s “Amateur Night at the Apollo,” the host searches are held Jan. 3 and every first Friday of the month at The Ritz Theatre & Museum, 829 N. Davis St., Downtown, $5.50.

632-5555.

WALKING IN MEMPHIS “Walking in Memphis: The Life of a Southern Jew,” featuring Off-Broadway performer Jon Adam Ross, weaves through the artist’s Jewish childhood in Memphis, 8 p.m. Jan. 11 at Jacksonville Jewish Center, 3662 Crown Point Road, Mandarin, $20, 292-1000, rtincher@jaxjewishcenter.org.

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES The country-fried musical, set on North Carolina’s Highway 57, is staged Dec. 28-Feb. 2 (doors 6 p.m. Tue.-Sun., 11 a.m. and noon Sat.-Sun.) at Alhambra Theatre & Dining, 12000 Beach Blvd., Southside; dinner and a show is $38-$59 (includes parking), with a special New Year’s Eve Party show, $125, reservations required, 641-1212, alhambrajax.com.

PHILADANCO DANCE COMPANY The dance company – known for innovation, creativity and mostly AfricanAmerican traditions in dance – performs 7:30 p.m. Jan. 4 at Flagler College’s Lewis Auditorium, 14 Granada St., St. Augustine, $35, 797-2800, emmaconcerts.com.

CALLS & WORKSHOPS

A CELEBRATION OF CULTURES The Art Center accepts art in all media “celebrating our differences as well as common interests” that help unite and educate, through Jan. 1 at Premier Gallery. The exhibit opens with a reception 5-7 p.m.

Jan. 2 at the gallery, Bank of America Tower, 50 N. Laura St., Downtown, 355-1757, tacjacksonville.org/premier.html.

THEATRE OF YOUTH AUDITIONS The Jewish Community Alliance’s Theatre of Youth holds open auditions for its upcoming production of “Annie,” 1 p.m. Jan. 5 at JCA 8505 San Jose Blvd., Mandarin, 730-2100 ext. 252.

TEEN ART CONTEST Kids ages 12-18 may submit a maximum of up to three entries for the Public Library’s Teen Art Contest – including photography, mixed media and sculpture – through Jan. 15 at any library. 630-0673, jaxpubliclibrary.org/teens/teen-art-contest2014.pdf.

CLASSICAL & JAZZ

KENNY SEABROOK Jazz/blues vocalist appears at 8 p.m. Dec. 28 at Jazzland Café, 1324 University Blvd. N., Arlington, $10, 240-1009, jazzlandcafe.com.

FRIDAY MUSICALE CONCERT Pianist Andrew Callahan, violinist Likai He, oboist Mitchell Kuhn and flutist Allison Watkins perform the Scholarship Laureates concert at 3 p.m. Dec. 29 at Friday Musicale Auditorium, 645 Oak St., Riverside, free, 355-7584, fridaymusicale.com.

TOAST! TO THE NEW YEAR! The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra rings in the New Year with tenor Mike Eldred, followed by live music and dancing, 8:30 p.m. Dec. 31 at the T-U Center’s Jacoby Symphony Hall, 300 W. Water St., Downtown, $75-$150, 354-5547, jaxsymphony.org.

ST. JOHN’S CATHEDRAL CHOIR CAROLS Tim Tuller directs the choir in “Nine Lessons and Carols,” 5 p.m. on Dec. 31 at St. John’s Cathedral, 256 E. Church St., Riverside; the congregation may sing as well. A nursery is provided; free, 356-5507.

NEW YEAR’S EVE GALA A free buffet and midnight champagne are offered 10 p.m. on Dec. 31 at Jazzland Café, 1324 University Blvd. N., Arlington, $35, 240-1009, jazzlandcafe.com.

ART WALKS, FESTIVALS & MARKETS

DOWNTOWN FRIDAY MARKET Arts and crafts and local produce are offered 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Dec. 27 and every Fri. at The Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Drive, Downtown, 353-1188.

UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT The self-guided tour features galleries, antique stores and shops open 5-9 p.m. Dec. 28 and every last Sat. in St. Augustine’s San Marco District, 824-3152.

OLD TOWN ART SHOW The winter show, sponsored by Folio Weekly, includes a juried art and fine arts and craft show, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 28-29 at Francis Field in St. Augustine, oldtownartshow.com.

NORTHSIDE LOVE ARTS & VENDORS MARKET The market, “Lifting Our Various Enterprises,” includes entertainment, kids’ activities, arts, produce market, food trucks, 2 p.m. Dec. 29 and every last Sun. at Lonnie

THE COLORS: Jack Allen’s “In Bloom Cabana Stripes” is displayed, along with the works of 25 local artists and guest artist Hillary Hogue, at Southlight Gallery in Downtown Jacksonville. The UNF Faculty Show runs through December.

Miller Park, 5054 Soutel Drive, Northside, 755-5281, northsidelove.com.

FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK The tour of Art Galleries of St. Augustine is held Jan. 3 and every first Fri., with more than 15 galleries participating, 829-0065.

COMMUNITY FIRST SATURDAY Art in the Park, free art classes in Hogan Street Gazebo, family activities, food trucks on Pearl Street, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Jan. 4 Northbank Riverwalk, free, communityfirstsaturdays.com.

MUSEUMS

CUMMER MUSEUM OF ART & GARDENS 829 Riverside Ave., Riverside, 356-6857, cummer.org. “The Art of Empathy,” an exhibit showcasing a permanent collection masterwork, “Mother of Sorrows,” one of five known works by the Master of the Stötteritz Altar, is displayed through Feb. 16. The artistic and devotional contexts of painting are explored through 21 works, 19 of which are borrowed from collections in the United States and Germany. “Modern Dialect: American Paintings from the John and Susan Horseman Collection” continues through Jan. 5. Florida State University Professor William Walmsley displays his work through July 8. “The Human Figure: Sculptures by Enzo Torcoletti” is on display through September.

KARPELES MANUSCRIPT MUSEUM 101 W. First St., Springfield, 356-2992, rain.org/~karpeles/jaxfrm.html.

“Works of Yard and the Art of Lawn” continues through Dec. 31. “Russia,” a history of Russia from Peter the Great to the first conquest of space, is on display through Dec. 28. The permanent collection includes other rare manuscripts.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART JACKSONVILLE 333 N. Laura St., Downtown, 366-6911, mocajacksonville. com. Ingrid Calame’s exhibit “Tarred Over Cracks” continues through March 9 as part of Project Atrium in Haskell Atrium Gallery. The first exhibit to encompass the entirety of Michael Goldberg’s work, “Abstraction Over Time,” reappraises his contribution to postwar painting and presents a case study of the transformations of abstraction in American art, through Jan. 5. “Mythos: From Concept to Creation” – sculptural works by Enzo Torcoletti, reflecting a symbolic diversity of the human form – are displayed through Jan. 19 in the UNF Gallery MOCA. The exhibit “Material Transformations,” in which seven artists uncover symbolism through unconventional substances, opens with a preview reception 6-7 p.m. Jan. 24 for museum patrons; 7-9 p.m. for members ($10 suggested donation for guests).

The exhibit runs Jan. 25-April 6.

MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & HISTORY 1025 Museum Circle, Southbank, 396-6674, themosh.org. “Great Balls of Fire:

Comets, Asteroids and Meteors,” developed by The Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning, examines risk related to an asteroid hitting Earth and what scientists can learn from the objects; through Dec. 31.

“Uncovering the Past: Archaeological Discoveries of North Florida” is on display through August.

RITZ THEATRE & MUSEUM 829 N. Davis St., Downtown, 632-5555, ritzjacksonville.com. The exhibit “Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner, Connecting Communities Through Language” continues through Dec. 31.

GALLERIES

ABSOLUTE AMERICANA ART GALLERY 77 Bridge St., St. Augustine, 824-5545, absoluteamericana.com. Romero Britto’s sculptures and limited-edition prints are featured.

AMIRO ART & FOUND GALLERY 9C Aviles St., St. Augustine, 824-8460, amiroartandfound.com.

“Alexander Wilds Portfolio: Sculpture, Drawings, Painting” opens with a reception during First Friday Art Walk, 5-9 p.m.

Jan. 3. The exhibit is on display through January.

THE ART CENTER PREMIER GALLERY Bank of America Tower, 50 N. Laura St., Ste. 150, Downtown, 355-1757, tacjacksonville.org/premier.html. “Our Feminine Side,” a multimedia exhibit of works representing the female form, women’s issues, politics and the stages of womanhood, is on display through December. The exhibit is a joint presentation with the Women’s Center of Jacksonville.

AVONDALE ARTWORKS 3562 St. Johns Ave., Avondale, 384-8797, avondaleartworks.com. “Hats Off to Dr. Seuss!”

– an exhibit of the author’s hat collection alongside a series of estate-authorized works from Ted Geisel’s original drawings, paintings and sculpture – is on display through Jan. 5.

CoRK ARTS DISTRICT 2689 Rosselle St., Riverside, 707-0030, corkartsdistrict.tumblr.com. Thony Aiuppy’s “The Darkness Beyond Tomorrow,” an exhibit on the subject matter of portraiture and the fi gure, opens with a reception 6-8:30 p.m. Dec. 27 in CoRK’s North Gallery.

The exhibit may be viewed by appointment through Jan. 2.

THE CULTURAL CENTER AT PONTE VEDRA BEACH 50 Executive Way, Ponte Vedra, 280-0614, ccpvb.org.

Handmade art by more than 30 artists is displayed through Dec. 28.

CYPRESS VILLAGE 4600 Middleton Park Center W., Egret Hall, Intracoastal West, 360-3923. “Winter Joy,” an exhibit of sketches and paintings by Cypress Village resident artists, is displayed through Jan. 9.

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MORE ARTS Find more arts events and submit your own at folioweekly.com/calendar.

FIRST STREET GALLERY 216-B First St., Neptune Beach, 241-6928, firststreetgalleryart.com. Pastel artist Richard Lundgren’s “Coastal North Florida” is displayed through Jan. 3.

FLORIDA MINING GALLERY 5300 Shad Road, Southside, 425-2845, floridamininggallery.com. David De Boer’s “Significant Work,” an exhibit co-curated by Nullspace and Staci Bu Shea, features installations, video and stills. The exhibit is on display through January.

GALLERY725 725 Atlantic Blvd., Ste. 5, Atlantic Beach, 345-9320, gallery725.com. “Wonderland,” an exhibit of multimedia work by artists Tonsenia Yonn, Linda Olsen, Matthew Winghart, Flew, Ken Daga, Kelly Meagher and Shayna Raymond, is displayed through Jan. 20.

HASKELL GALLERY & DISPLAY CASES Jacksonville International Airport, 14201 Pecan Park Road, Northside, 741-3546. Works by Diane Fraser and Mary Atwood (Haskell Gallery), Jim Smith (Connector Bridge Art display case before security) and Chris Moore (Concourse A and C display cases past security) are on display through December.

ST. AUGUSTINE ART ASSOCIATION 22 Marine St., St. Augustine, 824-2310, staaa.org. Woodworker Leonard Ruel’s miniature village of historic St. Augustine buildings is displayed through Dec. 29; 39 replicas include Cathedral Basilica, Villa Zorayda, Government House and Pena Peck House.

SPACE:EIGHT GALLERY 228 W. King St., St. Augustine, 829-2838, spaceeight.com. “Playbook,” an exhibit of works fueled by desires, hunger and thirst, by Georgia artist George Long and Brooklyn’s Mario Schambon, runs through January.

VANDROFF GALLERY Jewish Community Alliance, 8505 San Jose Blvd., Mandarin, jcajax.org. “Point of View,” a juried exhibit of contemporary fiber art presented by Fiber Artists Network, runs through Jan. 8. Nofa Dixon, University of North Florida associate professor of drawing, painting and design, selects the winners.

For a complete list of art events, go to folioweekly.com/ calendar. For instructions on how to submit your event, go to folioweekly.com/eventhowto.html. Folio Weekly doesn't accept emails for events to appear in print listings. The deadline to submit for print publication is 4 p.m. Mon., 10 days before publication. Due to space constraints, not all events will appear in print.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 29

Happenings EVENTS

GATOR BOWL WEEKEND The annual celebration features pep rallies with marching bands and cheerleaders, a 5K run, a parade and fireworks as well as the football game with the University of Georgia Bulldogs up against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers at noon Jan. 1. The game is run live on The Jacksonville Landing's Jumbotron, 2 Independent Drive, Downtown, jacksonvillelanding.com.

FLAGLER HISTORIC TOURS Tours of the Markland House are offered 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Dec. 28 at 102 King St., St. Augustine. Visitors may glimpse some of the original grandeur of this historic home and learn background on the residence and its importance to St. Augustine's rich history. Admission is $12; reservations are required, 823-3378, legacy.flagler.edu.

SS AMELIA GINGERBREAD PIRATE SHIP The 17-foot-long, 12-foot-tall ship is displayed through Dec. 28 at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, 4750 Amelia Island Parkway, 277-1100.

VILLA ZORAYDA CANDLELIGHT TOURS The fourth annual event features a courtyard Christmas tree, nativity scene and guided candlelit tours of the historic villa, 6:30 p.m. Dec. 27, 28 and 30, at 83 King St., St. Augustine; tickets are $17; $8 for ages 7-12, 829-9887, villazorayda.com.

COSMIC CONCERTS Laser Holiday 7-8 p.m., Laser Spirit 8 p.m., Laser Magic 9 p.m., Laser Country 10 p.m. Dec. 27; online tickets $5, Bryan Gooding Planetarium, Museum of Science & History, 1025 Museum Circle, Southbank, 396-7062, moshplanetarium.org.

NIGHTS OF LIGHTS St. Augustine’s historic district presents its 19th annual holiday event nightly, 6:30 p.m. through January at Plaza de la Constitución, downtown historic district, 825-1004.

AMELIA FARMERS MARKET Farm-direct fruit and vegetables, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. every Sat. at Shops of Omni Amelia Island Plantation, Amelia Island, 491-4872, ameliafarmersmarket.com.

BOOKS & LIBRARIES

BRENTWOOD BOOK SALE The Friends of the Brentwood Library seeks new members; join for $5. Shop for books 10 a.m.-noon and 3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. every Tue. and Thur. at Brentwood Branch Library, 3725 Pearl St., Downtown, 630-0924, jpl.coj.net.

FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY BOOKSTORE Hard-back, soft-cover, audio and kids’ books are offered 9 a.m.-noon Tue., Thur. and Sat. at University Park Branch Library, 3435 University Blvd. N., Arlington, 630-2304, fjpl.org.

KIDS READING CLUB Readers read popular favorites to kids 6 months-8 years, 4 p.m. every Wed. (except First Wednesday Art Walk) at Chamblin Bookmine, 215 N. Laura St., Downtown, free, chamblinbookmine.com.

COMEDY

MARK KLEIN Klein appears 8:04 p.m. Dec. 26, 7 and 8:34 p.m. Dec. 27 and 8:04 and 10:10 p.m. Dec. 28. A-Train, Johnny Mac and PJ Walsh appear 8 p.m. Dec. 31. Dinner and a Champagne toast are included in the $40 admission at The Comedy Club of Jacksonville, 11000 Beach Blvd., Ste. 8, Southside, 646-4277, jacksonvillecomedy.com.

TIM STATUM Statum appears 8 p.m. Dec. 26-27 and 8 and 10 p.m.

Dec. 28 at The Comedy Zone, 3130 Hartley Road, Mandarin, $8, $10 and $12, 292-4242, comedyzone.com.

THE COMEDY ZONE NEW YEAR'S EVE The Mandarin Dinner & Show Celebration is 6:30 p.m. in Gigi’s Restaurant next door. Tickets are $65 and include AYCE prime rib and crab leg buffet, Tim Statum and Karen Mills' comedy show at 8 p.m., dancing with DJs, party favors and a midnight champagne toast. The Continental Dinner & Show is held 8 p.m. at Gigi’s; tickets are $65 and include AYCE prime rib and crab leg buffet, Statum and Mills' show at 9:30 p.m., dancing, party favors and the champagne toast. The Blast Off Party is held at 9 p.m.; tickets are $35 and include the show, dancing, party favors and the champagne toast. The Comedy Zone, 3130 Hartley Road, Mandarin, 292-4242, comedyzone.com.

NATURE, SPORTS & OUTDOORS

FAMILY SEINING ACTIVITY Pull a seine net through Guana Lake, collecting fish, crabs and more, and learn about the animals’ roles in the habitat, 8:30-10:30 a.m. Dec. 28 and every fourth Sat. at

30 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

GTM Research Reserve Environmental Education Center, 505 Guana River Rd., Ponte Vedra, free with paid entrance, 823-4500, gtmnerr.org.

FAMILY & FRIENDS KAYAK DAY Ripple Effect Ecotours offers guided kayak tours, noon2:30 p.m. Dec. 28 at Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Reserve. For fees and other details, call 347-1565 or go to rippleeffectecotours.com.

ADVENTURES IN THE ESTUARY MINI CAMP The camp, featuring beach exploration, marine debris clean-up, shell ornament craft, trail hike and palm frond door hanger, for kids ages 7-10, is held 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Dec. 30 at GTM Research Reserve, 505 Guana River Road, Ponte Vedra, 823-4500, gtmnerr.org.

TALBOT FIRE: FREIND OR FOE? A park ranger discusses how fi re impacts the local environment, 2 p.m. Dec. 28 at Ribault Club, Fort George Island Cultural State Park, 11241 Fort George Road; free; 251-2320, floridastateparks.org/littletalbotislands.

FIRST DAY HIKES The Florida Park Service offers a free, guided hike along the Dune Ridge Trail 10 a.m.-noon Jan. 1 at Little Talbot Island State Park, 12157 Heckscher Drive, Jacksonville.

Meet at Pavilion One. Water, snacks, insect repellant, layered clothing and a camera are recommended.

251-2320, floridastateparks.org/littletalbotislands.

CLASSES & GROUPS

MARINE VETERANS GROUP The Oldest City Detachment 383 gathers 7 p.m. on first Tue. of the month at Elks Lodge 829, 1420 A1A S., St. Augustine, 461-0139, mclfl383.org.

DEPRESSION, BIPOLAR SUPPORT ALLIANCE This group meets 6 p.m. every Tue. at Baptist Medical Center, 800 Prudential Drive, Pavilion Building, Southbank; free; 322-4040 or 294-5720.

PRACTICE WORLD PEACE Brenda Star Walker leads a group from 11 a.m.-noon every first Sun. at Memorial Park, 1620 Riverside Ave., Riverside. Bring a ground cover. Practice suitable for all ages and abilities.

MEMORY ENHANCEMENT Volunteers are needed in the new Memory Enhancement class to assist with class activities, make coffee and serve lunch 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tue. and Thur. at Fruit Cove Baptist Church, 501 S.R. 13, St. Johns, 209-3686, stjohnscoa.com.

YOUNG SURVIVORS Young Survivors Group (those diagnosed with cancer at a young age) meets 7-8:30 p.m. on the first and third Mon. each month at the Women’s Center of Jacksonville, 5644 Colcord Ave., Jacksonville, 722-3000 ext. 224 or email mail@womenscenterofjax.org.

FREE YOGA ON THE RIVER Karen Roumillat, RYT, teaches free gentle yoga 9 a.m. on the fourth Sun. of the month on the boardwalk, weather permitting, at Walter Jones Historical Park, 11964 Mandarin Road, Mandarin. Bring a mat. 287-0452.

DEBTORS ANONYMOUS Debtors Anonymous 12-Step meetings 7 p.m. every Thur. at Christian Family Chapel, Bldg. D, 10365 Old St. Augustine Rd., Jacksonville, 269-8010.

NAMI SUPPORT GROUP National Alliance on Mental Illness meets 7-8:30 p.m. every first and third Thur. each month at Ortega United Methodist Church, 4807 Roosevelt Blvd., Westside.

Admission is free. 389-5556, ortegaumc.org.

NICOTINE ANONYMOUS Want to quit smoking or using other forms of nicotine?

Nic-A is free, and you don’t have to quit to attend the meetings, held 6:30 p.m. every Wed. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1415 S. McDuff Ave., Westside, 404-6044, nicotineanonymous.org.

NAMI SUPPORT GROUP National Alliance on Mental Illness meets 7-8:30 p.m. every first and third Thur. each month at Ortega United Methodist Church, 4807 Roosevelt Blvd., Westside.

Admission is free. 389-5556. ortegaumc.org

UPCOMING EVENTS

JEFF DUNHAM Jan. 24, Veterans Memorial Arena LILY TOMLIN Feb. 6, The Florida Theatre AMY SCHUMER Feb. 22, The Florida Theatre HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS Feb. 28, Veterans Memorial Arena

For a list of happenings, go to folioweekly.com/calendar.

For details on how to submit yours, go to folioweekly.com/ eventhowto.html. The deadline for print publication is 4 p.m. Mon., 10 days before issue. Due to space constraints, not all events will appear in print.

Bite

Sized

© 2013

LOADED: The blackened scallop basket comes with crisp crinkle-cut fries, two hushpuppies and coleslaw.

Photo: Caron Streibich

Half-Shell Games

Mayport’s Safe Harbor may be your perfect lunch spot.

(Lose the Jimmy Buffett, please.)

SAFE HARBOR SEAFOOD MARKET & RESTAURANT 4379 Ocean St., Ste. 3, Mayport 246-4911

O

ff the beaten path in Mayport Village lies a hidden gem with remarkably fresh seafood, reasonable prices, outdoor seating and speedy, friendly service.

Upon arriving, we found a sprawling counter with fresh fish and seafood galore.

Looking to our left, we saw an oversized menu hanging above a smaller counter.

We ordered, then took our number and headed outside to a spacious covered deck overlooking the river. A nice breeze wafted through the air as we sat down to the sounds of Jimmy Buffett and seagulls cheerfully gawking in the near distance. Our lunch arrived minutes later.

I was impressed that, for $5.99, I could get a dozen steamed oysters with cocktail sauce, melted butter and a lemon wedge. After devouring all 12, I dug into my blackened scallop basket ($10.99), overflowing with crisp crinkle-cut French fries, a cup of coleslaw and two hushpuppies. Believe me when I say that these were some of the freshest, most perfectly cooked scallops — my plastic fork cut right through them! — I’ve eaten in a while. And the slightly sweet hushpuppies had nice crunchy exteriors and warm, moist centers, and were accompanied by a mild Thai chili dipping sauce. The coleslaw deserves praise, too, as it was lightly dressed instead of being slathered in mayo like at some restaurants.

If fries and coleslaw aren’t your thing, there are other side items for $2.99, including

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FROM UNDER THE SEA See more dishes from Safe Harbor at folioweekly.com/bite-sized.

fried okra and buttermilk ranch, a twicebaked potato, bacon black-eyed peas and green bean medley.

It was my first visit, so I was interested in exploring the menu further. The shrimp po’boy ($10.99) — available with grilled, blackened or fried shrimp — looked tempting. A soft, oversized hoagie roll was stuffed with shredded romaine, juicy tomato slices, rémoulade and freshly breaded shrimp (we ordered it fried).

While messy, it was also bursting with flavor.

The shrimp tacos ($10.99) are also winners.

Tossed in a datil pepper sauce, the shrimp were bite-sized, and the basket they arrived in was stocked with build-it-yourself fixings — warm corn tortillas, pico de gallo, shredded lettuce and crema.

Safe Harbor offers wine and domestic bottles and cans of locally brewed beer. I chose to cool off (it was 81 degrees in December!) with a can of Green Room Brewing’s Pablo Beach Ale ($5).

There were also soups, salads and sweets on the menu, but I was much too full. I’ll be back soon, though.

Caron Streibich Folio Weekly Bite Club host biteclub@folioweekly.com Twitter.com/fwbiteclub DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 31

Dining Directory Dining Directory

To have your restaurant included, contact your account manager or Sam Taylor, 904.260.9770 ext. 111, staylor@folioweekly.com DINING DIRECTORY KEY

Average Entrée Cost: $ = Less than $8 $$ = $8-$14 $$$ = $15-$22 $$$$ = $23 & up = Beer, Wine = Full Bar C = Children’s Menu = Take Out B = Breakfast R = Brunch L = Lunch D = Dinner *Bite Club Certified! = Hosted a free Folio Weekly Bite Club tasting. Join at fwbiteclub.com.

2013 Best of Jax winner F = FW distribution spot

AMELIA ISLAND, FERNANDINA BEACH, YULEE

BARBERITOS, 1519 Sadler Road, 277-2505. 463867 S.R. 200, Ste. 5, Yulee, 321-2240. F Specializing in Southwestern made-to-order fresh favorites: burritos, tacos, quesadillas, nachos, salads. Salsa’s handcrafted with fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onions, peppers. $$ C L D Daily BRETT’S WATERWAY CAFÉ, 1 S. Front St., 261-2660.

F On the water at historic Centre Street’s end, it’s Southern hospitality in an upscale atmosphere; daily specials, fresh local seafood, aged beef. $$$ C L D Daily CAFÉ KARIBO, 27 N. Third St., 277-5269. F In a historic building, family-owned spot has eclectic cuisine: homemade veggie burgers, fresh seafood, salads, madefrom-scratch desserts. Dine inside or on oak-shaded patio.

Karibrew Pub has beer brewed onsite. $$ C L D Tue.-Sat.; L Daily HALFTIME SPORTS BAR & GRILL, 320 S. Eighth St., 321-0303. Sports bar fare: onion rings, spring rolls, burgers, wraps, wings. $ L D Daily JACK & DIANE’S, 708 Centre St., 321-1444. F In a renovated 1887 shotgun home. Favorites: jambalaya, French toast, mac-n-cheese, vegan and vegetarian selections. Dine inside or out on the porch. $$ C B L D Daily LULU’S AT THE THOMPSON HOUSE, 11 S. Seventh St., 432-8394. F Innovative lunch menu: po’boys, salads and seafood little plates served in a historic house.

Dinner features fresh local seafood, Fernandina shrimp.

Reservations recommended. $$$ C R Sun.; L D Tue.-Sat. MOON RIVER PIZZA, 925 S. 14th St., 321-3400. F See Riverside. 2013 BOJ winner. $ L D Mon.-Sat. THE MUSTARD SEED CAFE, 833 TJ Courson Road, 277-3141. Awarded Slow Food First Coast’s Snail of Approval, the casual organic eatery and juice bar, in Nassau Health Foods, offers all-natural, organic items, smoothies, juices, coffees, herbal teas. $$ B L Mon.-Sat. PLAE, 80 Amelia Village Cir., 277-2132. Bite Club certified. In Omni Amelia Island Plantation’s Spa & Shops, the bistro-style venue has an innovative menu: whole fried fish and duck breast. Outdoor dining. $$$ D Mon.-Sat. THE SALTY PELICAN BAR & GRILL, 12 N. Front St., 277-3811. F Killer sunset view over the ICW from secondstory outdoor bar. Owners T.J. and Al offer local seafood, Mayport shrimp, fish tacos, po’boys and the original broiled cheese oysters. $$ C L D Daily SLIDERS SEASIDE GRILL, 1998 S. Fletcher Ave., 2776652. F 2013 BOJ winner. Oceanfront restaurant serves award-winning handmade crab cakes, fresh seafood, fried pickles. Outdoor dining, open-air second floor and balcony. $$ C L D Daily THE SURF, 3199 S. Fletcher Ave., 261-5711. F Oceanview dining, inside or on the deck. Steaks, fresh fish, nightly specials, Sun. lobster special. $$ B Sat.-Sun.; L D Daily TIMOTI’S FRY SHAK, 21 N. Third St., 310-6550. F Casual seafood spot has fresh, local wild-caught shrimp, fish, oysters, blackboard specials, seafood baskets. $ C L D Daily T-RAY’S BURGER STATION, 202 S. Eighth St., 261-6310.

F This spot in an old gas station is known for its blue plate specials, burgers, biscuits & gravy, shrimp. $ B L Mon.-Sat.

© 2013

ARLINGTON, REGENCY

LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 8818 Atlantic Blvd., 720-0106. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 1301 Monument Road F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily RACK ’EM UP BILLIARDS, 1825 University Blvd. N., 745-0335. F Cigar and hookah lounge has billiards tables, a full kitchen, a variety of subs for late-nighters. 200-plus imported, domestic beers. $ R Sat.-Sun.; D Nightly

32 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

AVONDALE, ORTEGA

ALE PIE HOUSE, 3951 St. Johns Ave., 503-8000.

It’s pizza made your way, plus subs, paninis, calzone, stromboli, wraps, dinners. Gluten-free and vegan cheese available. $$ C L D Daily BAGEL LOVE, 4114 Herschel St., Ste. 121, 634-7253 2013 BOJ winner. Northern-style bagels, sandwiches, wraps, salads, soups, bakery items, sides, fresh-squeezed orange juice and lemonade, coffees, smoothies and tea.

Homecooked turkey, chicken and roast beef. Free Wi-Fi. Locally owned and operated. Outdoor dining on patio. $ C B L Daily THE CASBAH CAFÉ, 3628 St. Johns Ave., 981-9966.

F 2013 BOJ winner. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine on the patio or in a hookah lounge. Wi-Fi, belly dancers, hookah pipes. $$ L D Daily ESPETO BRAZILIAN STEAK HOUSE, 4000 St. Johns Ave., Ste. 40, 388-4884. F Celebrating five years, this churrascaria has gauchos who carve the meat onto your plate from their serving tables. $$$ D Tue.-Sun. FLORIDA CREAMERY, 3566 St. Johns Ave., 619-5386.

Premium ice cream, fresh waffle cones, milkshakes, sundaes and Nathan’s grilled hot dogs, served in Florida-centric décor. Low-fat and sugar-free choices. $ C L Mon.-Sat. THE FOX RESTAURANT, 3580 St. Johns Ave., 387-2669.

F Owners Ian and Mary Chase offer fresh diner fare and homemade desserts. Breakfast all day. Signature items: burgers, meatloaf, fried green tomatoes. A Jacksonville landmark for more than 50 years. $$ C L D Daily GREEN MAN GOURMET, 3543 St. Johns Ave., 384-0002.

F This market features organic and natural products, spices, teas and salts. $ Daily LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 4530 St. Johns Ave., 388-8828. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LET THEM EAT CAKE! 3604 St. Johns Ave., Ste. 2, 389-2122. Artisan bakery serves coffee, croissants, muffins, cupcakes (The Fat Elvis!), pastries, individual desserts. Whole cakes made-to-order. $ Tue.-Sat. MOJO NO. 4 URBAN BBQ & WHISKEY BAR, 3572 St. Johns Ave., 381-6670. F 2013 BOJ winner. Funky Southern blues kitchen offers pulled pork, Carolinastyle barbecue, chicken-fried steak, Delta fried catfish, hummus, shrimp and grits, specialty cocktails. $$ C B L D Daily SAKE HOUSE #5 JAPANESE GRILL SUSHI BAR, 3620 St. Johns Ave., 388-5688. F See Riverside. $$ L D Daily SIMPLY SARA’S, 2902 Corinthian Ave., Ortega, 387-1000.

F Down-home cooking from scratch like Grandma’s: eggplant fries, pimento cheese, fried chicken, fruit cobblers, chicken & dumplings. BYOB. $$ C L D Mon.-Sat. TERRA, 4260 Herschel St., 388-9124. Owner Michael Thomas’ comfy spot serves local, sustainable world cuisine in a simple, creative style. Small plates: chorizo stuffed mushrooms, pork belly skewers; entrées: lamb chops, seared tuna, ribeye. Lunch features sandwiches. Craft beers. Onsite organic garden. $$ D Mon.-Sat.

BAYMEADOWS

AL’S PIZZA, 8060 Philips Highway, 731-4300. F 2013 BOJ winner. See Beaches. $ C L D Daily BROADWAY RISTORANTE & PIZZERIA, 10920 Baymeadows Road, Ste. 3, 519-8000. F Familyowned-and-operated Italian pizzeria serves calzones, strombolis, wings, brick-oven-baked pizza, subs, desserts.

Delivery. $$ C L D Daily INDIA’S RESTAURANT, 9802 Baymeadows Road, Ste. 8, 620-0777. F Authentic Indian cuisine, lunch buffet. Curry and vegetable dishes, lamb, chicken, shrimp, fish tandoori. $$ L Mon.-Sat.; D Nightly LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 8206 Philips Hwy., 732-9433. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 3928 Baymeadows Road, 737-7740. 8616 Baymeadows Road, 739-2498. F With locations all over Northeast Florida, Larry’s piles subs high and serves ’em fast. Natural meats and cheeses are hormone-, antibiotic- and gluten-free; the sub rolls are gluten-free, too. $ C B L D Daily MANDALOUN MEDITERRANEAN LEBANESE CUISINE, 9862 Old Baymeadows Road, 646-1881. F Bite Club certified.

Owner Pierre Barakat offers authentic Lebanese cuisine, charcoal-grilled lamb kebab. Belly dancing Fri.-Sat. Monthly dinner parties. Outdoor seating. $$ L D Tue.-Sun. PATTAYA THAI GRILLE, 9551 Baymeadows Road, Ste. 1, 646-9506. F The area’s original authentic Thai restaurant has an extensive menu of traditional Thai, vegetarian and new-Thai, including curries, seafood, noodles, soups. In business since 1990, family-owned place has low-sodium and gluten-free dishes, too. $$$ L D Tue.-Sun. PIZZA PALACE, 3928 Baymeadows Road, 527-8649.

F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily STICKY FINGERS, 8129 Point Meadows Way, 493-7427.

F Memphis-style rib house slow-smokes meats over aged hickory wood. Award-winning ribs, barbecue, rotisserie-

smoked chicken, five signature sauces. Dine indoors or on screened patio. $$ C L D Daily

BEACHES

(Locations are Jax Beach unless otherwise noted.)

AL’S PIZZA, 303 Atlantic Blvd., Beaches Town Center, Atlantic Beach, 249-0002. F 2013 BOJ winner.

Celebrating more than 20 years and seven locations, Al’s offers a selection of New York-style and gourmet pizzas. $ C L D Daily BUDDHA THAI BISTRO, 301 10th Ave. N., 712-4444.

F The proprietors here are from Thailand, and every dish is made with fresh ingredients from tried-and-true recipes, beautifully presented. $$ L D Daily CAMPECHE BAY CANTINA, 127 First Ave. N., 249-3322.

F Chili rellenos, tamales, fajitas, enchiladas, fish tacos, fried ice cream, margaritas. $$ C D Nightly CASA MARIA, 2429 S. Third St., 372-9000. F See Springfield. $ C L D Daily CULHANE’S IRISH PUBLIC HOUSE, 967 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 249-9595. Bite Club certified. Upscale Irish pub owned and managed by four sisters from County Limerick. Shepherd’s pie, corned beef; gastro pub menu soars to culinary heights. $$ C R Sat. & Sun.; D Tue.-Sun. ENGINE 15 BREWING CO., 1500 Beach Blvd., Ste. 217, 249-2337. F 2013 BOJ winner. Gastropub fare: soups, salads, flatbreads, specialty sandwiches, including BarBeCuban and beer dip. Craft beers. $ C L D Daily GREGORY PAUL’S, 215 Fourth Ave. S., 372-4367. Greg Rider offers freshly prepared meals and experienced catering services. $$ Mon.-Fri. LANDSHARK CAFE, 1728 Third St. N., 246-6024.

F Locally owned and operated. Fresh, right-off-the-boat local seafood, fish tacos, houseground burgers, wings, handcut fries, tater tots; daily specials. $$ C L D Daily; R Sun. LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 1222 Third St. S., 372-4495. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 657 N. Third St., 247-9620. F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily LILLIE’S COFFEE BAR, 200 First St., Beaches Town Center, Neptune Beach, 249-2922. F Beaches landmark.

Locally roasted coffee, eggs and bagels, flatbreads, sandwiches, salads and desserts. Dine indoors or out; patio and courtyard seating. $$ B L D Daily M SHACK, 299 Atlantic Blvd., Beaches Town Center, Atlantic Beach, 241-2599. F 2013 BOJ winner. David and Matthew Medure are flippin’ burgers, hot dogs, fries, shakes and familiar fare at moderate prices. Dine indoors or out. $$ L D Daily MARLIN MOON GRILLE, 1183 Beach Blvd., 372-4438.

F This sportfishing-themed casual place features fresh crab cakes – owner Gary Beach’s from Maryland’s Eastern Shore – and burgers, daily specials, craft beers, Orange Crushes, fresh-cut fries. $$ C R Sun.; D Wed.-Mon. MELLOW MUSHROOM PIZZA BAKERS, 1018 Third St. N., Ste. 2, 241-5600. F Bite Club certified. 2013 BOJ winner. The psychedelic spot serves gourmet pizzas, hoagies, salads. Pies range from Mighty Meaty to vegetarian like Kosmic Karma. $ C L D Daily MEZZA LUNA PIZZERIA RISTORANTE, 110 First St., Beaches Town Center, Neptune Beach, 249-5573.

F Near-the-ocean eatery serves casual bistro fare (for 20+ years) like gourmet wood-fired pizzas, herb-crusted mahi mahi. Dine indoors or on the patio. $$$ C D Mon.-Sat. MOJO KITCHEN BBQ PIT & BLUES BAR, 1500 Beach Blvd., 247-6636. F 2013 BOJ winner. Funky Southern blues kitchen offers pulled pork, Carolina-style barbecue, chicken-fried steak, Delta fried catfish. $$ C B L D Daily POE’S TAVERN, 363 Atlantic Blvd., Atlantic Beach, 241-7637. F American gastropub offers gourmet hamburgers, ground in-house and cooked to order, hand-cut French fries, fish tacos, entree-size salads, Edgar’s Drunken Chili, daily fish sandwich special. $$ C L D Daily RAGTIME TAVERN & SEAFOOD GRILL, 207 Atlantic Blvd., Beaches Town Center, Atlantic Beach, 241-7877 F For 30 years, the popular seafood place has nabbed lots of awards in our Best of Jax readers poll. Blackened snapper, sesame tuna, Ragtime shrimp. $$ L D Daily RENNA’S PIZZA, 592 Marsh Landing Parkway, 273-3113.

F See Mandarin. $$ C L D Daily SALT LIFE FOOD SHACK, 1018 Third St. N., 372-4456.

F 2013 BOJ winner. Specialty items, signature tuna poke bowl, fresh rolled sushi, Ensenada tacos, local fried shrimp, in a contemporary open-air space. $$ C L D Daily SHIM SHAM ROOM, 333 First St. N., Ste. 150, 372-0781.

F 2013 BOJ winner. Seasonal menu of “cheap eats”: bar bites, chicken & waffles, badass fries, tacos. $$ D Nightly WIPEOUTS GRILL, 1585 Atlantic Blvd., Neptune Beach, 247-4508. F Casual sports spot serves burgers, wings, fish tacos in a chill atmosphere. $ C L D Daily

Dining Directory

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THAT'S A BIG SAMMICH: Ed Malin, the mastermind behind the popular Angie’s Subs and Angie’s Grom, offers his No. 1 creation, The Peruvian, from his eclectically decorated – dripping with local influence – restaurant on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville Beach. Photo: Dennis Ho

DOWNTOWN

AVOCADOS, 311 W. Ashley St., Ste. 1, 683-9947. Mac & cheese, Southwestern wrap, French dip. Fresh ingredients, cooked to order. $ B L D Mon.-Sat. CAFÉ NOLA at MOCAJAX, 333 N. Laura St., 366-6911.

On Museum of Contemporary Art first floor. Shrimp and grits, gourmet sandwiches, fresh fish tacos, homemade desserts. $$ L Mon.-Fri.; D Thur. & ArtWalk CASA DORA, 108 E. Forsyth St., 356-8282. F Owner/ chef Sam Hamidi has been serving genuine Italian fare 35-plus years: veal, seafood, pizza. Homemade salad dressing is a specialty. $$ C L D Mon.-Sat. CHOMP CHOMP, 106 E. Adams St., 762-4667. F This spot has eats at moderate prices – most under $10. Chef-inspired street food: panko-crusted chicken, burgers, chinois tacos, bahn mi, barbecue. $ L Tue.-Sat.; D Fri. & Sat. DE REAL TING CAFÉ, 128 W. Adams St., 633-9738.

F Caribbean spot features jerk or curried chicken, conch fritters, curried goat, oxtail. $ L Tue.-Fri.; D Fri.-Sat. FIONN MACCOOL’S IRISH PUB & RESTAURANT, Ste. 176, Jacksonville Landing, 374-1547. F 2013 BOJ winner.

Casual dining, uptown Irish atmosphere. Fish & chips, black-and-tan brownies, Guinness lamb stew. $$ C L D Daily ZODIAC GRILL, 120 W. Adams St., 354-8283. F Mediterranean cuisine and American favorites in a casual atmosphere. Panini, vegetarian dishes, daily lunch buffet.

Espressos, hookahs. $ L Mon.-Fri.

FLEMING ISLAND

BRICK OVEN PIZZERIA & GASTROPUB, 1811 Town Center Blvd., 278-1770. F Family-owned-and-operated; offers freshly made brick-oven pizzas, specialty burgers, melts, wraps, craft beers. Gluten-free items. $$ C L D Daily LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 1571 C.R. 220, Ste. 100, 215-2223. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily MELLOW MUSHROOM PIZZA BAKERS, 1800 Town Center Blvd., 541-1999. F See Beaches. Bite Club certified. 2013 BOJ winner. $ C L D Daily MOJO SMOKEHOUSE, 1810 Town Center Blvd., Ste. 8, 264-0636. F 2013 BOJ winner. Funky Southern blues kitchen offers pulled pork, Carolina-style barbecue, chicken-fried steak, Delta fried catfish. $$ C B L D Daily WHITEY’S FISH CAMP, 2032 C.R. 220, 269-4198.

F Authentic fi sh camp serves gator tail, fresh-water river catfish, traditional meals, daily specials on the banks of Swimming Pen Creek. Outdoor Tiki bar. Come by boat,

motorcycle or car. $ C L Tue.-Sun.; D Nightly YOUR PIE, 1545 C.R. 220, Ste. 125, 379-9771. F Bite Club certified. Owner Mike Sims has a fas t, casual pizza concept: Choose from three doughs, nine sauces, seven cheeses and 40-plus toppings and create your own piz za pie. Subs, sandwiches, gelato. $$ C L D Daily

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INTRACOASTAL WEST

AL’S PIZZA, 14286 Beach Blvd., Ste. 31, 223-0991.

F 2013 BOJ winner. See Beaches. $ C L D Daily CASTILLO DE MEXICO, 12620 Beach Blvd., Ste. 19, 998-7006. F This spot, in business for 15-plus years, has an extensive menu served in authentic Mexican décor.

Weekday lunch buffet. $$ L D Daily EPIK BURGER, 12740 Atlantic Blvd., Ste. 105, 374-7326.

F More than 34 burgers made from grass-fed beef, ahi tuna, all-natural chicken; vegan items from innovative recipes; gluten-free options. $ L D Mon.-Sat. LA NOPALERA MEXICAN, 14333 Beach Blvd., 992-1666.

F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 10750 Atlantic Blvd., 642-6980.

F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily MAHARLIKA HALL & SPORTS GRILL, 14255 Beach Blvd., Ste. E, 699-0759. Filipino-American restaurant and market features pancit bami, lumpia, turon strudle, halo halo with ice cream. $-$$ C R L D Daily MY MOCHI FROZEN YOGURT, 13546 Beach Blvd., Ste. 1A, 821-9880. See St. Johns Town Center. $ Daily TIME OUT SPORTS GRILL, 13799 Beach Blvd., Ste. 5, 223-6999. F Locally-owned-and-operated grill serves hand-tossed pizzas, wings, specialty wraps in a clean, sporty atmosphere. Late-night menu. $$ L Tue.-Sun.; D Nightly

JULINGTON CREEK

PIZZA PALACE, 116 Bartram Oaks Walk, 230-2171. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily SAUCY TACO, 450 S.R. 13 N., Ste. 113, 287-8226. F The menu is light Mexican with American influences – and there are 40 beers on draft. $$ C B, Sat.-Sun.; L D Daily

MANDARIN

AL’S PIZZA, 11190 San Jose Blvd., 260-4115. F 2013 BOJ winner. See Beaches. $ C L D Daily ATHENS CAFÉ, 6271 St. Augustine Road, Ste. 7, 733-1199. Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), baby shoes (stuffed eggplant). Greek beers. $$ L Mon.-Fri.; D Mon.-Sat.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 33

Dining Directory BRAZILIAN JAX CAFE, 9825 San Jose Blvd., Ste. 20, 880-3313. F Authentic dishes: steaks, sausages, chicken, fish, burgers, hot sandwiches made with fresh ingredients.

Traditional feijoada – black beans and por k stew with rice, collards, orange salad, toasted yucca flour with bacon – every Sat. $$ B L D Mon.-Sat. BROOKLYN PIZZA, 11406 San Jose Blvd., 288-9211.

13820 St. Augustine Road, Bartram Park, 880-0020.

F The Brooklyn Special Pizza is a customer favorite. Also calzones, white pizza, homestyle lasagna. $$ L D Daily GIGI’S RESTAURANT, 3130 Hartley Road (Ramada Inn), 694-4300. F Prime rib and crab leg buffet Fri.-Sat., bluejean brunch Sun., daily breakfast buffet and lunch and dinner buffets. $$$ B R L D Daily LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 11700 San Jose Blvd., 288-0175. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S, 11365 San Jose Blvd., Ste. 3, 674-2945. F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily RACK ’EM UP BILLIARDS, 4268 Oldfield Crossing Dr., 262-4030. See Arlington. $ R Sat.-Sun.; D Nightly RENNA’S PIZZA, 11111 San Jose Blvd., Ste. 12, 292-2300. F Casual New York-style pizzeria serves calzones, antipasto, parmigiana, homemade breads. Buy by the slice – they’re humongous – or full pie. Delivery. $$ C L D Daily

See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily MOON RIVER PIZZA, 1176 Edgewood Ave. S., Murray Hill, 389-4442. F Northern-style pizzas, more than 20 toppings, by the pie or the slice. $ L D Mon.-Sat. THE MOSSFIRE GRILL, 1537 Margaret St., Riverside, 355-4434. Southwestern menu with ahi tuna tacos, goat cheese enchiladas, gouda quesadillas, chicken enchiladas.

Indoor or patio dining. $$ C L D Daily O’BROTHERS IRISH PUB, 1521 Margaret St., 854-9300.

F Traditional Irish fare: shepherd’s pie with Stilton crust, Guinness mac-n-cheese, fish-n-chips. Outdoor patio dining. $$ C L D Daily SAKE HOUSE #1 JAPANESE GRILL SUSHI BAR, 824 Lomax St., 301-1188. F Traditional Japanese cuisine, fresh sushi, sashimi, kiatsu, teriyaki, hibachi in an authentic atmosphere. Sake. A real tatami room; outside seating. $$ L D Daily SUN-RAY CINEMA, 1028 Park St., 359-0049. F Beer (Bold City, Intuition Ale Works), wine, pizza, hot dogs, hummus, sandwiches, popcorn, nachos, brownies. $$ Daily SUSHI CAFÉ, 2025 Riverside Ave., Ste. 204, 384-2888.

F Sushi: popular Monster Roll, Jimmy Smith Roll, Rock-nRoll and Dynamite Roll. Hibachi, tempura, katsu, teriyaki.

Dine indoors or on the patio. $$ L D Daily

ORANGE PARK, MIDDLEBURG

AL’S PIZZA, 1 St. George St., 824-4383. F 2013 BOJ winner. See Beaches. $ C L D Daily BACK 40 URBAN CAFÉ, 40 S. Dixie Highway, 824-0227.

F Owner Brian Harmon serves Caribbean-flavored items – wraps, upside-down chicken potpie, fresh, local seafood – in an 1896 building. Wi-Fi. $ C L Sun.; L D Mon.-Sat. CARMELO’S MARKETPLACE & PIZZERIA, 146 King St., 494-6658. F New York-style brick-oven-baked pizza, fresh sub rolls, Boar’s Head meats, cheeses, garlic herb wings. Outdoor seating, Wi-Fi. $$ L D Daily THE FLORIDIAN, 39 Cordova St., 829-0655. Updated Southern fare, with fresh, local ingredients from area farms.

Vegetarian, gluten-free options. Signature items: fried green tomato bruschetta, blackened fish, cornbread stack, grits with shrimp, fish or tofu. $$$ C L D Wed.-Mon. GYPSY CAB COMPANY, 828 Anastasia Blvd., Anastasia Island, 824-8244. F A mainstay for 25 years; menu changes daily. Signature dish is Gypsy chicken. Seafood, tofu, duck, veal. $$ R Sun.; L D Daily THE HYPPO, 15 Hypolita St., 217-7853 (popsicles only).

1765 Tree Blvd., Ste. 5, 342-7816. F Popsicles of unique flavors, of premium ingredients. Coffee pour-overs, coldbrew coffees. Handcrafted sandwiches, salads. $ Daily MELLOW MUSHROOM PIZZA BAKERS, 410 Anastasia Blvd., 826-4040. F See Beaches. Bite Club certified.

2013 BOJ winner. $ C L D Daily MOJO OLD CITY BBQ, 5 Cordova St., 342-5264. F 2013 BOJ winner. Funky Southern blues kitchen offers pulled pork, Carolina-style barbecue, chicken-fried steak, Delta fried catfish. $$ C B L D Daily THE ORIGINAL CAFÉ ELEVEN, 501 A1A Beach Blvd., St. Augustine Beach, 460-9311. F Coffee drinks, vegetarian meals, meaty Southern comfort dishes. $ B L D Daily PACIFIC ASIAN BISTRO, 159 Palencia Village Dr., 305-2515. F 2013 BOJ winner. Chef Mas created 30+ unique sushi rolls; fresh sea scallops, H awaiian-style poke tuna salad. $$ L D Daily

ARON’S PIZZA, 650 Park Ave., 269-1007. F Familyowned restaurant has eggplant dishes, manicotti, New York-style pizza. $$ C L D Daily THE HILLTOP, 2030 Wells Road, 272-5959. Specialties at this upscale restaurant include New Orleans shrimp, certified Black Angus prime rib, she-crab soup. Homemade desserts. $$$ D Tue.-Sat. LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 1930 Kingsley Ave., 276-2776. F See San Marco. $$ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 700 Blanding, Ste. 15, 272-3553.

1545 C.R. 220, 278-2827. 1330 Blanding, 276-7370. 1404 S. Orange Ave., Green Cove Springs, 284-7789. F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily PREVATT’S SPORTS BAR & GRILL, 2620 Blanding Blvd., Ste. 17, Middleburg, 282-1564. F What a neighborhood sportsbar should be: Familiar fare, all the spirits you’d want. $$ C L D Daily RENNA’S PIZZA, 6001 Argyle Forest Blvd., Ste. 16, 771-7677. F See Mandarin. $$ C L D Daily TED’S MONTANA GRILL, 8635 Blanding Blvd., 771-1964.

See St. Johns Town Center. $$$ C L D Daily THAI GARDEN, 10 Blanding Blvd., Ste. B, 272-8434.

Traditional Thai: pad kraw powh with roasted duck, kaeng kari (yellow curry, potatoes, choice of meat). Fine wines, imported, domestic beers. $$ L Mon.-Fri.; D Nightly

PONTE VEDRA, NW ST. JOHNS

ALICE & PETE’S PUB, 1000 PGA Tour Blvd., Sawgrass Marriott, 285-7777. Inspired by TPC Sawgrass course designers Alice and Pete Dye. Northeast Florida flavors and Alice & Pete’s favorites: Dominican black bean soup, Pete’s Designer club sandwich. Outside dining. $$$ L D Daily AL’S PIZZA, 635 A1A, 543-1494. F 2013 BOJ winner.

See Beaches. $ C L D Daily JJ’S LIBERTY BISTRO, 330 A1A N., Ste. 209, 273-7980.

Traditional French cuisine: escargot, brie, paté, steak frites, crêpes. Daily specials, specialt y pastries; French wines. $ $ L D Mon.-Sat. LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 830 A1A N., Ste. 6, 273-3993. F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily RESTAURANT MEDURE, 818 A1A N., 543-3797. Chef David Medure creates dishes with international flavors. The lounge offers small plates, creative drinks. $$$ D Mon.-Sat. TABLE 1, 330 A1A N., Ste. 208, 280-5515. Upscale, casual restaurant offers appetizers, salads, sandwiches, flatbreads, burgers, entrées. Extensive wine list. $$$ L D Daily

RIVERSIDE, FIVE POINTS, WESTSIDE

AL’S PIZZA, 1620 Margaret St., Ste. 201, 388-8384. F 2013 BOJ winner. See Beaches. $ C L D Daily BOLD BEAN COFFEE ROASTERS, 869 Stockton St., Stes.

1-2, 855-1181. F 2013 BOJ winner. Bold Bean brings a small-batch, artisanal approach to roasting coffee. Organic and fair trade coffees. $ B L Daily GRASSROOTS NATURAL MARKET 2007 Park St., 384-4474. F 2013 BOJ winner. Juice bar uses certified organic fruits and vegetables. The store has three dozen artisanal cheeses, 300-plus craft and imported beers, 50 organic wines, organic produce, meats, vitamins, herbs.

Organic wraps, sides, sandwiches, salads to go; raw, vegan items. $ B L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 1509 Margaret St., 674-2794.

7859 Normandy Blvd., 781-7600. 5733 Roosevelt Blvd., 446-9500. 8102 Blanding Blvd., Ste. 1, 779-1933. F

34 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

ST. AUGUSTINE

ST. JOHNS TOWN CENTER

BLACKFINN AMERICAN GRILLE, 4840 Big Island Drive, 345-3466. Classic American fare: beef, seafood, pasta, flatbread sandwiches. Dine indoors or on the patio. $$$ C R L D Daily BRIO TUSCAN GRILLE, 4910 Big Island Drive, 8079960. Upscale Northern Italian restaurant offers woodgrilled, oven-roasted steaks, chops, seafood. Dine indoors or al fresco on the terrace. $$$ C R Sat. & Sun.; L D Daily MY MOCHI FROZEN YOGURT, 4860 Big Island Drive, Ste. 2, 807-9292. Non-fat, low-calorie, cholesterol-free frozen yogurts. More than 40 toppings. $ Daily OVINTE, 10208 Buckhead Branch Drive, 900-7730.

2013 BOJ winner. Comfortable, chic place features tapas, small plates of Spanish, Italian flavors: ceviche fresco, pappardelle bolognese, lobster ravioli. 240-bottle wine list, 75 by the glass; craft spirits. Outdoor dining. $$ R, Sun.; D Nightly RENNA’S PIZZA, 4624 Town Crossing Drive, Ste. 125, 565-1299. F See Mandarin. $$ C L D Daily SAKE HOUSE #3 JAPANESE GRILL SUSHI BAR, 10281 Midtown Parkway, 996-2288. F See Riverside. $$ L D Daily SEASONS OF JAPAN, 4413 Town Center Parkway, 329-1067. Casual-style restaurant serves Japanese and hibachi-style fare, sushi, quick-as-a-wink. $$ C L D Daily TED’S MONTANA GRILL, 10281 Midtown Parkway., 998-0010. Modern classic comfort food featuring finest cuts of bison, including signature steaks and award-

GRILL ME!

A WEEKLY Q&A WITH PEOPLE IN THE FOOD BIZ

NAME: Jeremy Davis RESTAURANT: Sliders Seafood Grille & Oyster Bar, 218 First St., Neptune Beach BIRTHPLACE: Iverness

YEARS IN THE BIZ: 14

FAVORITE RESTAURANT (other than mine): Meehan’s Irish Pub, St. Augustine FAVORITE COOKING STYLE: Asian-infused FAVORITE INGREDIENTS: Bacon, bacon, bacon!

IDEAL MEAL: Thick-cut ribeye with sautéed mushrooms and onions and roasted garlic bleu cheese mashed potatoes.

WOULDN’T EAT IF YOU PAID ME: Liver and onions INSIDER’S SECRET: Always try new foods – who knows, you might like it.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING AT SLIDERS: Honey Boo-Boo CULINARY GUILTY PLEASURE: Pancake-battered, deep-fried Oreos winning gourmet burgers, served with timeless, genuine hospitality. Crab cakes, cedar-plank salmon, fresh vegetables, signature desserts and private label Bison Ridge wines complete the unique menu. $$$ C L D Daily

SAN JOSE, LAKEWOOD

EMPEROR’S GENTLEMAN’S CLUB 4923 University Blvd.

W., Lakewood, 739-6966. Upscale steakhouse features steaks, burgers, seafood and wings. $$ L D Daily FUSION SUSHI, 1550 University Blvd. W., Lakewood, 636-8688. F New upscale sushi spot serves fresh sushi, sashimi, hibachi, teriyaki, kiatsu. $$ C L D Daily MOJO BAR-B-QUE, 1607 University Blvd. W., San Jose, 732-7200. F 2013 BOJ winner. Funky Southern blues kitchen offers pulled pork, Carolina-style barbecue, chicken-fried steak, Delta fried catfish. $$ C B L D Daily URBAN ORGANICS, 5325 Fairmont St., Spring Park, 398-8012. Weekly coop every Monday that offers local, fresh fruits and vegetables in bags of 10, 20 or 30 pounds.

SAN MARCO, SOUTHBANK, ST. NICHOLAS

BASIL THAI & SUSHI, 1004 Hendricks Ave., 674-0190.

F Pad Thai, curry dishes, sushi, served in a relaxing environment. Dine indoors or on the patio. $$ L D Mon.-Fri., D Sat. PIZZA PALACE 1959 San Marco Blvd., 399-8815.

F Relaxed, family-owned place serves homestyle cuisine: spinach pizza, chicken spinach calzones. Ravioli, lasagna, parmigiana. Outside dining. $$ C L D Daily THE GROTTO WINE & TAPAS BAR, 2012 San Marco Blvd., 398-0726. Varied tapas menu of artisanal cheese plates, empanadas, bruschettas, homestyle cheesecake.

More than 60 wines by the glass. $$$ Tue.-Sun. LA NOPALERA MEXICAN RESTAURANT, 1631 Hendricks Ave., 399-1768. F Tamales, fajitas and pork tacos are customer favorites. Some La Nops offer a full bar. $$ C L D Daily MATTHEW’S, 2107 Hendricks Ave., 396-9922. Chef Matthew Medure’s flagship restaurant offers fine dining in a refined, European-style atmosphere. Artfully presented cuisine, small plates, extensive martini and wine lists.

Reservations recommended. $$$$ D Mon.-Sat. PULP, 1962 San Marco Blvd., 396-9222. Juice bar offers fresh juices, frozen yogurt, teas, coffees made one cup at a time. 30 kinds of smoothies, some blended with fl avored soy milks, organic frozen yogurts, granola. $ B L D Daily SAKE HOUSE #2 JAPANESE GRILL SUSHI BAR, 1478 Riverplace Blvd., 306-2188. F See Riverside. $$ L D Daily

SOUTHSIDE

360° GRILLE, 10370 Philips Highway, 365-5555. F In Latitude 30. Familiar sportsbar favorites: seafood, steaks, sandwiches, burgers, chicken, pasta, pizza. Dine inside or on the patio. $$ L D Daily ALHAMBRA THEATRE & DINING, 12000 Beach Blvd., 641-1212. America’s longest continuously running dinner theater features Executive Chef DeJuan Roy’s menus coordinated with stage productions. Reservations suggested. $$ D Tue.-Sun. BUCA DI BEPPO, 10334 Southside Blvd., 363-9090.

Popular chain restaurant has fresh Italian cooking: lasagna, garlic mashed potatoes; three portion sizes (half-pound meatballs!) served family-style. $$$ C L D Daily

CASA MARIA, 14965 Old St. Augustine Road, 619-8186.

F See Springfield. $ C L D Daily FARAH’S PITA STOP CAFÉ, 3980 Southside Blvd., Ste. 201, 928-4322. Middle Eastern cuisine: fresh sandwiches, soups, entrées, desserts, pastries and mazas (appetizers). $ C B L D Mon.-Sat. THE FLAME BROILER THE RICE BOWL KING, 9822 Tapestry Park Circle, Ste. 103, 619-2786. 7159 Philips Highway, Ste. 104, 337-0007. F West Coast fave has healthy, inexpensive fast food with no transfats, MSG, frying, or skin on meat. Fresh veggies, steamed brown or white rice, grilled beef, chicken, Korean short ribs. $ C L D Mon.-Sat. JJ’S BISTRO DE PARIS, 7643 Gate Parkway, Ste. 105, 996-7557. Authentic French cuisine served in a comfortable, charming setting. The scratch kitchen has fresh soups, stocks, sauces, pastries. $$ C L D Mon.-Sat. LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 3611 St. Johns Bluff S., 641-6499. 4479 Deerwood Lake Parkway, 425-4060.

F See Baymeadows. BOJ winner. $ C B L D Daily MELLOW MUSHROOM PIZZA BAKERS, 9734 Deer Lake Court, Ste. 1, Tinseltown, 997-1955. F See Beaches.

Bite Club certified. 2013 BOJ winner. $ C L D Daily OISHII, 4375 Southside Blvd., Ste. 4, 928-3223.

Japanese fusion cuisine: fresh, high-grade sushi, a variety of lunch specials, hibachi items. $$ C L D Daily SEVEN BRIDGES GRILLE & BREWERY, 9735 Gate Parkway N., Tinseltown, 9 97-1999. F Grill and brewery features local seafood, steaks, pizzas, award-winning freshly brewed ales, lagers. Dine indoors or outdoors. $$ L D Daily TAVERNA YAMAS, 9753 Deer Lake Court, 854-0426.

Bite Club certified. 2013 BOJ winner. Greek restaurant serves char-broiled kabobs, seafood, traditional Greek wines and desserts. Nightly belly dancing. $$ C L D Daily TOMMY’S BRICK OVEN PIZZA, 4160 Southside Blvd., Ste. 2, 565-1999. F New York-style thin crust, brickoven-cooked pizzas – gluten-free – as well as calzones, salads, sandwiches made fresh to order, using Thumann’s no-MSG meats, Grande cheeses. Boylan’s soda. Curbside pick-up. $$ L D Mon.-Sat.

SPRINGFIELD, NORTHSIDE

CASA MARIA, 12961 N. Main St., Ste. 104, 757-6411. F Family-owned-and-operated spot offers authentic Mexican food: fajitas, seafood dishes, hot sauces made in-house.

Specialty is tacos de asada. $ C L D Daily LARRY’S GIANT SUBS, 12001 Lem Turner, 764-9999.

F See Baymeadows. $ C B L D Daily RENNA’S PIZZA, 840 Nautica Drive, Ste. 117, 714-9210.

F See Mandarin. $$ C L D Daily SAVANNAH BISTRO, 14670 Duval Road, 741-4404. F Low Country Southern fare, with a twist of Mediterranean and French, in a relaxing atmosphere at Crowne Plaza Airport. Crab cakes, New York strip, she crab soup, mahi mahi. Rainforest Lounge. $$$ C B L D Daily STICKY FINGERS, 13150 City Station Drive, 309-7427.

F See Baymeadows. $$ C L D Daily

FOOD TRUCKS

DRIFTWOOD BBQ, 412-4559, driftwoodbbq.com, facebook.com/DriftwoodBBQ Southern soul barbecue, sandwiches, subs at Pitmaster Patrick O’Grady’s truck.

Pudding, pulled pork, sides, sliders, chicken. $ L D

Free Will Astrology

ADVERTISING PROO

This is a copyright protected proo ARIES (March 21-April 19): Edmund Kean (1789-1833) was one of the most famous British actors of his time. His contemporary, poet Samuel Coleridge, was frustrated by Kean’s inconsistency, but regarded him as a great artist – who on occasion lapsed into histrionics. “To see him act,” said Coleridge, “is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” I get that feeling about you. You have bursts of brilliance you sometimes don’t follow up on.

You’re like a superstar who loses concentration. I think in 2014 you’ll at least partly overcome this. Your word of power is “consistency.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), known as the father of nuclear physics, won the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

He was a superb teacher, too: 11 of his students won Nobels. That’s the kind of teacher, mentor or guide I urge you to connect with in 2014. The months ahead will potentially be an optimum time to learn deeply, at a rapid rate. One of the best ways to fulfill that promise? Apprentice yourself to adepts who have mastered the skills and savvy you want.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Your last best hope to get rich was way back in the last half of 2001 and the first half of 2002. From July 2025 to June 2026, the cosmos will again conspire to give you a big fat chance to expedite your cash flow to the max – way in the future. Why dream of the past or fantasize about the future when fertile opportunities to boost prosperity are before you now? Financial luck flows your way. Viable ideas for making money materialize in your subconscious treasure house. The contacts to help build your wealth are ready to play.

(Offer good until July 2014.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): French poet Edmond Jabès said this about the birth of big creative ideas that dramatically transform one’s life: “For the writer, discovering the work he will write is both like a miracle and a wound, like the miracle of the wound.” Whether or not you’re an artist, I expect you’ll experience a wrenching, amazing awakening like this in 2014. The opening you’ve been hoping and working for will finally crack its way into your destiny. It may be one of the most pleasurable disruptions you’ve had.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the months ahead, you will exit a confined place, shed cramped expectations or break off your commitment to a compromise that has been draining you. It may happen suddenly, or it may take a while. How the escape unfolds has to do with how thoroughly you extract lessons your “incarceration” made available.

Here’s a ritual to expedite the process: Give a gift to those you leave behind, or offer a blessing in the spot where difficult teachings have taken place.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good,” says a character in John Steinbeck’s famous novel “East of Eden.” Make this your rallying cry in 2014. In fact, begin right now, wherever you are. Say, “Now that I don’t have to be perfect, I can be good.”

Free yourself of the pressure to be the polished, ultimate embodiment of everything you’d ever hoped you would be. That lets you relax, to be more content with the intriguing creation you’ve become. You may be surprised by how much mojo this gives.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1972, English folk musician Nick Drake recorded his album “Pink Moon,” finishing the entire project in a scant four hours, singing all 11 songs and playing

every instrumental track himself. It took years for anyone to appreciate his artistry, but eventually Melody Maker magazine selected “Pink Moon” to fill the No. 48 slot on its “All Time Top 100 Albums.” One way your efforts will be similar to Drake’s in 2014: You’ll have the ability to get a lot done in a short time. Two ways PROMISE OFpool BENEFIT your fate will be different: First, you’ll have a big of trustworthy allies to help you in your struggle. Second, what you produce won’t take nearly as long to get the appreciation it deserves.

For questions, please call your advertising representative at 26 FAX YOUR PROOF IF POSSIBLE AT 26 RUN DATE: SUPPORT

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Eierlegende Wollmilchsau is a colloquial German term for a mythical pig that has many attributes: It can lay eggs like a chicken does, produce milk like a cow, supply wool like a sheep and, ultimately, it can become bacon and pork chops. Metaphorically, it may refer to a fanciful device that performs many functions. Imagine a futuristic smart phone that interprets dreams, trims unwanted hair, fixes a cup of coffee, tells you you’re beautiful so you really believe and cures little health problems. No such thing in the real world? Not yet, but you may find the next best thing to an eierlegende Wollmilchsau in 2014.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “We don’t accomplish our love in a single year as the flowers do,” says Rainer Maria Rilke in “Duino Elegies.” Promise to take that truth into consideration in 2014? Will you pledge to diligently devote yourself to creating the right conditions for love to fl ourish? In the past, you may not have been fully able to carry out the slow-building marvel; you may not have had quite enough wise perseverance. You do now.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1588, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japan’s ruler, confiscated swords, daggers and spears belonging to every citizen, melted them down and made a giant Buddha statue. Undergo a comparable transformation in 2014. Don’t totally shed all anger and pugnacity; a certain amount is valuable, especially when to rouse yourself to change situations that need to change. You could benefit from a reduction in your combativeness levels. What if you could melt down some primal rage and use that energy to build your own icon?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The period between last July and next June is going to be prime time to find or create your dream job. That might mean simply upgrading your existing gig so it serves you better. Or it could involve rethinking your relationship with work and going on a quest for a new way to earn a living. If you stay on schedule, you should be halfway there by now. The goal should be clear, and you should be more disciplined, organized and determined. If for any reason this isn’t the case, start playing catch-up.

© 2013

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Singing teaches two skills that are essential for any creative process,” says author and vocalist Rachel Bagby, “the ability to listen and the ability to be flexible and spontaneous.” 2014 could be a Golden Age for your creativity, a time when you’ll benefit more from exploring and enhancing your imaginative originality.

Sing more than you ever have; make a list of 50 favorite singable songs. Be aggressive about expanding the music you’re exposed to, and learn the melodies and lyrics to lots of new tunes. Cut loose with vocal stylings whenever you have a chance, and take a vow to get yourself out of funky moods with your singing’s creative energy.

Rob Brezsny freewillastrology@freewillastrology.com DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 35

BLACK CROWES BEAUTY You: Brown-eyed, dark-haired American Indian-looking goddess. Me: Tall, dark, brooding musician. Talked after the show. You admired my Crowes tat, I admired your cheekbones. Best dancer in venue, and kind conversationalist. Shared tequila after the show. Heard you’re single. Let’s get together. When: Oct. 7. Where: St. Augustine. #1320-1218 DURING JAGUARS 3RD WIN IN 11 DAYS! You: orange shirt, being a good dad taking your son to the game. Me: waiting on ramp. We had INTENSE eye contact, but could only chat for a minute. Have any kid-free time coming up? When: Dec. 5. Where: Jags Game. #1319-1218 MARGARITA MADNESS! Are YOU the guy at La Nopalera bar Third St. Jax Beach a few months ago? You nearly fell off the stool when I asked if you were just passing through. Fun evening! Laughter, good-natured teasing. Loved your quick sense of humor; think you liked mine. Future connection? Me: Cute blonde English girl. When: Early Summer. Where: La Nopalera Jax Beach. #1318-1218 AVENUES MALL You wore a baby blue zip-up uniform well; sexy black frame glasses; some sort of pouch. Your personality shined through your gleaming smile. You were helpful with my phone troubles; confident – I like a man with confidence.

Me: brown hair, brown eyes, black shirt, scarf. Hope this makes it to you. When: Nov. 22. Where: Avenues Mall AT&T. #1317-1218 BEAUTIFUL BLONDE Hi K_, I came over and introduced myself when you were sitting across the bar from me. We made eye contact numerous times and observed some funny people in the bar. I would love to get together and see if we have any chemistry. My name starts with T. When: Nov. 14.

Where: Jacksonville Ale House. #1316-1204 BEAUTIFUL LADY EATING ALONE OUTSIDE ISU! Plum/purple T-shirt, rolled-up jeans shorts, sandals. We were both eating alone at outside tables. Me: In a white T-shirt and plaid shorts.

I should have least said hi or hello and I’m kicking myself now!

I think you’re beautiful! I’d love to talk and see. When: Nov. 23.

Where: The Loop @ St. Johns Ave. #1315-1127 IN LINE It’s been so many years. Forgetfulness caught up with me. I apologize for thinking I was blowing you off when all I wanted to do was catch up! We were in line together at Publix; you remembered me from HS. I felt like such a jerk as you sped away in your maroon VW. When: Nov. 3. Where: Publix @ Tinseltown. #1314-1127 GATORS IN OAKLEAF ISU at the bar, in blue jeans and a black shirt. Blond hair and oh so gorgeous smile. It was early evening; you spoke to the bartender often. Our eyes met when I got up to leave. I wore tan cargo pants, a black short-sleeved shirt and glasses. When: Nov. 10. Where: Gators @ Oakleaf. #1313-1127 HOLIDAYS AND A SUBSPECIES OF BEINGS We chatted for a good bit in line at veg fest. You compared your name to a holiday and mine to a group of people? Took me a minute to get your meaning. Should have taken you up on your offer to stick around. When: Nov. 9. Where: Riverside Park. #1312-1113 ANIME TALK IN CHAMBLIN You: Pretty blonde, light blue eyes with a tan-ish scarf. Me: Wearing a single braid on one side, in a blue dress and a raccoon backpack. First, we

36 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | DECEMBER 25-31, 2013

bonded over a love for “Loveless,” then you recommended “Clamp School Detectives.” I wish I’d asked for your name. :) When: Nov. 6. Where: Chamblin’s Uptown. #1310-1106 BLACKSHEEP BARTENDED FRIDAY NIGHT You’re really cute slinging those drinks. I got a to-go order from you on Friday night around 8. I’m sorry you have to deal with creepy old men all of the time but you seem to handle yourself well. :) When: Nov. 1. Where: Blacksheep. #1309-1106 DOWNTOWN TSI SUNDAY BEERFEST GIRL “C” from Orange Park has a womanly adorableness; has a friend “M.” Me: Helping my friend get out of jail Sunday evening; stopped for a quick beer to kill time. Left for about 20 minutes; came back to talk more! Let’s chat a third time.

When: Oct. 27. Where: Club TSI Discotheque. #1306-1023 DOGTOBERFEST Gator Woman walking Minnie Mouse, you were talking with handsome guy in Life Is Good shirt and brindle dog with a bandana. You left way too early; Fate was knocking! Even shy pups need love. When: Oct. 26. Where: Dogtoberfest. #1305-1023 JACKSONVILLE ZOO, MOM AND KIDS You: At the zoo with 2 children. ISU by the maze, then children’s play area. We passed a few times. I wanted to introduce myself; sorry I didn’t. Me: Guy who made eye contact with you as much as I could to see if there was interest. With my three beautiful little boys. Was there mutual attraction/interest? When: Oct. 19. Where: Jacksonville #1307-1023 DIDN’T DREAD LOOKING AT YOU You: Brown dreadlocks, cute smile at Yoga Fest. Me: Colorful dress with a screaming baby in a stroller. You asked me what I did to the kid. When: Oct. 12. Where: Riverside Arts Market. #1306-1023 PEGASUS GALLERY’S GODDESS You: tattoos, eyes to get lost in, tiny hands, buns to die for! Me: Redhead bombshell, can’t get enough, drooling over sexy you. The moment ISU smile, had to have you. Want to wake up to your beautiful face, make you feel special. Be my bite-sized goodness.

I adore you. When: Oct. 10. Where: Pegasus Gallery, St. Augustine. #1302-1016

I SAW U Connection Made!

SEARCHING FOR SHARK TEETH You: Digging in sand, searching for shark teeth; looked as beautiful as I’ve ever seen you. You’re curious about the world; your curiosity’s sophisticated, inspiring, sexy.

I think about you every day; hope I cross your mind now and then. Wish I was your missing shark tooth. When: Sept. 2. Where: Jacksonville. #1302-1016

FROM COLD SHOULDER TO PINING AFTER YOU We shared a picnic table, you snapchatting away. I yelled at you, I’m that drunk girl. I gave you the cold shoulder, but hey girl, can I take ya on a date and a half? Four and a half? When: A date and a half ago. Where: Park Place Picnicking. #1300-1009 PETERBROOKE BOY You: Peterbrooke bag, pink tissue. Tall, dark, handsome (dirty blonde), gray shirt/pants. Walked in the Loop, look confused, didn’t buy. I’ll help find where to go. Me: On lunch, young professional, gray skirt, white shirt, brown hair, light brown eyes met yours. Smiled at each other on sidewalk. When: Oct. 3. Where: San Marco. #1301-1009 READING JUXTAPOSE Me: Long brown curly hair, freckles and tight black pants. You: Denim & tattoos. We made eye contact several times. Maybe I’m lucky enough for you to read this! When: Sept. 26. Where: Barnes & Noble @ Town Center. #1299-1002

NewsNews of theof the Weird Weird

FOLIO WEEKLY PUZZLER by Merl Reagle. Presented by

SAN MARCO 2044 SAN MARCO BLVD. 398-9741

PONTE VEDRA

THE SHOPPES OF PONTE VEDRA

330 A1A NORTH 280-1202

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ACROSS Colorful cat Safe place?

Funeral stand Pointed criticisms Some washers and dryers Nobelist Wiesel Way back when Nondairy alternative Goat capital of America?

Greek letters Reunion group Put ___ to (squelch) Poultry dish that tastes funny?

Cushing co-star, often Arctic floater Number two son Singer Bobby Amount to be divided “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Practice!” and others?

Mellow yellows Creamy cheese Alarm attachment?

Yogurt in “Spaceballs” Today’s rug special?

Green “Toy Story” toy “What ___ thinking?”

Pyramid topper on a $1 bill Hotel amenity Rummage Nasty sort Vile sort “Whattaya want? I’m boiling something,” for example? (continues at 71 Across) Cliffside home “The Louisville Lip” Develop See 64 Across Actor who memorably said, “I hate spunk” Business in “Sideways” Vitamin or bingo call Post-WWII alliance “D’accord” 2

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DOWN League of intrigue Regale Drink with shots Step ___ Hot gathering place?

Spanish circus animal Constitution start Jai-___ Hayes of “The Mod Squad” Pen problem Brunei’s locale Right down the middle Green sci.

Backs up a backup Rider in a race “That’s ___ need” Dip type Dance partner?

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Least Competent Criminals

An already-distinctive man (weighing in at 367 pounds) was arrested in Everett, Wash., for a December grocery store shoplifting because he was also wearing an easily noticed purple sock and, more than two hours later, was still wearing it when police caught up to him and questioned him.

A 23-year-old woman was arrested in Crestview, Fla., in November for shoplifting a “toy” from an adult store — before inquiring about a job there. She had professed her innocence until she was shown the surveillance video, at which point she said (according to the police report), “Oh, my God. Look at what I’m doing. ... I’m gonna cry.”

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

“It will be sort of my unique factor,” said indulgent customer Lucy Luckayanko, describing her then-upcoming $3,000 eyeball jewelry implant from New York City’s Park Avenue Laser Vision — the insertion of a piece of platinum between the sclera (the white part) and the clear conjunctiva. Actually, the shop’s medical director, Dr. Emil Chynn, told WNEW-TV in November, it’s “pretty safe.”

Cutting-Edge Science

It may be a cliché of domestic conflict, but physicists recently — earnestly — tackled the dynamics of toilet bowl “splash back.” A stream delivered by a standing male, because it travels five times farther than that of a seated male, produces a splash easily reaching seat and floor — even without factoring in the “well-known” Plateau-Rayleigh instability — the inevitable disintegration of a liquid stream “six or seven inches” after its formation. Short of recommending that men sit, researchers — speaking to a November conference — suggest “narrowing the angle” by “standing slightly to one side and aiming downwards at a low angle of impact,” as reported by BBC News.

The Human-Rodent Connection

University of British Columbia researchers, intent on judging whether blocking dopamine D4 receptors can reduce the urge to gamble in subjects other than humans, claimed in October to have devised a test that works on the dopamine receptors of rats — especially those with a gambling problem. With a slot machine-like device dispensing sugar pellets, researchers claimed they offered rats measured risks and determined that rats are more likely to take risks immediately following a close loss (as are humans), according to Science Daily.

Medical Marvels

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Wee hour Kin of Urdu Historic mainframe Hard-to-prove ability Lovably strange Seasonal tune Mark’s replacement Total cutup Utter amazement USMC rank Golfer’s concern Blue, in Baja Protest-sign verb “Fat chance!”

Site of Iolani Palace Vegas light source Tie-breaker, maybe Yule laugh Oatmeal alternative Playground retort “Hazel” creator Key Expands Pitcairn, for one: abbr.

Small egg Euripides tragedy Frequently sarcastic reply Major work Terse denial Lander at Tel Aviv Dismally damp Loc. of Daytona Bch. ___ of golf clubs Dulles data Like eery and iglu: abbr.

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Lizard look-alike “... ___ ye be judged” Energy Welcome Tell’s was excellent Quash Citizen of a gulf state Frankincense or myrrh Film production gear, ___ lights Passed easily Polite query Uncle Remus title Pen name “I can ___, man” This is what I’m talking about Pal of Pooh James of jazz Eastwood outlaw Chill out Hotel hire “Lohengrin” heroine Swindled Super Bowl ad product Pretentious Regular thing Gradual increase, in mus.

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AVONDALE 3617 ST. JOHNS AVE. 10300 SOUTHSIDE BLVD. 388-5406 394-1390 AVENUES MALL

Words after “Go right” USN rank Dieter’s sandwich?

Listerine-bottle abbr.

Tokyo-born artist Long-nosed fish Masada defender Lord of the Dance star’s nickname after letting himself go?

Cry of disgust Cry of discovery Floor space word Arizona’s ___ River Texting exclamation Book about the crossword centennial, 1913-2013? (continues at 119 Across) Old voting machine feature Horseplay?

Dow rise See 109 Across Six-sided state Part of A.D. Went quickly Spring bloomer Where your fodder is Card game for three Word after trans Do an usher’s job

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Seven years ago, Michael Spann, now 29, suddenly doubled over in pain that felt like he “got hit in the head with a sledgehammer,” and began crying blood. Despite consulting doctors, including two visits with extensive lab work at venerable Cleveland Clinic, the Antioch, Tenn., man told Nashville’s The Tennessean in October he’s resigned to an “idiopathic condition” — a disease without apparent cause. Spann’s main wish now is just to hold a job, as fellow workers, and customers, tend not to react well to a man bleeding from the eyes.

The Kingdom

The sex life of the anglerfish, according to a Wired.com interview in November with

evolutionary biologist Theodore Pietsch, is as dismal as any on planet Earth: “Boy meets girl, boy bites girl, boy’s mouth fuses to girl’s body, boy lives the rest of his life attached to girl, sharing her blood and supplying her with sperm.” Only 1 percent of males ever hook up with females (because the ocean floor is dark), said Pietsch. The rest starve to death as virgins.

Elephant Whisperer

Nirmala Toppo, 14, is apparently the one to call if wild elephants overrun your village, especially in India’s Orissa and Jharkhand states, still home to hundreds of marauding pachyderms. Her latest pied-piper act, in June, emptied a herd of 11 out of the industrial city of Rourkela. Said Toppo: “First I pray and then talk to the herd. I tell them this is not your home. You should return where you belong.” Somehow, the elephants followed her for miles away from town, according to an October BBC News item.

Perspective

The daunting problems that faced the launch of the HealthCare.gov website in October were merely symptoms of the federal government’s often snail-like pace at integrating digital innovations common to everyday America.

A December New York Times report revealed that The Federal Register (the daily journal of the U.S. government) still receives original content from some agencies on virtually obsolete 3.5-inch floppy disks — and (because of unamended legal requirements) its work-order authorizations from some agencies on disks hand-delivered inside the Washington Beltway by courier. Contractors can be frustrated as well since, though they operate with top-of-the-line digital efficiency internally, they must sometimes downgrade to interface with their government clients.

A NOTW Classic

Hundreds of Los Angeles’ down-and-out live not just under local freeways but inside their concrete structures, according to a June 2009 Los Angeles Times item. The largest “home” is a gym-size cavern under the I-10 freeway in Baldwin Park. That space is nearly inaccessible, requiring squeezing through a rusty grating, traversing a narrow ledge and descending a ladder to reach “a vast, vaultlike netherworld, strewn with garbage and syringes,” with toys and rattles and a cat carcass visible on an upper platform only marginally harder for rats to reach. Every few years, state officials try to seal the entrance; the homeless unseal it when officials leave.

Readers’ Choice

In October, an Ohio judge turned down a petition by Donald Miller Jr., asking to be ruled “alive.” “You’re still deceased as far as the law is concerned,” Probate Judge Allan Davis told him; state law requires challenges to his declaration of death (obtained by Miller’s wife in 1994) to be filed within three years. The Courier in Findlay reported that Judge Davis said, “I don’t know where that leaves you.”

Chuck Shepherd weirdnews@earthlink.net

&&&

GET WEIRDED OUT Read more News of the Weird items at folioweekly.com/weird.

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Backpage Editorial Florida’s Unseen Shame

A mother’s fight to secure treatment for her severely autistic son

T

here are no other cars in her driveway except the one with the dead transmission. Good, I think, I’ve beaten the APD person here.

When my friend opens the door, I learn I’m wrong. The representatives of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities came early. “It went OK,” she says, inviting me in for a debriefing.

As I walk inside, I try not to choke as the overpowering odor envelops me. The dog died months ago and was always housebroken, anyway. The cat stays outside.

I know it’s her 21-year-old son who has soaked her bed sheets, her pillows, her carpet — everything — with his urine. The smell is much worse than it was several weeks ago.

My friend, Michele, has finally stopped apologizing for the condition of her home.

Anyone who visits knows she doesn’t choose to live this way. No one would. She makes a reference to the “better adult diapers,” which don’t leak as much, and how she’s always fighting over the paperwork needed to obtain them.

“I have to fight for everything,” she says. Her voice escalates when she’s stressed — she often doesn’t realize she’s actually yelling. Who am I to tell her? Yell away, my friend.

Michele is one of the physically strongest women I’ve ever met, but at 53, she’s getting tired. Her body is suffering, untreated. She supports her family, singlehandedly, by working half-days as a bookkeeper for a local advertising firm.

Don’t ask about her disabled former-truckdriver husband who owes her thousands in back child support and alimony — unless you want a real yell-fest. She never gets a weekend or holiday off. If she forces the issue, she knows it’s her daughters who’ll be tasked with the care of their brother at their dad’s house — if he lasts there for more than a day.

“When we get all this taken care of,” she says, stretching out her arms, “I can work more hours and get health insurance and go to the doctor.”

“This” is appropriate placement for her virtually nonverbal, un-potty-trained, “aggressive” and “violent” son, age 21, whose school day ends soon after what would otherwise be her lunch hour. “This” is a safe place, where he won’t hurt himself or other people, where the staff is highly trained in behaviorism, a science to which, when practiced properly, her son responds. Until, that is, the divorce, or the change of schools, or some nameless, faceless bureaucratic “system” takes it all away again. Two steps forward. Three steps back.

Urine. Blood. Poverty.

Suffering.

We use the words “aggressive” and “violent” now because when an individual lives in a 250-pound, 6-foot-2, adult, male body — regardless of his mental age — we can no longer characterize what he does as a “temper tantrum.”

Not when he hits his teacher and his mother.

Not when he smashes aquariums and glass windows, or puts a hole through the front door.

Not when he head-butts, kicks and punches the walls in his home, then tears out the drywall.

Not when he repeatedly reopens the

wounds he’s endured on his head, feet and hands, inviting infection and yet one more visit to the emergency room, one more call from the school to his mother, one more half-day of missed work, one more fifth of her meager, weekly income down the drain — again.

“The psychiatrist says if we Baker Act him, he won’t come back from the trauma,” Michele tells me. So she withstands the wait. She endures the fight.

When we get all this taken care of …

With all her might, with all her soul, all her being — for 18 years or more — my friend has valiantly fought. Her opponent? Her son’s severe, profound and ultimately unmitigated autism.

State services bungled the first diagnosis, and thus bungled her son’s educational treatment during his formative years. Not that they would have known what to do anyway back then — they were about 30 years behind best practices. The public schools know better now. That doesn’t mean they always do better.

When my friend was married, when she had four children in her home instead of just two, she drove her younger son to psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and, eventually, after she found a lawyer, to a private school paid for by a McKay scholarship.

She managed to drive him also to her older son’s football games and wrestling matches, to his sisters’ baton and cheerleading events. She raised one son who played college football and served in the Army; she’s raised a daughter who completed a medical assistant degree. She’s raising another daughter who’s applying to colleges this year.

And she fights for the younger son, for whom she still has dreams.

She’s seen glimmers of hope at his newest school, Palm Avenue Exceptional Center. The angels there know how to interact with her son until the end of each of her abrogated workdays.

My friend envisions her son learning how to use the toilet.

She can see him in a place with enough structure and activity and trained-up staff to

HOW TO HELP

&&&

A Wells Fargo account is open for the benefit of Michele’s son, Harley Sheffield. Call 783-0567 or email torrel.e.benjamin@wellsfargo.com.

gratifying himself under his diaper and his elastic gym shorts, just after peeing all over her bed pillows.

“It’s on the report,” my friend tells me, referring to documents completed by her visitor from APD, and her son’s distinctly indiscriminate and un-private acts.

How, I wonder, did APD document the suffocating smell of urine?

“I’ve got to see if the rental place has found a matching dryer,” she remarks. Hers is broken.

She pays $50 a month to rent-to-own the new washer, so at least she can launder her sheets and hang them up.

She’s still way short of the cash she’s going to need to renew the registration on another old car that a relative is willing to let her use.

Christmas? Forget about it.

Maybe she can sell the car in the driveway for junk.

“I have faith,” she says. “What other choice do I have?”

Michele’s faith is bolstered and buoyed by the generous soul who gifted her son with an iPad, by the sweet lady who paid for someone to come replace her smashed-out front window with Plexiglas, by her friends at church. They all read her story in the TimesUnion a year and a half ago, written by Matt Soergel and excruciatingly videotaped by Bob Self. You’ve been warned. Still, you really need to see. This is what autism looks like.

“Maybe I’ll just sleep out here tonight,” she says from her perch on one of two loveseats.

“I’ve done that before.” She sits back, resting her injured foot upon the coffee table in front of her.

When all this is taken care of …

She remembers she needs to call her relative for a ride to work and hopes he won’t need gas money.

She also remembers to email the APD service coordinator to make sure the crisis packet has been

“I have to fight for everything,” she says. Her voice escalates when she’s stressed — she often doesn’t realize she’s actually yelling.

Who am I to tell her? Yell away, my friend. help him replace his self-injuring behavior, or at least decrease it.

She sees him making friends in an appropriate group home.

She sees more than the permanent bruises on his hands and wrists that have resulted from years of his biting them.

She hears more than the loud, plaintive wails in the doctors’ offices, the bank, or the store — and the reverberating screeches that bring the inevitable stares wherever she goes.

“Everyone needs to see this,” she says to me.

“This is what autism looks like.”

I saw my friend’s son on the day of my visit.

Sitting in the doorway to her bedroom, he was

signed, sealed and delivered to Tallahassee. Again.

And now we pray. We pray that someone who works for the state realizes that we are the state, and we don’t work for computers or budgets or systems — these are tools that are supposed to be working for us — for people.

We pray that someone will see that by failing to serve the least among us — over and over and over again — we’re putting entire families on the brink of homelessness, sickness and despair, every day. We pray that Michele’s son will receive services he needs, so he can live a life of dignity — so his mother and his little sister can, too.

Julie Delegal

Folio Weekly welcomes Backpage Editorial submissions. Essays should be at least 1,200 words and on a topic of local interest or concern. Email your Backpage to themail@folioweekly.com. Opinions expressed on the Backpage are those of the author and do not necessarily refl ect those of the editors or management of Folio Weekly.

DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | 39