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Mockin' Bird

Jonny Whiteside
As half a dozen gaudy koi fish shimmy beneath a blue glass dolphin that appears to leap from the mosaic fountain dominating the front bar of Rancho Mirage nitery Basin Street West, a crush of flashy suits and svelte furs crowd to their tables. Semifamiliar faces from bad-trip '70s television......

Trouble In Paradise

Eddie Little
Echoing screams drip into my head like molten lead dripping into water, sizzling, steaming, then hardening and taking shape, morphing into distinct sounds and words. The different voices meld into a harmony straight outta hell. The institutional odor of piss and disinfectant mixed with the smell of adrenaline-loaded, fear-inspired sweat......

Soul Sisters

Ernest Hardy
When the documentary Soul in the Hole opens, Kenny Jones - a round, profane, pissed-off black man - fills the screen. The coach of a Bed-Stuy b-ball team, he's cursing out a referee for a bad call, his sucker-punch being to call the unnerved man a faggot. Jones is pure......

In the Flesh

Manohla Dargis
The "queen of the nudies" buttons her green suede coat and orders the photographer back another 10 feet: After a lifetime behind the camera, director Doris Wishman is in no mood for pictures. In town last week to promote a screening of three of her films, including a fallen-woman cautionary......
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Keeping Up Appearances

Diana Wagman
James cannot laugh or cry. He is unable to smile, raise his eyebrows, or even move his eyes from side to side. He has a rare condition called Mobius Syndrome. He believes his inability to register emotion on his face has suppressed his emotions. "People," says James, "they are their......
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Je Voudrais Del Taco

Michael Baers
''I see so much all the time," says Orlan. "Sometimes, I want to see nothing." This is why I'm driving the infamous French performance artist, in town for the opening of MOCA's "Out of Actions," along Highway 60 to Joshua Tree National Park. More Soul Gold is playing on the......
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Negritude Adjustment

Erin J. Aubry
Shang - formerly known as Shang Forbes - appears an unlikely comedian for our jaded age. Instead of keeping an ironic distance or an overheated ghetto sensibility more common to - and more expected of - black performers, he makes a commitment: wrestling with alligators that his peers won't touch,......
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Laserian

Sue Spaid
Internationally known among commercial-art enthusiasts for his pop-inspired faunal and floral imagery, Japanese-born and -educated Hiro Yamagata is best known in the U.S. as the poster designer for the 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Committees. (He's also designed commemorative stuff for the Air and Space Bicentennial, the U.S. Constitution's......
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Tofu before noon

Jonathan Gold
Raisin Bran has its place in the world; blueberry pancakes are fine. We have personally fried enough eggs over easy to swamp Dodger Stadium in slightly runny yolk. But on the other side of the world - and in other parts of town - breakfast is more likely to contain......

Bank Shot

Johnny Angel
The rush - the heart-stopping terror - of robbing a bank was like nothing else on the planet for Keith. Better than a game-winning buzzer-beater, better than the Magic Mountain Viper, better even than a "master-blaster" - a simultaneous mega-hit of base accompanied by the expert ministrations of a cheap......