(U-WIRE) ARLINGTON, Texas – In the fall of 1990, the brave television executives at ABC debuted “Cop Rock,” a musical police drama done in an opera-like format where characters sang rather than talked to each other. For some unknown reason, the concept of caroling cops and criminals didn’t catch on. The show quickly incurred wrath among television critics and was dubbed the worst television show ever to pollute the airwaves.

“Cop Rock” strongly held that title until Aug. 4, the day the reality sitcom “The Anna Nicole Show” premiered on the E! Entertainment Television Network. In one night, the show replaced “Cop Rock.” Many critics now consider Anna’s show the most painful boil on the butt of television history.

For those unfamiliar with “The Anna Nicole Show,” its basic premise is to follow the former Playboy Playmate/current oil-billionaire widow around with cameras. While filmed, she stumbles through her daily life in what seems to be a pharmaceutically induced stupor wearing entirely too-tight jeans and way too much makeup.

On some small level, E! TV’s exploitation of Anna Nicole pains me. At the height of her popularity, she was a bona fide celebrity and had a serious fan following. Most adolescent heterosexual males at the time probably believed that having impure thoughts about Anna Nicole was a prerequisite for entering manhood. Her 1993 Playboy “Playmate of the Year” photo spread could best be described as “optical Viagra.” But, unfortunately for Anna Nicole, that was about 10 years and 120 pounds ago. Those who’ve seen any part of the first four episodes quickly learn that there is a fine line between celebrity and sideshow circus freak.

It is apparent that she still has the same beautiful face but has gone from being a Playboy diva to a shallow, self-absorbed oblivious individual who probably thinks a “suicide bomber” is that new drink served down on Hollywood Boulevard.

To be perfectly fair, Anna Nicole is not committing this crime against television by herself. Her accomplices on the show include people with personality quirks so profound they are worthy enough to be “Seinfeld” secondary characters. Leading the way of her supporting cast of crazies is her overtly “flamboyant” interior designer, Bobby Trendy, who, if he were a character creation instead of a real person, would cause the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to start an uprising that would make the 1992 Los Angeles riots look like a letter-writing campaign. Coming in a close second is Anna Nicole’s sycophant of a lawyer and best friend Howard K. Stern, who would submit to having his testicles removed and surgically attached to his earlobes if Anna Nicole wanted him to.

Rounding out this trio of Anna’s second fiddles is her purple-haired, vapid personal assistant, Kim Walther. Her language includes so many profane words in need of bleeping that it sounds like she’s speaking in Morse code. Also included in the cast is Anna’s 16-year-old son Daniel – the Marilyn Munster of the show – who answers every question with “I’m going to my room.” He will undoubtedly one day make some psychiatrist very, very wealthy.

Despite the fact that I take every opportunity to denigrate “The Anna Nicole Show,” I must confess to liking it. Once one gets past the show’s total lack of substance, coherent thought and any semblance of redeemable social value, and once a person gets over the irony of Anna Nicole Smith having her own reality show – because “reality” is a concept more alien to her than a Vulcan mind-meld – the viewer might see a show that represents America truly as the land of opportunity.

“The Anna Nicole Show” provides voyeuristic proof that in this nation, a person doesn’t have to say or do anything of real consequence or even be able to complete a rational sentence.

No, to be famous in this country, all someone needs is a great set of “tah-tahs” and enough foresight to marry a billionaire 14 months before he dies.

God Bless America.

Surprisingly, it was a rather spectacular summer for the cinema. After a two-year lull in quality cinema, things have picked up in 2002. First, both Monsoon Wedding and Kissing Jessica Stein hit the mark in the spring, and then the summer whopped out these five important, very aesthetic films.

5. Me Without You: Tracing the friendship span of two girls from childhood into adult years, this British film follows them from their shagadelic 1970’s styled childhood and sexually abandoned 80’s new wave teen years into their mildly matured adult years.

The friendship plays the centerpiece of the film and displays all the aspects of tight-knit female bonds -from the jealousy, to the dependency, to the love. In the climatic scene, Michelle William’s character explains why she wants to eradicate the friendship, particularly because “you make me hate myself.” This long confession to her friend might be one of the most honest speeches about female bonds made in recent film.

4. Lovely and Amazing: Although Catherine Keener basically plays the same character she has played in so many films, and Brenda Blethyn tries so hard to cover her British accent that you can’t help noticing, Lovely and Amazing still reveals the trouble two sisters have in ridding their psyches of values instilled by their insecure mother. Most importantly, all of the characters deal with issues of physical image that are seemingly passed down from mother to daughter. Genetic or not?

In one scene, Keener explains to her much younger, adopted sister why she is lucky to dodge the genetics fastenings of the family. “You don’t have to be like mom. Me, though, God, I can’t get rid of it.” While not exactly an amazing film, it definitely qualifies as being lovely.

3. Sunshine State: Sunshine State, a follow-up to John Sayles’ highly acclaimed Lone Star, finds Sayles in the same territory he has focused much of his work on for years. Like in City of Hope and Lone Star, this film’s characters deal with change in their community, and the tensions that run among various races.

In all of John Sayles’ movies, characters usually pair off, take long walks, and explain their various lives and situations to another character, who, in turn, explains about his/her own conflicted life.

These conversations almost take the form of cathartic lifesavers for the characters they involve. Most of the time they continue to drown, but this release of inner turmoil helps them stay afloat that much longer.

This is especially the case For Edie Falco’s character, who feels herself drowning under the weight of salvaging her dad’s boring motel business. Her conversation with a real estate prospector becomes nothing less than vital. As he leaves in the end, she finds herself back in the rut of everyday life. The last image is her face underwater, and this time the drowning is quite literal.

2. Insomnia: Memento fans beware: Christopher Nolan chose a much less innovative way to follow up his smash novice film. Quality cinema fans take note: Christopher Nolan improves upon Memento, creating a intricately paced second feature that finds Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank all in top form. Nolan steadily balances the beauty of the Alaskan scenery with a tight, taut thriller story, complete with psychological investigation.

1. The Piano Teacher: One quarter of the way through The Piano Teacher, Isabelle Hubert’s character (the piano teacher of the title – very stubborn and authoritative) does something so sexually shocking yet realistic that I gagged (for the first time ever watching a movie). The most shocking aspects of this film are not the actual events on screen, but the realism that glows within them. A Cannes winner from last year, The Piano Teacher qualifies as one of the best foreign films to come out in quite some time.

Patrick Berkley can be reached at p.berkley@umiami.edu.

There’s nothing better than returning to the shadiness of South Beach. Even when it’s hurting financially and creatively, it manages to pull a Traficant and let gusto reign supreme. That’s perfectly fine for all of the Gucci meatheads floating around out there on pills, but when it shows up at the ropes of a hip hop show, as with the Jadakiss and Styles concert last Monday at Level, it’s just ugly.

Press passes had been secured the day of the show after a lengthy process of e-mailing, telephoning and faxing Level nightclub. Your usual “just fax us the names of the writer and photographer attending and there will be no problem,” type of deal.

Of course when the press crew reaches the eternal circus that is Washington Avenue after midnight, any sense of organization and professionalism is erased and replaced with personal and socio-political garbage. You get five guys behind the velvet ropes spinning a variation of “what can you offer me?” and “what list?”

They all retain a cool demeanor, even when a barrage of thugs gush out of the front doors throwing punches and reaching for guns that (luckily) weren’t there. Policemen arrive out of nowhere and escort several of them down the street for a “friendly chat,” only to have them return minutes later promising revenge in the name of “New Orleans.”

“Brah, I mean if you lose your job, I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do” a doorman says as he ushers four pimply faced females into the club with a scary flash of teeth. When acquaintances ask for passes he nonchalantly opens the ropes, reaches into his pocket and hands each of them tiny paper squares. “Sorry brah, only the manager can let people in and he’s not here.” Sure brah.

The turnout looked disappointing, even at $25 a ticket. Like most hip hop shows in SoBe, it probably didn’t start until well after 3 a.m. – if it even went down at all. You get the feeling that rappers only perform in Miami as an excuse to stay at the Shore Club and club hop the night away.

Who can blame them? When the college press is turned away and real hip hop fans can’t afford the ticket price (not including the requisite hair gel and shimmering button-down shirt needed for entry), any chance to build a scene and hip hop community similar to the ones found in the cities of New York and California is severely hindered.

Maybe things will change, maybe they won’t. Either way this section will continue to cover what goes down in this city to the best of our ability – and next time a hip hop show’s at Level we’ll be sure to style our hair like Justin Timberlake and bathe in cologne beforehand. Because that’s what hip hop is all about, right brah?

Irwin Fletcher can be reached at

hurricaneaccent@hotmail.com.

French Kicks
One Time Bells
****
The French Kicks’ One Time Bells is comparable to snooping inside a stranger’s closet and finding an obscenely large stash of pop rocks. Just try to shake the loopy hook on “Down Now” out of your head after two listens max – it’s not going to happen. You’ll be craving for this album’s hooks all day long. If you’re big on mental clarity, you’re screwed because they’ll keep popping up like Double Dragon villains.
This quartet, part of Brooklyn’s surging music scene, travels loosely on the nostalgic hills of yesteryear’s melodic jams, visiting the Cure (“Right in Time”) old school Elton John (“Close to Modern”) and the Jesus & Mary Chain (“Crying Just For Show”), with subtle detours into art-punk psychedelia.
Tracks like “1985” and “Where We Went Off” are a passionate make out session with “Sixteen Candles” era innocence, complete with the new wave quirks of an Anthony Michael Hall dance move. Underneath the album’s confectionary surface coating exists a sharp, potent substance – upping the danger factor, and mucho bonus points for having a lead singer, Nick Stumpf, who’s also the drummer. To sum it up, this band has more goods than Publix.
Check them out at www.frenchkicks.com.

MF Doom
Operation: Doomsday!
***
Somewhere in a comic book-paneled, hip hop universe, an entire regime of radio alarm clocks are sounding off trying to get Earth’s attention. For over three years they’ve been playing M.F. Doom’s Operation: Doomsday! with growing frustration; this feeling is expressed using emoticons and symbols displayed on their digital red faces. The most popular choice: the letters “wtf.” It is quite a sight.
If the dozing masses only knew that they’re trapped inside a hellish nightmare ruled by King Ja Rule and the eternally lame Cerberus known as Jermaine Dupri. Maybe then they’d wake up, wipe the colossal chunks of sleep out their eyes, slip M.F. Doom into their Discmans and bow down to real hip hop.
This album sounds like it was recorded in an underground lair littered with beat machines, a hydro setup and samplers illegally rigged to televisions playing Cartoon Network. On the first track entitled “Doomsday,” Metal Face Doom lets the rhymes spill like a slot machine that just hit “two milli’.” Over a recurring squeegee scratch, Doom spits hilarious verses like “Get out my face, askin’ bout my case, need toothpaste/Fresher mint, monkey styled ni**a need Dentadent.” The inventiveness of his vocabulary is pure Mrs. Buttersworth goodness.
Several of the beats tread the raw ground of Wu-tang’s first and third albums, and the Rza’s vast influence cannot be denied. Doom’s soulful cut-and-paste production, especially on “Dead Bent” and “Who You Think I Am?” may even owe Wu a couple of metal thumbs.
But with insanely original tracks like “Hey!,” which samples “Scooby-Doo” (pre-movie travesty), and “Tick, Tick” (with M.F. Grimm), there are enough leaps and bounds present to neutralize a Shaolin ambush. This is hip hop that reminds you how fun and loose it can be, but it also has ambitious goals. M.F. Doom has vowed to protect the art form from all corporate record label criminals and rocks a metal mask to conceal his identity – for real.
Do the Milky Way a favor and cop this album, and keep your eyes peeled for Doom’s future earth shattering team up with Madlib AKA the nasal flowed, green powered hero Quasimoto.
For more info visit www.subversemusic.com.

Allister
Dead Ends and Girlfriends
0 stars

When I got this CD in the mail from Drive-Thru Records (alongside discs by Homegrown and RxBandits, so I was all siked!!) there was a sticker on it that said “15 melodic pop-punk songs about girls.” Is this a f–ing joke? Do fifteen year olds come back from PacSun, put this music on and actually think that they’re listening to a form of punk rock? Judging from Drive-Thru’s booming record sales, the answer is a gigantic “thumbs up.”
Ten years ago kids would risk their lives every Sunday to stay up past midnight and see bands like the Descendents, the Ramones and the Circle Jerks on a once nifty mainstream show called “120 Minutes.” A mere six hours later they’d come to school with bloodshot eyes and share championed tales of seeing Black Flag’s “TV Party,” or the horrors of being caught, grounded and beaten. Now kids have the Internet and info about the Clash, Bad Brains, Wire and Minor Threat at their manicured little finger tips 247 365.
What gives? People like Mike Watt and Duane Peters busted ass for decades driving $250 vans cross country and back to spread punk rock’s message(s) and create a vital music scene (and still do), and Allister is racking in all their dough? Do you listen to Allister? That’s embarrassing. Pop punk is Chartwells. Major label (MCA) pop punk is Chartwells ten minutes after you’re back in the dorms.
If you have an Allister poster on your wall (probably next to ones of New Found Glory and Blink 182), please don’t shed a tear. I’m sure your saying “But hey bro, some of these songs are catchy. Just listen to “Love Song” or “It’s Just Me” or my favorite “Boysenberry” or the t-total trophy taker “Jacob Thinks I’m Gay.”
No.
Send all viruses and flame mail to Scottie, Johnny, Timmy and Skippy (especially Skippy) at allister97@aol.com. Boycott Drive-Thru Records. Long live Joe Strummer, Mike Ness, Lars Frederiksen and Jack Grisham. RIP Joey, Deedee, Sid and all of the other anti-heroes that fed the scene until the grave.
Allister fans: seek help at www.allmusic.com.

LIARS
They Threw Us All In a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top
***

All hail this new dance punk eruption. Brooklyn’s LIARS blast through nine tracks of attention deficit punk rock abstractions like it’s the last level of Galaga. “We’ve got our finger on the pulse of America” screeches 6’6″ Australian vocalist Angus Andrew before the first track frenzies into a guitar seizure. But seriously, bands like LIARS, the Rapture and !!! are the new blood pumping through this country’s rock veins – tap into it again and again.
“Mr Your On Fire Mr” features digital handclaps and some rolling bass lines before the vocals get all synthed out and skinny dip into the 1980s. This album proudly flicks off all sacred musical conventions in the name of fun and unpredictability. And like most rebellious activities, your mood plays a huge factor in the extraction of satisfaction. Take warning: if you put this on jonesing for relaxation, you’ll be trampled and left with a dumbfounded headache.
LIARS recorded this album in a two-day musical binge with producer Steve Revitte of Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty fame. “Tumbling Walls Buried Me in the Debris with ESG” swipes a beat from ESG’s “UFO” (FYI: you need not heard of ESG to enjoy it) adds drums and advises/demands “leave your work at home and put down the briefcase.”
Lifting an entire song from the musical vaults is an endeavor usually associated with professional thieves and artistically bankrupt hacks like P.Diddy. However, in this case Picasso’s old saying rings with abrasive truth and the LIARS kick out a sonic jam. In fact, the track is the album’s most standout offering – download a taste test and visit www.liarliarsliars.com for more info.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at hurricaneaccent@hotmail.com.

Excellent service, a casual-chic atmosphere, and excellent pizza are

just three reasons Spris is catching on as one of Coral Gables’ most popular restaurants.

Already a Lincoln Road favorite, Spris opened its second location on Ponce de Leon last May, bringing the flavor of South Beach to the Gables dining scene. On the menu are delightful antipastos, to-die-for desserts, and over fifty variations of the traditional wood-oven pizza.

To whet the appetite, I highly recommend the salmon and brie antipasto.

Capers are sprinkled over thin salmon slices, served cold with wedges of brie cheese. As a main course, there’s a vast selection. I chose number 42, which added chicken to my thin crust pizza.

For any dining experience, the atmosphere should always match the food.

One distinct South Beach element is the al-fresco dining, though a view of Ponce traffic isn’t exactly comparable to the Lincoln Road setting.

The Gables solution: a neo-Hemmingway motif. Flat screened televisions on the stenciled walls and stones inside steel-mesh

crates build on this modern maritime ambiance.

Another thing that stood out about Spris was the excellent service. Waiters eagerly offered recommendations on their favorite pizzas, and the manager visited my table at least twice, to make sure I was enjoying the meal. I noticed the manager greeting a couple by name. For a place that has been open for a mere three months, “regulars” are a great sign.

Now to the most important thing for any college student: the price.

Most entrees are under ten dollars, but when you start ordering antipastos and dessert, it can add up. The two-person bill came out to $43, including tip.

So though Spris made for an excellent dining experience, it didn’t really make a “regular” out of me. My advice: make Spris a definite must for a special occasion, but for your average late night pizza craving, leave it up to Little Caesar and his two-for-one Crazy Bread.

Spris is located at 2305 Ponce de Leon Blvd.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at a.zayas2@umiami.edu.

So here you are, all ready for your first days of school. If you’re not a Miami native, you probably got on the big scary plane, said bye-bye to mommy and daddy and chose to now reside in or around campus. If you still live with your parents, you’ve prepared yourself to face traffic daily in order to show up to class. Either way, kid, get ready for a ride. Your first week here is going to be interesting.

A quick explanation of why you should heed my advice: I’m a junior. I’ve been there. I have suffered your current pains, and I’ve survived. I’m also a commuter, so what I tell you about commuting comes from years of trial and error (and error and error and error). All my information (and complaints and advice) about dorms, however, comes from people I know who reside in them- so take my words with a grain of salt, as they may not be 100% accurate.

First off: walking on campus will bless you with surprises. The greatest shock for everyone is the discovery that there are other types of people on campus than the ones expected. This sounds painfully obvious, but people don’t usually realize the extent of it until it’s face-to-face.

For you out-of-towners, this will hit you across the face like a sledgehammer- expect to hear five different languages in one day. This is in no way bizarre. For the locals, you are to encounter a shock just as great: there are people who speak only English, and who have never been to a Latin American country. This is also in no way bizarre. Everyone will have an accent you find unusual, regardless of where you’re coming from. Your only choice, really, is to get used to it, and to try to enjoy it.

Now, for you kiddies who are now going to be spending lots of time in your cars driving up and down, your greatest concern is parking. And unfortunately for us, UM has a BIG parking issue. The administration has been working on it, and there have been great improvements, but there is still distance to go. The only practical solution is to either show up on campus before nine a.m., or to come at least half an hour before class in order to procure a space- yes, it will take you that long- sometimes even longer. My recommendation is to park in a lot far away (and hence, less crowded) and take a shuttle.

The Hurry-cane shuttles, by the way, are great, wonderful things. They have stops all over, including Sunset Place on Fridays and Saturdays and the Grove on Thursdays. Use them frequently. Be their friend.

More helpful hints: use sandals in the showers and try to make nice with your roommate. That should help along until you figure the rest out yourself.

Now, a few other things: make use of your free time. More likely than not, you are going to have lots of time between classes. Wasting this time is a very, very bad idea. This is doubly true of commuters. Take that hour and read a chapter instead of watching TV. Do work. Plan your papers. Something. Anything productive.

Make use of the facilities, you’re paying for them. Go to the Wellness Center. Use the library. The UC, in particular, should be made use of as much as possible- there are everything from pool tables to chess sets to a great new arcade and Internet cafe to be enjoyed.

And last but definitely not least: relax. Sooner or later, you’ll find a groove that feels good and works for you. Until then, kiddies, just hang in there and try not to kill yourselves.

Rebeca Oliveira can be reached at r.oliveira@umiami.edu.

Hip-hop has well evolved into the bulky threads of the American popular culture mesh. There are those artists who have been inspired and influenced by the ascension of hip-hop as a dissenting voice from the underground to its current level of popularity and pompousness. And there are those that have helped foster its evolution. The Jungle Brothers fit in the latter category and have witnessed the amassment of hip-hop within MTV music videos, into the trends and vogues of the fashion world, the lingos and lifestyles of defiant, but “in-crowd” teenagers, as well as into the thick volume of commercials and ads we see in our quotidian life.

Now, it also infiltrates the video game world with the new PS2 game, Frequency, a DJ game on which the beats were made, among others, by some hip-hop artists, including the Jungle Brothers.

Members of the Native Tongues collective, the group is a pioneering, bohemian ensemble, engaged throughout their career in a more artistic than commercial drive, always with an avant-garde, experimental approach to hip-hop. They have forged new directions for the genre by being the first hip-hop act to record with a house music producer, one of the first to exalt the virtues of safe sex, and one of the first to get involved with British drum’n’bass.

Currently, they’ve been touring and putting finishing touches on their next album, You In My Hut Now. We caught up with Afrika to discuss their thoughts on the present hip-hop world.

OS: You’ve been making music since the 80’s. How do you see yourself as artists now?

JB: I think we’re more in tune with our creative ability. We’re more comfortable with collaborating with artists from many different backgrounds.

OS: You’ve had your differences with the industry, such as your break-up with Warner in ’95. What have you learned from dealing so many years with the big business?

JB: The music industry is like a big band you have to adapt your talent to. If you don’t ‘tune-in’ and find out what key the band’s playing in, you won’t find harmony.

OS: Let’s talk about Frequency a little. What did you make for the game and how would you describe the music you produced?

JB: We made a hip-hop-drum-and-bass style track called “What’s The Five 0.” The concept for the lyrics was to make them sound like how-to instructions for the game. We also added in some names of skateboard moves, which worked out nicely because we noticed that the game looked like you were riding through a tunnel.

OS: You’ve been considered a group thinking independently from the mainstream, sending out positive messages. What do you think about hip-hop’s current materialistic direction?

JB: It is hard for me as someone who respects hip-hop as an art form that came from the street, to accept it as a materialistic culture. I see it as hip-hop’s way of trying to promote itself as high prestige-commanding position in people’s minds. My concern is for the children. Let them use their own minds. The prestige should come from being creative, not from the material things that creativity affords you.

OS: Yes. And so hip-hop can be a powerful cultural and political tool. How do you use your art to profess your ideas or certain social messages?

JB: At times, when I discover truth, whether personal or universal, I get inspired to write it as poetry to express what the experience was like. Other times, I walk around the city and observe what’s going on and then start writing. That’s when the cultural and political influence comes in. When people can see themselves in the picture and find a solution to their situation, that’s when hip-hop becomes powerful. Ultimately, I enjoy having fun with music. Through it, I think people sense that they’re on a journey because music never stays in one place; it touches you, but you can’t touch it (laughs).

OS: You’ve traveled a good deal. How have people received you in Europe vs. in the United States?

JB: The reception has been good overall. In Europe, there are less categories; there’s pop and innovative dance music [among a few others]. In the U.S., there are many different genres. To get a good reception from a crowd, you have to know where your haven is. That’s why we get love from both sides of the Atlantic.

OS: What can we expect from the Jungle Brothers (and Native Tongues) in the future? Any work with De La Soul, Q-Tip or Phife, perhaps?

JB: We haven’t done anything together in about 5 years. What I can say is that there’s a lot of demand out there for the collective. [As for us], you can expect our new album, You In My Hut Now, to be released on our own label, Jungle Brothers Records!

Omar Sommereyns can be reached at SOASIS@aol.com