By JOHN TANASYCHUK

When brothers Blaise and Sean McMackin decided to go into the bar and restaurant business, they knew they wanted to create something that Fort Lauderdale had never seen.

South Florida has no shortage of beer joints, where the beer is the cold, the chicken wings are hot and a game is always on TV. But at the McMackins’ Tap 42, open since last fall, there are 42 beers on tap, another 42 in bottles and 42 types of bourbon. It’s set in the former Brownie’s, once the oldest bar in Fort Lauderdale, and redesigned with a new kind of party in mind.

One wall of the interior is covered in reclaimed barn wood. Bar tops are cement. Fifteen thousand pennies were used to create a back splash for the draft taps. The McMackins paid special attention to the exterior of the now steel-gray building, by creating a stylish covered patio with accordion windows that open up the bar to the outside. There are a dozen TV screens inside, but not a single beer banner is in sight.

Address, directions, invite a friend

“I never felt I had a place to go to,” Blaise McMackin says. “There are lots of fancy places. And then, there are a lot of dumpy places — places I probably wouldn’t go. But I think there’s a whole new generation of people who want to go to a bar but don’t want to eat crappy old chicken wings or crappy old burgers. They want something more sophisticated.”
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By BEN CRANDELL

Miami City Ballet will perform new works by two of the world’s most innovative and sought-after choreographers, Alexei Ratmansky and Liam Scarlett, during its 2012-2013 season, the company’s last under the leadership of longtime artistic director Edward Villella.

MCB announced next season’s programming at a gala last week, with new subscriptions and renewals available beginning this week.

Among the highlights:

Ratmansky’s “Symphonic Dances,” set to Rachmaninoff’s powerful score, joins the repertory next February when Program III debuts at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. The work was given a one-time-only preview, in collaboration with the Cleveland Orchestra, at Thursday’s gala.

An as yet unnamed work by The Royal Ballet’s Scarlett, who dazzled local audiences with the world premiere of the MCB-commissioned “Viscera.” The 25-year-old choreographer’s new ballet will be performed as part of Program II, which debuts in January at Miami’s Arsht Center.
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By JOHNNY DIAZ

At a time when soap operas make headlines for their cancellations, telenovelas — those addictive Spanish TV serials — are making a bilingual crossover.

Univision Communications, which has studios in Miami-Dade County, in January began offering English subtitles for its primetime block of telenovelas, which are its highest-rated programs. Network officials believe their popularity can translate to English-speaking viewers curious to follow all the fighting and flirting in these shows, which sometimes beat American network programs. Univision’s most popular novela, “La Que No Podia Amar” (The One Who Could Not Love), has averaged 4.5 million total viewers this season.

“The genre transcends cultures, and people who don’t understand Spanish want to consume,” Jessica Rodriguez, senior vice president of Univision Cable Networks, said in an email.

All of a sudden, telenovelas seem to be everywhere. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health recently produced four videos called “Nunca Mas!” in telenovela-style to teach Hispanic women about the importance of using medications safely. This month, Will Ferrell will star in “Casa de mi Padre” (My Father’s House), a Spanish-language comedy filmed as a telenovela with English subtitles. And on March 19, telenovela heartthrob William Levy joins the cast of ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” reality competition. Even “Saturday Night Live” sporadically produces skits a la telenovela — a sure sign of pop culture relevance.
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By PHILLIP VALYS

More than anything else, Beau Tudzarov loves watching art collectors guess whether his surreal works are paintings or photographs.

As it turns out, they’re neither. “When I exhibit at art fairs, the little kids get it right – it’s digital art made on a computer. Their parents don’t know what to make of it, and think it’s a painting or something,” says Tudzarov, of Fort Lauderdale, with a laugh. “I create everything from scratch using 3-D modeling software, and then I’ll Photoshop the image and transfer it directly onto the canvas.”

Tudzarov’s digitally manipulated artworks join hundreds of other mixed-media pieces at this weekend’s Las Olas Art Fair Part II. Part I took place in January. More than 300 artists will cram into tents erected along Las Olas Boulevard, stretching five blocks from Southeast Sixth to Southeast 11th Avenue, and display pieces ranging from paintings and glass-blown art to life-size sculptures and wood-carved works.

Directions, invite a friend

The two-day festival also showcases works from 30 emerging local artists who, along with other exhibits, were hand-selected by a panel of national judges, festival founder Howard Alan says.
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David Cassidy and Davy Jones were set to perform together in Miami in April. (Cassidy photo: Post file/Jones photo: Lexington Herald-Leader/MCT)

By BEN CRANDELL

The death of actor, musician and pop icon Davy Jones on Wednesday reverberated with a unique poignancy in the Fort Lauderdale home of David Cassidy.

“I lost a very good friend today,” said Cassidy, whose posters may have replaced Jones’ on many a young girl’s bedroom wall in the early 1970s. “We lost a true talent, one that the world really didn’t understand. He was much more than just a Monkee.”

Jones and Cassidy, who gained fame as Keith Partridge in the made-for-TV-band The Partridge Family, were scheduled for a double-bill on April 14 at Magic City Casino in Miami.

More Davy Jones coverage | Davy Jones dies at age 66

An emotional Cassidy, speaking by phone on Wednesday, said the show will go on.

“The show will be dedicated to him. I’ll do some of his songs, tell stories of how we became friends,” said Cassidy, pausing. “I truly loved him.”
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What would you look like as a comic book superhero? Find out this weekend.

Influential artist George Pérez, who has drawn the likes of Batman, Superman and the Incredible Hulk for industry giants DC and Marvel, will be sketching portraits of customers for a fundraiser at Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill.

Perez’s sketches are just a small part of a three-day event that will raise money for the Hero Initiative, a national nonprofit organization that supports comic book artists in need. Each portrait by Pérez, chairman of the Hero Initiative, will cost $25.

A major focus of the weekend is an exhibit in the upstairs Bear and Bird gallery called “Proof of Heroes: The Julius Schwartz Printer’s Proof Cover Collection,” which includes almost 300 printer’s proofs of covers from the iconic editor of DC Comics. The proofs, copies of covers sent to Schwartz for his final approval, span a key decade (1964-74) of his 42-year run at DC.

“They’re awesome!” said Tate’s proprietor Tate Ottati, speaking by phone while he gussied up the shop for his visitors. “That was the heyday [of DC Comics], the Silver Age of comics, when they were putting out tons of great stuff. All the Batmans and the Flash, Green Lantern … “

The covers are by important artists such as Nick Cardy, Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino and Mike Kaluta. Some covers include Schwartz’s corrections and margin notes, and a few are signed by its artist, Ottati said. All will be on sale for $100 on-site and online (at Tatescomics.com), with proceeds going to the Hero Initiative.

Ottati said that while going over the inventory, one cover caught his eye: Green Lantern-Green Arrow No. 85 from 1971. Ottati called it “the drug issue.”

“It’s a classic cover, kind of controversial,” he said, for its depiction of Green Arrow’s sidekick, Speedy, clearly agitated at being discovered with a needle and a white, powdery substance. The cover includes a headline: “DC attacks youth’s greatest problem … Drugs!”

DC luminaries Paul Levitz and Alex Saviuk will join Pérez at Tate’s from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday to sign comic books and other items. The gallery reception for “Proof of Heroes” is 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday.

Ottati said having the three men together in South Florida is something that even a comic convention might not be able to pull off, much less a comic book store in Lauderhill.

Levitz was an influential writer and editor at DC Comics for more than 30 years. Saviuk is an artist who made his name at Marvel Comics for his work onSpider-Man, a craft he honed while a student of comic-book legend Will Eisner.

Ottati said the weekend’s events are symbolic of the attention Tate’s Comics has received from the industry since 2009, when it won the prestigious Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award at the San Diego Comic-Con. It gave the store “some clout,” he said.

Another highlight of the weekend is the “Justice League of America 100 Project” exhibition and auction, which also raises money for the Hero Initiative.

For the JLA exhibit, 100 well-known, modern comic book artists, including Pérez, Alan Davis, John Romita and Alex Ross, were asked to create original artwork for blank card-stock copies of Justice League of America issue No. 50.

Tate’s will host two-thirds of the traveling exhibit, the first collaboration between DC and the Hero Initiative. The live auction will begin 6 p.m. Saturday. Ottati expects prices to run $200 to $800, but said when the show debuted last month at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, one Alex Ross cover went for $2,500.

Overall impression: South Florida’s own BurgerFi has most other burger spots beat by miles. Delray Beach is the second location after Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs are up next, with almost 60 franchises set to open across the country. BurgerFi is here to stay.

Background: David Manero – creator of Vic & Angelo’s (Delray Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Miami Beach) and The Office (Delray Beach) – noticed the runaway success of burgers and fries on his menus and realized they are the cornerstone of American restaurant meals. BurgerFi was born. Its name sums up his desire to lead a "BurgerFication of the Nation."

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Hollywood artist Tomasz Rut in his home studio with some of the limited edition prints of his recently delivered two original oil paintings to the Vatican. ( Mike Stocker/Sun Sentinel)

– Tonya Alanez

HOLLYWOOD— He works out of a quiet home studio, tucked next to North Lake, where few know who he is, or what he does.

But local artist Tomasz Rut recently took his place alongside Michelangelo, Raphael and other great artists of the Renaissance — “my greatest teachers, my heroes” — when two of his oil paintings were blessed by the pope and added to the Vatican Collection.

“I’m still shocked,” said Rut, 50. “An artist can get to many, many museums in the world but there is no museum equivalent to the Vatican.”

Rut, originally from Warsaw, Poland, returned last month from Rome, where Pope Benedict XVI blessed two of his original paintings commemorating Pope John Paul II’s beatification last May.

One painting depicts the open-armed pope, another represents the pontiff blessing 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa a former president of Poland and leader of Solidarity, a workers’ trade-union movement, instrumental in the fall of the Iron Curtain. Read the full story

Organic vegetable lasagna. $14. On the Menu at DIG in Delray Beach. (J. Gwendolynne Berry/The Palm Beach Post)

Overall impression: Fresh, natural, rich in intrinsic flavor — this is the way food probably tasted before we began mass-producing it and packing it with chemicals. And it’s the way it tastes at DIG — an acronym for Doing It Green — this self-proclaimed “small footprint,” all-natural, organic, sustainable and locally sourced restaurant where it’s also expertly prepared and presented to emphasize simple goodness. The over-arching philosophy even extends to the cocktails, where organic spirits are used in ingredients. Read the full story

FORT LAUDERDALE—
Contracts for four Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies who appear on “Police Women of Broward County” reality TV show were turned over to a Broward County judge Monday for his review.

The side deals with the deputies are being sought by the Broward public defender and the state attorney.

At issue is whether the women are being paid to “manufacture arrests” that may appear on the TV show, and whether show business is influencing them while they’re enforcing the law, Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes Jr. says.
There are seven cases in which he says the contracts are an issue.

“We’re inching closer,” Weekes said after Discovery Communications gave the contracts to Broward Circuit Judge David Haimes. Discovery owns TLC, the network that has aired two seasons of “Police Women of Broward County.”

Weekes still wants his colleagues to also be able to review the deputies’ deals.

Assistant state attorney Jeff Marcus had subpoenaed the deputies’ contracts, and on Monday, the company complied with the subpoena. The state is legally required to provide all evidence in the possession of law enforcement that is favorable to the defense.

Discovery Communications had previously tried to keep the deals confidential, citing trade secrets in a highly competitive industry.

The corporation has said in court documents that the women are not paid for the type or quantity of arrests they make on the show.

The Sheriff’s Office has said their employees are paid by the reality TV show for their off-duty time, though the deputies appear in episodes while in uniform and on the job, using county equipment and vehicles.

Dana McElroy, one of Discovery’s lawyers, argued before the judge that confidential terms of the contract do not shed any light on any possible motives that are suggested by the public defender. She also argued that it was not relevant how much the deputies were being paid.

“So in other words if there is an expert witness, you can ask, ‘Well, aren’t you getting paid?’ but you can’t ask them how much?” Haimes said to McElroy. “I don’t think that’s ever the case.”

Haimes asked the lawyers to return Sept. 8 to continue their arguments. At that time, he is also scheduled to review Weeke’s request that the court find one of the deputies, Detective Andrea Penoyer, in contempt for not answering questions about the reality TV show during a deposition.

LTrischitta@Tribune.com or 954-356-4233