Folio Vol. 40, Issue 11

Letter From Our General Manager

Since 1987, “Folio Weekly” has had one mission: give Northeast Florida a voice that could not be bought, silenced, watered down or shoved into a corporate template.

And for nearly four decades, you, our readers, have made that possible.

Long before social media algorithms decided what people should care about, “Folio” was already out there covering Jacksonville’s music scene, exposing local issues, championing the arts, supporting small businesses, spotlighting culture, questioning authority and telling the stories many others overlooked. We were there for the rise and fall of venues, the birth of local bands, political shakeups, neighborhood movements, restaurant booms, arts explosions and every wonderfully weird chapter in between.

Week after week, rack after rack, issue after issue, this publication became part of the cultural heartbeat of Northeast Florida.

We have celebrated local artists before they became household names. We have given independent voices a platform. We have covered city hall, concerts, food, nightlife, cannabis policy, sports, theater, charities, activism, sports and the people who make this community unforgettable. We have published stories that made people laugh, stories that made people angry, stories that made people think, and stories that made some even cry. Sometimes all four in the same issue. That is what the alternative press was always supposed to do.

And through all the changes in media over the decades, including the collapse of many print publications across America, the digital revo lution, shrinking newsrooms, economic downturns, and the endless noise of clickbait culture, we “Folio” kept going. Not because it was easy. Because it mattered.

In 2020, Folio was on the verge of shutting down permanently. The owner was retiring, the world was deep in the middle of a pandemic, and to put it mildly, times were tough. But the day the announcement came, former owner Sam Taylor made a phone call to me and to the man who would soon become the new owner of “Folio,” John M. Phil lips, Esq., B.C.S.

Sam shared the news and asked if we had any interest in saving the only true free-press publication in Northeast Florida. Mr. Phillips — who also happens to be a civil rights attorney — immediately under stood what was at stake. He believed the free press still mattered, that independent journalism remained essential to American culture and that protecting a platform for free speech was worth fighting for.

About a month later, Sam and John reached an agreement. John M. Phillips became the new owner of Folio, and I was entrusted with leading the publication into its next chapter.

More than six years later, we could not be prouder of what “Folio” continues to represent. Independent journalism is still alive, still thriving and still necessary. Local voices still matter — and they always will.

“Folio” has never simply been a magazine. It has been a platform for the community, a launchpad for creatives, a watchdog when needed and occasionally, the loudmouth friend at the party saying what everyone else was too nervous to say. Frankly, Jacksonville would feel a little quieter without it.

That is why being named a finalist in the prestigious Association of Alternative Newsmedia awards recently means so much to us. To be recognized nationally among some of the best alternative publications in the country is an incredible honor — especially for an independently operated publication fighting every day to keep authentic local journalism alive.

That recognition belongs to our staff, contributors, photographers, advertisers, distribution partners, interns, supporters and most important, our readers.

You read our issues, you share our stories, you argue about our opinions, you continue to support local journalism when so many communities have lost theirs. You keep “Folio” alive.

As general manager, I can honestly say it has been incredible watching this publication continue evolving while staying true to its roots.

Teresa Spencer, General Manager

a

BEHIND

Subject: Letter to the Editor

On a still summer night, before humans start celebrating, Florida is alive with frogs calling from wetlands, owls trading soft notes across the dark, and small animals moving carefully through brush. Then the fireworks begin. The sky explodes, and everything goes silent.

Florida leaders are weighing a Fourth of July fireworks ban because drought has left the state dangerously dry, with thousands of wildfires already burning this year. One official warned that widespread fireworks use could “put the entire state on fire in one evening.” He’s right, and the cost isn’t just charred acres on a map.

When fireworks erupt, animals don’t understand. They flee. Birds abandon nests, leaving eggs and chicks to die. Animals bolt into roads and get hit by cars. Others run until they collapse from exhaustion. Those who don’t run may inhale smoke, ingest debris, or die in the fires sparked by an ember landing in dry brush.

Fireworks terrify the animals who share our homes, too. In a panic, dogs try to escape the chaos—climbing fences, digging under them, even crashing through doors and windows—causing a spike in stray-animal intakes at shelters nationwide.

Communities across the country are already proving that drone and laser displays can light up the sky without sending animals running for their lives.

We can still gather. We can still celebrate. What we don’t have to do is trade a few minutes of spectacle for harm that lingers long after the final explosion.

Sincerely,

Melissa Rae Sanger, LVT

The PETA Foundation

BOUQS & BRICKS

BOUQUETS

To Springfield Preservation and Revitalization (SPAR) Council for continuing to invest in one of Jacksonville’s most historic neighborhoods. Thanks to support generated through the annual PorchFest celebration, SPAR helped plant 270 new trees throughout Springfield while also implementing traffic-calming improvements at 12 neighborhood intersections. It’s the kind of grassroots community effort that not only beautifies the area but also makes it safer, greener and more connected for the people who call Springfield home. To learn more about PorchFest and SPAR’s ongoing work, visit sparcouncil.org.

To the Jacksonville Beach Police Department and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for their coordinated efforts during “Operation Sand Trap,” which led to 25 arrests tied to alleged online prostitution solicitation activity. Beyond the arrests, the operation also helped identify human trafficking survivors — a reminder that these investigations are often about far more than crime statistics.

BRICKBATS

To the individual who allegedly sprayed a mist or substance — believed by police to possibly be mace — into a crowd of 30 to 40 people on First Street in Jacksonville Beach during Memorial Day weekend. Innocent bystanders, including a man walking his dog, were reportedly affected. If a fight or chaotic situation breaks out, the responsible move is to leave the area — not escalate it by introducing a chemical irritant into a crowded public space. Pepper spray and mace are tools meant strictly for lawful self-defense, not reckless crowd control. Used without legal justification, they can quickly turn into criminal assault and put innocent people at risk.

By Ambar Ramirez & Carmen Macri

Horoscopes

Aries

June will bring professional clarity, Aries, but it doesn’t come without strings, unfortunately. While financially, this month is booming, it won’t hide the fact that you deeply crave domestic comfort. Bonuses and promotions are great, but you may find yourself feeling like no matter what, your cup is half full. It’s about time to start putting yourself back out there. What’s the point of success if you have no one to share it with?

Taurus

After a tumultuous end to May, June arrives like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly, the fog clears. For some, this clarity means no more crossed wires in everyday conversations. For others, it might arrive physically, perhaps in the shape of someone very easy on the eyes. Use the next two weeks to get completely honest about what you want to call into your life and the exact level of commitment you’re ready to make.

Gemini

Happy birthday, Gemini! Your social battery is finally full, and your magnetism is off the charts. People just want to be around you, and for the first time in a long time, you want to be around them too. With the new moon in Gemini on June 14, you will step into your truest, most authentic self. Take what you want and don’t let anyone get in the way.

Cancer

You’ve been on a major health kick lately, Cancer, and June is here to help you cross the finish line. Use the first half of the month to schedule those postponed doctor appointments and lock in your daily wellness habits. This intentional self-care isn’t just a temporary routine — it’s building the foundation for a much better quality of life.

Leo

June is a massive turning point for you, Leo. With Jupiter entering your sign, a 12-year-long cycle of abundance and charisma begins. Your confidence and creativity will be at an all-time high, making this the perfect time to pursue your goals — personal or professional.

Virgo

You can’t help but be helpful, Virgo, and finding the off switch to your generosity can be tough. When giving leaves you running on empty, it’s time to look at who is taking your energy for granted. This month, start slowly implementing practices that are just for you. Pour that effort back into your own space — whether that’s redecorating your room or diving into solo craft nights.

June is all about emotional growth, Libra. Probably not what you wanted to hear. No more placing the blame on those around you. Accountability is a bitch, but it’s necessary. Think of the Gemini New Moon as the perfect time to shed your past skin. Own up to your mistakes so you can move past them.

You are craving something fun and familiar, Scorpio. With the Sun moving through Gemini this month, expect old feelings to resurface. Yes, those feelings. The ones you thought you had under lock and key. They’re back and ready to be dealt with … for real this time. Think of this as your first step on your healing journey. Rather than tucking your tail and running, face it head-on.

The full moon on May 31 set a powerful tone for your June, Sagittarius. Because this lunation lit up your first house of self and identity, it brought a major turning point, leaving you at the starting line of the month with a totally clean slate. What you choose to build on this fresh foundation, however, is entirely up to you.

Capricorn

It is time to pay close attention to your routines and patterns, Capricorn. That way, you can decipher which ones are setting you up for success and which are keeping you in this unwanted loop. Once Mercury enters Cancer on June 1, expect your heart to be worn quite openly on your sleeve. There’s no shying away from your emotions anymore. Good luck and Godspeed.

You’ve been bouncing between burnout and hyperactivity, Aquarius, struggling to find a happy medium. When you’re in a rut like this, the best move is often to step back and let things settle — or simply change your scenery. You thrive on novelty, and the same old routines can get old fast. Consider this your green light to seek out more inspiring circles or organizations.

Get ready for the spotlight, Pisces. This June, all your efforts of the past half-year come to fruition. This is not the time for false modesty; embrace this recognition and, more importantly, take advantage of it.

folio weed

High Times at 30,000 Feet: Traveling With Medical Marijuana in 2026

Words by Teresa Spencer

The American traveler in 2026 has more options than ever — cheap flights, endless road trips and cruise ships big enough to qualify for their own ZIP code. But for Florida medical marijuana patients, travel still comes with plenty of legal turbulence.

Cannabis laws remain a messy patchwork of state rules, federal law, TSA discretion and enough confusion to make even seasoned travelers nervous at security checkpoints.

In April 2026, the TSA updated its guidance to clarify that medical marijuana may be carried in checked or carry-on luggage. The agency also stressed that its primary mission is security threats — not hunting down gummies. But don’t fire up the victory joint just yet.

Cannabis remains federally illegal, and TSA officers can still refer travelers to law enforcement if marijuana is discovered. Airports are federal property, meaning your Florida medical card doesn’t automatically protect you once you hit security. In plain English: TSA basically said, “We’re not really looking for your weed… unless we find your weed.”

Legal experts say small personal-use amounts on domestic flights rarely trigger major enforcement today, especially between legal states. Larger quantities, however, can still create serious legal problems.

Flying high? Proceed carefully.

For Florida patients, air travel remains legally risky.

What’s perfectly legal at home in Jacksonville can suddenly become a federal issue at Gate B10. Edibles and vape cartridges remain especially confusing because TSA still distinguishes between hemp-derived products and marijuana-derived THC products.

Cruises and cannabis still don’t mix.

Most major cruise lines continue enforcing strict zero-tolerance marijuana policies — including medical marijuana.

Passengers caught boarding with cannabis products can face confiscation, denied boarding, removal from the ship or even legal trouble depending on the ports and countries involved. Once the ship leaves U.S. waters, that Florida medical marijuana card suddenly becomes little more than an overpriced souvenir in your wallet.

And cruise lines are not playing around. On the last two cruises I personally took, K9 units were stationed right at the boarding entrance. Passengers lined up while dogs walked past every single person before anyone stepped foot on the ship. That was just embarkation day. Throughout the entire seven-day cruise, ship security regularly patrolled the decks and stateroom hallways with K9s, monitoring for policy violations. Somewhere between the buffet line and the Jimmy Buffett cover band, the message was made crystal clear: leave the weed at home.

Ironically, road trips remain the safest option for cannabis patients. Driving with properly sealed and labeled medical marijuana inside Florida is generally less complicated than flying. That said, this isn’t permission to turn I-95 into a rolling smoke lounge. DUI laws still apply, and impaired driving remains aggressively enforced.

Still, road travel offers something modern air travel can’t: predictability.

No TSA checkpoints. No federal screening. No awkward suitcase searches next to a family heading to Disney World. Just asphalt, Buc-ee’s snacks and the freedom of the open highway.

What’s real is the fact that America obviously hasn’t figured this all out as of yet. Some states treat marijuana like alcohol. Others still treat it like contraband from a 1980s DEA training video. Meanwhile, federal agencies continue operating in a strange gray area between prohibition and selective enforcement. Until federal law finally catches up, cannabis travelers should remember one simple rule: Know the laws before you leave home.

Bodenham

St. Augustine has always felt a little different from the rest of Florida. Maybe it’s the coquina buildings catching the late afternoon light, the live music drifting through narrow streets or the way old courtyards and tiny cafés seem tucked into random corners downtown. Beneath all of that, though, is something much deeper: more than 450 years of Hispanic influence that still shapes the city today.

Founded by the Spanish in 1565, St. Augustine, the nation’s “Oldest City,” is considered the birthplace of Hispanic influence in the United States. But unlike some historic cities where culture feels trapped behind plaques and museum walls, here it still feels lived in. Spend even a few minutes walking through downtown, and it becomes hard to ignore.

It’s everywhere. In the balconies and stone archways along Avilés Street. In the smell of Cuban coffee drifting out of cafés on hot afternoons. In the Spanish-style courtyards filled with people escaping the Florida heat for a while. Even the pace of St. Augustine feels different sometimes, slower and heavier with history than the rest of the state.

A lot of that identity comes from generations of Spanish, Latin American and Minorcan communities that helped shape the city over centuries. June specifically marks the arrival of the Minorcan settlers who immigrated to St. Augustine in 1768, and their influence can still be felt throughout the city today, especially in its food and historic preservation.

In fact, the food is arguably one of the best ways to experience that heritage firsthand. Columbia Restaurant has become a downtown staple for Cuban and Spanish dishes, while smaller spots like The Spanish Bakery & Cafe, tucked off St. George Street, still feel slightly hidden despite the crowds. Empanadas, croquetas, Cuban bread, live Latin music, open-air courtyards, if you’ve visited St. Augustine more than once, you know none of it feels staged for tourists. It’s just part of the city’s rhythm.

Beyond the restaurants and busy downtown streets, places like Fort Mose Historic State Park tell another important part of St. Augustine’s story. Established in 1738 under Spanish rule, Fort Mose became the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in what is now the United States. Today, reenactments and cultural events encourage keeping that history visible rather than forgotten.

Part of what makes St. Augustine stand out is how naturally all of these influences still exist together. You can spend the morning exploring Castillo de San Marcos, stop for Cuban coffee and pastries in the afternoon, then end the night near the waterfront listening to live music echo through the plaza.

More than 450 years later, Hispanic heritage is integral to the city. It’s part of the atmosphere, part of the rhythm of downtown and part of what keeps people coming back to St. Augustine year after year.

Sapphic Sunday at Hardwicks

Words by Ozni Foxglove

It’s a wondrous sight to see a woman dancing in lingerie, surrounded by a crowd of admirers. And an even more wondrous sight when her onlookers are also beautiful women, cheering her on, astonished by her surreal aura, charm and grace. Not a crass statement to be heard, just happy squeals of excitement from flushed-faced girls who are yearning for the attention of a charming vixen.

This is what Sapphic Sunday is all about, a night just for the girls who like girls. Everything is tailored expertly for femme fun, from the fluorescent pink and purple lights to the girl power anthems playing overhead. Queer folk from all walks of life adorn the dance floor, and new and old bonds grow stronger without care in the world.

I’ve been to many bars, and almost all of them have one thing in common: too many men. And yes, offense to the guys who stare you down from the corner of the room, never blinking. And to the men who admonish you for declining their “invitation” to dance. While of course it’s not all men who do this, it’s pretty much always a dude. And I can say Sapphic Sunday is the first time I’ve experienced a bar where I truly didn’t have to worry about some weird (straight) guy coming out of the woodwork because, well, he wasn’t invited. This makes the event a safe space for exploring your sexuality with other like-minded people.

Harwicks is primarily a gay bar, and I am so thankful that we have one now in Jacksonville. Generally, though, most gay bars are catered to gay men, and it’s nice to have an event just for the ladies. I’ve only known of one lesbian bar, and that was far off in Chicago. A place called Dorothy’s where every night was a mini-version of Hardwick’s Sapphic Sundays. I hope that perhaps, one day, Jacksonville can have its own queer woman-focused space again, but for now the LGBT girlies can look forward to Sapphic Sunday.

If it were up to me, Sapphic Sunday would be a weekly event; however, they save it for the second Sunday of every month (usually). Make sure to check their socials leading up to the event this June, as I’m sure it will be packed with Pride Celebrations.

For more information, visit hardwicksbarjax.com.

Photo courtesy of Hardwicks Bar

Photo courtesy of Hardwicks Bar

All things happening

Special Events

JUNE 3

This Is Us: LGBTQ+ Stories

St. John’s Cathedral jaxcathedral.org

JUNE 4-7

Superfest 2026: A Southern Soul Weekend Experience Jacksonville Equestrian Center eventbrite.com

JUNE 5

Tunes and Blooms—’50s Night Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens jacksonvillezoo.org

JUNE 6

Fernandina Beach Pride Festival & Parade Central Park, Fernandina Beach fernandinabeachpride.com

Duval Comic and Zine Fest CoRK Arts District dcazfest.com

Great Fire of 1901 Family Walking Tour Cathedral Hill www.cathedraldistrict-jax.org

River City Wrestling Con World Golf Village Renaissance Resort, St. Augustine eventbrite.com

JUNE 12

Tunes and Blooms: Pop-Punk Revival

Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens jacksonvillezoo.org

JUNE 12-13

Florida Fashion Week

Prime Osborn Convention Center eventbrite.com

JUNE 13

Juneteenth Celebration

St. John’s Cathedral jaxcathedral.org

JUNE 14

Premier Bride Expo

Prime Osborn Convention Center premierbrideexpo.com

JUNE 17

Juneteenth Concert ft. the Ritz Chamber Players

Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens cummermuseum.org

JUNE 19

Tunes and Blooms: Animal House

Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens jacksonvillezoo.org

JUNE 20

Juneteenth Celebration

822 A. Philip Randolph Blvd. melanincollaborativegroup.org

JUNE 26

Tunes and Blooms: Ladies Night Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens jacksonvillezoo.org

JUNE 27-28

Bold Matsuri Cosplay Festival

Prime Osborn Convention Center boldmatsuri.com

THE BLACK CROWES

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY TOUR

WITH SPECIAL GUEST SOUTHALL

JUNE 2

YOUNG THE GIANT VICTORY GARDEN TOUR

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS COLD WAR KIDS & ALMOST MONDAY

JUNE 5

ROLLING TOGETHER REVUE TOUR

G. LOVE

DONAVON FRANKENREITER & MOON TAXI

LIVE FROM THE BACKYARD STAGE

JUNE 6

CLAYPOOL GOLD

FEAT: PRIMUS, LES CLAYPOOL’S FROG BRIGADE & THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM

JUNE 19

APEX THEATRE PRESENTS: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE ABRIDGED

LIVE FROM THE BACKYARD STAGE JUNE 24-25

VINCE GILL

50 YEARS FROM HOME TOUR

JUNE 27

MEN AT WORK

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS TOAD THE WET SPROCKET & SHONEN KNIFE

JULY 17

DIERKS BENTLEY OFF THE MAP TOUR WITH

RICKY SKAGGS & KENTUCKY THUNDER & COLE GOODWIN

JULY 18

LINDSEY STIRLING

WITH SPECIAL GUEST PVRIS

JULY 20

LORD HURON

JULY 27

THE BLACK KEYS PEACHES ‘N KREAM WORLD TOUR WITH SUPPORT FROM EDDIE 9V

JULY 29

STEPHEN WILSON JR. GARY THE TORCH TOUR WITH THE LONE BELLOW

AUGUST 7

THE FRAY

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL & COLONY HOUSE

AUGUST 8

JORDAN DAVIS

AUGUST 16

SQUEEZE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

ADAM ANT & HAIRCUT 100 AUGUST 18

BUDDY GUY 90

AUGUST 22

SLIGHTLY STOOPID ROAD TRIPPIN SUMMER TOUR 2026 WITH SPECIAL GUESTS THE ELOVATERS & DENM AUGUST 23

BLUES TRAVELER & GIN BLOSSOMS WITH SPIN DOCTORS SEPTEMBER 4

MODEST MOUSE WITH SPECIAL GUEST ROBBER ROBBER SEPTEMBER 17

JOHN FOGERTY & STEVE WINWOOD THE LEGACY TOUR SEPTEMBER 18

BRAD PAISLEY LIVE SEPTEMBER 19

JAMES TAYLOR AND HIS ALL-STAR BAND SEPTEMBER 22 & 23

FLIPTURN

SEPTEMBER 25

RISE AGAINST SEPTEMBER 26

GOV'T MULE & ZIGGY MARLEY OCTOBER 3

BOZ SCAGGS THE RHYTHM REVIEW 2026 OCTOBER 7

TY MYERS THE LEGAL TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUESTS LANIE GARDNER & BENNY G OCTOBER 8

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND FUTURE SOUL TOUR 2026 OCTOBER 9 & 10

THE AVETT BROTHERS WITH THE SECRET SISTERS OCTOBER 11

ALABAMA

OCTOBER 17

AN EVENING WITH CAKE OCTOBER 21

TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS WITH SPECIAL GUESTS MUSCADINE BLOODLINE & DRAYTON FARLEY OCTOBER 24

O.A.R. THREE DECADES TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUESTS GAVIN DEGRAW & KT TUNSTALL NOVEMBER 14

THE REVIVALISTS NOVEMBER 21

BEARTOOTH

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS DON BROCO, MAGNOLIA PARK & WINDWAKER DECEMBER 4

Smoke, Chants and DUUUVAL Pride

The Rise of Soccer Rivalries in Jacksonville

Words by Teresa Spencer

Jacksonville has always been a football town first. Jaguars flags fly from pickup trucks, college football rules Saturdays, and if someone yells “DUUUVAL!” in a crowded bar, odds are half the room answers back. But over the last decade, another sports culture has quietly and loudly carved out its own territory in Northeast Florida: soccer fandom. And with fandom comes rivalry.

At the center of Jacksonville’s soccer scene sits Jacksonville Armada FC, the city’s pirate-themed club that built a surprisingly passionate following during its time in the now-defunct NASL league. While some outsiders dismissed lower-division soccer as minor league entertainment, Jacksonville supporters treated it like war painted in blue and gold.

The biggest rivalry quickly formed with the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Tampa had history, championships and a nationally recognized soccer identity. Jacksonville had something different. They have swagger, noise and an underdog mentality that perfectly reflects the city itself.

Every match between the clubs has become more than a game.

Supporters traded insults online all week, then caravan down I-95 for away matches and packed supporter sections with drums, giant flags and clouds of colored smoke. Armada fans saw Tampa supporters as polished and entitled. Tampa fans viewed Jacksonville as loud newcomers trying to force their way into Florida soccer relevance. Naturally, they loved every second of it.

The Armada supporter group known as Section 904 has become the face of Jacksonville soccer culture. Named after the city’s area code, the group has helped to create an atmosphere that feels closer to European or Latin American soccer than traditional American sports. Chants echo nonstop. Beers fly. Drums pound. Scarves wave overhead while smoke bombs paint the stands blue and gold. The rivalry culture slowed after the NASL collapsed and the Armada temporarily faded from the spotlight, but soccer supporters here never fully disappeared. If anything, the years away only deepened the loyalty of the hardcore fanbase.

Now, with renewed momentum surrounding the Armada’s future and growing interest in soccer nationwide, Jacksonville’s rivalry culture appears ready for another chapter.

And make no mistake, soccer rivalries are built differently than most American sports grudges. They are fueled by heartbreak, controversial calls, away-game hostility and years of accumulated resentment. The best rivalries aren’t manufactured by marketing departments. They grow organically from passion and pain. Jacksonville is finally starting to earn those scars.

Photo by Jannes Glascuh on Unsplash

WorldCup Preview: Allthe MatchesYou Gotta Catch

WordsbyHarry Straussman

Photo

America’s (and Mexico’s and Canada’s) World Cup is finally here! The world’s game comes to our shores for the biggest tournament ever with 48 nations taking part and 104 matches to be played. And just in time for the big 250.

Soccer fever looks set to take over the summer, and you don’t want to miss out. It goes without saying that every knockout game is a must-watch, but it’s understandable if the tsunami of first-round group stage games is too much to keep up with, without dipping into the PTO, so here is a rundown of some of the most enticing fixtures that we have in store.

Buckle up for some fast kicking, low scoring and ties!

GAMES TO CLEAR THE CALENDAR FOR:

Mexico vs. South Africa, June 11, 3 p.m. –The curtain raiser will always draw a lot of anticipation, and with Mexico kicking things off on their home soil, the atmosphere should be electric.

Canada vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina , June 12, 3 p.m. – Our neighbors to the north kick off their hosting duties by going against Bosnia and Herzegovina. While that may not sound fair, they’re actually just one team.

USA vs. Paraguay , June 12, 9 p.m. – Team USA kicks off their home soil tournament with a primetime match-up against Paraguay. It’s a must-win for the U.S. as they will face stiff competition to make it out of their group and into the knockout rounds

Brazil vs. Morocco, June 13, 6 p.m.– Every game Brazil plays in a World Cup should be appointment viewing, but this time against one of the top sides out of Africa should be an exciting, flair-filled affair with both sides having players that can get the crowd on their feet with ease.

Netherlands vs. Japan, June 14, 4 p.m. –Despite having many legendary players and iconic moments in their history (and also one of the flashiest jerseys in the game), the Netherlands is one of the last giants of international football to have not won a World Cup. With an aging squad, it is unlikely that this will be their year, but stranger things have happened. Japan pulling an upset is well within the realms of possibility after they qualified for the tournament with ease.

England vs. Croatia , June 17, 4 p.m. – Watching England in an international soccer tournament could rarely be described as “fun,” but with a world-class coach in Thomas Tuchel and a stacked squad led by veteran

striker Harry Kane, this could be the greatest chance in a generation for soccer to come home. As for Croatia, their golden generation, spearheaded by maestro midfielder Luka Modric, will hope to go out with a bang after a run of strong showings in the last few international tournaments.

USA vs. Australia , June 19, 3 p.m. – Considering that Australia is mostly populated by physical specimens that are descended from violent criminals and the forefathers to wasteland marauding mutants, they are shockingly bad at soccer. This looks to be the easiest win Team USA will take at the tournament, so look for a spot to catch the game outside to take in some sunshine and good vibes.

Ecuador vs. Germany, June 25, 4 p.m. – Despite their dismal World Cup showings since winning the tournament in 2014, it would be foolish to ever count out the Germans from going all the way. However, Ecuador could pose a problem for Die Mannschaft with a bright young squad and one of the best midfielders playing today in Moises Caicedo. I wouldn’t bet against them going on a Cinderella run.

USA vs. Turkey , June 25, 10 p.m. – USA’s final group game should be a nailbiter with Turkey surely being their strongest opponent of this round. Will the United States get to continue taking part in the party they’re throwing? Or will Turkey be the ones doing the stuffing? Let’s all go to the pub to tune in!

Spain vs. Uruguay, June 26, 8 p.m. – The reigning champions of Europe take on the perennial dark horse from South America. Two sides known for leaving it all on the pitch on the biggest sides come head-tohead in what is sure to be one of the most

competitive matches of the group stage. Teenage sensation Lamine Yamal makes his World Cup debut for Spain,

France vs. Norway, June 26, 3 p.m. – Two of the most explosive goal scorers in the modern game will face off when Kylian Mbappé’s France takes on Erling Haaland and Norway. France goes into the tournament as the odds-on favorites to take home the gold, but Norway is an efficiently run side that can cause problems for any team on its day.

Portugal vs. Colombia , June 27, 7:30 p.m. – It’s almost a certainty that this will be the sixth and final World Cup for Portugal legend Cristiano Ronaldo. For this last dance, he will travel with arguably the strongest squad of supporting players he’s had in his 23 years of international soccer. Colombia always brings joyous entertainment to the world stage with talented players such as Luis Diaz and James Rodriguez, not to mention one of the most passionate fan bases that never fails to steal the show.

The Final, July 19, 3 p.m. – It doesn’t matter who’s playing. The World Cup final is the biggest event in sports and always lives up to the hype. It is schedule clearing, appointment viewing for anyone who has even a shred of interest in watching sports.

Photo by Abigail Keenan on Unsplash

JUNE 2-7

Jumbo Shrimp vs. Nashville Sounds VyStar Ballpark mlb.com/milb/jacksonville

JUNE 3

Sporting Jax USL W League vs. Brooke House FC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

Sporting Jax USL League Two vs. Brooke House FC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

JUNE 6

Run For Hope Southbank Riverwalk raceroster.com

Bikes & Brews Ride Engine 15 Brewing oceansidejaxrotary.org

Jacksonville Invitational Black Rodeo Jacksonville Equestrian Center blackrodeousa.com

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Atlanta Copperheads Rock Stadium–Jacksonville University jaxaxe.com

Jacksonville Sharks vs. San Antonio Gunslingers VyStar Veterans Arena jaxsharks.com

JUNE 9-14

Gwinnett Stripers

VyStar Ballpark mlb.com/milb/jacksonville

JUNE 10

Sporting Jax USL W League vs. Fort Lauderdale United FC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

Jaguars Mini-Camp EverBank Stadium jaguars.com/minicamp

JUNE 13

Run for the Pies

James Weldon Johnson Park 1stplacesports.com

Jacksonville Pride Ride Trek Bicycle Lakeshore eventbrite.com

Sporting Jax USL W League vs. Miami AC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

Sporting Jax USL League Two vs. Inter Gainesville KF

Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

JUNE 13

Sporting Jax USL Championship vs. Detroit City FC

Hodges Stadium–University of North Florida sportingjax.com

JUNE 15

Fort Mose Historical Society Golf Tournament

Marsh Creek Country Club, St. Augustine fortmose.org

JUNE 17

Sporting Jax USL W League vs. FC Miami City Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

Sporting Jax USL League Two vs. Nona FC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

JUNE 18-19

Savannah Steel vs. Jacksonville Waves VyStar Veterans Arena wavesupshot.com

JUNE 20

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Miami Shoremen Rock Stadium–Jacksonville University jaxaxe.com

JWJ Birthday 5K and Block Party

James Weldon Johnson Park 1stplacesports.com

Sporting Jax USL Championship vs. Charleston Battery Hodges Stadium–University of North Florida sportingjax.com

JUNE 21

Greensboro Groove vs. Jacksonville Waves

VyStar Veterans Arena wavesupshot.com

JUNE 23-28

Memphis Red Birds

VyStar Ballpark mlb.com/milb/jacksonville

JUNE 23

Sporting Jax USL W League vs. Tallahassee Reckoning Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

Sporting Jax USL League Two vs. Shark Coast FC Mandarin High School sportingjax.com

JUNE 26

Charlotte Crown vs. Jacksonville Waves

VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena wavesupshot.com

JUNE 28

Jacksonville Sharks vs. San Diego Strike Force

VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena jaxsharks.com

Photo courtesy of Yoga on

A Push for Decolonized Yoga

International Day of Yoga on June 21 highlights the union of mind and body through sacred practices–which is missing from modern day yoga in the West.

Over time, yoga has become a trend or an aesthetic, losing its cultural roots. The internet has diminished the teachings and practice of yoga to matching polyester sets, Pilates, and the 2000s yoga mom look. The idea of wanting to partake in yoga to achieve a certain appearance and/or classify it as a lifestyle without engaging in the practice removes the authenticity of yoga.

Yoga, or “yuji,” meaning “to unite,” is derived from Sanskrit in Hinduism and is a sacred practice physically, spiritually and religiously. Traditional yoga dates back to 3,000 years ago in ancient India. The practice has evolved from striving toward higher consciousness, spiritual awakening to wellness.

These elements of liberation derive from religions native to India: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism. The practice of yoga is open to everyone, including those with other religious and/or spiritual beliefs.

The gentrification of yoga lies deeply within the lack of representation and extortionate pricing. Society is presented with thin and mostly white women as yoga instructors and models for athleisure. This counteracts the vision of yoga being for every body type and race.

Companies have taken it upon themselves to make excessive profit off yogis. Rates at yoga studios have risen like gas prices. Studios are charging over $20 for single classes and $75 to $150 for monthly memberships. With the trending style within yoga, popular athleisure

companies offer a singular top and bottom for about $200. The same companies sell yoga mats for over $100. There is nothing wrong with splurging and wanting the cutest mat and outfit, but we should not face the expectation of having to do so. Yoga materials should be accessible to all, as the practice is built for all. In this day and age, there is a large focus on the physical wellness of yoga. Along with moving your body, knowing what you are practicing makes a world of difference. Do you know what position you are in? What does the position mean? You may have been working on your solar plexus chakra without knowing what it is, where it is or how it works. Are you breathing through your movements? The physical wellness within yoga keeps the body flexible but also internally balanced. Yoga should not become a painful workout but feel comfortable with light tension. It is not all black and white. Modify the pose to fit how comfortable you are, move at your own pace, take a break and grab some water.

It is important to strive for authentic yoga practice. An authentic practice revolves around mindfulness, on and off the mat. Yoga is a mental and physical practice that we are capable of implementing into our daily lives. Practicing compassion toward yourself and others — people, animals, the environment and living in the now or being present. Achieving a state of peace not only benefits ourselves, but those we come across.

Wherever you find yourself on June 21, move through your day with mindfulness.

Words by Amia King

Photo courtesy of health and fitness travel

Photo courtesy yatrakundalini activitation

The Jacksonville Waves

Words & photos by Ana Grace Anderson

“It’s a chance. My dad hasn’t seen me play since 2021. Just being able to have him here and compete against talented players is enough.” These were the words of Lindsey Pulliam, a guard on Jacksonville’s brand-new professional women’s basketball team, after its nail-biting win over Greensboro Groove on May 23 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.

For the first time in history, Jacksonville is welcoming a group of women to represent the city’s local talent and aspirations in the world of professional basketball.

The newly formed Jacksonville Waves are part of a new women’s professional basketball league known as The Upshot League. Co-founded by Donna Orender, former president of the WNBA, and Andy Kaufmann, CEO of Zawyer Sports, the league was created to foster elite talent and competition among highly accomplished female athletes.

Head coach Jessica Bogia said, “They thought it was best to bring a professional women’s basketball team to the city of Jacksonville — a team that provides opportunities for women.”

And it has done just that. For many players on the team, Saturday marked their first opportunity to play professionally in years — some for the first time since college.

Within the team’s talented roster, eight players have previous WNBA experience, and many have competed in professional leagues around the world.

“These women have goals and aspirations of getting back to the WNBA,” Bogia said.

The Waves have not only brought new opportunities to female athletes in Jacksonville, but they have also helped further connect the local community in many ways.

At their home games, you can expect the community to show up and show out for their local team. From chants of “Duuuval” to crowd participation in the wave throughout the arena (see what they did there), Jacksonville’s spirit and support for the new team are clearly visible. Between quarters, young fans had the opportunity to participate in games on the court and take photos with the mascot, Millie, while the rest of the crowd enjoyed lively halftime performances from local dance studios.

The team and the Jacksonville community alike are excited to see what the remainder of the inaugural season has in store. After two impressive wins in their first three games, the Waves appear to have a promising future.

“I’m honestly just excited to win. We’ve got such a great group of people, not just as players, but as people as well,” said Waves guard Lindsey Pulliam. “We’ve got a great leader leading us, giving us that energy. It’s been awesome. We feel the love from the Jacksonville community.”

Fans can attend The Waves’ next home game June 18 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, where they will compete against Savannah Steel.

For more information, visit wavesupshot.com.

Jaguars Add Former NFL Talent, Rising Coaches Through Bill Walsh Fellowship

Words by Teresa Spencer

The Jacksonville Jaguars are continuing to invest in the future of the game, not just on the field, but on the sidelines as well.

Jacksonville announced the addition of Maurice Banks, Zach Banner and Tyshon Fogg to the organization’s coaching staff as part of the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship, a league initiative that has quietly become one of football’s most influential developmental pipelines over the last three decades.

The fellowship places promising coaches and football minds inside NFL buildings during offseason programs and training camps, giving them direct exposure to the speed, structure and intensity of professional football operations. For many participants, it serves as a launching pad toward full-time NFL opportunities. This year’s Jaguars group brings a blend of international coaching experience, NFL pedigree and modern defensive football backgrounds.

Banks arrives in Jacksonville after building an unconventional football résumé that stretches well beyond traditional college coaching circles. Currently serving as chief of staff for Towson University football, Banks previously spent five seasons as head coach at Gettysburg College, where he helped develop multiple all-conference players. But what makes Banks especially intriguing is the global path he took to get here.

Before returning to the American college ranks, Banks coached football internationally in Brazil, Austria, Germany and Italy — experiences that shaped a broader football perspective rarely seen in NFL coaching circles. A former standout defensive back at Georgetown University, Banks also played professionally overseas after a brief stint in arena football.

Photos by Aaron Berkshire

Banner’s path is more familiar to NFL fans. The former offensive lineman spent time with the Indianapolis Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers after being selected in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft. His arrival in Jacksonville also creates a reunion with Jaguars offensive line coach Shaun Sarrett, who previously coached Banner during his years in Pittsburgh.

At 6-foot-8 and nearly 360 pounds during his playing career, Banner became known as both a physical presence and a respected locker room personality.

Long before the NFL, he starred at the University of Southern Cali

fornia, where he earned All-American honors and served as a team captain for one of college football’s marquee programs.

Fogg represents the next wave of young defensive minds climbing through the coaching profession. Currently entering his first season as linebackers coach and run game coordinator at the University of New Hampshire, Fogg previously worked his way through several roles at Syracuse University, including graduate assistant, quality control coach and analyst assignments.

The former Rutgers University linebacker was known during his playing days for toughness, leadership and consistency — traits that translated into four Academic All-Big Ten honors and nearly 300 career tackles.

For Jacksonville, the move reflects something larger than a summer internship program. Around the NFL, organizations increasingly view fellowships like the Bill Walsh program as critical tools for identifying future coordinators, position coaches and eventually head coaches. In a league constantly searching for fresh ideas and leadership, these offseason opportunities often become the first proving ground. And inside a Jaguars organization trying to build sustainable success from top to bottom, developing coaching talent may prove nearly as important as developing players.

Feature sponsored by

TUESDAY, JUNE 2 – SUNDAY, JUNE 7

be sure to stick around after the game for Saturday Night Fireworks! Presented by VyStar Credit Union & Rolland Reash Plumbing.

Sunday, June 7, 2:05PM KIDS MEME DAY

Yes. This was was intentionally put on 6/7. Sorry not sorry. Come

also feel like the pros after each Sunday game by rounding the bases once the field is clear. Plus, face paint, balloon animals & more, presented by Baptist Health.

TUESDAY, JUNE 9 – SUNDAY, JUNE 14

TRIVIA

MONDAYS

• St. Augustine Fish Company & Oyster House, 6 p.m

• V Pizza–Mandarin (music bingo), 6 p.m.

• Iguana on Park (cashpot bingo), 6:30 p.m.

• 9 Ball Heaven Sports Grill & Billiards, 7 p.m.

• Amici (music bingo), 7 p.m.

• Donovan’s Irish Pub, St. Augustine, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–Durbin Park, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–Fleming Island, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–River City/Northside, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–Tinseltown, 7:30 p.m.

• Rain Dogs, 8 p.m.

• Treylor Park (pop culture), 9 p.m.

TUESDAYS

• St. Mary’s Seafood (music bingo) 6 p.m.

• Mr. Chubby’s Wings–Fleming Island (music bingo), 6:30 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–St. Augustine, 6:30 p.m.

• V Pizza– St. Augustine, 6:30 p.m.

• The Back 40, 7 p.m.

• Bottlenose Brewing, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Nocatee, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–San Pablo, 7 p.m.

• Gator’s Dockside–Oakleaf, (music bingo), 7 p.m.

• Harps American Grill, 7 p.m.

• Hurricane Grill & Wings–Atlantic Boulevard, 7 p.m.

• Island Wing Company–Bartram, 7 p.m.

• Jax Craft Beer, 7 p.m.

• Jerry’s Sports Grille, 7 p.m.

• Miller’s Ale House–Deerwood, 7 p.m.

• My Tap Room (pop culture), 7 p.m.

• Players Grille, 7 p.m.

• Shantytown Pub, 7 p.m.

• Southern Grill, 7 p.m.

• Surfside Kitchen, St. Augustine, 7 p.m.

• V Pizza–Fernandina (music bingo), 7 p.m.

• VooSwar, 7 p.m.

• Xtreme Wings Sports Bar and Grille, St. Johns, 7 p.m.

• Culhane’s Irish Pub–Southside, 7:30 p.m.

• Flask & Cannon / V Pizza (pop culture), 7:30 p.m.

• King Maker Brewing (name that tune), 7:30 p.m.

• Lynch’s Irish Pub (music bingo), 7:30 p.m.

• Monkey’s Uncle Tavern, 7:30 p.m.

• Time Out Sports Bar, 7:30 p.m.

• Tepeyolot Cerveceria, 7:30 p.m.

• Casbah Cafe, 8 p.m.

• Sahara Cafe, 8 p.m.

• Surfer the Bar (pop culture trivia), 9:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAYS

• Mr. Chubby’s Wings–Ponte Vedra (music bingo), 6:30 p.m.

• V Pizza–Mandarin, 6:30 p.m.

• The Beacon, St. Augustine, 7 p.m.

• Bold City Brewery, 7 p.m.

• Cruisers Grill, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Nocatee, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Mandarin, 7 p.m.

• Firefly Bay, 7 p.m.

• Ink Factory Brewing, 7 p.m.

• Island Wing–Bartram (music bingo) 7 p.m.

• Island Wing–Southside, 7 p.m.

• Lola’s Burrito & Burger Joint, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–Avondale, 7 p.m.

• Miller’s Ale House–Hodges, 7 p.m.

• Mellow Mushroom–Jacksonville Beach, 7 p.m.

• Scarlett O’ Hara’s, St. Augustine, 7 p.m.

• Shaughnessy’s Sports Grill, St. Augustine, 7 p.m.

• V Pizza–Fleming Island, 7 p.m.

• V Pizza–Fernandina, 7 p.m.

• V Pizza–Palm Valley, 7 p.m.

• Veterans United Craft Brewery, 7 p.m.

• Burrito Gallery–Town Center (pop culture), 7:30 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Fleming Island, 7:30 p.m.

• Harps American Grill (pop culture), 7:30 p.m.

• Hoptinger–5 Points, 7:30 p.m.

• Hoptinger–Jacksonville Beach, 7:30 p.m.

• Hurricane Grill–Fleming Island, 7:30 p.m.

• King Maker Brewing, 7:30 p.m.

• Time Out Sports Grill, 7:30 p.m

• Wicked Barley Brewing, 7:30 p.m.

• The Brix Taphouse (pop culture trivia), 8 p.m.

• Root Down (music trivia), 9 p.m.

* all games are general knowledge unless stated otherwise

THURSDAYS

• Ann O’Malley’s Irish Pub, 7 p.m.

• Bold City Brewery, 7 p.m.

• Bottlenose Brewing, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Atlantic Boulevard, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings– Nocatee (name that tune), 7 p.m.

• Island Wing Company–Southside (music bingo), 7 p.m.

• Kava and Company–San Marco (every other Thursday), 7 p.m.

• Miller’s Ale House–Avenues, 7 p.m.

• Mr. Chubby’s Wings–Ponte Vedra, 7 p.m.

• V Pizza– Fernandina (what’s that song), 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings– St. Aug, 7:30 p.m.

• Flask & Cannon / V Pizza, 7:30 p.m.

• V Pizza–San Marco, 7:30 p.m.

• Hoptinger–Jax Beach (music bingo), 8 p.m.

FRIDAYS

• Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 6 p.m.

• Time Out Sports Grill, 6:30 p.m.

• Engine 15 Brewing, 7 p.m.

• MVP’s Sports Grille, 7 p.m.

• Tepeyolot Cerveceria, 7:30 p.m.

SATURDAYS

• Hamburger Mary’s (HamBingo), 2 p.m.

• VooSwar, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–Atlantic Boulevard, 7 p.m.

• Dick’s Wings–San Pablo (pop culture), 7p.m.

• Ink Factory Brewing (name that tune), 7 p.m.

• Bottlenose Brewing (name that tune), 7:30 p.m.

ETC.

Let’s Practice Japanese

日本語を練習しましょう!

I found the Let’s Practice Japanese group on a whim while browsing Bold Bean’s Art Market pop-up in Riverside on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Matt Denes of No Signal Pictures had an interesting little shop full of hand-printed clothes, prints, stickers and more. I pulled out a shirt with Japanese writing on it and was pleased that I could read it out loud and understand it. If you know how difficult the Japanese writing system is to learn, you’ll understand why this was a major confidence boost for an aspiring Japanese language learner like me.

This sparked a conversation with the shop owner, who mentioned a Japanese language study group had just been there that morning. I was gobsmacked as I had never heard of such a thing in Jacksonville and was thirsty to learn how I could attend. Unfortunately, neither he nor the baristas knew the details, but that crumb of info led me to the Let’s Learn Japanese Facebook page after some internet sleuthing.

The following Sunday, I went to my first event, excited but nervous. What I found was a group of kind, inspiring and curious people from all walks of life, all brought together by the same passion for learning a language from across the world for a variety of personal reasons.

Chloe Forbes, the originator of the group, told me she started it as a way to hopefully inspire others by watching her study process.

“I was surprised to see how many proficient Japanese learners there were in Jacksonville and that people had other reasons for learning Japanese outside of anime,” she expressed.

She was also impressed to hear that many were aiming to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test held twice a year.

I asked Thomas Jabberwocky, a frequent attendee, why he joined the Let’s Practice Japanese group.

“While I have been studying Japanese for a few years, my speaking skills could use improvement, so I wanted to be around other learners. Japanese is a very challenging language, and being surrounded by a community of people has helped me and others grow in their language learning journey,” he said.

I asked Benjamin Heyward, another group member, to give some advice for aspiring Japanese learners, and he had a profound answer. He explained the Japanese phrase keizoku wa shikaru ni naru, which, In essence, means “persistence pays off.” He emphasized that if students truly want to improve, they have to really want it.

Words & photos by Ozni Foxglove

“Japanese is a deep language, it takes a lot of time to learn and native English speakers will need a lot of diligent practice,” he added.

Being a part of this study group has been very meaningful and encouraging. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning Japanese, whether you are a beginner or someone who has dabbled in studying for years, like me. While this group is not a class, it is a platform to practice speaking, writing and reading skills with like-minded people in a nonjudgmental environment.

The group meets every Sunday from 10 a.m.–noon at the Bold Bean in Riverside. Generally, the group starts by sharing how their week has been and extending these topics, gathering new knowledge from one another. Then they engage in writing practice and sometimes play Japanese study card games.

Feel free to stop by, have a coffee and advance your Japanese skills.

Photo by Dasha Yukhymyuk on Unsplash

YOU’RE RIGHT TO BE AFRAID

Why our current obsession with horror has everything to do with our dooming reality.

Words by Ambar Ramirez

Last night, I went to see the highly rated (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, to be exact) thriller, “Obsession.” It’s been a while since I’ve gone to see a scary movie in theaters, and it’s been an even longer time since I’ve seen one that actually managed to keep me up all night.

This isn’t the only piece of media I’ve ingested lately that has left me … unnerved, to say the least. If I’m being honest, everything I’ve consumed — whether it’s a movie, a TV show or a novel — seems to have a hint of something hiding in the corner. A persistent, creeping feeling that a more sinister force is involved. And spoiler alert, something usually is.

Sitting in the dark of that theater, watching the credits roll while my heart rate finally slowed down, I couldn’t help but wonder. Does this recent surge of relentless, unsettling media have anything to do with our own dooming reality?

It’s a saying as old as time: life imitates art. But right now, it feels like art is desperately trying to mirror life. Horror rarely exists in a vacuum. Historically, when the real world starts to feel unstable, our stories turn dark to match it. We aren’t just looking for cheap jump scares anymore. We are looking for a place to put our collective anxiety.

Like most trends, horror ebbs and flows. But unlike fashion cycles that arbitrarily recycle decades every few years, the shifts in horror are deeply calculated. They are directly tethered to the global subconscious. When the world is in disarray, and our feeds are flooded with an endless broadcast of existential dread, fiction becomes a vital buffer. It is much easier to digest our fears when they are packaged into a narrative that can’t actually hurt us.

And we’ve been doing this for decades. Take the 1950s, for example. During the height of the Atomic Age and the Cold War, the daily reality was a suffocating fear of nuclear annihilation and communist infiltration. Instead of processing that trauma directly, audiences processed it through mutated metaphors. Real-world radiation gave birth to “Godzilla,” and the paranoid fear of secret political subversion was safely displaced onto alien takeover films like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Then there was the ’70s, an era defined by the Watergate scandal, the 1973 oil crisis and the heavy cloud of the Vietnam War. For the first time in history, network television broadcasted raw, uncensored combat footage directly into American living rooms every single night. Families watched real-world gore, body bags and the destruction of innocent villages while sitting down for dinner.

The result was a wave of groundbreaking films like “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “The Exorcist” and “Rosemary’s Baby.” Confronting the actual reality was exhausting. It meant acknowledging that the government could not protect them, the church could not save them and the decay of civilized society was happening right outside their front door. Oh, and gas prices were at an all-time high. (Sound familiar?)

And then, of course, there were the early 2000s. The devastating shock of 9/11 and the impending War on Terror resulted in the rise of the “torture porn” subgenre with films like “Saw” and “Hostel” focusing on brutal confinement, alongside relentless viral infection movies like “28 Days Later.”

Instead of staring directly into the dreadful abyss, audiences turned to fiction. It’s easier to let a movie wrap all those heavy existential anxieties and fears into a nice, ribboned box. One that safely ends when the credits roll.

And once again, here we are. Trapped in a widespread sense of impending doom. The dreadful abyss is staring right at us, and we are blissfully looking the other way, choosing instead to lose ourselves in films, shows or books. We want stories that distract us with things that can’t actually hurt us, while still letting us process that exact same heavy anxiety. Let’s face it: We are living in a chaotic, postCOVID boom. The economy is sh*t, gas prices are through the roof, groceries are becoming a luxury, and our trust in institutions has completely evaporated.

We are all simply too terrified to look at reality dead in the eye, so we let the screen do it for us.

Real-life housing crises, soaring inflation and massive wealth gaps have materialized into “eat the rich” (“Parasite”) and survival horror (“Squid Game”). Meanwhile, our post-pandemic loneliness, tech fatigue and the creeping paranoia that we are constantly being watched or losing our minds online has produced films like “Smile,” and since it’s so fresh on my mind, “Obsession.”

But lately, we’ve been seeing the rise of a whole new genre altogether. Just like the early 2000s birthed a new subgenre, we’ve birthed our own. The comedy-thriller. Shows like “Widow’s Bay” and “Something Very Bad is Going to Happen” sarcastically deal with curses, nightmares and death. It’s the ultimate reflection of our current culture. It directly comments on how social media has become an outlet for our generation. A place where we cope with our deepest, daily existential dread by turning it into a lighthearted meme.

In a way, our obsession with horror right now isn’t because we are morbid, closeted freaks; it’s because horror tells the truth. While we live in a constant, exhausting flux of trying to ignore the world and then trying to survive it, horror actually validates our fears. It creates a time and space for us to scream in public, hide behind our blankets and feel our fear instead of running from it. And perhaps it even tells us that we can survive it.

Theater Dance Film

THROUGH JUNE 13

“The Legend of Georgia McBride” The 5 & Dime the5anddime.org

THROUGH JUNE 14

“1776” Alhambra Theatre & Dining alhambrajax.com

JUNE 1

The Everly Brothers Experience Alhambra Theatre & Dining alhambrajax.com

JUNE 4-21

“The Battle of Shallowford” Limelight Theatre limelight-theatre.org

JUNE 5-15

“The Prince of Egypt: The Musical” The Island Theater, Fleming Island theislandtheater.com

JUNE 5-20

“Enchanted April” Amelia Community Theatre, Fernandina Beach ameliacommunitytheatre.org

JUNE 5-21

“Young Frankenstein” Orange Park Community Theatre opct.info

Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” Artist Connection Theatre artistconnectiontheatre.org

“Sondheim on Sondheim” Theatre Jacksonville theatrejax.com

JUNE 8

The Doobie Others Alhambra Theatre & Dining alhambrajax.com

JUNE 9

Magical Mystery Doors Tribute Alhambra Theatre & Dining alhambrajax.com

JUNE 12

Story Slam: “Everything All at Once” BABS’ LAB barbaracolaciello.com

JUNE 12-28

“Violet” Players by the Sea playersbythesea.org

JUNE 17

MOCA Free Movie Night—“Hamnet” MOCA Jacksonville mocajacksonville.unf.edu

JUNE 18-28

“Into the Woods” Betsy Lovett Hall–Church of the Good Shepherd rivercitytheatre.com

JUNE 18-AUG. 9

“Shrek the Musical” Alhambra Theatre & Dining alhambrajax.com

JUNE 25-27

“The Phil Mitchell Radio Hour” San Marco Church officialnoahbennett.com

JUNE 27

Jacksonville Urban Film & Music Festival

The Ritz Theatre & Museum theritz.jaxevents.com

JUNE 24-25

“Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged” (Revised—Again!) Backyard Stage at The Amp apextheatrejax.com

JUNE 26-28

“Willy Wonka Jr.” Limelight Theatre, St. Augustine limelight-theatre.org

Review of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’

Words by Harry Straussman

Star Wars drags itself back into theaters with the rejiggered edit of the fourth season of a TV series that lost its groove about halfway through its second. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” isn’t the worst entry into the faraway galaxy — that honor goes with unanimous consent to 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker” — but it is comfortably the least cinematic. Not a single memorable scene or shot comes from the film, so much so that as I drove home, I conceded that I’d have written this quickly before Mando’s adventure dissolved away into the old noggin.

The ... I suppose, film sees The Mandalorian receive a mission from a potentially AI Sigourney Weaver to make a deal with Jabba the Hut’s twin siblings to get information about a guy who may have been in the Empire. The Huts ask Mando to retrieve Jabba’s longlost son and heir to the throne of Jabba, Rotta the oddly swole slug monster played even more oddly by a voice morphed Jeremy Allen White. Several uninspired and poorly lit action scenes follow: Mando gets hurt and baby Yoda heals him, they complete their mission and blast off for new adventures. Usually in movies, the characters have arcs and grow from the experience of the story we’re watching. Here, nothing really changes for our leads. Mando starts the film as a monotoned gun slinger who loves his sidekick and is really good at killing and ends the film the same way as though nothing of note had just happened for the past two hours. Pedro Pascal’s fraught journey to leading man status continues here.

Pascal has struggled to bring that undeniable magnetism that made him pop so excitingly in several supporting roles, most memorably his career igniting turn at the height of “Game of Thrones” to his newfound top-billed parts. Oddly stilted and arguably miscast in last year’s similarly forgettable “Fantastic Four: Four Steps” and unable

to turn his dud character in “Materialists” into anything notable, it hasn’t been the smoothest of transitions into the limelight for an actor with an abundance of charisma and screen presence. Though, to his credit, he was the last good aspect of “The Last of Us” season 2. But here, even with the caveats of it being 90% a voice performance and the character calling to evoke a “man with no name” steeliness, Pascal doesn’t do enough to make the character a compelling or engaging lead, with every line delivered in the same monotonous cadence, no matter the situation Mando found himself in.

Though Pascal isn’t alone in his floundering, the direction by Jon Favreau is lifeless from top to bottom, with the least amount of imagination ever used to put Star Wars on screen. For a director who once made generational touchstones in “Elf” and “Iron Man,” it is dispiriting to see how much he has regressed as a filmmaker following this work and his abortive “live action” version of “The Lion King.” Let’s get this man back into the food truck to make another heartwarming cooking movie.

A lot of this would be fine, or at least tolerable, if I were watching this through an app on my couch. But asking the audience to go out of their way and pay to watch the latest product from the Lucasfilm dream factory feels borderline insulting. While the film is inoffensive, it ferments frustration because this series should have much more to offer than this. Especially in the wake of Andor, a transcendent show that breathed new life into this galaxy and demonstrated how to tell emotionally involving stories in George Lucas’ world that also have much to say about the state of our world. I don’t know what the future of “Star Wars” entails, but one thing is for sure, I’ll be taking a picture of that slug straight to my personal trainer.

TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd.

JACKSONVILLE’S MENTIONS IN TELEVISION AND FILM: RANKED

The Good Place 01

When “The Good Place” debuted in 2016, it charmed viewers with Kristen Bell’s light sarcasm and perfect hair, but it was another character that kept people watching. Manny Jacinto’s performance as Jason Mendoza gifted the world with a look into the life of a Jacksonville native. And thus, the unofficial mascot of Duval was born. The show’s narrative follows four deceased people as they navigate their after-lives in “The Good Place.” Initially masquerading as a mute monk, Jason reveals he is really from Jacksonville, Fla., immediately pointing to his incorrect placement because, as the show implies, people of Jacksonville should be in “The Bad Place.” Throughout the seasons, the show uses his character as a lighthearted depiction of what it means to be a Floridian — kind but maybe a bit drunk off the heat, among other things. Jason perpetuates the Florida man stereotype from constant cries of “Bortles,” referring to former Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles to having an affinity for Molotov cocktails.

Katt Williams: Great America 02

Katt Williams is known for many things, like being a comedian and turning down Diddy parties, but one of his lesser-known talents is his keen eye for the geography of Jacksonville. His Netflix comedy special “Great America” was shot at the Florida Theatre, during which he goes on an immersive rant about the best parts of this city, like the blazing sun and the Jaguars’ uniforms. The comedy opens with the crowd chanting “Duuuval,” which to many performers, I hate to break the news, does sound like “boo.” But Williams did his homework. He immediately invites the whole crowd for a unified “Duuuval,” setting the stage for the kind of show the city thrives on: entertaining and a bit unhinged.

“Most cities have one ‘hood, but not Jacksonville … they have spots all around the map you gotta look out for,” Williams told the crowd. He continued, “Go to Jacksonville Beach, and they have white people making Caribbean food.” Williams’ show sets the bar for mentions of the city because not only does he understand the culture, he can poke fun without being degrading. I am looking at you, Tony Hinchcliffe.

Deadpool 03

“Deadpool,” another gift from the year 2016, thrust the world into the dark-comedy landscape. In the beginning of the film, Wade Wilson, a foul-mouthed former special forces agent, is in a bar reminiscing about his old life. He tells the bartender of his “exotic travels,” and one of the places he refers to is Jacksonville, Fla. Of course, the joke here is that Jacksonville, to the untrained eye, is not, in fact, an exotic place, but, like Wilson said, “We have a wonderful TGI Fridays.” Actually, upon further research, TGI Friday’s are no longer in Jacksonville, but the sentiment persists: This is the place to be for special forces agents and bar hoppers.

The Good Place (NBC)

Deadpool(2016) 20th Century Fox

Jacksonville is moving up in the world, and it has nothing to do with the new Riverwalk Downtown. The city is being put on the map in a more superficial sort-of way: recognition in film and television. So, watch out Portland, Ore., the sleep-deprived writers at Warner Bros. have a new city to pick on.

Over the past few years, a word has made its way onto screens across the nation, a word that some might be familiar with, some might be confused by, and for the ones who escaped, the word sends a shiver down their spine: “Jacksonville.” Every so often in a show or a movie, this great county of Duval gets mentioned. The reason for this remains unknown. Is this some sort of humiliation ritual to regain our rightful place as Hollywood? Is it a conspiracy to boost tourism? Is it because we are better than every other Florida city in every way? Whatever the reason may be, let this be a message to the shadowy creatures running the television networks: We know you’re watching; we want more of Jacksonville.

As the media mentioning Jacksonville began to pique my interest some time ago, I began to keep a list, in the place everyone does, my notes app.

30 Rock 04

For the 100th episode special of “30 Rock,” a gas leak causes events to interrupt the already chaotic set of a sketch comedy show. As Jack Donaghy, the show’s CEO, is affected by the gas leak, he hallucinates different versions of himself from the past, future and alternate future. As he wrestles with the trajectory of his life and whether or not he should fire showrunner and friend Liz Lemon, future Jack warns him of what will become of her if he does. He says she will end up living in Jacksonville, Florida, and her husband will own an alligator park. For some reason, anytime a place mentions or is set in Florida, alligators are a major part of the plot, though they do not seem to be a real-life nuisance. Something to think about. But Jack says her hair would not be able to handle the humidity. Though the line was short-lived, it is comforting to know that the great Tina Fey knows who we are. Maybe the writers just needed a Florida city to joke about Fey’s hair, but nonetheless, they chose us.

Below is that note expanded for the reader’s pleasure, a comprehensive list of Jacksonville mentions in television and film. This list specifically indicates characters or lines that would develop a certain perspective of Jacksonville. For those who have never had the pleasure of living here, these media moments might paint them a picture of what this city is all about, or, more accurately, how we are really viewed. The list is also ranked from most accurate to least accurate depiction, measured through an extensive and very scientific process. The rankings were developed taking into account only one person’s experience and with no external input. You know, how all studies are made.

In the name of journalistic integrity, we have only listed Jacksonville moments in media that we have personally seen. So dear reader, rest easy knowing that someone out there has binged watched an even more disgusting amount of entertainment than you. For the shows and movies we undoubtedly missed, do not hesitate to comment on our socials, and we will add it to the watch list.

05

Criminal Minds

If you are a part of the breed of people who obtain some twisted satisfaction from watching crime shows, then you have probably already binged the millions of options there are. If not, they usually follow the same formula: there’s an investigation of some sicko murdering women or children or both, the crime-force-mega-geniuses find the unsubs (“unknown subjects”) right before they kill again, and then the super-serious case solvers get to smile again on their flight back to headquarters. The crime rates of Jacksonville may have been a factor in not one but two episodes of “Criminal Minds” being set here, and this is pretty much the formula they went with.

“The Perfect Storm” follows an unsub who records the torture and murders of college girls, then sends the videos to the victims’ mothers. Yeah. This one goes last on the list, because Jacksonville has had its fair share of serial killers, but thinking of this episode evokes nightmares, so I try not to think about it. Another reason this one is ranked last is its accuracy is because at one point the screen reads ”Duval County Woods” as an alligator snaps at the camera. Maybe in 2006 there was a place in town with this name, but as of 2026, this seems like a lazy mistake.

30 Rock (NBC)

Criminal Minds (CBS)

AI Art Wars: The Internet’s Dumbest Creative Civil War

Words by Teresa Spencer

Artists used to fistfight over whether digital art was “real.”

Before that, photographers got dragged for “cheating” because cameras did the hard work. Before that, musicians lost their minds over synthesizers, drum machines, Auto-Tune, sampling, Pro Tools and basically every new creative tool invented after a caveman smeared berries on a cave wall.

Now the internet has found its newest moral panic: artificial intelligence. And holy hell, people are losing their minds!

Scroll through any creative community online right now, and you’ll find the same war raging everywhere. One side believes AI is the death of art, creativity, originality, humanity, civilization and possibly puppies. The other side treats AI like the greatest invention since the Fender Stratocaster and high-speed internet.

In the middle sits a giant group of exhausted artists wondering why everybody suddenly talks more about “process” than the actual damn art itself. Because somewhere along the way, the internet stopped asking: “Is this good?” And started asking: “Did a machine touch it?”

That’s a weird place for culture to land, especially because history says artists panic every single time technology changes the rules.

Painters feared photography. Studio musicians feared synthesizers. Traditional animators feared CGI. Film photographers mocked digital cameras. Old-school editors hated nonlinear editing software. Every generation swears the new tool will destroy creativity forever. Then 20 years later everybody uses it and pretends they never complained. The difference now is social media. Social media took what should’ve been a complicated conversation about ethics, copyright, labor and technology and turned it into a permanent online food fight fueled by rage algorithms and people with anime avatars yelling “AI IS THEFT” in all caps at 2:13 in the morning. And yeah … some of the criticism is legitimate.

There are serious concerns about AI systems training on copyrighted artwork without permission. Real artists are worried about corporations vacuuming up decades of human creativity to feed software models while the original creators get absolutely nothing in return. Those are real conversations worth having. But the internet doesn’t do nuance anymore. It does witch hunts.

Artists are now being accused of “using AI” because hands look weird, lighting looks too polished or because someone improved too quickly. Entire communities have turned into digital Salem trials where creators post screen recordings, source files and time-lapse footage like forensic evidence proving they’re innocent of thoughtcrime.

Imagine explaining this sentence to somebody in 1997: “An artist had to upload Photoshop layers to prove to strangers on Reddit they drew their own goblin.” We have absolutely broken our brains. Meanwhile, a growing number of creators are quietly using AI as a workflow tool because, frankly, modern creative industries are brutal. Budgets are collapsing. Deadlines are insane. Algorithms punish anyone who slows down for five minutes to breathe. Independent creators are expected to produce studio-level content with laptop-level resources.

So, yeah, people experiment with tools that speed things up. Filmmakers use AI to storyboard scenes faster. Game artists prototype worlds quicker. Writers brainstorm ideas. Musicians experiment with arrangements. Designers mock up concepts in minutes instead of days. For many creators, AI isn’t replacing art. It’s replacing burnout. And despite what the loudest people online claim, audiences usually do not care how something was made nearly as much as artists think they do. Nobody leaves a movie theater crying because the VFX team used machine learning rotoscoping. Nobody hears a song and says: “Wow, that bridge emotionally devastated me… but did they use AI mastering plugins?”

People connect to emotion. Storytelling. Energy. Meaning. Art succeeds because humans feel something, not because somebody passed a purity test on Facebook or Instagram. That said, the anti-AI crowd is right about one thing: The internet is becoming flooded with absolute garbage.

AI-generated sludge is everywhere now. Fake influencer photos. Spam books. Empty clickbait articles. Hollow motivational videos narrated by robot voices that sound like Siri after an edible. Social feeds are drowning in mass-produced noise. But let’s be honest for one second.

Humans already made plenty of terrible art before AI showed up.Reality television exists. So do Minions memes. AI didn’t invent bad content. It just industrialized it. And by the way, if you have ever made a reel or a meme you actually used a form of AI to do it.

Photo by Aleksandr Artiushenko on Unsplash

The deeper truth hiding underneath this whole meltdown is that artists are scared — financially, emotionally, existentially. A lot of people spent years mastering difficult technical skills. When software suddenly lowers entry barriers, it can feel like the ground underneath your identity is collapsing. That fear is human. But history also says adaptation usually wins.

The artists who survived previous technological revolutions weren’t always the loudest traditionalists. They were the people who figured out how to bend new tools toward human ideas. That’s probably where this ends, too. Not with AI replacing artists. Not with artists defeating AI. But with a messy, uncomfortable middle ground where humans keep doing what humans have always done: stealing new technology, making weird art with it, arguing about it online, then eventually pretending the controversy never happened. Please remember: the paintbrush survived. The camera survived. The synthesizer survived.

Human creativity is cockroach-level resilient. The real danger probably isn’t artificial intelligence. It’s the internet turning every complicated cultural shift into a screaming match between people who haven’t created anything in six months but somehow have endless time to police everybody else’s workflow.

Art by Hirzul Maulana on Unsplash

The Art Center Cooperative tacjacksonville.org

Beaches Museum beachesmuseum.org

Butterfield Garage Art Gallery butterfieldgarage.com

Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens cummermuseum.org

FemArt Gallery femartgallery.org

First Coast Cultural Center firstcoastculturalcenter.org

Flagler College–Crisp Ellert Museum flagler.edu

Florida Community College at Jacksonville fscj.edu

Florida Mining Gallery floridamininggallery.com

Gallery 725 gallery725.com

Governor’s House Cultural Center and Museum, St. Augustine staugustine.ufl.edu

Haskell Gallery at Jacksonville International Airport jaxairportarts.com

Hillary Whitaker Gallery hwhitakergallery.com

Jacksonville Main Library tacjacksonville.org

Jacksonville University ju.edu/cfa

The Lightner Museum lightnermuseum.org

MOCA Jacksonville mocajacksonville.unf.edu

PAStA Fine Art Gallery pastagalleryart.com

Ritz Theatre & Museum ritzjacksonville.com

Southlight Gallery southlightgallery.com

St. Augustine Art Association staaa.org

Stellers Gallery stellersgallery.com

Thrasher-Horne Center Gallery thcenter.org

Touché Gallery touchegallery.com

Words by Carmen Macri

Painting Outside the Lines with Sean Bono

Art has always been a universal language — which is a polite way of saying humanity has a compulsive, centuries-old need to leave its mark on a blank surface. A collective diary written in pigment and spray paint. A lineage that stretches back millennia, and for the last 20 years, Sean Bono has been adding his own massive, vibrant chapter to the story, one city block at a time.

There is a specific kind of madness required to look at a five-story blank brick wall and think, “Yeah, I can control that.” But Bono has been doing exactly that for over two decades — inhaling aerosol fumes and destroying his kneecaps on scaffolding as a self-declared “wall-dog.” His repertoire isn’t just about the sheer size of the walls; it’s about how he manipulated the culture around them. He took the solitary, deeply protective act of painting and turned it into a high-octane live sport by founding Art Battles back in 2001 in a Manhattan junkyard. At the time, there was nothing like it — a live painting event where artists create original work in front of a live audience with a set time limit. From start to finish, the audience watches the painting emerge from a blank canvas to a completed piece in real time, then votes to determine a winner.

At its core, Art Battles are deeply human and rooted in community. It took all of the pretentiousness out of the usual underground art scene and invited artists and non-artists alike to come together with the sole purpose of creating something special. From the actual art to the surrounding ambiance, Bono had cultivated a brand new scene, and it didn’t take long for Art Battles to go international, eventually taking that kinetic momentum to cities like Paris and Amsterdam.

Bono was also a part of the art community at 5 Pointz in Queens, the infamous outdoor art exhibition space that was considered the world’s premier graffiti and street art mecca. Now, his portfolio spans from ultra-technical UV-light murals in L.A. to massive studio promotional pieces for Warner Bros. to laid-back oceanic murals in Jacksonville Beach.

Luckily, Folio had the opportunity to catch up with the world-renowned artist about his legacy.

Photos provided by Sean Bono

Meet the Artist

Early in your career in New York, you painted temporary construction barriers for architecture firms. Now you paint permanent fixtures on both coasts. How does your mindset change when you know a piece is explicitly temporary versus when it’s meant to become a lasting landmark for a local community?

Bono: Back then, the temporary work let me take risks. The wall was coming down in a few weeks anyway, so I would try things I wouldn’t try now. I remember painting a woman on one of those construction tunnels in Manhattan. A couple of construction workers walked past behind me and said, “What is this, she ain’t even hot.” That stuck with me. Temporary work speaks to an audience. Permanent work becomes part of the environment. I’m not really thinking about the audience. I’m thinking about the environment. The nature, the beauty, the vibe of the place. That’s what I grab onto first. I try to create presence in the piece, a characteristic of all of my work that I aim to create.

You painted at the legendary 5 Pointz in Queens before its controversial whitewashing and demolition. Having witnessed the loss of such a monumental cultural mecca, how does that shape how you view the permanence of street art, and does it make you intentional about preserving the stories behind the walls you paint now?

Bono: My relationship with impermanence in art goes way back before 5 Pointz. I remember being a kid at the Met watching Tibetan monks finish a sand mandala. Weeks of work, incredibly beautiful, and then moments later, they swept it into bags and walked away. It was a protest against the Chinese occupation. That stayed with me. Then I came up in New York with graffiti crews — real beef. Permission walls and permitted pieces weren’t really part of the vernacular yet. You painted knowing it could be gone by morning.

5 Pointz was a hall of fame, and I was lucky enough to paint there many times.

But in my mind, the true violation wasn’t the buff itself. It was how Jerry Wolkoff treated Jonathan Cohen and the arrangement they had.** Paint fades. New murals take the place of old ones. As far as the work itself is concerned, I am just grateful to have it be part of the lives of the people who live with it. When it’s time to go, I am OK with that. I do all I can to preserve it, write about it, document it. I have been writing down my stories of walls and battles in a book I am nearly finished with. But after a certain point, you have to release it.

**Jerry Wolkoff was the developer who owned 5 Pointz and originally hired Jonathan Cohen to curate the exterior murals, while the interior housed 200 art studios. In 2013, Wolkoff controversially had the iconic murals whitewashed overnight without warning to clear the way for a residential complex. This blindsided erasure prompted the artists to file a landmark lawsuit against Wolkoff before the building was demolished in 2014.

You’ve executed massive campaigns for brands like Nike, Sony and NBC’s “The Blacklist.” What is the secret to keeping a mural from feeling like just an ad?

I paint ads. I am proud of that. It is an ageold tradition, and I have my own take on it — a process I developed myself, and I mostly paint them by myself or with friends. I use a lot of the same practices in my commercial pieces as I do in my own.

The way I see it, we are all selling something with our murals. An awareness, a lifestyle, a vibe. With painting ads, that part is pretty direct. And then I get to do what I love and do best, which is paint. I love the magic of art. The illusion, the tricks, the process, the secrets, the mystery. My ad work is training. It is where I practice and develop new skills.

When you stepped away from massive agency production to launch Bono Paints, how difficult was it to turn off the “project manager” brain and let the “independent artist” brain take back the wheel?

I worked under the banner of other commercial hand-paint production companies, and I looked at those years as a way to refine my skills. First was ICU Art in Oakland, a company of old graffiti masters doing commercial work with spray. I refined my can skills there and was lucky enough to manage a production for my childhood art hero, Barry McGee. From there, I went to Alchemy Media in L.A., where I solo-produced traditional mural campaigns, making the pounce patterns and painting in One Shot enamel. I pushed the medium to places I didn’t know I could take it. But the years of toxic fumes started to wear on me.

I began under-painting in acrylic and latex to cut down on the toxic stuff. As I dug deeper, I found new mediums and tools to get water-based paint to behave like oil and even like spray. Slowly, I pulled the solvents out of my palette entirely.

That is when BonoPaints really became BonoPaints. It was all on my terms now. No industry standard or tradition keeps me in a box. I was free to work the way I wanted.

After running high-energy, competitive live painting events in massive metropolises like New York and Paris, how does the

pace and creative energy of Jacksonville change your approach? What does the visual landscape of Northeast Florida offer you that a dense concrete jungle couldn’t?

My days touring the world, producing and painting in Art Battle events were frenetic. The energy matched the cities. I was painting the visual soundtrack of the cities I worked in. Urban life and the humanity it fosters were a huge inspiration to me at first. The city was where my art lived, reacting to the energy that places like New York put out. I was interested in the people, their conditions, their character. But most of my work was really self-referential. I was understanding the human condition through aspects of myself, and that is what helped me paint characters with real feeling.

In Florida, I started looking outward more than inward. Enjoying nature and all of its beauty. I realized how obsessed we are with ourselves as people. With that, my interest shifted. I wanted to make work about the beauty around us instead of the complexity inside.

You’ve gone from a 21-year-old Pratt student painting a gelato shop in Little Italy for some pocket change to a bi-coastal commercial muralist. Looking at the brush in your hand today on a wall in Jacksonville Beach, what is the most surprising thing about how your relationship with paint has changed over 20 years, and what is the one thing that has stayed exactly the same?

Inside, I am still that 21-year-old with a brush in my hand, looking at the wall in front of me with a tinge of self-doubt, trying to figure out how I am going to get it done. Every mural I paint is the best I can do. That has been true since I was 21, and it is still true today. It is not any easier now because I am always trying to push my limit. I think it is that combination that keeps me sharp — a little doubt and always trying to push it further than expected.

If you had to choose, which has been your favorite piece of work? Whether it was the process or the finished artwork. What made it your favorite?

The first Art Battle on Houston Street, Sept. 7, 2001. Four days before everything changed. I knew there wasn’t anything like it, and it was exciting. A vacant lot, some plywood, some paint, and a crowd that wasn’t supposed to be there. The format was deliberate. It was already called Art Battle.

Honestly, my piece that night was a disaster. I doubted it the whole time I was painting. But I put myself out there. It was like a comedian bombing on stage and finding the bottom. Realizing it’s OK down there. You get strength from it. That night taught me you can fail in front of people and walk away stronger than when you started. Every wall I’ve painted since has some piece of that night in it.

Locally, you can see Bono’s work attached to some of Jacksonville’s staples like Beach Bowl, the Pier and Palm Cove Marina.

Comedy & Magic

JUNE 3

Kick’n Ash Comedy The Pillars Club eventbrite.com

JUNE 4-6

Tommy Davidson Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 5

Beirut Comedy Show Beirut Restaurant eventbrite.com

Friday Night Live Third Space Improv 3rdspaceimprov.com

JUNE 5-7

First Coast Comedy First Coast Comedy firstcoastcomedy.com

JUNE 6

David Magnifico: The World’s Stupidest Magic Show Third Space Improv 3rdspaceimprov.com

Stand-up Comedy Green Room Brewing eventbrite.com

Don’t Tell Comedy Somewhere in Murray Hill (even if we knew we wouldn’t tell) donttellcomedy.com

Stand-up Showcase

Ink Factory Brewing rivercitycomedy.com

Magic Hideaway with Bill Abbott

Casa Marina Resort & Spa, St. Augustine magichideaway.com

JUNE 9

David Jolly Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 11

Lee Kimbrell Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 12

Classic Comedy Night: The Pride Edition Third Space Improv, St. Augustine 3rdspaceimprov.com

JUNE 12-13

Comedian CP Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

First Coast Comedy First Coast Comedy firstcoastcomedy.com

JUNE 13

Danny Johnson Murray Hill Theatre murrayhilltheatre.com

Kojo Prince Bonkerz at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville bonkerzcomedyproductions.com

Don’t Tell Comedy Somewhere in Murray Hill (even if we knew we wouldn’t tell) donttellcomedy.com

Stand-up Comedy Green Room Brewing eventbrite.com

Magic Hideaway with Bill Abbott Casa Marina Resort & Spa, St. Augustine magichideaway.com

Beach, Please!

Third Space Improv, St. Augustine 3rdspaceimprov.com

JUNE 14

Jack Grady Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

First Coast Comedy

Adele Grage Cultural Center firstcoastcomedy.com

JUNE 18

Therapy with The Last Leroy Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 18-20

First Coast Comedy First Coast Comedy firstcoastcomedy.com

JUNE 19

Drag Queen-a-Palooza: The Pride Edition

Third Space Improv, St. Augustine 3rdspaceimprov.com

JUNE 19-20

Sheryl Underwood Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 20

Stand-up Comedy Green Room Brewing eventbrite.com

Magic Hideaway with Bill Abbott Casa Marina Resort & Spa, St. Augustine magichideaway.com

Beach, Please!

Third Space Improv, St. Augustine 3rdspaceimprov.com

JUNE 25-27

Derrick Stroup Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

JUNE 26

Comedians in Drag Doing Comedy Cafe Eleven, St. Augustine Beach eventbrite.com

Stand-up Comedy

Mocama Beer Company, Fernandina Beach eventbrite.com

JUNE 26-27

First Coast Comedy First Coast Comedy firstcoastcomedy.com

June 27

Josue Comedy (in Spanish)

Murray Hill Theatre murrayhilltheatre.com

Stand-up Comedy Green Room Brewing eventbrite.com

Magic Hideaway with Bill Abbott

Casa Marina Resort & Spa, St. Augustine magichideaway.com

JUNE 28

The R&B Jokes and Comedy Show Clift Lounge instagram.com/clift_lounge

Jacksonville’s Riverfront Renaissance

Words & photos by Emily Cannon

For years, Jacksonville’s riverfront has been left with a missing piece to tie the city together. With the demolition of The Jacksonville Landing in 2020, it left a wide stretch of potential along the St. Johns River, creating a blank canvas just waiting for the city to decide what came next. Now with the opening of the Riverfront Plaza and the brand new Riverfront Music Garden, downtown Jacksonville is finally stepping into a new era, one built around culture, community and the music ties we have on the First Coast.

Riverfront Plaza officially opened its first phase in late 2025 on the former site of The Jacksonville Landing, introducing a six-acre space complete with an elevated playground, splash pad, scenic riverwalk access and gathering spaces designed for concerts, festivals and everyday recreation.

Just steps away, the Riverfront Music Garden opened recently as an interactive tribute to Jacksonville’s surprisingly deep musical legacy. The park features musical playscapes, interactive sound installations and a Jacksonville-inspired Walk of Fame honoring artists whose roots trace back to the 904.

The Music Garden creates a personal connection to Jacksonville. Celebrating not only mainstream superstars, the space honors artists across genres and generations from rock legends, hip-hop pioneers, jazz musicians and even local cultural figures whose influence stretched beyond music alone.

Among the most recognizable names featured is Lynyrd Skynyrd, arguably Jacksonville’s most famous musical export. Formed in the city in the 1960s, the band helped define Southern rock with hits like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird.”

Nearby on the Walk of Fame are tributes to Molly Hatchet and .38 Special, two more Jacksonville-connected groups that helped cement the city as an unexpected rock powerhouse.

One of the most meaningful parts of the Music Garden is its recognition of Black cultural history in Jacksonville. The park includes tributes to pioneering figures like Ma Rainey and the Johnson brothers — James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson — who were born in Jacksonville and became central figures in Black American arts and civil rights history. James Weldon Johnson notably wrote the lyrics to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black national anthem.

The city’s decision to honor artists across different musical genres reflects a broader understanding of the city itself. Jacksonville doesn’t have one singular cultural identity. It is Southern and coastal, traditional and experimental, historic and rapidly changing all at once. That complexity is physically reflected in the design of the Music Garden. Walkways curve like musical notes, interactive pianos respond to footsteps and installations encourage children to play with rhythm and sound. This spot invites participation instead of quiet observation.

Public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Residents on local forums and social media have celebrated the reopening of the Riverwalk and praised the city’s renewed investment in Downtown public spaces. Many longtime Jacksonville residents say the projects finally make the riverfront feel active and connected again.

Perhaps that is what makes these projects feel different from past Downtown initiatives. Riverfront Plaza and the Music Garden are not built around attracting tourists alone. They were designed for Jacksonville residents first: families attending festivals, runners reconnecting to the Riverwalk, children playing in splash pads, and music fans discovering that many of the artists they grew up listening to actually came from their own city.

For years, Jacksonville’s riverfront was defined by what it lacked. Today, it is increasingly being defined by what it celebrates, its history, its creativity and its people.

THE 30 HONORED ACTS:

• .38 Special

• 69 Boyz

• 95 South

• Allman Brothers Band

• Blind Blake

• Charlie “Hoss” Singleton

• Classics IV

• Frederick Delius

• Glenn Jones

• Gram Parsons

• Jahaan Sweet

• JJ Grey & Mofro

• Johnson Brothers (James Weldon Johnson & John Rosamond Johnson)

• Lil Duval

• Limp Bizkit

• Longineu Parsons II

• Lynyrd Skynyrd

• Ma Rainey

• Mae Axton

• Marcus Roberts

• Molly Hatchet

• Pat Chappelle

• Quad City DJs

• Ray Charles

• Shinedown

• Tedeschi Trucks Band

• Tim McGraw

• Ulysses Owens, Jr.

• Walter Orange

• Yellowcard

To listen to Folio’s Riverfront Music Garden playlist.

Photo courtesy of JJ Grey & Mofro Facebook

NEW MUSIC RELEASES

OVER 50? UNLIMITED

EVANESCENCE

I have a feeling this album is gonna bring me back to life — pun intended. “Sanctuary” is Evanescence’s sixth studio album, and though my personal playlist hasn’t really been updated since their 2003 era, I know this project is going to make a massive impact.

The b*tch is back! Well, literally speaking. Socially? That’s still up for debate, considering she was essentially canceled a few years ago over some very strange allegations involving her backup dancers.

NIALL HORAN “Dinner Party”

We are officially on a three-month streak of ex-One Direction members releasing albums. I like to imagine they have a very active group chat dedicated solely to coordinating drop dates so no one steals the spotlight. Honestly, I’m pretty unfamiliar with Horan’s solo work but to each his or her own!

VINCE STAPLES “Cry Baby”

We are officially on a three-month streak of ex-One Direction members releasing albums. I like to imagine they have a very active group chat dedicated solely to coordinating drop dates so no one steals the spotlight. Honestly, I’m pretty unfamiliar with Horan’s solo work but to each his or her own!

MALCOLM TODD

“Do That Again”

If “TikTok-famous” were an official genre, it would be the easiest way to summarize Malcolm Todd’s vibe. I’ll admit I know his discography almost exclusively from the app, but that’s the ultimate compliment — his sound is so effortlessly catchy and relatable that it works as the soundtrack to literally any video.

JUNE 12

OLIVIA RODRIGO

“You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love”

Nobody talk to me on June 12… I simply won’t hear you, because I will have my headphones on listening to this album over and over again. We already got a taste of what to expect from this next chapter in Rodrigo’s career with the release of “Drop Dead” and “The Cure,” and both songs were immediately added to my daily rotation.

JUNE 26

THE STROKES “Reality Awaits”

I recently discovered that my most listened to artist on Spotify is The Strokes. Yes, I have been waiting for an opportunity to drop that fact into something I’ve written, and yes, I’m ecstatic for this next record. To all the doom-scrollers and auto-tune haters already doubting the new sound, take a breath and have some faith.

Getting Hazy with the Haze Brothers

The morning started the only way a Haze Brothers morning can: with a dropped tailgate and a face full of salty ocean air. Around us, a chaotic symphony of laughter unfolded as the four friends wrestled a half-broken canopy into place over the truckbed, trying to claim a patch of shade from the relentless Florida sun while tossing out quick introductions.

Perched on the corner of the tailgate was Jake Mitchum, the band’s lead vocalist, already looking the part. Right next to him sat guitarist Cole Stellmacher, his fingers mindlessly drifting across the strings, weaving a lazy soundtrack into the breeze. Behind him, comfortably lounging in the bed, drummer Sam Lagana was parked behind a makeshift Home Depot bucket kit, ready to beat out a rhythm on plastic. And tucked into the quiet shade of the truck bed was bassist Andrew Bates — perfectly content to just lean back and watch the cacophony unfold around him.

Before the interview could take place, the group found themselves caught up in a melody. The outside world (i.e., the “Folio” crew) simply disappeared. And while we were technically there for work, there was no stopping the trance that followed while the band began performing in an impromptu set. It took a few minutes and a few shared glances between the boys to realize we had finished setting up our own equipment and were ready to get the interview going.

The night before we were set to meet, The Haze Brothers had released their second studio single, “Alright By Me,” so naturally, we wanted to pick it apart.

“I think we planned on it [writing original music], but we never really went out of our way to write the songs. They kind of came organically while we were playing gigs,” Mitchum explained. “We’d try some new chord progressions out, put some lyrics over them, and there was a lot of freestyling and making it up as we went along at live gigs. That’s kind of how we created most of our original music.”

Lagana chimed in, saying, “Pretty much every song that they’ve written has been created at a different bar in the area.” Laughing about how there have been times when someone forgets to press record, and that song is then lost forever.

The Haze Brothers have garnered a cult-like following around Jacksonville—specifically at the Beaches—playing covers at local bars and bringing a different edge to a once-mundane night out. And as the natural progression of cover bands usually goes, the group is now dipping its toes into original music.

So, without further ado, let’s meet the band. Click here!

To watch the full interview with the Haze Brothers.

Words & photos by Carmen Macri

Words & photos by Michael Teal

The spectators made their way back to their seats eagerly, they filled in one by one, row after row… after row… after row. Until the sea of chairs stretched from the stage over the field, across the street, with 50 yards more on the other side.

Ponchos were coming off as humidity rose from the sun’s rays on said grass, street and 50 yards on the other side. But just then a roar was expelled from the crowd. The performers take the stage. Smiles and applause were contagious across the sea of joy.

FEST 2026 JAZZ

The sickness of gleeful anticipation hung in the air (Almost as much as the humidity). With a “check, check” the band was ready. The crowd…they were born ready. And when the first chord rang out, It was clear to all the Jacksonville Jazz Festival was back.

CONCERTS

JUNE 2

The Black Crowes St. Augustine Amphitheatre theamp.com

JUNE 3

KC and the Sunshine Band Florida Theatre floridatheatre.com

Withered

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 4

Shawn Mullins WJCT Soundstage floridatheatre.com

The Fall of Troy

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 5

Young the Giant St. Augustine Amphitheatre theamp.com

Molly Tuttle Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

Loosely Speaking

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Upon a Burning Body

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

Taking Back Sunday FIVE fivejax.com

Tynan DECCA Live deccalive.com

Candlelight: Tribute to Juan Gabriel on Strings Friday Musicale feverup.com

Candlelight: ’90s Hip-Hop on Strings Friday Musicale feverup.com

JUNE

JULY

JUNE 5-6

Rachmaninoff’s Third Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts jaxsymphony.org

JUNE 6

G. Love, Donavon Frankenreiter & Moon Taxi

Backyard Stage at St. Augustine Amphitheatre theamp.com

House of Heavy

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

The 6/7 Show

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 7

Stewart Copeland Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

The Pop-Out Live Music Concert Series

Lift Ev’ry Voice & Sing Park eventbrite.com

Paper Jam II

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

JUNE 8

Underoath

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 10

Heavy Hitter

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 11

Chris Stapleton

VyStar Veterans Arena jaxevents.com

Voyage

Florida Theatre floridatheatre.com

Tim Kasher

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Supernova

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 12

Mariah The Scientist & A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie VyStar Veterans Arena jaxevents.com

Cinderella’s Tom Keifer

Florida Theatre floridatheatre.com

Ethical Chaos Fest

The Inkwell Art Bar, Fernandina Beach 904tix.com

Sunny Sweeney Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Gorgon City DECCA Live deccalive.com

The Acacia Strain

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

Lupita Infante FIVE fivejax.com

JUNE 13

Jax Beach Country Fest Sea Walk Pavilion jaxbeachcountryfest.net

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

The Pop-Out Live Music Concert Series

Lift Ev’ry Voice & Sing Park eventbrite.com

The Underachievers

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

Cyclops DECCA Live deccalive.com

Landon McNamara FIVE fivejax.com

JUNE 14

Cash Bash ft. T-Pain VyStar Veterans Arena jaxevents.com

John Anderson Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

The Bunny The Bear

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

JUNE 15

Dan Spencer

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 16

Steve Earle Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

Between the Buried and Me FIVE fivejax.com

JUNE 19

Claypool Gold

St. Augustine Amphitheatre theamp.com

Struggle Jennings

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Flag on Fire

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 19-21

St. Augustine Music Festival

Cathedral Basilica, St. Augustine samfestival.org

JUNE 20

Rick Ross

VyStar Veterans Arena jaxevents.com

Ritz Chamber Players

Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts ritzchamberplayers.org

The Runarounds

FIVE fivejax.com

Candlelight: Coldplay & Imagine Dragons

Jacksonville Main Library feverup.com

Candlelight: Best of “Bridgerton” on Strings

Jacksonville Main Library feverup.com

Vacation Manor

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Bresh DECCA Live deccalive.com

JUNE 21

Elephants Dancing

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Delta Sleep

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 22

Thievery Corporation Ponte Vedra Concert Hall pvconcerthall.com

The Shape

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 23

Pentagram

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

JUNE 25

Vern Daysel & The Burning Breeze

Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

JUNE 26

Jacksonville Rock Orchestra: A Night of Symphonic Rock Florida Theatre floridatheatre.com

Subhumans Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

JUNE 26-28

St. Augustine Music Festival Cathedral Basilica, St. Augustine SAMFestival.org

JUNE 27

Vince Gill

St. Augustine Amphitheatre theamp.com

Morgan Page DECCA Live deccalive.com

JUNE 29

MC Chris Jack Rabbits jaxlive.com

Willie Nelson at St. Augustine Amphitheatre

Celebrating the 93-year-old outlaw country icon

Words & photos

by

Trent Moorman

The curtain raised under the canopy at St. Augustine Amphitheatre, and there was Willie with his band, falling into “Whiskey River.” The ecstatic crowd hollered with him, “Whiskey River take my mind!” A weed-tinged breeze wafted in from the intracoastal marshes, and away we went into the hour-long set from the 93-year-old outlaw country king.

Willie Nelson, real deal American icon, sat centerstage with his battered, beloved guitar named Trigger. Backed by Kevin Smith on upright bass, Mickey Raphael on harmonica, drummer Billy English and guitarist Waylon Payne helping on vocals.

The entire show (which was May 21) I thought to myself, “This dude is 93 years old.”

Nelson soldiered through a set full of tried and true classics, wasting little time in between tunes. His vocal style now is a wizened, half-spoken form of singing. He picks his spots in the songs to notch his vocals up into singing phrases, and when he does, it’s the signature, laid-back, Texas-etched voice we all know from “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

“On the Road Again,” “Georgia on my Mind,” “Move it On Over,” “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” were highlights. It’s obvious the music and the audience still energize Nelson after all these years.

Jacksonville’s own Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks came out with a group at the end for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “It’s Hard to Be Humble.” Trucks wove tasteful lines through the songs with his celestial slide guitar.

Nelson’s crowd was a jubilant, well-rounded bunch. Bikers and bankers. Hippies and grandparents and hippie-grandparents. There were overalls, LED-lit cowboy hats and at least one tux.

The woman sitting in front of me watched two videos on her phone of babies having their umbilical cords snipped, then one of a dog eating watermelon. Somehow it was fitting. I also met a man who ran over an alligator on SR 16. He said it was large, built like a swamp limousine, and he was truly sorry.

Kicking off the night was Maui-born singer-songwriter Lily Meola. Incredible vocalist, killer band. They did justice to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound.” Meola came out later with Nelson and soared on “Will You Remember Mine.”

Seeing Willie Nelson felt less like a concert and more like country western music church, a chance to celebrate an American artistic institution and pay homage to a one-of-a-kind, verified living legend.

At 93 years old, Nelson is doing incredibly. Defying Father Time.* Still touring. Still doing hour-long sets. Still putting out albums. Yes, his singing and playing are diminished, but Nelson’s fans aren’t there to critique. (* Before the show, Nelson may have snuck over to Matanzas Bay in St. Augustine, where the Fountain of Youth is rumored to be, for a quick dip. Unconfirmed at this time.)

When discussing Nelson, I feel like a quick review of his achievements is helpful for perspective. He’s multi-platinum-selling, multi-Grammy-winning artist and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

“Rolling Stone” ranks him in the top 100 singers and the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, with “Crazy” at No. 85 among the 500 greatest songs of all time. Also, someone paid $37,000 for Nelson’s clippedoff braids at an Arizona auction in 2014. In 1980 Nelson smoked weed on the roof of the White House, confirmed by President Jimmy Carter. He also earned a fifth-degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Gongkwon Yusul at the age of 81.

Now for the albums. Willie has released 104 studio albums (78 solo studio albums, 26 collaborative studio albums). On May 29, his 79th album, “Dream Chaser,” is set for release.

In an interview, I asked Nelson if he was a wizard.

“You mean like a wizard that casts spells with a wand?” he responded. “I only have my guitar, Trigger. Do

I’d heard a story that Willie wrote “On the Road Again” on a barf bag on a plane, so I asked him if he still had the “On the Road Again” barf bag?

“No,” he said. “I have no idea where that barf bag is. One of those wizards probably has it.”

As the show ended, Willie rose and ambled offstage, turning to the audience with arms out in a big wave, giving and receiving thanks and adulation. Trucks and the band sparked up an outro jam, draping in quality walk-off music.

Fire up the bus, time to hit the highway. Then Nelson was gone, voice of the American road.

TUNE

IN ALL MONTH LONG ON JAX PBS 7.1

(Comcast Channels 8 & 440)

Join Jax PBS in commemorating the country’s 250th Anniversary with content exploring how the United States came together, showcasing its rich history, treasured artifacts, performances and art that define America.

Shinedown Turns Jacksonville Into a Rock Cathedral

On a humid Florida night where downtown Jacksonville buzzed with anticipation long before the doors opened, Shinedown returned home and delivered the kind of arena-rock spectacle that reminds people why live music still matters.

Inside the packed VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, thousands of fans gathered, not just to hear songs but to experience something bigger: a celebration of a band that has spent years evolving from regional rock standouts into one of the most dominant forces in modern hard rock.

The evening opened with Black Stone Cherry, whose Southern rock grit and thunderous guitar work hit the crowd like a shot of adrenaline. Their set carried a raw, road-tested energy that perfectly primed the arena for what was coming next.

Coheed and Cambria followed with a completely different sonic experience, blending progressive rock ambition with cinematic intensity. Their intricate musicianship and soaring melodies transformed the room into a swirling wall of sound that kept longtime fans locked in from start to finish.

But once Shinedown took the stage, the atmosphere changed instantly. The lighting exploded. The bass rattled the arena floor. And within seconds, the crowd was singing louder than the PA system itself.

Frontman Brent Smith commanded the stage with the confidence of a veteran performer who understands exactly how to connect with an audience. His vocal performance throughout the night was exceptional. Powerful when it needed to soar, restrained when emotion mattered more than volume. Several moments during the set felt almost cinematic with Smith’s voice cutting through the arena sharply enough to send chills across the crowd.

What makes Shinedown unique in today’s rock landscape is their balance between massive production and emotional authenticity. The show featured towering visuals, precision lighting, explosive transitions and arena-sized energy, yet none of it overshadowed the music itself.

Words by Teresa Spencer

The band’s latest chart-topping success only amplified the momentum inside the building. With new material currently dominating rock radio nationwide. Every chorus became communal. Every pause between songs drew deafening applause. Fans screamed lyrics back toward the stage as if the performance doubled as a hometown rally. That connection mattered.

This show felt like a band still climbing, still hungry, and still operating at the highest level of modern rock performance. VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena became less of a concert venue and more of a pressure valve for thousands of fans eager to lose themselves in giant hooks, crashing guitars and emotionally charged anthems. By the final song, one thing was undeniable: Shinedown didn’t simply play Jacksonville. They owned it.

Photos by Jeff Card

Cook Out is a Chameleon That Can Be Whatever Jacksonville Wants

It to Be

Words by Chandler Thompson

A popular North Carolina food chain has taken over the old Freddy’s on Beach Boulevard, and the buzz can’t be ignored. Cook Out is known for its Southern backyard barbecue American food, as well as its late hours and signature “cookout trays” that make them a cost-effective option for big families. Another chain might seem like the last thing Jacksonville needs, but a void is being filled for the nightlife social butterflies: a new post-bar hopping, sober-up spot.

The announcement that the burger joint was arriving in Jacksonville happened a little over a year ago with a projected opening set for late spring, early summer 2026. However, the restaurant is still under construction, and an exact opening date has not yet been announced. Construction seems to be nearly finished, however, and they have a digital sign up which has been stirring up the conversation around it again since its first appearance.

“You don’t understand how excited everyone is for this [Cook Out],” Peyton Machado, a Jacksonville local, said. “I’ve tried it a few times and, trust me, it’s going to be a much-needed addition to Jacksonville’s fast food options.”

Cook Out’s prices make them a great option for big families to have a night that mom and dad aren’t in the kitchen.

“I’ve gone with my mom a few times, and the cheese curds are my favorite. Plus, you can get a tray of three things for like eight bucks,” said Kendall Creamer, a Jacksonville University student from Panama City. You can order two entrees instead of an entrée and two sides if you wish, so it would be easy for the littlest ones to share. No need for arguing over chicken nuggets or a quesadilla: Get them both, as well as the barbecue chicken and onion rings for mom and dad, of course. Maybe even a peach cobbler milkshake that you scarf down in the laundry room for an adult-only much needed treat.

The famous cookout trays are one unique offering the North Carolina staple offers. A tray is a meal in which you can choose any entrée with two sides or instead of two sides you can “double-up.” When you double up you can get another entrée as a side. So, if fries aren’t calling your name, you can get a cheeseburger with a quesadilla on the side.

Cook Out also offers over 40 different milkshake flavors, including some seasonal choices. Two hot dogs with a chicken wrap as the side and a cheesecake milkshake to wash it down might sound like an interesting mixture, but who loves bizarre food combinations? Drunk people.

The nightlife has been bored with its sober-up options for a while. Some McDonald’s are open 24 hours, but the number of locations offering extended hours has been dropping since COVID. Most of the regular weekend pub crawlers are all too familiar with the infamous but well-loved Waffle House. Jacksonville nightlight has been ready for a new drunk pig-out option for a while and with Cook Out’s late closing hours of 3 a.m., it’s next in the lineup.

“When I used to go to school in Tennessee my friends and I used to go after a night out all the time,” said Ashlee Dietzel, a transfer student at Jacksonville University. “It’s the epitome of what you crave when you’re wasted.” This added Uber stop on the way home from painting the town might have your driver getting themselves a midnight snack as well.

Whatever the reason for the excitement, it’s understandable. Cook Out’s jack of all trades vibe has everyone wondering when they’re going to open the floodgates. Whether people are going to be there on opening day or wait for the crowds to die down, most seem to want a taste. Construction appears to be nearly finished so the wait for that bite, hopefully, doesn’t seem to be much longer.

Photos by Michael Teal

Photo

Folio Eats

The Beach Sandwich That Still Gets It Right

Words by Teresa Spencer

There’s something almost sacred about finding the perfect beach sandwich.

Not the overbuilt Instagram nonsense stacked six feet high with edible flowers and a mortgage payment worth of imported meat. A real sandwich. The kind wrapped in paper, tossed into a cooler beside melting ice and sunscreen, eaten with sandy fingers while seagulls stalk you like organized crime informants.

That sandwich, for me, lives at D&LP Subs.

I’ve ordered the same thing there for years: a ham and provolone sub with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, plus peppers, oil and vinegar, mayo on the side. It’s simple. Honest. No culinary gymnastics. Just craftsmanship disguised as lunch.

The bread is what hooked me first. Soft on the inside with just enough crust on the outside to remind you somebody actually cared when they made it. Too many sandwich shops miss this entirely.

Bread should never fight you like an overcooked steak. At D&LP Subs, it gives way perfectly, soaking up the juice from the peppers and oil without collapsing into a soggy tragedy halfway through the meal. Then comes the ham — fresh, flavorful, sliced thin enough to fold into the sandwich instead of sitting there like cold deli roofing shingles. The provolone has that sharp, creamy bite that cuts through the richness just enough to keep you coming back for another bite before you’ve even finished chewing the first one.

And those peppers? That’s where the magic happens. The vinegar, the oil, the slight heat, the salty tang — it all turns a good sub into a beach ritual. By the time the juice starts dripping onto the wrapper, you realize this thing was never meant to be eaten politely. It’s supposed to be devoured sitting in a beach chair with the Atlantic crashing a few yards away and a cold drink sweating beside you.

That’s the beauty of places like D&LP Subs. They understand something a lot of modern restaurants forgot years ago: food doesn’t need to be complicated to matter.

A great sandwich is about memory, consistency. About walking into a local shop and knowing exactly what you’re getting every single time. I highly recommend you give D&LP Subs a try next time you are hitting the beach and want to have a cold sub that is way better than any Pub sub … EVER!

NIGHTLIFE

ARLINGTON Atlantis Lounge instagram.com/theatlantis_jax

Cliff’s Bar and Grill cliffsbarandgrill.com

Club Heaven clubheavenjax.com

BEACHES/PONTE VEDRA Beach Bowl beachbowljax.com

Bedlam bedlamlive.com

Blue Jay Listening Room bluejayjax.com

The Brix Taphouse jacksonvillebeachbar.com

Casa Marina casamarinahotel.com

Culhane’s culhanesirishpub.com

Flask & Cannon facebook.com/flaskandcannon

Green Room Brewing greenroombrewing.com

Grey Matter Distillery greymatterdistillery.com

Gusto gustojax.com

Hoptinger Bier Garden + Sausage House hoptinger.com

Ink Factory Brewing inkfactorybrewing.com

Island Girl Cigar Bar islandgirlcigarbar.com

Jax Beach Kava Bar kavajacksonville.com

Jekyll Brewing jekyllbrewing.com

Julep Palm Valley facebook.com/juleppalmvalley

Kicker’s Country Bar instagram.com/kickersbar

Lemon Bar & Grille lemonbarjax.com

Living Room Lounge instagram.com/thelivingroomab

Lucky’s Bar instagram.com/luckysjaxbch

Lynch’s Irish Pub lynchsirishpub.com

Mango’s mangosjaxbeach.com

Mavi’s Waterfront Bar & Grill mavijax.com

Mayport Brewing Company maportbrewing.com

Mayport Garden Club mayportgardenclub.com

Monkey’s Uncle Tavern monkeysuncletavern.com

Palm Valley Outdoors Bar and Grill palmvalleyoutdoors.com

Penthouse Lounge at Casa Marina Hotel casamarinahotel.com

Refinery Jax Beach refineryjaxbeach.com

Reve Brewing revebrewing.com

The Ritz Lounge theritzlounge.com

Serenity Restaurant & Hookah Lounge serenityjaxbeach.com

Southern Swells Brewing Company

southernswells.com

Surfer The Bar surferthebar.com

VooSwar Restaurant & Lounge instagram.com/vooswar

DOWNTOWN

The Albatross thealbatrossjax.com

Bold City Brewery boldcitybrewery.com

The Circuit Arcade Bar instagram.com/thecircuitbarcade

De Real Ting Cafe facebook.com/derealtingcafe

Decca Live deccalive.com

Dos Gatos dosgatosjax.com

Element Bistro Bar & Lounge elementjax.com

Hardwicks hardwicksbarjax.com

Island Girl Cigar Bar islandgirlcigarbar.com

Keane’s Tavern keanestavern.com

Live Bar facebook.com/livebarclubjax

Manifest Distilling manifestdistilling.com

Myth Nightclub & Bar mythexperience.com

Ocean Street Tequila instagram.com/oceanstreettacosandtequila

Pour Taproom jaxpourtaproom.com

Ruby Beach Brewing rubybeachbrewing.com

SIP Cocktail bar sipontheroof.com

Spliff’s Gastropub spliffsgastropub.com

That Bar At The Arena facebook.com/ThatBarattheArena

The Volstead thevolsteadjax.com

FLEMING ISLAND

Island Girl Cigar Bar islandgirlcigarbar.com/fleming-island

Mercury Moon facebook.com/mercury-moon

Mr. Chubby’s Wings mrchubbyswings.com

Sunset Tiki Bar doctorslakemarina.com/tiki

Whitey’s Fish Camp whiteysfishcamp.com

INTRACOASTAL WEST

9 Zero Pour 9zeropour.com

Brew and Barrel Tavern bbtjax.com

MVP’s Sports Grille facebook.com/mvpssportsgrille

The Spot Hookah Lounge thespothookahloungejax.com

Time Out Sports Grill timeoutsportsgrill.com MANDARIN/JULINGTON

COVE

2nd Bay Brewing 2ndbaybrewing.com

Comedy Zone comedyzone.com

Iggy’s Grill and Bar facebook.com/iggysgrill

Kava & Company kavaandcompany.com

Legacy Ale Works legacyaleworks.com

Monkey’s Uncle Tavern monkeysunclemandarin.com

Rack’em Up Sports Bar facebook.com/rackemupsportsbar

The Cavern Pub thecavernpub.com

Time Out Sports Grill timeoutsportsgrill.com

Murray Hill Axe Champs axechamps.com

Buchner’s Bierhalle buchnersbierhalle.com

Emerald Vine Room theemeraldvineroom.weebly. com

Fishweir Brewing Company fishweirbrewing.com

The Flamingo theflamingojax.com

Perfect Rack Billiards perfectrackbilliards.com

Silver Cow silvercowjax.com

Spruce sprucejax.com

The Walrus thewalrusjax.com

NORTHSIDE Coppertop Bar and Restaurant coppertopbarandrestaurant. com

Four Fathers Distillery fourfathersdistillery.com

ORANGE PARK/ MIDDLEBURG

57 Heaven facebook.com/57heavenop

Big Dawgs Sports Restaurant bigdawgsrestaurant.com

Cheers Park Avenue cheersparkave.com

The Daq Shack thedaqshack904.com

Dee’s Music Bar and Grill facebook.com/musicbarandgrill

The Fresh Spot Lounge thefreshspotlounge.com

LeaderBoard Arcade leaderboardarcade.com

Locals Pub localspub.co

Nakama Anime Bar nakamabar.com

Park Avenue Billiards parkavenuebilliards. com

Pinglehead Brewing Company pinglehead.com

Southern Social Whiskey Bar & Lounge southernsocialbar.com

RIVERSIDE/ AVONDALE Bartaco bartaco.com

Birdies facebook.com/birdiesfivepoints

Bold City Brewery boldcitybrewery.com

Brick Restaurant brickofavondale.com

Burlock & Barrel burlockandbarrel.com

Dart Bar & Games facebook.com/dartbarjax

Eclipse Bar & Nightclub facebook.com/eclipsebarjax

The Garage garagejax.com

The Green House thegreenhousebar.com

Hoptinger Bier Garden + Sausage House hoptinger.com

Incahoots incahootsnightclub.com

Kanine Social kaninesocial.com

Keg & Coin kegandcoinjax.com

Kingmaker Brewing kingmakerbrewing.com

Lemonstreet Brewing Company lemonstreetbrewing.com

The Loft loftjax.com

Myrtle Avenue Brewing instagram.com/myrtleavebrewing

Night Lights facebook.com/nightlightsjax

Park Place Lounge parkplaceloungejax.com

River & Post riverandpostjax.com

Riverside Liquors riversideliquors.biz

Rogue Bar facebook.com/rogue.bar.1

Root Down facebook.com/rootdownjax

Shores Liquor and Bar instagram.com/shoresliquoravondale

5 Points Liquor Lounge instagram.com/5ptslounge

SAN MARCO/ST. NICHOLAS

1937 Spirits & Eatery 1937sanmarco.com

Aardwolf Brewing Company aardwolfbrewing.com

Bar Molino barmolino.com

Breezy Jazz House breezyjazzhouse.com

Cuba Libre Ultra Lounge cubalibrebar.com

Fore Score Golf Tavern forescoregolf.com

The Grape & Grain Exchange grapeandgrainexchange.com

Kava & Company kavaandcompany.com

The Mudville Grill themudvillegrill.com

The Players Grille playersgrille.com

Posting House posting.house Sherwoods sherwoodsbar.com

Sidecar instagram.com/sidecarjax

Voodoo Brewing instagram.com/voodoojax

SOUTHSIDE/ST. JOHNS TOWN CENTER

Austin Karaoke facebook.com/austinkaraoke

Bottlenose Brewing bottlenosebrewing.com

Cataluna Jax catalunajax.com

Culhane’s culhanesirishpub.com

Island Girl Cigar Bar islandgirlcigarbar.com

Jax Craft Beer jaxcraftbeer.com

Medusa Restaurant and Hookah Lounge facebook.com/ medusa-loungejacksonville

Rio Restaurant and Lounge instagram.com/riorestauraunt.jax

Seven Bridges Grille & Brewery 7bridgesgrille.com

Sugar Factory instagram.com/ sugarfactoryjacksonville

The Block Jax theblockjax.com

Trio Lounge triohookahlounge.com

Veterans United Craft Brewery vubrew.com

Wicked Barley Brewing Company wickedbarley.com

WXYZ Bar at Aloft Hotel aloftjacksonvilletapestrypark.com

SPRINGFIELD

Crispy’s crispysspringfieldgallery.com

Juice Wine Bar juicewinebar.com

The District thedistrictspr.com

Historically Hoppy Brewing Company historicallyhoppy.com Shantytown Pub facebook.com/shantytownjax

Strings Sports Brewery stringssportsbrewery.com

Stumpy’s Hatchet House stumpyshh.com

Tulua Bistro instagram.com/tuluabistro

ST. AUGUSTINE

Ancient City Brewing ancientcitybrewing.com

Arnold’s Lounge arnoldslounge.com

Beacon Listening Room beaconstaug.com

Cellar Upstairs Bar at San Sebastian Winery sansebastianwinery.com

Colonial Oak Music Park thecolonialoakmusicpark.com

Dog Rose Brewing dogrosebrewing.com

Odd Birds Cocktail Lounge and Kitchen instagram.com/odd_birds

The Original Café Eleven originalcafe11.com

Prohibition Kitchen pkstaug.com

Shanghai Nobby’s nobbysfl.weebly.com

Tradewinds Lounge tradewindslounge.com

The Bar with No Name instagram.com/nonamebarstaug

Tini Martini tini-martini-bar.com

Boat Drinks boatdrinksbar.com

Bin 39 bin39.wine

WESTSIDE

Duval Hall instagram.com/duvalhalljax

Elevation Lounge elevationjax.com

Lillian’s lillianssportsgrill.com

The Phoenix Bar & Bowling facebook.com/thephoenixjax

We buy 8,000 cars a week. Sell your old, busted or junk car with no hoops, haggles or headaches. Sell your car to Peddle. Easy three step process. Instant offer. Free pickup. Fast payment. Call 1-844-648-1934