Lizard

Ever since a Delaware man was eaten by his Nile monitor lizards last week, there's been a mad nationwide rush to buy the feisty, dangerous animals, breeders say. That, says reptile lover and salesman Tim Curran, is proof that humans are more stupid than the forked-tongued creatures. "Human nature, I just don't get," said Curran, owner of Radical Reptiles, a Northeast Philadelphia shop that he says is the only all-reptile store in the city. "There's nothing smart about buying Nile monitors.

What makes a well-regarded rock and roll singer abandon his persona - his punky look, his spitfire material, even his given name? What makes him take on a radically different identity as a glib lounge singer, growling obscure and funny pop, jazz and rhythm and blues novelty material from the '40s, '50s and '60s? "I realized I was born to wear a tuxedo," says a sheepishly grinning Buster Poindexter, in a chat prompted by his Atlantic City debut this weekend at the Sands. "I'm a perfect 38 long.

"We've written some serious songs. Once, anyway. But I can't remember them," says Tom Pittman whose slightly Southern slow-speaking conjures up visions of back-porch Arkansas. Pittman is one of five members of the Austin Lounge Lizards, a hilarious country/bluegrass/folk group who bring their special brand of Texas satire to this weekend's Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival at the Plymouth- Whitemarsh High School. Classic Austin Lounge Lizard music is often full of rowdy, hoist-another- beer sing-alongs, laced with yodeling satirical passion for Texas, pickup trucks, acid rain and a good laugh, though not necessarily in that order.

In my line of work, you see so many dull movies that sometimes you wonder if you only think the movies are dull because your senses have been bombarded to the point of numbness. Luckily, there are movies like "The Fabulous Baker Boys" around to restore your faith in quality. This one is so good you can use it as a navigational guide, a cinematic north star by which to steer through the cluttered oceans of movie crud. The movie has arrived at precisely the right moment. Personally, I've had my fill of Harrys and Sallys and "Parenthood" types.

A recent cartoon in the New Yorker shows a fish in the sea and, on the beach, a parade: first, an amphibian, then a dinosaur, then an ape, followed by a Neanderthal and finally a man holding a book. He looks over his shoulder at them and says, "Scram!" Dipping by coincidence into the current controversy over "intelligent design" versus evolution, the Broadway revival of Edward Albee's Seascape, his 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about evolution, necessarily makes a few waves.

At the Theater of Living Arts on Saturday, the Lounge Lizards found joy - ecstasy, even - in repetition. At one time or another, every member of the nine-piece ensemble was forced to play a repetitive phrase that helped define the composition. Sometimes it was as simple as two notes hammered over and over on a vibraphone; other times it was a full horn-section shout lifted from the big-band era. Such repetition, common in the contemporary classical style known as minimalism, is less accepted in jazz improvisation.

When you ask Leif Knudsen about his family, he's apt to tell you about Chester's dry raspy cough and Scruffy's hysterectomy. He will openly admit that Chester, whom he calls "The King," has hated him ever since he was a baby, and that he thinks Samantha is "a hunk. " These are not children that Knudsen is talking about: They are iguanas. In addition to Samantha, Chester and Scruffy, Knudsen and his wife, Kathy, have two other iguanas, a desert lizard and two cats that share their Winslow Township home.

Keith Cromwell scored two goals and added three assists as the Long Island Lizards (3-1) snapped the defending champion Barrage's eight-game regular-season win streak in Major League Lacrosse with a 16-11 victory yesterday. The loss left the Barrage 3-1 and snapped their 10-game win streak, which dated from last season and included a pair of postseason victories. Ryan Boyle led the Barrage with four goals and two assists.

Burly Victor Mature was one of the silver screen's first hunks. The Sylvester Stallone of the '40s and '50s, he was a press agent's delight. One of them may have started a fad by calling him "a beautiful hunk of man. " Mature starred in biblical epics (that's Vic above in costume as Samson in "Samson and Delilah" 40 years ago), and played real he-men in dozens of other filmstravaganzas. He even was a caveman in one of his first films, the 1940 version of "One Million B.C.," in which he battled dinosaurs.

When Regis Philbin stepped away from Live With Regis and Kelly last year, it was widely assumed that his record of 17,000 hours of airtime amassed over a career was unassailable. Instead it's being pecked away at in innumerable 30-second increments by a perky lady in white overalls and a little walking, talking lizard. You're not imagining it - commercials for car insurance, many of them featuring the aforementioned Flo or the Gecko, have overrun TV. Why the tsunami?