Walter Philbrick cues the music, a symphonic piece on CD that has the verve of John Philip Sousa meets John Williams. He dims the lights in the small workout gym and urges Nelson Ricardo, one of his employees, to take a position on a foot-high platform. The gym lies deep…
Della Judd is a bundle of nervous energy, shifting from foot to foot on the sidewalk in front of her small house on 18th Street in West Palm Beach. It’s a chilly afternoon this day in early January, but her constant motion has less to do with the frigid air…
Christians have rights too: With all due respect, I will never understand the modern liberal mind that is so offended by God and religion and devotes so much time and energy to its crusade of opposing any free expression of faith but then at the same time celebrates with such…
A cool wind has kicked up, shaking the limbs of this November night with anticipation. But in the chutes, where 33 bull riders are gathered for the Crown Royal 61st Annual Sunshine State Championship Bull Riding competition, it’s hot as the devil’s barnyard. Five Star Rodeo has trucked in 40…
When unsuspecting bystanders see Robert Kwasny working on the beach in his mobile video production studio, many of them initially believe he’s disabled. The studio, after all, is mounted on a motorized wheelchair. “A lot of people think that I must be Stephen Hawking’s first cousin,” says Kwasny, referring to…
It seemed an ugly end to an even uglier dispute. “Controversial art to be moved,” read the headline on page 3B of the January 10 Sun-Sentinel. “Museum agrees to make location less prominent.” Leaders of the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, the paper reported, had decided to take down…
Norm Kent revisited: Upon reading the cover story regarding Gary Steinsmith (“Drug Holiday,” Ashley Fantz, January 10), I was unclear as to what purposes the author was seeking to achieve. If she was seeking to reveal the limitations of the social service agencies about which she reported, her exposé seemed…
It’s visitors night at Fort Lauderdale Hospital. A woman behind the front desk buzzes more people into the waiting room. They take a seat, and most stare at a small corner television that flashes “America’s New War” in bright red letters. The woman yawns and gestures toward a clipboard. “Oh,”…
Linda Davis is trying to hang on to the Christmas spirit. A week after the holiday has come and gone, the tree is still up in her home at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in Pompano Beach. As Davis sits in her neat but sparsely furnished living room, two…
The Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary might well be coming to town. The nonprofit Punta Gorda facility — which houses some 500 animals, including lions, a tiger, and bears (oh my!) — is looking to open a satellite operation in either Broward or Palm Beach county. The sanctuary’s local representative, Carrie Bradford,…
Boring in on Strouse: I can’t take it any longer. Why do you waste my time with your sniveling, piffling, ridiculous Undercurrents offerings? After each and every column I find myself asking myself, “…And?” If you are attempting to demonstrate to the world that the column’s author is a peevish…
You can’t hide from Miss Cleo. The self-proclaimed television psychic’s grinning, beturbaned head pops up everywhere, urging viewers to call her now for free foreknowledge of romance, jobs, family matters, and health, all delivered in a vaguely Caribbean accent. Mass e-mails breathlessly urge recipients to listen to her visions and…
If Troy Weekley hadn’t gone to the rodeo in Davie in 1956, his son might not rock at night in a hammock on the porch of a cedar-covered cottage overlooking a rock pit, breed bucking bulls, or stick plugs of Skoal chew inside his lower lip. Troy Jr. has always…
Fort Lauderdale’s Pulse Nightclub had it all. A woman wearing a spiked leash welcomed you at the door. Electronica and hip-hop sounded on two strobed dance floors while svelte, bikinied babes in space-age wigs danced on pedestals out by the pool, and black-suited pseudo-Mafiosi schmoozed everywhere. Owner Keith Miller spent…
Jen sinks low: Kavetchnik on Zagat (“Survey Says,” Jen Karetnick, December 20)! What great holiday news! Not another opinion piece by Jen “Kavetchnik” Karetnick that ruins a good restaurant and includes her loud kids bothering the patrons! Instead, coverage of another fop, Tim Zagat, and his “survey” of area restaurants…
Flying home after Christmas in New York City six years ago, Janie Axelrad wanted to relax, and the empty rows of seats in the back of the Boeing 757 were calling. So she left her fiancé, Joseph LaPorte, in their ticketed seats in the crowded midsection of the plane and…
The second-story amphitheater of the Xchange swingers club in Hollywood was as busy as it was going to get just past 3 a.m. on a recent Sunday. The amphitheater is the club’s inner sanctum, a high-ceilinged room of subdued light and faux-Roman décor. There weren’t enough people for an all-out…
Jeff Wright brings out the best in people. The 51-year-old Lake Worth resident calls himself “the most wanted handyman in Palm Beach County.” Cops and building inspectors term him a pain in the ass. Back in 1996, the Sun-Sentinel took seriously his claim that he was a Montana Freeman. And…
A nuisance of a board: Good story about the West Palm Beach Nuisance Abatement Board (“This Bad House,” December 6), but Wyatt Olson stopped in the middle. He should have looked further. What happens when the nuisance is abated? Does it disappear forever? Evanesce into space? Vanish, never to reappear?…
1. Macoute Blood Marilise was 18 years old in the fall of 1992 when she boarded a boat leaving Haiti. Her boyfriend, Franfrico, was with her. Maybe a third of the 70 passengers were heading out for reasons similar to Marilise’s: The young women had left home, if they still…
For a man who claims he doesn’t want to talk, Ken Simon says a lot. The portly 58-year-old with graying hair and a shaggy mustache, wedged into a corner booth of a Burger King, rattles on for more than three hours about Tuvan stamp collecting, digressing to hint at the…
The December 10 news release from the Broward Sheriff’s Office and ensuing press coverage hinted at either a terrorist or a dangerous lunatic in our midst: 53-year-old Richardo Gonzalez, the agency reported, had been carrying a canvas bag stuffed with “destructive devices.” One blew up in Gonzalez’s hand. The county…
