Best rag: I was glad to see your “Best Of” issue mentioned Tri-Rail twice, once for car pooling and cheap getaways (Best of BrowardPalm Beach, May 17). You omitted the even more amazing fact that senior citizens age 65 and up or kids from 5 to 12 years old can…
Mike Myers emerges from a nondescript office building, adjusts his toupee, and strides toward a sleek BMW in the parking lot. It’s night and the lot is dark. He reaches into the pocket of his Christian Dior slacks, fishes for his keys, and spills change onto the ground. “Goddamn it!”…
Milton Jones’s two-story, brick-and-barrel-tile home on Sunrise Key is a statement of quiet dignity. A two-car garage and circular driveway offer enough space for three Mercedes Benzes. Inside the house, rich fabrics in cream and coral hues dominate a tasteful décor. Around back there’s a swimming pool, a boat dock…
The incident was so bizarre it could have been a macabre April Fool Day’s prank. Shortly before dawn on April 1, 1998, Marie Bellabe, dressed in a bloody hospital gown, staggered down a Fort Lauderdale sidewalk. She wheeled along a urinary catheter and an oxygen tank, both connected to her…
It’s always sad to see a newspaper gutted, doubly so when it was a scrappy publication with a history of tough reporting and interesting stories. Unfortunately The Seminole Tribune got in the way of a political struggle for control of the Seminole Tribe that ended May 24 with the ouster…
Left-wing loony New Times: I think your paper has lots of what appears to be great information. What I do not like is that it fits the stereotype of artsy-type people who know only of left-leaning causes. In the Best of BrowardPalm Beach (May 17), you have a Best Right-Wing…
As Brian Dodge and Mike Silver approached the entryway to Storm around 9 p.m., the sound of DJ-spun music pulsated into the street from the nightclub. The fledgling gay club — leasing space at Chili Pepper in downtown Fort Lauderdale on Sundays — was well into its second day of…
Tommy Doodle doesn’t dawdle: “I come home from work at the end of the day, have dinner, then go to my area where I paint, and see where I’m at.” Doodle is, in a way, everywhere. As the man responsible for the used, yellow-painted shoes nailed to telephone poles and…
New Times is cliché-free: Thank you for recognizing Festival Tribe Musical Events as Best Festival for 2001 (Best of Broward Palm Beach, May 17). We agree! However, as a tribe, we felt we had to respond to the term “dirty, greasy hippies.” We wanted to note that some of the…
It ain’t fun waiting ’round to be a millionaire, so Fort Lauderdale thrill-seeker Steve Trotter ain’t waiting. He’s building another high-tech barrel in preparation for one more trip over the Horseshoe Falls portion of Niagara Falls. If he survives, Trotter will be the only person in history who can claim…
Jesse Gaddis has been a gambler since his grade school days in Indiana, when he shot craps and played poker in a pool hall. For much of his early adult life, he was a professional cardsharp on merchant marine ships and anywhere else he could get a game. In 1960,…
At first glance T’s Lounge in West Palm Beach doesn’t look like a dump. The waitresses are friendly, the bouncer smiles, and the bathroom is scrubbed and well lit; there’s even a guy in there who squirts soap in your hands and produces a warm towel whether or not you…
Shake, rattle, and roll: Was Jeff lonesome that night? Your article on Elvis (Bandwidth, May 10) was a waste of space. Whoa, man! On one hand, you’re denouncing him as “The King” had logical merit. But you are not the first, or second, or twentieth writer to do so, and…
Broward County Judge Joel T. Lazarus pulls out a big black binder full of newspaper clippings and lays it on the large desk in his courthouse office. The killers, rapists, and child molesters who fill the plastic pages have one thing in common: Lazarus prosecuted all of them before winning…
Novelist Johnny Payne cannot help but jump and sway to the jaunty lilts of the Allman Brothers Band (his favorite group). Clutching his cue in one hand, he dances next to a pool table at the Boca Bar, a windowless, cinder block box that from the outside seems a likely…
Stevie Steiner telephoned friends and family every few days after moving from rural New York to South Florida on January 3. The healthy, muscular 19-year-old was optimistic about his future in the Sunshine State. He liked to party but was not one to throw caution to the wind. He once…
When reports came out of Tallahassee three weeks ago characterizing Broward County libraries as havens for masturbators, Undercurrents was a smidge skeptical. For one thing State Rep. Allen Trovillion (R-Winter Park) was the source of the information. Trovillion is probably best known as the lawmaker who told a group of…
Give kids a chance: I am currently a guardian ad litem in Palm Beach County. My heart goes out to Mr. Reisfeld as I, too, have experienced negative actions for “speaking out” (“Guardian Gone,” Wyatt Olson, April 26). The Department of Children and Families, the courts, and the attorneys are…
With two buds of marijuana cupped in his right hand and a black, one-hit pipe in his pocket, 18-year-old Christopher Caulfield strolls up the broad sidewalk along Fort Lauderdale beach. Wearing black pants and a white tank top over his fair skin, the tall, thin kid is looking for some…
Under an unrelenting midday sun, the pink two-story building that houses the Carone Gallery seems to glow. Inside, it is twilight. Track lights shine like stars on the horizon, throwing shadows on the paintings’ dusky tones. Matthew Carone leans back in his chair and sighs. Above a furrowed brow tanned…
If you think you’re having a tough time making ends meet, consider the plight of Jim Kane, one of the shrewdest political players in Broward County. Here’s a guy who knows all the right people and does all the right deals, yet court records indicate his net worth is that…
Us vs. INS: With interest I have read several times “Elián Plus One” (Chuck Strouse, April 19). Many of us of Cuban descent or national origin have maintained for years that the enforcement arms of the Department of Justice, be they the INS, the FBI, or the Border Patrol, are…
