The first thing Hollywood Police Officer Cyndi Commella Ruiz saw were the neighbors — 21 people looking on in horror at a house on Tyler Street. Inside a screened porch, Pui Kei Wong, a small-framed 53-year-old with thick eyeglasses, was swinging a hatchet over and over again. Blood and small…
Garage Party Ruben Cureses invited this rusty cylinder over to his Wilton Manors condo last Tuesday to see for himself the mysterious images emanating from his living room TV set. There was the set, plugged into the wall like Grandma used to do it, with rabbit ears splayed. On the…
In all the head-scratching and fist-shaking since columnist Jim DeFede was hastily fired by the Miami Herald, another of the newspaper’s great writers, Carl Hiaasen, posed the most intriguing question: Who’d DeFede piss off? The query appeared in Hiaasen’s Herald column after DeFede was terminated for secretly tape-recording Arthur Teele…
You Bet You Need Us Otherwise, what would you do with the birdcage? Reading “Finding Gary” (Bob Norman, August 4) was quite intense. I feel deep sympathy for the poor wife and children of this murdered father. Fortunately for her, New Times wrote it. Again, a perfect example of why…
Donna Weaver didn’t look down on the leaden Atlantic Ocean below. Fighting the three-headed nightmare of fear, mourning, and nausea, she didn’t dare. Donna hated flying in even the largest jets, and this tin can hurtling above the Bahamas — a claustrophobia-inducing cylinder stuffed to capacity with 19 passengers and…
As Winston Barnes takes phone calls from listeners tuning into The Open Line, the midday program he hosts each weekday on WAVS-AM (1170), he flips through the pages of Tuesday’s Miami Herald, looking for the hot topics of the day. Though based in a downtown Davie building that looks like…
Like Swatting a Gnat Forgive this smoke-belching tube for having a soft rust spot for cigars, those personal chimneys favored by sophisticated capitalists and chimpanzees in the entertainment industry. Whether man or monkey first innovated the cigar bar, it remains a stroke of genius: a venue to enjoy pungent smoke…
“A lot of people think happiness comes from the outside things. Happiness arises when you have contentment. Contentment comes from the inside, just learning to be content … whether I was in the Himalayas, at school, [or] out there on the field.” — Ricky Williams upon his return to the…
Garage Band Heaven The jury’s in: Courtney Hambright’s July 28 column, “Kilmo, Represent,” was great! Now that she is “experienced,” it’s her obligation to keep the last waltz alive. It’s not about the money; it’s about saving the last, dying breath of live original music: an art form with a…
Hey, all you dudes and dudettes. That rollicking road show, the Anti-Abortion Media Circus, may be coming to a town near you. Tailpipe’s talking about West Palm Beach, where a suspicious nighttime fire on the Fourth of July has forced the closure of the Presidential Women’s Center. Think about it…
Let’s say you’re a deep-pocketed Miami developer. Let’s say also that you want Lauderdale Lakes to choose you to build its $125 million “downtown” project, the largest public development in the city’s history. First thing you do, of course, is throw money at a couple of lobbyists to sway city…
His face was covered in long, black whiskers. Sitting at the bar in Sublime vegetarian restaurant, with his curly ponytail popping out of the back of a baseball cap, he was probably still working on the gator vittles wedged between his teeth. It was the night of Gold Coast Magazine’s…
Aaron’s for Real And he walks on water…: Homeless Voice is very proud of “Saint Aaron” (Eric Alan Barton, July 21). I believe that if every person in the world adopted one problem, adopted one person, or adopted one cause, the world would be a better place. I hereby ask…
Waqas Rehman, a slender, 29-year-old Pakistani man, was moments away from an anticipated sexual rendezvous. He cruised slowly through a Coral Springs Borders bookstore parking lot behind the wheel of a black Mitsubishi Eclipse. With a scraggly goatee and bags under his eyes, Rehman wasn’t much to look at, but…
Somewhere down a maze of rutted dirt roads in a rundown Port-au-Prince neighborhood, past the red gate that keeps out the armed thugs, and through a courtyard of packed gravel, a 23-year-old guy from Broward County steps through the doorway of the sanctuary he created. Aaron Jackson looks out of…
Tall and skinny, Dan Lewis wears a blue oxford and khakis as he walks down Himmarshee Street on a recent afternoon. He’s still upset about Fort Lauderdale’s July 4 fireworks presentation. “Lauderdale-by-the-Sea put on a better show than Fort Lauderdale,” Lewis says disgustedly. “Anything to save money these days.” The…
Naugle the Zep The City of Fort Lauderdale sure knows how to spend its money. A few weeks ago, the city sent out a mass mailing of a glossy flier called Focus On. Along with the usual propaganda (“sunnier skies” in city finances, “improvements” on Himmarshee, an “update” on Sistrunk)…
Bring Back All Books Or find something to read: Regarding Sam Eifling’s July 14 story, “Sleaze! Sex! Suspense!” So it’s time: Rod Cronk is closing up shop at All Books & Records in Fort Lauderdale. Poor man. He was so demoralized. He explained what was going on. Why is it…
You’ve never smelled a funeral like this one. It’s pushing 100 degrees in the ravaged back stacks of All Books & Records in the Sears Town shopping plaza in Fort Lauderdale. All but one of the store’s seven huge, old air conditioners has gone out — one of the reasons…
Marine biologist John C. Fine penned a remarkable story for the editorial page of the Sun-Sentinel on June 27. While diving off Delray Beach in January, he reported, he had spotted and photographed a sea turtle never before seen off Florida’s eastern shore. Like any good sleuth, Fine had sent…
Tree Tales When it comes to record setters in the world of sports, there’s no shortage of those little asterisks — you know, the symbol that refers to a less-than-clear title to fastest, longest, highest, or most. But who’d expect controversy in the realm of champion trees? Back in March,…
Honest, Upstanding Bikers Meep meep: I read Jeff Stratton’s July 7 “Crotch Rocketeers” article and take exception to your omission of certain facts: Stratton makes it sound like everyone who rides performance bikes abuses them to break the law; this is patently false. If you visit our website — RoadRunnersSportbikeclub.com…
