Sometimes, it takes a fender-bender to reveal the mixed-up, multifarious soul of South Florida. On Friday, May 7, an unidentified woman who was talking on her cell phone while behind the wheel (according to one account, at least) ran a red light at Harrison Avenue and 19th Street in Hollywood…
Red, mutilated crustacean corpses were all over the sun-scorched, tread-flattened grass in front of the Rosey Baby booth, where the crawfish boil was going down. Lines of festivalgoers, many in bright dresses and black, Velcro Reeboks with frilly socks, trampled the husks as they inched toward the counter to get…
Florida’s top court has taken away Michael Satz’s favorite excuse, so the Broward State Attorney will have to find a new reason to let corrupt officials slide. For years, Satz’s public corruption unit has been giving free passes to politicos based on its strict interpretation of Florida’s unlawful compensation statute,…
Sunday, November 30, 2003, was the last day of Kemar Campbell’s Thanksgiving vacation. There’s no way he could have known it would be the last day of his life. The 17-year-old spent that afternoon playing basketball. By 4:15, he and his brothers had wrapped up their game and were walking…
Behead the head shop: I am appalled at the stupidity of your company and newspaper. I have read your “Best of Broward-Palm Beach 2004” issue (May 13) and cannot believe what I read. You have picked one of the last head shops in the area (Grateful J’s) and degraded its…
Every Friday just before dusk, drummers and artists meet at a West Palm Beach home that looks like Salvador Dalí and Dr. Seuss collaborated on the architecture. The crowd that meets at the house, just across the railroad tracks from the Disney-like atmosphere of CityPlace, shares casseroles and goulash before…
Not long after his 33rd birthday in January, Johnny Mitchell’s planned return to professional football hit rock bottom. Even though Mitchell was one of the best pass-catching tight ends in the past decade and even though he’s in better shape than many rookies, nobody was interested. He could run the…
Fire the district: Just finished reading today’s edition of Tailpipe (“Do Not Delete: Footprints on the Bill of Rights,” May 6). It sounds as if Howard Schulman, now a former security guard, lost his job defending your paper. At best, his superiors were going to demote him, but he refused…
Chocolada, 1923 Hollywood Blvd.
Club M, 2037 Hollywood Blvd.
Club XIT, 219 N. 21st Ave.
Coyote Bar and Grille, 1926a Hollywood Blvd.
Duck-Inn, 1846 Harrison St.
Nikki Marina, 3555 S. Ocean Dr.
Octopus Garden, 1942 Hollywood Blvd.
O’Hara’s, 1903 Hollywood Blvd.
Sonar, 2006 Hollywood Blvd.
Sneakers, 112 S. 20th Ave.
Zombie, 1934 Hollywood Blvd.
Tailpipe is always reluctant to use the U word (un-American, that is), but what else do you say about an organization that blatantly violates the First Amendment? Officials at the North Broward Hospital District are apparently so far into denial about their own mismanagement, waste, and insider dealings that they’ve…
It’s approaching 8 p.m. on March 18. About 400 people are crowded together elbow-to-elbow outside Brasserie Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. A cool breeze off the Atlantic Ocean whistles through the downtown skyscrapers as everyone waits. Then comes the music. The clapping follows. “Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!” the crowd chants. Jim…
Alexis, a tall exotic dancer from New Hampshire with golden blond hair that hangs seductively to the small of her back, sits at the bar of Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club on Federal Highway, a bottle of water in one hand. It’s nearing 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, and the Oakland…
Save ’em from slaughter; end the travesty: Thank you for having the courage to expose what really goes on at the Hollywood Greyhound Track and at greyhound tracks in general (“Finished Line,” April 29). Why this pathetic pastime continues to exist is beyond me. I am a volunteer with Friends…
There be three things which go well, yea, Which are comely in going: A lion, which is strongest among beasts and turneth not away from any; a greyhound; a he-goat also. — Solomon, Proverbs 30 It’s a late April afternoon, though the sun remains far enough above the west of…
Ray McAllister has scuba-dived along the Broward County shoreline since 1964, when he helped establish Florida Atlantic University’s ocean engineering bachelor’s degree program. The sea in his backyard served as a practical classroom. His nickname, “Old Crusty,” reflects both his time beneath the waves and his sometimes gruff and always…
This rusty but still literate cylinder recently had to put aside Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke and Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward to immerse himself in a book of real significance: former Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Tim Smith’s Politics 101. Here, for the first time, in Smith’s italicized…
Imagine owning a business that is in cut-throat competition with a similar enterprise across the street. Your rival undercuts you at every turn and ruthlessly tries to steal your customers. And it not only doesn’t pay taxes but it benefits from an infusion of near limitless public dollars. While you…
Stop with these cockamamie rules: Great article on the Seminoles (“Rock ‘n’ Nole,” April 22). I would think that before they opened this place, they might have had some inside information that the state or federal government were going to allow blackjack, craps, and other table games as well as…
The Seminole Hard Rock casino in Tampa is a low-slung, vanilla-colored, 37-acre playpen with a 50-foot replica of a Paul McCartney electric guitar at the street entrance and an Elvis-autographed six-string inside. On Saturday night, it becomes a cross between an outlet mall, a meat market, and a nursing home…
A few weeks ago, Manalapan’s very own Don King, the infamous, fast-talking fight promoter, held a $25,000-per-couple party at his beachfront mansion. He wanted to raise money for the Grand Old Party’s effort to keep slow-talking George W. Bush in the White House. Perhaps because of this Pipe’s rusty, battered…
Three hundred thousand sports fans in Hartford, Connecticut, put down the kielbasa a couple of Sundays ago and neglected their near-constant relationship with the dented cushions of their couches to celebrate UConn basketball’s NCAA championship. It must have seemed a good opportunity to reestablish a relationship with natural light. And…
Frank Luntz isn’t a neutral pollster, but he does play one on TV. The cherubic Republican guru, who wears his orangish hair in a bowl haircut and seems to favor Gap clothing, is a regular on MSNBC, where he gauges instant responses from focus groups about the nation’s political happenings…
