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Best Local Celebrity

Edward Barbanell

It seems that actors spend a lifetime trying to become famous only to resent fame the moment they achieve it. Not Eddie Barbanell. The Coral Springs resident became a celebrity after he starred alongside Johnny Knoxville in The Ringer, and he hasn't stopped enjoying it since. Knoxville plays a reprobate who pretends to have a disability so he can compete in a Special Olympics decathlon his uncle is wagering on. Barbanell, who in real life has Down syndrome, plays Knoxville's roommate and steals every scene he has, racking up quotable catch phrases at a rate Will Ferrell would admire. "Oh Mylanta! You are my woman," gasps Barbanell's character at the hair-netted lunch lady he adores. At actual Special Olympics events in South Florida, Barbanell is a hero to fellow athletes and instantly recognizable to the mostly adolescent volunteers who have seen the movie. Barbanell signs autographs and poses for pictures, plus he never turns down a request to deliver one of his famous lines from the film, like, "You scratched my CD, you know!" He's not one of those movie stars who feigns modesty. Barbanell, in fact, has a habit of declaring to a group of strangers, "I'm a celebrity!" Just don't ask Barbanell for the cell phone numbers of Knoxville and fellow co-star Katherine Heigl (of Grey's Anatomy fame). They're friends, and friends don't give your digits away to complete strangers.

Best Charity

Kids in Distress

For an infant child abandoned in a public restroom, dropped in a Dumpster, or thrown from a car along the freeway, there's no such thing as a soft landing. But Kids in Distress is a South Florida nonprofit agency that cushions the blow. The main campus near Wilton Drive and Dixie Highway stays open 24 hours to receive abused children. Since those under the age of 5 are most often the victims of abuse, Kids in Distress is equipped with the necessities of child care: pampers, Baby Wipes, formula, etc. Kids have a place to sleep, and the staff does its best to captivate children with games and toys. The agency recruits foster parents and adoptive parents while also offering a range of preventive services, from parenting classes to therapeutic preschools for 270 children who are victims of abuse or at risk of being so.

Best Church Marquee

First United Methodist Church

There's not enough room on a church signpost to print the Sermon on the Mount, so a pastor must beckon passersby with a punchy phrase, chock full of thought-provoking biblical wisdom. The kind of message that knocks around one's brain for a few days. That's the effect of the marquee in front of the First United Methodist Church, just south of Young Circle in Hollywood. "If you're beside yourself, now you can pray twice as hard." Get it? "God is like bleach," another sign said. "He gets out stains no one else can." Amen! And the devil, then, is like a red sock that lurks in a pile of whites, plotting to put his imprint on the purest white fabrics.

Best Spiritual Cleansing

Sister Faith's Sweat Lodge

Sister Faith learned the ancient art of "sweating" from the Navajo Indians of Big Mountain, a reservation in Northwest Arizona. She builds her sweat lodge with limbs that have fallen from trees near her home, which sits on a half-acre of countryside outside Loxahatchee. It's a small oblong structure, no more than six feet by eight feet. But within that elevator-sized space, Sister Faith fits as many as 16 people — or "souls," as she likes to call them. As if body heat alone weren't enough to make this a sauna, she places heated rocks in the center, then pours water over them to create steam. The ceremony starts around dusk and often lasts till 3 a.m. Drumming, chanting, and prayers for Mother Earth help sweaters to transcend the heat and, says Sister Faith, lead sweaters in their "journey into the spiritual realm." She takes particular delight in winning over the curious-but-skeptical people who, by ceremony's end, profess to have left behind all their negative energy and want only to hug.

Best Company Outing

Golf Cart Polo International Polo Club Palm Beach

Polo is a classy sport. No wonder Americans haven't really taken to it. But add alcohol and motorized vehicles, and voilà! At the International Polo Club, you can customize a company outing featuring a polo match with an announcer explaining the rules, food and drinks, and a "divot stomp," at which participants (champagne glasses firmly in hand) march onto the field to flatten out turf that's been kicked up by ponies' hooves. But the best part: After eating, grab a mallet, get in the golf cart (the polo players drive), and tear ass around the field for a match on four wheels. What's that sound? Ralph Lauren weeping with jealousy?

Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners

Mai-Kai Restaurant and Polynesian Show

CandaceWest.com
The tradition of kitsch is unique to our region, and the Mai-Kai is the king of kitsch. This tropical time warp has been owned and run by the same family for more than 50 years and boasts the amazing Molokai bar. Built out of an old movie set's pirate ship, this plank-floor rum factory is quickly disorienting. Water runs down the exterior of the submarine-style windows, and the lighting is always dark and warming — soon the outside world is just a hazy memory and your new, much funner, life revolves around tiki-tacky drinks served in hollowed-out coconuts and pineapples. If you go at the right time, you can catch the bar band playing Don Ho covers next to an archaic drum machine that we can only imagine was salvaged from Gilligan's Island. If you're feeling flush with cash, make a reservation for the floor show. You'll hardly notice the mediocre cuisine when you become hypnotized by the gyrating, fire-throwing Polynesian dancers on stage. In between sets, take a stroll through the tiki gardens and pay homage to the statues placed throughout — most of which resemble large-scale versions of the "bad luck souvenir" from the famous "Brady Bunch Hawaiian Vacation" episode. When you pick up your car from the valet, your guests will say, "Screw Disney!"

Best Public Transportation

800-TRI-RAIL www.tri-rail.com

The trains make a helluva fuss as they pull into the station. And they show up only once an hour. But for car slaves in South Florida tired of sitting in north-south traffic along Interstate 95, Tri-Rail is a good alternative. Flying into the Miami Airport and not sure how to get to West Palm Beach? Hop on the train. Rather than slogging behind the wheel of a car for 70 miles, possibly through bumper-to-bumper traffic, you can sit back and arrive in a cool 101 minutes. On the way, you can read the paper, watch a movie on your iPod, or — heck — take a nap. And the cost? On a weekday, that sort of one-way ticket goes for $5.50, $4 on a weekend. Although the Tri-Rail isn't the perfect solution for our commuting dilemma, it's a good start.

Best Weekend Getaway

Key West Express at the Miami Seaquarium

Living on a peninsula is awesome — until you want to get out of town. From South Florida, driving north or west will only get you more of the same scenery. Going east will just get you really wet. So it's no secret that the Keys are the most obvious and most charming destination — it's just that the drive sucks. U.S. 1 for 200 miles? Ugh. But about three months ago, Key West Express, a company that's been offering trips on a high-speed catamaran from Fort Myers and Marco Island to the Keys for more than a decade, added a Miami-Key West route that runs daily Thursday through Sunday. You can leave your car at the dock at the Miami Seaquarium — it's free, and yes, there's security. The 155-foot-long vessel has two hulls (for a stable ride), massive engines (to get you there in about four hours), indoor and outdoor decks (bring sunscreen), and a full bar (so you can get started on the margaritas before you get anywhere near Margaritaville). Round-trip tickets cost $98 for adults, $66 for kids.

Best Hotel

Brazilian Court

If the sprawling, luxurious Breakers Resort is the famous grand dame of Palm Beach hotels, the Brazilian Court is its sexy little sister. Instead of welcoming guests through an ostentatious lobby with a two-lane valet, the Court seduces them through three discreet entrances. Instead of dressing up in formal, palatial, and immaculate lawns, this place flaunts its tantalizing assets: a heated pool, a wine butler, and an intimate, flower-filled patio. The Spanish-style compound has attracted diplomats, movie stars, and Kennedys since opening on New Year's Day in 1926. In the past couple of years, the hotel has upped its chic factor with celebrity power by adding Café Boulud (the menu was designed by Chef Daniel Boulud), opening a Frederic Fekkai salon (Mr. Fekkai won't be your hairdresser, but his products and techniques are used here), and starting a breakfast series with bestselling authors (so you just might bump into Gay Talese or Nora Ephron in the library). But besides being a nice place to sleep (for $550 to $950 a night), it's not a bad spot to gold-dig. Tuesday- and Saturday-night parties draw businessmen in blazers as well as 20-somethings in tank tops, and the scene is so hot right now that even the grand dames can't resist coming in for a peek.

Best Public Restroom

Roger Dean Stadium

Roger Dean Stadium is all about spring training. It's known for its up-and-coming ballplayers (see next year's Marlins now), its cheap seats, and its famous Dean Dogs (hot dogs almost as long as your forearm). This place gets a lot of things right — even down to the men's bathrooms. Although the facilities manager and his workers deserve most of the credit for keeping the porcelain spiffy in there, they do get a lot of help from an unlikely sponsor: pest control company Nozzle Nolen. Not because Nolen sprays for insects but because the company decorated the urinals. Complete with, um, paintings of little bugs down at the drain. What are those for? Stadium General Manager Rob Rabenecker explains with a laugh, "Gives guys something to aim at." The decorations are offered along with gentle reminders like "Nozzle Nolen says ÔAim high in life; aim low here.'" Sorry, ladies — no word on when NN's coming out with a home version.

Best Of Broward-Palm Beach®

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