Most people, if nominated for a Grammy, would think it’s Kind of a Big Deal. Apparently, Elmar Oliveira is not most people. “Oh, I’ve been nominated two times before,” chuckles the 58-year-old violinist. Once for the same category — Best Instrumental Soloist with an Orchestra — and the other time……
Last Friday, a part-time Floridian named Barry Minkow (right) made a post on a website, Lenn-ron.com, that contained explosive allegations against Lennar Homes, a publicly-owned, Miami-based corporation that is one of the biggest homebuilders in the state. Minkow held back nothing, saying that Lennar “treats their joint ventures exactly like…
Yes, it has been a whole entire year since Feelgood’s opened on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach and bar owner/Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil came to town to hold a free concert in the street. Whattaya say, Vince? Do it again?All right! Neil’s partner in the venture, Cleve Mash,…
When I was a wee college student at FSU, my best friend and I decided to road-trip to DC for President Clinton’s inauguration. There we were, two unprepared, underdressed 18-year-olds waiting for hours upon hours in the freezing cold for little more than a nanosecond’s glance at a speeding limo. …
On November 29, 2004, Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan and her ex-husband, Mahmoud Seif, checked into Le Meridien Hotel in Vienna, Austria. The following morning, Gholikhan used Seif’s cell phone to call the man they had flown there to meet. “Alex,” a weapons dealer from Fort Lauderdale, told the couple to come…
Boca Raton painter/performer/karate black belt Micheal Israel — he of the ripped abs, the flowing mullet, and the paint-splattered jeans — has landed two slots performing at Obama’s inauguration: on the 19th at Virginia’s Inaugural Black Tie & Blue Dominion Ball ($1,000 per ticket) at the Smithsonian Air & Space…
The hardcore environmentalists at Everglades Earth First sure know how to push FPL’s buttons. All year, they’ve been waging a court battle against construction of a new power plant in Palm Beach County (right across the street from a wildlife refuge!). Today, they picked another fight with the energy giant,…
All three major TV networks have stopped sending full-time correspondents to Iraq, so if you want any information about what’s going on in the Middle East, you better go seek it out yourself. The New York Times still delivers compelling coverage — including blog posts from its Iraqi employees; photos…
You could be there for Lindsay’s next embarrassment! So you’ve opened the presents and done all your dreaming about sugar plums, which is probably what the kids are calling some kind of messed up pill these days. Now your brain moves on to the next challenge: how to spend New…
Our correspondent goes undercover. Maybe you’ve seen one of these Broward County buses around town that are wrapped with advertisements that describe Islam as being the religion of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed. “Got Questions? Get Answers!,” the ads promise. Considering that the threat of radical Islam has been described as,…
I just learned a new and brilliant noun from urbandictionary.com. The word is Ponzi Crawl: A pub crawl that adds a new person to buy a round at each location. Each new person is promised that they will get free drinks at all the future bars if they buy this…
We thought the category “Housing Swap” on Craig’s List used to be for people looking to swap spaces over holiday breaks. Thanks to this awful housing market, however, swapping has become a permanent solution for folks who need to move but can’t sell. For instance, some dude in Minneapolis wants…
Today is the ninth day that Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan (pictured above), a 31-year-old Iranian woman, has stood in front of a federal jury in Fort Lauderdale wearing brown scrubs and white plastic government-issued flip-flops. In a move that has been described as bold, crazy, or both, the polite, petite detainee…
In today’s bit of quasi-celebrity local news, restaurateur Steve Martorano appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show last night. During the segment, Martorano talked about how he got his start in the dining industry by selling sandwiches out of his Philadelphia apartment — without a restaurant license. When the authorities busted…
We’re very well aware that Broward and Palm Beach counties do not draw high-voltage celebrities in the same way as L.A. or New York. (And if we forget, we always have Donald Trump to remind us.) Yet we do sometimes marvel at the bizarre mix of notables that rumble through…
Brrr! Even South Florida gets cold in the winter. And in a holiday season when so many of us are out of work and have time to kill, the stars have aligned for one very peculiar product — or are there two?Surely you’ve seen the infomercial for “The Snuggie –…
Alex Larson has many endearing qualities — but tactfulness isn’t one of them. “Knowing me is bad,” the roly-poly, middle-aged environmental activist concedes in a scruffy smoker’s voice. “Real painful.” When her friend got pregnant, for instance, Larson pointed out that because of the recent national bank bailout, the child…
In South Florida’s very midst lives a transplant who hails from the celebrated town of Wasilla, Alaska. A second-year medical student at Nova Southeastern University, his name is Harry A. Schultz IV, but he goes by “Buck.” (Judging by the Palin clan, they’re very big on colorful, one-syllable names up…
Don’t make like this is Beverly Hills. This is the real goddamned hood. The motherfuckin’ hood.” So warns the gentleman watching workers set up lights and cameras in front of a graffiti-strewn, one-story yellow house just off Sistrunk Boulevard — in Fort Lauderdale’s most notorious neighborhood. The man’s name is…
Jorge needed some help, so for several thousand dollars, he hired two professional “transporters” — imposing men trained in a whole repertoire of negotiating skills and takedown maneuvers. One morning last November, they drove to a group home where Jorge’s eldest son was being held. Brian was just 15 years…
It’s hard to say which is more awesome: Rachel Goodrich’s catchy song “The Black Hole” or its lo-fi video. In it, she sings while kneeling on her friend’s unmade bed; she’s wearing, for no particular reason, a ladybug costume and a pair of sunglasses. Meanwhile, her friend Jon Estes plays…
The ritzy oceanfront town of Palm Beach usually hums quietly with the sounds of Rolls-Royces passing by and big fat wallets snapping open and shut. On days that the waves crank up, though, the riffraff moves in. Traffic slows as drivers strain their necks to peek at the beach. Pickup…
