West Dania Beach Boulevard dead-ends at a weedy canal, making for a perfect out-of-the-way dumping ground. Even after the rest of the town’s fertile tomato fields turned into working-class neighborhoods over the years, the plot housed little more than trees, trash, and dirt. But between 2002 and 2004, when the…
Eric Goertz is in big trouble. A few cans of spray paint and some felt-tip markers did him in. The term criminal mischief — among the felonies levied against the 22-year-old from Palm Beach Gardens — may sound lighthearted. In truth, as far as the courts are concerned, the charges…
Along the edges of the Florida East Coast railroad, which slices through the center of Lake Worth, dwell the poorest of the poor. Spanish-mission bungalows peel and fade in the sun, and motor oil stains the sidewalks of the auto body shops and old warehouses. Gravel streets turn to dirt…
For record labels, videogames and music are a match made in target-audience heaven. EA Sports pushes major-label names in rock and hip-hop on the company’s yearly Madden and NBA updates, and Tony Hawk games sport underground punk and metal soundtracks. While those are somewhat appropriate, the latest music-in-games development comes…
When you retire from your job, you’re supposed to cart away your old coffee mug and the framed pictures of your grandkids and, of course, clean out your files. For psychiatrist Dr. Joel Klass, that has meant revisiting hundreds of disturbed Floridians, combing through the misdeeds of criminals, delving into…
It was a sweeps-month, hidden-camera exposé that made police departments look bad. In conjunction with an independent watchdog group called the Police Complaint Center, reporter Mike Kirsch of CBS affiliate WFOR-TV (Channel 4) presented remarkable footage of what happens when a civilian tries to file a complaint against a police…
Wednesday night at Ray’s Downtown. A 50-something guitarist alone on the bandstand idly strokes the strings between numbers as a handful of barflies down cheap drinks. Slow night. In fact, the club exhibits a barely detectable pulse, despite the dozen or so patrons who have dragged themselves away from the…
Already an Internet legend of sorts, at least in the minds of unredeemed boozehounds and womanizers, Tucker Max added to his infamy last month with the debut of his New York Times bestselling collection of dubious drunken tales, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Max’s stories have been passed…
The last we heard of infamous local pimp Arthur Vanmoor, he was hopping a plane back to Amsterdam. The Dutch-born sex impresario had been deported after a racketeering and conspiracy conviction last summer. But until his sudden exile, Vanmoor wasn’t just the busy operator of multiple escort services that had…
On a windy Chicago afternoon last May, world-class triathlete David Bigoney threw the ceremonial first pitch at a White Sox-Texas Rangers game. Chicago won 7-0. “And that started their winning streak,” he jokes now. The Tallahassee sports fanatic closely monitored the team’s dream season through its stunning World Series victory,…
The killing was carried out midday, in front of numerous witnesses. Yet to this day, the culprit´s identity remains in dispute. Thursday morning, August 1, 2002, a yellow bulldozer chugged up Rio Vista Boulevard on its way to demolish one of Fort Lauderdale´s grandest riverfront mansions. The 1926 structure was…
Lake Worth needs earplugs! FRI 10/21 Sure, a movie called Blow Me could be about a lot of things. But since it springs from the quirky cranium of Lake Worth’s merry prankster Kenny 5, there’s nothing prurient or suggestive about its content. “Brutal hurricane footage with noise” is how he…
The German duo Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner began their Mouse on Mars partnership in Düsseldorf, raising inevitable Kraftwerk comparisons. Instead of aloof and inhuman, Mouse on Mars made its machines sound all soft and squishy. Live, the duo stayed hunched over their joysticks, pumping out loud ‘n’ groovy…
Loud, angry songs aren’t part of Keith Michaud’s repertoire. Mostly, he sings pretty, guitar-based folk tunes, as he was doing a couple of Saturdays ago at Fort Lauderdale’s Beach Place during a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims. Unfortunately, by the time Michaud started performing in the mall’s open-air courtyard…
On a Sunday summer afternoon so sultry that steam swirls from the street and water vapor beads on windows, Christopher Moll flips off the A/C in his Coral Springs condominium. He snakes microphone cables from a bedroom closet to his small recording studio/office, then signals his singer, Tim Yehezkely, who’s…
A certain degree of light-hearted good cheer is required among employees and visitors of Lice Source Services, Inc., a medical clinic in Plantation devoted to ridding its customers of pesky scalp-dwelling vermin. But in the reception room this morning, a young dad with his 7-year-old daughter in tow won’t get…
For his fourth solo effort, Daniel Lanois abandons songs about Québecois tobacco farmers and dealings with devils and returns to his first love: evocative, atmospheric instrumentals. A self-described “Canadian kid included in Eno’s Great Ambient Music Chapter,” he recalls his roots, which, of course, include producing U2 and Peter Gabriel…
The crime had none of the resonance of the big media stories that mesmerize the television- and tabloid-obsessed public nowadays. A handyman with a violent past allegedly taking a metal pipe to his girlfriend in front of numerous witnesses on a grimy Fort Lauderdale street? Nancy Grace, Larry King, the…
Word has it that Anton Newcombe — the only constant in the always wobbly world that is the Brian Jonestown Massacre — is quite unpleased with his portrayal in the recent rockumentary Dig! Odd, since the film makes him out to be an unquestionably talented madcap savant who’s a helluva…
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…
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…
Rex was going about a buck-ten when he entered a turn too fast and low-ended his bike, a new Kawasaki ZX-12R that slid away from him like a runaway bobsled. In shock, he screamed incoherently at a woman who stopped her car to see if he was all right. This…
