Faces

I shot the photo (above) back in 1983 or '84 at the Coconut Grove Bed Race.

I didn't get the name of the woman who rode on the bed that day, but I'm sure that she still has nightmares more than 25 years later.

This weekend, the Coconut Grove Bed Race will once again take to the streets.

The race, which was first run sometime in the late 70's, was started by Grove merchants as a way to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy telethon.

Like the annual King Mango Strut Parade, the race has certain "inmates take over the asylum" atmosphere about it.

The race returned to the Grove last year after a hiatus of of 6 or 7 years.

In 1988 Miami Herald staff writer Frank Cerabino perfectly captured the flavor of the race that year.

The 10th Coconut Grove Bed Race rolled through town Sunday, turning Bayshore Drive into Dade County's hormonal epicenter for an afternoon and proving once again that charity can be fun and lunacy's trap door opens up to the Grove.

"A quick survey of the crowd yields: dogs in sunglasses, a sidewalk saxophone player tooting on his alto horn while wearing plastic gloves -- safe sax -- and a bare-chested man wearing the quintessential Grove outfit: black bicycle shorts, a beeper and a 13-foot Burmese python around his neck.
[...]
Big Fannie Annie, a 450-pound stripper who paraded in a bed pulled by her colleagues at Follies International, a nude dancing bar in Hialeah, was a real crowd-pleaser.

"She's big in Hialeah," explained club security guard Frank LaBrada.

Annie, in fact, is big everywhere.

Then there's the gang at Mario's Italian Restaurant in North Miami, entering their high-calorie racing machine, "the Pepperoni Wagon."

A person can get indigestion just looking at this machine. We're talking pepperoni pizza hubcaps, pepperoni sticks hanging from the bed rails, and a 31-inch pepperoni pizza riding as a centerpiece on their bed.

"We made it at 2 a.m.," said worker Rob Egert. "It's getting a little overdone now."

The sweltering afternoon not only cooked the pizza, it also melted the face off the sphinx ice sculpture the Hyatt Hotel had on its extravaganza -- Cleopatra Marches into the Grove.

Cleopatra, perched behind the melting sphinx, got a rope- pulled ride from 10 slaves and eight slavettes. The Hyatt bed took first prize in the parade competition.
[...]
"The parade is better than the race," said spectator Susan Casalotti, 28. "People throw stuff at you during the parade."

Casalotti and her friend Karen Stracener, 23, got thrown the following items: a "Don't Panic" button from Federal Express, a garter from Follies International, a visor from Panama Jack's, a balsa wood airplane from Aviation Sales, and a key chain from Cellular One telephone company.

The centerpiece for nearly all the beds was a healthy young woman in a skimpy bathing suit.

Cerabino capped off his story with this bit of sad news: "For the first time in the bed race's 10-year history, riders weren't permitted on the beds. Liability concern has finally taken its toll on the Coconut Grove Bed Race."

This year, however, riders are allowed back on the beds.

And perhaps that's because the race now has a sponsor.

This month the Miami Herald reported that "a group of medical professionals and personal-injury lawyers, known...as 1-800-411-PAIN," bought naming rights to the race.

West Palm Beach cops (and regular folks) seeing red over red-light tickets

The Palm Beach Post's PageTwoLive columnist Jose Lambiet reports that cops in the City of West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County are learning the hard way that red-light cameras in West Palm Beach don't discriminate. Or play favorites.

And neither does WPB Police Assistant Chief Dennis Crispo.

Tired of lawmen trying to weasel out of paying, Assistant Chief Dennis Crispo last week sent a preachy letter to all other area chiefs and Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw to lay down the law.

“Please advise your members if they are captured on camera in their vehicles running the red-light at these intersections, they will be cited,” the letter reads. “The only remedy for relief will be through the traffic court system. All law enforcement personnel must understand the high standard of conduct is applied to them in order for the public to have confidence in their departments and the officers.

“This trust is a critical and precious commodity . . . and yet it is fragile and easily lost.”

So, what sparked the move? I’m told higher-ups at the WPBPD have been fielding dozens of requests from law enforcement agencies everywhere to “take care” of their red-light citations.

Crispo is not the first police official to issue such a warning to his officers.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Police Chief Greg Graham [told a local paper last June] "that the enforcement cameras had snapped photos of 26 Cedar Rapids police cars speeding or running red lights as of last week.

"No, these photos don’t immediately end up being tossed aside, the chief says."

But Chief Crispo's edict may not stifle the simmering outrage over, what many see, as the  growing intrusion of government into the daily lives of  its citizens.

In  South Florida, concerns are being raised over mechanically-issued traffic citations. Attorney Bret Lusskin writing in the Miami Herald calls red-light cameras, "the worst kind of government intrusion."

"These cameras represent the most egregious government intrusion into our lives of this generation. Since the dawn of civilization, government has claimed ``safety of the public'' as grounds for ever-increasing dominance. The notion of government surveillance cameras on every street corner is an Orwellian nightmare. Just about everyone who has received one of these loathsome tickets didn't deserve it. And with time, the abuses will only worsen."

It was Lusskin, who last February, fought and won against the City of Aventura's red-light cameras.

But last month, the Miami Herald's Kelly House wrote of one woman's rude awakening after being caught by red-light cameras:

[A] Sunny Isles Beach clothing salesman came home from work to find his pregnant wife sobbing, holding several tickets for failing to come to a complete stop at a camera-monitored red light in Aventura. After a $125 ticket in the mail the previous day, five more -- amounting to $1,875 more fines -- were dropped in the mailbox that afternoon.

All of them were for making only a rolling stop before a right turn at Aventura Boulevard and West Country Club Drive, nabbed by one of the red-light violation camera fast spreading throughout South Florida. And all were within a week long period.

Elsewhere, opposition to speeding and red-light cameras is showing up in extreme forms. The New York Times reported last year that "Doug Georgianni, 51, an employee of Redflex Traffic Systems, was shot [and killed] on April 19 as he operated a photo-enforcement van on a Phoenix highway." Just last week Georgianni's killer was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Hopefully the courts will rule against these cameras before that kind of thing happens here.

Shaquille O'Neal did something in Boston yesterday

NBA carpetbagger and former Star Island resident Shaquille O'Neal did something in Boston yesterday, all while mumbling unintelligibly. The Boston Globe caught it all on on tape. A photographer also took some pictures of him riding in a car, goofing around with a cop, wrestling a little kid, hugging a girl and reading a book.

That is all.

Jungle Island's Tiger Encounter!

Wow, what a day it was Saturday!

The Miami Herald is reporting that a "Bengal tiger named Mahesh escaped his habitat and was on the loose at Jungle Island for a time Saturday, sending hundreds of frightened guests and staff scrambling for safety and then cowering for more than an hour at the Watson Island attraction."

For Miami mom Dorothy Evans, there with two small children for a birthday party, the first sign of trouble came when she spotted the Gibbon on the loose in the park.

Visitors and staff soon rushed past, shouting, with park workers herding the guests in a barn area, where they were under lockdown for 90 minutes.

``We were really scared. There were people crying,'' said Evans.

The scene got so chaotic at one point, Evans said, that park visitors were knocking each other down. One child scraped his face.

C'mon, why is this a big deal? Didn't anyone - including the Herald reporters - bother to read Jungle Island's website?

Click image to enlarge.

BREAKING NEWS! America's youth have a death wish!

America's youth have come up with a novel way to kill themselves!

The LeBron James ripple effect

Used to be, going to a ball game was a part of the American experience. An escape from reality with peanuts, Cracker Jack, $5 hot dogs and $8 beer...it doesn't get any more American than that.

Now, thanks to Steve Ross and some high-rollers, going to a game anywhere in South Florida will soon be like a visit to South Beach.

News item- From Jose Lambiet's Page 2 Live:

Two months before the Miami Heat and its all-star trio — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — take on the National Basketball Association, scalpers report ticket prices for Heat games home and away are burning up.

A Fort Lauderdale ticket broker tells Page2Live that some courtside seats for the Heat’s Oct. 29 home-opener against the Orlando Magic are selling for $7,500-a-piece!

News item- Miami Dolphins bringing nightclub experience to Sun Life Stadium:

Miami Dolphins owner Steve Ross keeps stressing the need to enhance the fan experience at Dolphins home games at a Sun Life Stadium.

On Wednesday at LIV Nightclub in the Fountainebleau hotel on Miami Beach, the team unveiled the latest incarnation of boosting the fan experience: a 10,000-square foot, two-level South Beach-style club from which fans can watch Dolphins games.

Modeled after LIV and run by its operators, the exclusive area of Sun Life Stadium is to encompass a portion of the 200 and 300 levels in the west end zone overlooking the field and including an outside veranda with stadium and couch seating.
[...]
“We’re bringing the kind of entertainment and energy inherent in South Beach nightlife – but in a way where these fans can still enjoy the game,” Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said in a statement.

(LIV, coincidentally, is the same nightclub that figures into an NCAA investigation of sports agents paying for drinks and other favors for university football players in Miami over Memorial Day weekend.)

And what about the Marlins? Well, as we learned this week, it appears that the team has borrowed some bookkeeping tricks from South Beach nightclubs!

But, a Miami New Times reader named "Jimmy" isn't buying into all the hype. "My bannana hammock is all ready for the Jets game party atmosphere. Is it aqua or is it green? I can go both ways with it," he says.