Unlike most weekends in Broward, there aren’t a plethora of fun options for this weekend. While the weekend may lack in an abundance of interesting nightlife choices, it does provide one excellent warehouse party on Saturday night. I’m talking about SWARM 4, which being held at the Swarm Warehouse, just west of 95 in Fort Lauderdale (500 Sw 21st Terrace, FTL). Like most warehouse parties, you should expect cheap drinks, interesting artwork by local artists, and live music. Worth noting, two of my favorite local bands will be performing — gypsy punkabilly outfit Everymen and longtime Margate punk band The Shakers. If you’ve never seen or heard Everymen, expect a folkier version of early Against Me! (prior to Searching For A Former Clarity) with a better live show — the lead singer is known to spit fire, literally. Another band I don’t know much about, Ceschi, will also be performing, plus DJs Sensitive Side and Chair Weiner will be spinning.
I won’t go too much into detail since Mickie Centrone of New Times sufficiently previewed the event, but this is a party worth checking out this weekend. Unfortunately, I have to work on Saturday night, so I’ll be missing all the action. If anyone from the Black Locust Society or an attendee of this event wants to chronicle future Swarm parties or review this one (aspiring photographers welcome as well), hit me up at mig@ftlcollective.com .
The beauty of guerilla marketing is that not only is it budget friendly, but it’seasily noticeable. Love him or hate him, Broward County rapper Lyrikilldotcom, best known for sabotaging local news telecasts to advertise his website, is a mastermind at generating interest via guerilla marketing tactics. When he’s not annoying news anchors, Lyrikill is parading around town with his oversized, tacky neon necklace, announcing his area code 754 phone number, or falsely titling YouTube videos with names like Rihannas Picture to generate views. Besides his insanely catchy jam I Love My Hooptie, I am not crazy about his music. Can’t say I haven’t watched all his shenanigans on the internet though.
Driving down US1 the other day, I noticed a sign posted high up on a telephone pole in Dania advertising a website Hungrerapper.com . It’s a simple guerilla marketing strategy — pick up some posterboard at the Dollar Tree, write your website on it with a thick Sharpie, and post it out of reach of the old timers who might try and rip it down. Not as flashy as Lyrikill, but still an admirable and cheap form of guerilla marketing. Unfortunately for Hungre Rapper, it appears his site is down at the moment; however, with a little internet sleuthing, I was able to find an alternative URL (and much more logical web address), http://HungryRapper.com . Here’s the quick rundown about this local entrepreneur/hip hop artist:
Hungre Rapper, real name John Hungre, is sick of the roofing industry, so he’s decided to focus solely on becoming Mr. 954. He has a new album titled Hungre Life that’s only $5 on his website. The most notable song on his website is a song about the 3 Kings that has ingenius lyrics such as “Vince Carter, you old farter”, “Dwight Howard is as soft as a flower”, and “Amare Stoudamire, it’s time to retire, you’ll never get a trophy out there you dumbass”. This jack of all trades is also asking for investors for his proposed TV series called Hungry Roofers, a show about hurricane chasers who “help/save” victims of tropical storms. Sounds cool, but he’ll need about 250,000 Abraham Lincolns from investors to buy an amphibious armored truck and other required items for proper storm chasing.
My advice to John Hungre to further promote himself, start some beef with another rapper like Lyrikilldotcom. I’ve already got a creative title for my FTLC post when you do, Guerilla Marketing Warfare. As a fellow dreamer, good luck.
Here’s Hungre Rapper’s song about the Miami Heat winning the next 5 championships:
The Sun-Sentinel has completely ignored an important local story with a wrinkle of national importance occurring in a high-profile Ft. Lauderdale trial. The incompetence of the local prosecutor’s office in the Jim Leyritz trial has gone unnoticed by the (admittedly undermanned) Sun-Sentinel news room. The Sun-Sen has covered the trial to some extent, but has ignored a story of more general relevance than if Jim Leyritz is ultimately convicted: whether our prosecutor’s office is competent to try such a case.
Background: Former New York Yankee World Series hero Jim Leyritz is on trial for DUI manslaughter for a terrible accident that occurred downtown just under three years ago at the corner of Himmarshee and SW 7th Avenue. A local young mother of two named Fredia Veitch was ejected from her car and died during the collision. Jim Leyritz was drunk, and as has been well-reported, Ms. Veitch was too. A vital pre-trial motion had the judge ruling that evidence of her intoxication was inadmissable during Leyritz’s trial. Basically, the ruling was that Ms. Veitch’s condition is irrelevant to whether Leyritz was intoxicated while committing a traffic violation, and whether that violation resulted in Ms. Veitch’s death. That means that evidence, testimony, whatever, of her condition would not be before the jury.
Now for the trial, which after jury selection last week, began on Monday. The Sun-Sen reported on the beginning of the trial. But on Tuesday there was a bomb: a series of apparently 15-20 questions that Leyritz’s lawyer, famed local defense attorney David Bogenschutz, asked of the prosecution’s witness regarding the extent to which Ms. Veitch had been drinking that night. Tom Francis, formerly and regrettably not still, a fantastic local reporter for the Broward New Times (see our tongue in cheek take-down of the New Times and Tom Francis, here), reported for the New York Post that Bogenschutz asked a series of un-objected-to questions of a prosecution witness that had been with Ms. Veitch on the evening in question regarding her level of intoxication. And the witness’ testimony was that he had seen her drink four or five shots, and there was another 45 minutes during which she had been at the bar while he was absent during which she may have consumed more drinks. Word to the prosecution: THIS IS THE EVIDENCE YOU FOUGHT TO HAVE EXCLUDED. Maybe this wasn’t the toxicology report they specifically discussed in the pretrial motion, but this is the same. The judge’s ruling had been that her condition was not important. This testimony is evidence of her condition. One objection from the prosection and this entire line of questioning, the whole concept of the victim being intoxicated, would never be heard by the jury. But that did not happen. And then the prosectution even asked the witness about Ms. Veitch’s condition at the Himmarshee St. bar Fat Cats, at which point the judge stopped the trial and sent the jury out of the courtroom. As Mr. Francis reports the judge angrily asking the prosecutor:
“Do you consider her condition relevant? He [Bogenschutz] asked 15 to 20 questions about what drinks she had, unobjected, and now you’re asking about her condition. My ruling is that her condition was not relevant as to whether the defendant ran the red light.”
But that’s not all. Later, according to Tom Francis, another prosecution witness, Leyritz’s passenger at the time of the crash, testified that the light was definitely yellow when they entered the intersection, not that he had seen the light turn from green to yellow to red as the prosecutor promised in her opening statement. I do not know the background, I do not know what the witness told the prosecutor’s investigators and whether he should have been treated as a hostile witness, but it is a failure of lawyering when one of your key witnesses testifies the exact opposite of what you want, expect, and promised the jury the witness will say.
I am not writing this column to comment on whether Ms. Veitch’s intoxication should be allowed in the trial, nor whether her intoxication is important as to who is responsible for the accident. That is for the judge to decide, and he did decide prior to the beginning of the trial. Nor am I passing a judgment on Jim Leyritz’s guilt. My point is that the prosection in this high-profile case, which surely was not run by first year attorneys trying a standard DUI case, has been incompetent. The vital issue of Ms. Veitch’s intoxication, which the judge specifically excluded from the trial because of its tendancy to sway the jury, very well could determine the outcome of this trial. And, in fact, I predict it will determine the outcome. For the last three years I thought Leyritz had no chance after learning of his .14-.18 BAC. But the state’s attorney’s office performed incompetently at an extremely important moment of this trial, and the Sun-Sentinel has yet to mention it. This issue could be the whole trial and it was not mentioned in our local paper-of-record! I don’t know what else to say.
But I will try: today the Sun-Sen finally posted another article about the trial. The headline is “Ex-Yankee Sobs During Trial”. It describes potentially important evidence of a video showing the accident may have ocurred ten minutes earlier than police records report and that Jim Leyritz cried (thanks for the headline and the details). For the defense the tape is apparently evidence that Leyritz’s drinks at the bar might not have hit his blood at the time of the crash, or something. Brilliant lawyering by Bogenschutz, standard. But regardless of what the judge’s jury instructions might ultimately command the jury to ignore, it’s hardly the case-changer that allowing the victim’s condition to be described to the jury may turn out to be.
Ernie’s BBQ & Lounge has been a popular institution in Fort Lauderdale for far longer than I’ve been alive.It’s impressive longetivity, the promise of BBQ, it’s attractive exterior, and the close proximity to the my favorite back alley club 1921 has always intrigued me. However, because of poor reviews from friends, I always seem to bump it down on my list of must-try restaurants. Finally, yesterday evening Strawberry Jam and myself decided to dine at Ernies, anticipating South Florida’s potentially best conch chowder and some sweet Bimini bread.
Local old timers have a bad habit of blindly preferring the old over the new. To these group of stubborn locals, a bar or restaurant is never as good as it used to be 20 years ago. This type of comment continually popped up on various food review websites describing Ernies. Most of the time, I disregard those remarks as typical local banter. After trying the average food at this underwhelming establishment, I tend to think there might be some validity to the common string of comments. When so many better places to eat go bankrupt so quickly, the only explanation for Ernie’s survival is its past reputation.
For starters, disregard the word BBQ in the name. The menu shows a diverse list of run-of-the-mill bar food, with a few unauthentic BBQ dishes sprinkled in. By this logic, Ernies is as much a BBQ restaurant as Quarterdecks or McDonalds during McRib season. Because I don’t believe in ordering two of the same dish, S Jam ordered a regular size conch chowder that came with their locally famous Bimini bread and I reluctantly ordered the open face pork sandwich with fries and slaw .
The conch chowder was tasty, but nothing I’d tweet about. Keep in mind, I am not an expert on what comprises a good chowder. As an example of my lack of knowledge, I actually expected the soup to be white — turns out Bahamian-style conch chowder is red. It didn’t impress me or S Jam more than a full sodium can of Campbell’s vegetable soup with tiny conch chunks. If you’re a conch chowder connoisseur though, their soup might be worth a taste.
The bread was good, but when is fresh bread not good? In my opinion, it tasted like every other bakery bread. I wanted it to be sweeter, but maybe that’s typical Bahamian-style bread. In fact, I’d bet that bakery on Las Olas (Gran Forno is the name I’m pretty sure) can make a better loaf of Bimini bread.
The bigger disappointment was the pork sandwich. Living in NC for 9 years, I’m used to a proper pulled pork sandwich. Ernies version of the sandwich was thinly slices of pork, akin to a deli or sub shop. The meat tasted fine, but not exceptional. Let’s face it, even the questionable “Manager’s Special” pork from Winn Dixie tastes ok. In addition, the BBQ sauce was bland and the thick slice of Bimini bread used for the sandwich should be replaced with a thinner, buttery bun. In hindsight, it’s laughable to even try and compare their pork to an actual BBQ restaurant.
On the plus side, the decorations and atmosphere of the restaurant was refreshing. It’s not the best view, but the open-air upstairs patio is a nice place to enjoy the breeze, have a couple beers, and watch Tuesday night Sun Belt Conference football match-up. I enjoyed looking at the vintage photography on the walls, especially the 80’s FTL Spring Break photo by the restroom that showed A1A as one giant mass of college students. And who can resist rubbernecking on US1 to check out Ernie’s bright orange and yellow exterior. Remember this photoshopped picture:
After that epic BBQ tease, I’m really looking forward to trying out the highly praised Tom Jenkins or Georgia Pig in the next few weeks. Feel free to comment with your thoughts on Ernies, past or presnt, and recommend some other places with real BBQ that I should add to my must-try list.
Ernie’s is located at 1843 S Federal Hwy in Fort Lauderdale.
It’s Friday morning, and you still haven’t figured out your costume for the big parties this weekend?!?! No worries. FTL Collective has some simple yet creative costume ideas that scream Fort Lauderdale and don’t break the bank.
1. Coat Man (also known as Running Man or Dennis Marsala)
Materials:
photo taken from Daylife.com
fake or real moustache
martini glass glued on a plate
Richard Petty black glasses
short shorts
streamers
dress tie
I dressed as Coat Man last year and it was a hit with the people that actually recognized the costume. You can always take the costume a step further and write MARS on the tie, wear a rats nest on your head, and run around Himmarshee Street nonstop. The above materials will suffice though.
2. HOLLA (also known as Bikini Man or Charles)
Materials:
2 piece bikini
a Sharpie to write on your forehead
lipstick
extra dollar bills
I would never dress like this Ft Lauderdale beach bum turned novelty act, but I won’t judge. Put on a two piece, lipstick, chug a bottle of Jack, and write HOLLA on your forehead — that’s all it takes. Who knows? You might even make a few bucks on the side.
By Mig
