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Hallandale Beach Blog

Entering Broward County, Florida.
Trust me when I tell you, this is NOT the Land of Lincoln. Above, sign on north-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, at the Broward County-Miami-Dade County line, with Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino in center.
Hallandale Beach, FL; January 2007 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

A common-sense public policy overview offering a critical perspective on current events, economics, government, politics & culture of South Florida, in particular, the cities of
Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, and sometimes Aventura.

The antics and activities of the rest of the Sunshine State are largely covered in parent blog South Beach Hoosier, www.SouthBeachHoosier.blogspot.com, where I ruminate on national and international subjects, the interplay of politics and media, and public policy, as well as the past and current South Florida sports scene with the Dolphins, the Marlins, the University of Miami Hurricanes , and the Indiana University Hoosiers.

But sometimes, if it's particularly germane or amusing, I post it here, too.

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Two Years Later...

Two Years Later...
Looking northeast from north-bound U.S.-1/Federal Highway towards Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino, and the future Village of Gulfstream retail complex, with the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa and The Beach Club condo towers in the distance on State Road A1A. January 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
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Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and insight onto local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now. On this blog, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger and laser-like attention on the coastal cities of Aventura, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

If you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be stuck in stultifying traffic, paying higher-than-necessary taxes and continually musing about the chronic lack of accountability among not only elected govt. officials, but also of city, county and state employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, eager work-ethic mentality that local residents deserve and expect.

This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the "Perfect Storm" of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent.
Sadly for its residents, HB is where even easily-solved, quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and ineffective supervisory management. It's a city with lots of potential because of its terrific location, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion, merely kicked -once again- further down the road.

I used to ask myself, not always rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show that through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?" Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable but skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time, and wanting questions answered in a honest and logical way that citizens have the right to expect.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change.

If there's one constant gripe in South Florida, regardless of your age, race, nationality or political persuasion, it's about the fundamental lack of PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY here among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials. Hallandale Beach Blog aims to be a small step towards regaining some of that needed accountability, whether it's thru simple public scrutiny, or requires a degree of follow-up investigation and public exposure of incompetency, cronyism or simple negligence -South Florida's usual governing style.

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."- Preacher Purl encouraging the underdog Hickory High basketball team before the state title game against heavily-favored South Bend Central in 1986's Hoosiers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/
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Hallandale Beach's iconic beachball-colored Water Tower on State Road A1A & S. Ocean Drive. September 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

When Your Blog Roll and Media List Has a Life of Its Own...

April 22, 2009
Because of some recurring problems I've been having with Blogger.com, my Indispensible Blog Roll and Media List has, of its own volition, decided to migrate towards the middle of the front page from its side-pocket position. Of hiding in plain sight, so to speak, perhaps to tempt you to click some blog or website you've heard of before but never seen for yourself. I'm trying to fix that logistics problem but it may take a few days to unscramble, so the blog may appear a little more unwieldy in the interim. Until then, to better read my daily posts more clearly and without any bleeding from other fields and graphics, I suggest clicking the links in the next field marked Blog Archive, and you will see the most recent post.
Sorry about the confusion!
-Dave

Blog Archive

Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Her talent is transcendent!

Per my very enthusiastic and positive May 22nd blog post about singer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Since first hearing her sing Is It True back on February 15th, at Söngvakeppni sjónvarpsins 2009, earning the right to represent Iceland at the 2009 Eurovison Song Contest in Moscow in May -where she placed 2nd- I've listened to every one of her songs, all genres, watched all of her videos. She's never less than flat-out amazing! Her enormous talent could hardly be more obvious!

Looking south towards The Beach Club and the HB Water Tower from near the Hollywood cityline, May 2, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hallandale Beach Blog

Hallandale Beach Blog
South Beach Hoosier/Hallandale Beach Blog's crimson-colored Indiana University ballcap. If you see someone at a South Florida public policy discussion/govt. meeting wearing this IU cap, scribbling notes furiously, and, shaking his head in disbelief, don't be afraid to come over and suggest possible story ideas. Photo by South Beach Hoosier. Move your mouse over the cap for a message from IU head basketball coach Tom Crean.
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Change Hallandale
New fact-based, constantly-updated website by Hallandale Beach activist Michael Butler that goes directly after the longtime cronyism and incompetency at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold hard facts, figures, graphs, charts and videos.
The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mike Good and the Rubber Stamp Crew -i.e. City Commissioners William Julian, Dotty Ross and Anthony A. Sanders- can't refute with any of their tricks and half-truths.
See the evidence for yourself and you'll see what's really going on. http://www.changehallandale.com
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Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald 25 years ago
"For years people living in and out of its condo-walled sector east of U.S. 1 have wondered what to do about the city of Hallandale. In the 19th Century the condo giants would have served as ideal fortresses. From top floors of the towers, enemy ships could be readily spotted and blown out of the Atlantic. Oceanfront dwellers could have been protected from the west by the Hallandale Beach Boulevard drawbridge and moat called the Intracoastal Waterway. But this is the 20th Century..."

-Miami Herald Broward Columnist Bill Braucher's first paragraph from July 24, 1983.
To which Hallandale Beach Blog can only say, Bulls-eye!
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The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpted from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster: In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country, el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...

"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the Floridas, thought I," John James Audobon wrote to the editor of The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administrations now have found South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly. At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accommodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accomodated...
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A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL

A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL
This sign on U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino, lets you know that you're just feet away from the HB City Hall and Police Department. It's a government that gives every impression of holding itself apart and above from the citizens it's supposed to serve. The crazy thing is, they really don't think they have to follow the laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic and reason, contracts, or, more to the point for this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records. City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer reasonable questions posed to them by residents, and often berate you for even having the nerve to ask! One of the other things that's quite shocking is the blatant disregard by the HB Police Dept. and Fire Dept. for basic safety rules. Common sense rules of behavior that are in place in every other American town, no matter how small or obscure. City employees -and friends of theirs- routinely park "their cars" directly in front of the building's east entrance, often for hours at a time. That's right, I said for HOURS at a time. While in every other town you'd find a clearly posted sign saying simply: "No Parking, Fire Zone, Cars Will be Towed," in HB, there are NO signs at all. I have personally observed parked HB city vehicles there that have prevented the HB Fire & Rescue vehicles from getting as close as necessary to the building. I've personally spoken to the individual members of Fire & Rescue after such incidents, and they were positively indignant that they are forced to put up with this sort of thing in the Year 2008. Oh, and one last thing. The lights that are supposed to illuminate this sign in front of HB City Hall HAVEN'T worked in over FOUR YEARS, either. Just like their cousin down the block on U.S.-1 at the city border with Aventura. I've told this to dozens of HB city officials, including the Mayor, City Manager, his staff, the Police Chief, a Police Captain, et al. None of them have done a thing, which is why as late as October 24. 2008, the sign was STILL dark at night! Four-and-a-half-years of nothing but darkness! Sundown, March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Broken Latin in Hallandale Beach, FL -Seaoats

Broken Latin in Hallandale Beach, FL -Seaoats
This descriptive nature sign on Hallandale Beach's North Beach, regarding a supposedly protected environment, complete with Latin genus, is a particularly telling example of the kind of terribly myopic and non-existent mgmt. the beach has received for years from the City of Hallandale Beach, Broward County and the State of Florida. This sign for seaoats has been broken since at least October of 2003. Even more galling, the area immediately around the seaoats has pile after pile of hundreds of old cigarettes dumped willy-nilly around it. The day this photo was taken, the garbage below the sign and in adjoining areas had been there for WEEKS! Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 11, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Close-up of Broken Latin

Close-up of Broken Latin
The Seaoats sign that's been broken since at least Oct. 2003 at Hallandale Beach's north beach, not far from the lone lifeguard stand. In late June of 2008, due to years of neglect and apathy by the State of Florida, Broward County and the City of Hallandale Beach, the sign was blown off and landed fifty feet away, where yours truly noticed it under a beer can. Now there are ZERO signs like this on Hallandale Beach's North Beach. Your government in action! May 16, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice
The sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees: short-sighted and lacking in common sense. This sign is placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers can't actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the longtime gross incompetency and negligence of the city, the spotlights that are supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. Which is to say, yes, LONGER than the U.S.'s involvement in WW II. Welcome to the City of Hallandale Beach! Begin heavy traffic, chronic red tape and mis-adventures in government! Hallandale Beach, FL; Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. Rather incredibly, it's still this way as of January 28th, 2009. January 2009 Postscript: the three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median are gone, so now you can REALLY notice that it DOESN'T work! February 2009 Postscript: In order to make room for a left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream, the invisible sign has finally been removed. Buh-bye!!!

Welcome to City of Aventura, FL

Welcome to City of Aventura, FL
Meanwhile, less than one block south of the HB sign on U.S.-1, and six blocks south of the Hallandale Beach City Hall, lies this internally-illuminated City of Aventura sign that greets south-bound travellers every night on U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd., leaving Hallandale Beach. In over five years, I have NEVER seen this sign not working properly. That's how you help to create a positive first impression for visitors. Compare and contrast that approach to the VERY NEGATIVE one conveyed by the north-bound HB sign! May 11, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
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"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission has yet to live up to its
responsibility.

That's why!
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Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

"[Chicago Mayor] William Hale Thompson was defeated Tuesday after a campaign which he alone made disgraceful. The election was an ejection, a dirty job, but Chicago has washed itself and put on clean clothes. Thompson recognized the [Chicago] Tribune as his chief enemy. The Tribune was glad to earn that opinion. It certainly tried to do so. It has taken the fight to him on every occasion during the long and depraved course of his administration. It is unpleasant business to eject a skunk, but someone has to do it.
For Chicago, Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy. He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character. He’s out.
He is not only out, but dishonored. He is deserted by his friends. He is permanently marked by the evidences of his character and conduct. His health is impaired by his ways of life and he leaves office and goes from the city the most discredited man who ever held place in it."


-Excerpts from April 1931 Chicago Tribune editorial following
Republican Thompson's loss to his Democratic rival Anton Cermak. A friend of organized crime during the Al Capone era, "Big Bill" Thompson was the last Republican elected mayor of Chicago.
See http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3686.html

But less than two years later, Mayor Cermak was shot while shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Miami's Bayfront Park. He died from gunshot wounds to his
lungs three weeks later.

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good
March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier; This building underneath the city's iconic Water Tower, just steps from both the Atlantic Ocean and State Road A1A, was turned over to the City of Hallandale Beach on August 3rd, 2007, and yet STILL remains OFF-LIMITS to everyday HB citizens, taxpayers and residents, the true "owners" of the building, 23 months later. There has STILL not been a single public open forum held by the city to gauge how citizens want to utilize it best. Instead, the building remains a veritable clubhouse for the cronies and pals of HB City Hall's elected officials and employees. And need I ask YET again, where's the American flag on the city flagpole next to the fountain? Once again, HB City Hall shows their gross incompetency by being unable to manage something as simple as keeping a flag flying. Pathetic!!!

The Lawton Chiles Trail

The Lawton Chiles Trail
Sign on south-bound U.S.-1 at City of Aventura/Hallandale Beach line. Lawton Chiles was a great and humble man blessed with a tireless work-ethic and unquestioned integrity, whom I first met and campaigned with in 1976 in North Miami Beach, as I walked with him and we alternated ringing doorbells, followed by a film crew from Channel 7. Over the years, before and after I moved to the D.C. area from South Florida, I was fortunate enough to talk to him from time to time, and get the benefit of his advice and wisdom, and enjoy the warm hospitality of The Florida House, the brilliant idea of his wonderful wife, Rhea. For more info, see http://floridaembassy.com/ June 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The NCAA Championship Banners

The NCAA Championship Banners
Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. I was there in 1981 for NCAA Title #4 vs. North Carolina. Click on photo to go to IU Basketball homepage.

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation
"In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation." -South Beach Hoosier, 2007. Click on map of Hoosier Nation for a surprise visitor!

Like U-M fans everywhere, Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot, hasn't had much to cheer about lately!

Lynda Carter: Brains, Wit and Beauty!

Lynda Carter: Brains, Wit and Beauty!
Hallandale Beach DESPERATELY needs a Lynda Carter-like Wonder Woman to fight crime, cronyism and corruption at HB City Hall and throughout South Florida. (Or FBI Special Agent Dana Scully!) You Can't Beat the Original!

Fort Lauderdale Native and FSU Grad Tiffany Fallon as Wonder Woman

Fort Lauderdale Native and FSU Grad Tiffany Fallon as Wonder Woman
Tiffany Fallon is married to Joe Don Rooney of the Grammy Award-winning country group Rascal Flatts. Playboy February 2008. Click on photo to go to Tiffany's MySpace page.

South Beach Hoosier's All-Time Favorite Film: The Bad and The Beautiful

South Beach Hoosier\
Unscrupulous movie producer Kirk Douglas uses everyone around him in his climb to the top of Hollywood in Vincente Minnelli's powerful classic. DVD for sale at http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/product.asp?sku=D31316 Click photo to see original trailer!

Blake Lively and Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl, Rolling Stone 1075, March 2009.

Blake Lively and Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl, Rolling Stone 1075, March 2009.
You scream, I scream, we all scream for... Gossip Girl. Photo by Terry Richardson. Click photo to read the article and see more photos.

A Smile That Can Fill Up a TV Screen

A Smile That Can Fill Up a TV Screen
South Beach Hoosier screenshot of Gossip Girl star Blake Lively on CBS-TV's Late Show with David Letterman, March 24th, 2009. To be honest, I didn't plan on this shot looking like this, but am very happy with the result. Talent, charm, looks and moxie are going to keep her around for a LONG TIME.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Johnny Depp shows up for ballgame, Dolphins don't!

Cardinals QB Kurt Warner and star WR Anquan Boldin, formerly of Pahokee High School and FSU, walk from the sidelines towards the field after a Dolphins punt leading into commercial break of Dolphins game Sunday afternoon. Boldin caught six passes for 3 TDs in the easy 31-10 Cardinals victory.

The Cardinals are now 2-0 for the first time since 1991, while the Dolphins didn't score in their opening drive for the 20th straight game.



Screenshots with my Polaroid



Coming out of a commercial break with the Arizona Cardinals leading the Dolphins 14-0 with 28 seconds left in the first quarter, CBS-TV cameras caught former South Florida resident (Miramar) and film star Johnny Depp taking in the game at University of Phoenix Stadium.

Ironically, I was taping the ballgame on a videotape that I'd used earlier this morning when I popped it into the VCR before going to sleep so I could catch some films on the Starz free weekend promotion. The last film on the tape was the last Pirates of the Carribean film starring... exactly.

With this loss the Dolphins have now lost their last 11 road games, going back to the Thanksgiving game at Detroit in 2006.
Conversely, the New York Giants have now won their last 11 games on the road, since the Dolphins home game last year against the Giants was in London.

You may recall that we all learned from multiple sources last year that agreeing to move the home game to London and deprive Dolphin fans of a rare Giants home game, was the high price that Dolphin owner Wayne Huizenga happily paid in order to get the NFL to award him another Super Bowl -before he sells the majority share of the team in 2010.

(There are plenty of rumors percolating in South Florida -and around NFL media circles- that the sale will actually happen sooner rather than later, now that Huizenga sees that the team is, yes, years, from being playoff caliber material.)

I've long been of the school of thought that argued that Huizenga should've sold the team years ago, the same way that he should've never listened to Jimmy Johnson and talked him out of resigning, and then agreed to that Faustian bargain of accepting Dave Wannstedt as Dolphins head coach-in-waiting, to help JJ with the coaching load.

You made your deals with the Devil -now he's collecting!
With interest!

Below the first mentions of Johnny Depp and Hallandale in local newspapers:

excerpt
Miami Herald
By Joan McIver, Herald Staff Writer
March 14, 1985

OH HORRORS:
When former Miramar resident Johnny Depp , 21, moved to California, he acted as though his life had turned into a nightmare. Depp, the son of Betty Sue Palmer and Hallandale public utilities director John Depp, became a movie star. He co-stars with Heather Langenkamp in "Nightmare on Elm Street," his first movie. Depp was back in town last week for a short visit with his parents.

"I play the part of Heather's boyfriend," he said." is not a complete work of art, but it's right." Since filming the horror flick, Depp has completed another movie, "Private Resort," also by director Wes Craven. Not bad for someone with no previous acting experience.

Depp moved to California in 1983 with a local band called The Kids, but found the going rough for musicians. "I was hanging out in Melrose, just looking for a job," Depp said. "I had a friend who was an actor. He took me to see his agent, and they signed me up for 'Elm Street.' Acting is real addicting."
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
ACTOR JOHNNY DEPP FINDS SUBSTANCE IN FILM 'PLATOON'
By Debbie Blaylock, Staff Writer
February 4, 1987

In the spring of 1985 after filming Nightmare on Elm Street and Private Resort, actor Johnny Depp said he was ''ready for something with more substance than chasing girls and running down hallways.''

Today, the Miramar High School graduate is being watched by millions of movie-goers in the highly acclaimed movie Platoon.

Some critics describe Platoon as the first realistic depiction of the Vietnam War. Director and writer Oliver Stone drops Depp and the rest of the dirty, sweat-soaked platoon into a jungle heavy with the stench of death.

To describe it in one word: intense.

''For the first week or so, he didn't know if he would make it,'' said John Depp of Hallandale , Johnny's father. ''For two weeks before they started filming, they made Johnny and the others live in the jungle.

''It was 115 degrees by eight in the morning. It was just mud and swarms of ants. They slept in two-man foxholes and didn't get much sleep, and they ate out of cans.''

Johnny is currently filming a series for TV in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was unavailable for comment.

In 1983, Depp, the lead guitarist in The Kids rock band, left south Broward for Hollywood, Calif., looking for a record deal.

How Depp broke into acting sounds like a movie script itself. A woman who worked at a recording studio saw The Kids perform at some no-name bar. She convinced Depp to audition for a role in the television series Fame.

Depp was one of the final four auditioners before the producer showed him the door. He decided to pursue music instead of fame on the silver screen.

However, playing at out-of-the-way bars for $25 a night didn't pay the bills, so Depp sold T-shirts and worked at telephone solicitation.

Meanwhile, a friend, actor Nicolas Cage, introduced Depp to his agent and persuaded the musician to give acting another chance.

That's when Depp auditioned and earned a role in writer and director Wes Craven's thriller Nightmare on Elm Street.

Since then, Depp has worked on a now-defunct television series, Lady Blue, and starred in a Showtime-produced show and other programs. He will be seen tonight in Hotel at 10 on ABC.

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