FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan

Monday, December 23, 2019

#Roxette 😢 - So many songs left to be sung that will never be sung by #MarieFredriksson 🎤😭

And just a month before Marie died, November 4th, it had been the 30th anniversary of their first NUMBER ONE song on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart here in the USA, the "First song ever to reach the No 1-slot WITHOUT being released as a 7-inch vinyl disc."


Roxette - Listen To Your Heart (Official Music Video)
https://youtu.be/yCC_b5WHLX0

And less than a year later... lightning struck! A hit song from the most popular film of the year all around the world...


Roxette - It Must Have Been Love (Official Music Video, from the motion picture, 'Pretty Woman' (1990) https://youtu.be/k2C5TjS2sh4


The last time I had listened to one of Roxette's songs consistently came in 2011, just two weeks after my dad Died at Memorial Hospital here in Hollywood, after he'd suffered his first stroke in 2009, had several medical interventions, and been in an ALF in Hollywood -just blocks from where I'd later be living- where I visited him for several hours every day to check on his mood and lend encouragement. A very. very tough time for me that Per and Marie's music helped me get through.



Roxette - She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio) [Official Music Video]
Uploaded January 12, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1N-Gf0Fbcg









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The sad press release from Dimberg Jernberg Management in Stockholm...

Marie Fredriksson of Roxette has died 

It is with great sadness we have to announce that Marie Fredriksson of Roxette has passed away in the morning of December 9, following a 17-year long battle with cancer.

Marie was born on the 30th of May 1958 in the south of Sweden, starting her musical career in nearby Halmstad where she became friends with future Roxette companion Per Gessle. Following a successful solo debut in 1984, Marie Fredriksson became one of Sweden’s most loved and successful artists. In 1986 she teamed up with Per in Roxette with the ambition to reach outside Sweden, and together they started a historical journey that in the coming years would make them one of the biggest pop acts in the world. 

The debut single ”Neverending Love” followed by the album ”Pearls of Passion” in 1986 made them stars in Sweden, but international recognition would have to wait until the single ”The Look” from Roxette’s second album ”Look Sharp!” in the spring of 1989 opened the doors to a massive international breakthrough. It was their first No 1 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and would be followed by ”Listen To Your Heart”, ”It Must Have Been Love” and ”Joyride”, as well as numerous worldwide radio staples like ”Dressed For Success”, ”How Do You Do!”, ”Sleeping In My Car”, ”Dangerous”, “Fading Like A Flower” and many more. 

The massive success with sales of more than 80 million records paved the way for several worldwide tours, cementing Marie Fredriksson’s reputation as a sensational live performer. She owned the stage, commanded the band and had the audience in the palm of her hand. As great as she was in the studio, the stage was her natural habitat. This unique artistry and energy helped to create a lasting bond between her and millions of passionate fans around the globe. 

In 2002, Marie was diagnosed with a severe brain tumor, receiving an aggressive treatment that took its toll but ultimately was successful. Thanks to her extremely strong fighting spirit, Marie by 2009 was able to start a gradual return to the world’s stages. The unlikely second coming of Roxette resulted in several new albums, and tours that again put the duo in front of screaming, smiling and crying crowds all over the world. During the comeback years Marie was an amazing trooper, overcoming the many rigors of touring in order to meet her fans on stage again and again. But by 2016, the show was finally over when Marie´s doctors advised her to stop touring and focus on her health. 

Marie leaves us a grand musical legacy. Her amazing voice – both strong and sensitive – and her magical live performances will be remembered by all of us who was lucky enough to witness them. But we also remember a wonderful person with a huge appetite for life, and woman with a very big heart who cared for everybody she met. 

Per Gessle comments:
“Time goes by so quickly. It’s not that long ago we spent days and nights in my tiny apartment in Halmstad, listening to music we loved, sharing impossible dreams. And what a dream we eventually got to share!
Thank you, Marie, thanks for everything. You were an outstanding musician, a master of the voice, an amazing performer. Thanks for painting my black and white songs in the most beautiful colours. You were the most wonderful friend for over 40 years. I’m proud, honoured and happy to have been able to share so much of your time, talent, warmth, generosity and sense of humour. All my love goes out to you and your family. Things will never be the same.
P.”

Marie Fredriksson’s husband Mikael Bolyos and her two children Josefin and Oscar kindly ask for respect in their grief.
The funeral will take place in silence with only Marie’s closest family present. 

Stockholm, December 2019.
Dimberg Jernberg Management

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Tuesday, December 17, 2019

The word for today is "Cao." Cao Bakery and Café says hello tonight to their new neighbors and future customers near Hollywood City Hall. The word for today is "Cao." The newest location of @CaoBakery says hello tonight to their new #HollywoodFL neighbors and future customers near Hollywood City Hall. Their aim? To "be the Dunkin’ Donuts of Cuban pastries."🥧😍😘 I can live with that! 😊


If you have not already heard, later this evening, at 7 pm, I and several other folks from the Hollywood Hills, North Central, and Park East Civic Associations will be at Cao Bakery and Café, at 2401 Hollywood Blvd., a new restaurant which promises to be a boon to the area near Hollywood City Hall that can certainly use more liveliness and diversity of tastes.
https://www.miamiherald.com/miami-com/restaurants/article230535274.html 

 I had the good fortune two weeks ago of being able to speak for a few minutes at their new location to Tony Cao, the owner of the popular Miami-based business. The company had previously been his family's highly-regarded Vicky Bakery & Restaurant, famous in Miami-Dade for their delicious pastries.


It's spelled Cao, but pronounced like the bovine, cow... with the "A" in the logo representing a slice of pie or cake. Tony joked to me that over time he and his business partner had come to say that CAO stood for Cuban American Original.
That's actually reflected in some of the locations on the wall behind the counter.
www.caobakerycafe.com  

With the opening of his Hollywood location on the northwest corner of Hollywood Blvd. and N. 24th Avenue, the site formerly of a Wings 'n Curls but which had laid empty for at least the past 18 months, Tony's successful business will number ten Cuban cuisine footholds in South Florida, and his second in Broward County, with more planned in the future,  including, perhaps, one located somewhere in Hallandale Beach. #CaoHollywood
Their eventual goal? "...to be the Dunkin’ Donuts of Cuban pastries." I can live with that!

Please swing by the Hollywood site tonight if you can and munch on some delicious food and socialize with some of Hollywood's most-involved, most-informed citizenry. ️

Last week I posted the following very sad blog post that you may not have seen because of the holidays and travel, so if you missed it then, please take a look at it when you can.

 In Miami, An Unspeakable Tragedy in a Time of Thanksgiving - South Florida suffers a grievous loss with the death of young and idealistic Alejandra Agreda. This news broke my heart that Saturday night... 
A 2020 that will open with one less concerned and committed civic activist eager and able to make a positive difference in a part of America that's largely bereft of them.

 Screenshot:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2019/12/in-miami-unspeakable-tragedy-in-time-of.html 

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Thursday, December 5, 2019

In Miami, An Unspeakable Tragedy in a Time of Thanksgiving - South Florida suffers a grievous loss. The news about the death of young and idealistic Alejandra Agreda literally broke my heart Saturday night. @VirginTrainsMIA

In Miami, An Unspeakable Tragedy in a Time of Thanksgiving - South Florida suffers a grievous loss. The news about the death of young and idealistic Alejandra Agreda literally broke my heart Saturday night. @VirginTrainsMIA

 So now South Florida leans forward towards a 2020 that will begin with one less concerned, committed civic activist here that's ready, eager and able to make a positive difference on behalf of others in a part of America that's known for its shallowness and selfishness.



I heard from Alejandra/Bryan regularly via Twitter and received dozens and dozens of followups and DMs several times a month. Sometimes, when she was particularly vexed or exorcised about something in particular, I'd receive several of them in one day.

It's fair to say that nobody in South Florida Liked & Retweeted my tweets and blog posts more than Alejandra did, even my non-transit and non-public policy related ones.
But I think at the heart of all of her her questions, to me and to others she tweeted to and emailed,  was a curiosity on her part to understand something fundamental about South Florida.
Something that reminded me of myself when I was that age, namely, her asking me very good and pointed questions abt why SO many things in South Florida -especially regarding public transit- seem SO... perpetually counter-intuitive.

Why was it that even relatively simple things seem to take 3-4 times longer to do here in South Florida than usually seemed to be the case in most other cities in the U.S. and overseas?
Right, besides the usual issues involving corruption, incompetency, and a serious lack of necessary public/govt. oversight!

Once I finally figured out that Ale really was still just a high school student, I told her that I myself had wondered why such a high percentage of South Florida elected officials over the years weren't so much problem-solvers but rather buck-passers and problem-creators.
That I'd wondered that same thing ever since I worked so hard for so long on the Jimmy Carter and Lawton Chiles campaigns in Miami-Dade and South Florida in 1976.

 Yes, back when I was a precocious, well-read sophomore at North Miami Beach Senior High that the professional campaign staff from Washington, D.C. and the Atlanta national campaign HQ always said looked and acted like I was already in college.  Which pleased me to no end., of course.
Combined with the tons of coffee -and a never-ending supply of boxes of peanuts- that positive feedback was more than enough positivity to keep me deal with much of the drudgery in thoise pre-PC, pre-Internet days working over 7 hours a day after schol at Carter-Mondale HQ in North Miami Beach on N.E. 167th Street & NE 6th Avenue, directly behind the iconic Krispy Kreme doughnuts site there that everyone knew and depended upon, including me.

I was honest with Ale and told her I'd met lots of prominent local South Florida pols from working on the campaign and especially doing highly-visible work as part of Walter Mondale's advance team on his hectic South Florida visits from the airport to a million places in 2-3 days.
The truth was that many people whom I'd really expected to like and admire, and had from afar, via Tv or newspaper or magazine articles were, up close, unfortunately, nothing less than... truly appalling people. And dumber than rocks.
Not unlike today in South Florida, unfortunately.

She'd ask me if it'd always been that way, since she knew from what I wrote online that I knew a LOT of insider dope and had a great memory for what things were REALLY like in 1970's and '80's in South Florida, as opposed to how many in the current South South Florida news media recall it publicly. Revisionism.

She was particularly interested in how Metrorail was sold to the Dade public as a ballot issue, compared to its resulting inadequate reality for most of county, esp NE and NW Miami-dade, since she knew I'd written a lot about it and had commented on it at many places online.
Simply put, promises made, promises broken...

Alejandra's Dad Freddy's tweets, which Billy (Corben) linked to at the top, made me cry so very more than I have in quite some time. Really.

Her Dad, Freddy, sent out a very sad and upsetting note out late Saturday night, at bottom, to 
some people in South Florida involved in public policy, politics, govt. and media announcing 
that his only child, Bryan/Alejandra had committed suicide last Tuesday, and had jumped in front 
of one of the Metrorail cars she loved riding in and writing about -and criticizing.
Probably one they'd ridden in dozens and dozens of times.

The news really hit me and I cried much more than I was expecting to, as I read Freddy's note about how Bryan/Alejandra had been bullied and mistreated, which I guess I should've expected, especially
in a place as Hispanic as where we are.

And what really hits you so hard is that the last two tweets she sent right before she jumped - "i could use a hug right now"


and "bon voyage"




Wow! Me being me, a very empathetic ENFP, those tweets hit me like a ton of bricks!

Apparently Ale's father was, eventually, okay with the idea of a "transition," or, at least had reconciled himself to it, but because Ale was 17, well, obviously, there's lots of things involved that could not be done legally right now.

I wound up staying up late Saturday night/Sunday morning writing down some thoughts -some of which I've included here- and shared them with a bunch of the same people her Dad sent his original letter to who'd interacted with Alejandra.

So yeah, I've been feeling very down the last few days, not least because this news has also made me rethink of all the things I knew about someone I loved whose suicide attenpt and the ricky road afterwards, not least, because many of her friends turned their backs on her prior to that because they'd told many times that the person she was getting involved in was trouble. And was.
So, what are we left with? A bright and caring 17-year old kid who wanted Miami/South Florida to be better than it was, and who was utter fascinated by public policy and transit... commits suicide.
By jumping in front of a train she probably had ridden in at least once before.

How the hell do you even begin to make sense of that?
I can only imagine how totally devastated Alejandra's family is right now.

No need to respond to this post, I just needed to get this out of my system.

















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Alejandra's Celebration of Life / Memorial service will be held this Saturday (December 7th) at Mapsons Funeral Home, 3500 SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/alejandra-agredo-miami-riders-alliance


 If you consider her ideas and value the huge amount of dedication and time she invested in building her non-profit and writing her application please donate to allow her team to keep working on it. Thank you so much for reading. Her family and those who ride trains and buses will really appreciate it. Thank you.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/obituaries/article237935779.html

https://twitter.com/Kounikishi/status/1200699123013435392?s=20

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2536385439750099&id=100001360044353






— RIP My Little Heart 💔 (@Kounikishi) December 5, 2019

@BillyCorben, @Kounikishi, @RidersMIA, @VirginTrainsMIA, Alejandra Agreda, Billy Corben, Brightline, City of Miami, development, Florida, Metromover, Metrorail, Miami-Dade County, Miami-Dade Metrorail, redevelopment, RidersMIA, SMART Growth, South Florida, teen suicide, transit, Tri-Rail, Twitter, transportation, Virgin Trains
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Thursday, October 24, 2019

Shabo's Barbecue, one of the most popular restaurants in Downtown #HollywoodFL🌴, serving delicious American-Mediterranean cuisine, is moving 6 doors down the block and re-opening @ its new location, 1814 Harrison St., tomorrow, Friday Oct. 25th @ 5 pm. Come join me and check it out!🍴 Ribbon Cutting/Live Music/Free Champagne

Shabo's Barbecue, one of the most popular restaurants in Downtown #HollywoodFL🌴, serving delicious American-Mediterranean cuisine, is moving 6 doors down the block and re-opening @ its new location, 1814 Harrison St., on Friday Oct. 25th @ 5 pm. 
Come join me and check it out!🍴 
Ribbon Cutting/Live Music/Free Champagne

 Updated October 28, 2019



1814 Harrison Street, Hollywood, Florida 33020
(954) 367-2991
(954) 559-6164
shabosbbq@gmail.com 
www.shabosbarbecue.com
www.facebook.com/falafelfans
www.instagram.com/shabosbbq

  Didn't arrive @ 'new' Shabo's Barbecue #YoungCircle #HollywoodFL til 7 pm yet got inside and was able to congratulate its owner/chef over how beautiful it looked inside + SO much larger than old site! 
Packed w/smiling customers!

My cell phone 📱 was full of photos, literally, no shots left, so I had to use my #Sony 📸
that has no working flash any more, and take only outside shots. :-(
Looking straight on from the sidewalk cafe

Looking east/southeast, you can spot the Hollywood Bread Building peeking out from the SE side of Young Circle on U.S.-1 and Harrison Street


Looking east towards Young Circle and U.S.-1


Looking north/northeast across Young Circle towards The Circ Hotel







Image

Dave 
David B. Smith 

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