1 p.m.
You might recall that the Miami Herald recently
ran a lengthy story about the topic of Facebook
which NEVER discussed the legal aspects of this
sort of social networking tools for public officials
and or govt. agencies.
I read the story closely three times just to make
sure I wasn't missing it.
Nope, the Herald never mentioned it, even while
I kept waiting for them to discuss the obvious reason
for concern in the next paragraph.
(Secret coded messages, for instance, to let
people/lobbyists know inside info, as I've
heard has already happened elsewhere in
the country.
The ol' hiding-in-plain sight angle!)
Par for the course at the Herald of late, sad to say,
that particular paragraph never ever appeared.
As of now, I plan on being at the workshop at
Hollywood City Hall Wednesday morning at
11 a.m. to discuss the future of the Johnson Street
area of the beach -now that Marriott took a powder-
which was long one of our family's hangouts after
we moved here 41 years ago, and a place my
two younger sisters and I knew like the back
of our hand when we were growing-up down
here, when they had trampolines there.
That's before the regular Hollywood City
Commission meeting at 1 p.m.
Later tonight, I'm going to try to post something
about that meeting here along with some links to
photographs of the Johnson Street area over the
past 40 years.
I may even try to swing by Johnson Street before
Comm. London's Resident Forum meeting at
the HB Cultural Center at 6 p.m. -his last one
until September- and snap some recent shots
of the bandshell.
Then I'll have a means of comparison, as well as
show the original renderings from the printed
presentation that Marriott and Zyscovich
put together from
over two years ago. which I immediately thought
was the best of the myriad hotel proposals
presented at the time, in large part because of
the public entertainment aspect to the plan.
Trust me, if NMB had had a bandshell/stage like
Hollywood's while I was growing-up down here
in the '70's, especially AT THE BEACH over
at Sunny Isles,
I absolutely guarantee you that my friends and
I would've figured out a way to mobilize and
convince the powers-that-be at NMB City Hall
to give us the go-ahead to make sure that high
school age kids in NMB got the opportunity
to play there for at least 2-4 hours a month on
Friday or Saturday nights, so that people could
get the valuable experience of performing LIVE,
whether as part of an organized school or church
effort, an actual musical group or as a solo act.
It would've been a big improvement over the
impromptu music that took place once in a while
over on the Intercoastal side of Haulover Beach
that I used to be witness to.
Located right near the water, while not exactly
California hip in ambiance, like it would be in
some TV show or film set in Santa Monica, Malibu
or Santa Barbara, it was better than nothing.
That is, until it started raining and everybody
ran into their cars like wet rats, and all the older
kids decided to split and go somewhere else in
their cars -without us!- like Greynolds Park
or the Hollywood Fashion Mall (back when
that was THE place if you were bored by the
usual suspects at the 163rd Street Shopping Center.
down the street from my house), leaving
9th-grade me and my friends stuck having
to wait and catch the H bus on A1A back to the
163rd Street Shopping Center.
Very, very un-cool and embarrassing!
In retrospect, given the resource they have
that nobody else around here has, it's pretty
clear that the City of Hollywood should've been
much smarter 25-30 years ago and and figured
out some logical way of better integrating
high school age kids into civic and social
activities than they did, and one way would've
been simple: music.
Have musical competitions or a battle of the
bands, say kids with bands from South Broward
High vs. Hollywood Hills, while integrating
individual singers or jazz or classical acoustic
musicians in-between acts, and maybe combine
the actual high school bands from different
schools for holiday shows or special occasions.
Maybe if they'd done that then, there'd actually
be extant photos of a young Johnny Depp from
Hallandale performing with his band, if they were
composed of Hollywood kids, at the bandshell,
and he'd be better known for his music than his
acting.
It's not too late for the City of Hollywood to see the
light and make up for all that lost time and give some
talented local kids in the city the chance to perform
live, and create a very positive dynamic there using
resources they already have.
And you use the spirit of competition to get the best
out of the kids.
If you didn't see this yesterday on Channel 4...
Hollywood Neighbors Get Grief From Squatters
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Brittany Wallman's article from yesterday which
is the basis of this post is at
and the reader comments are at:
