Photos of Florida Young Naturists by Beth Black.

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by Joanie Cox

The smell of coconut suntan lotion fills the air as midmorning sunlight bounces around the pool area of Sunsport Gardens, a family-friendly naturist resort tucked off a dirt road in Loxahatchee. Six men and two women, all naked, slide onto benches in a partially shaded picnic spot beside the pool. The group includes members of the Florida Young Naturists, a network of 18- to 30-year-olds who meet up to go swimming, light bonfires and engage in other social activities in a clothing-optional setting.

West Palm Beach resident Robbe White formed the organization on Valentine’s Day in 2009. “Our network is about 100 people strong as far as members go — all throughout Florida,” White says. “We have a group, VitaNuda, that meets in Orlando, too.”

Florida Young Naturists hosts events throughout the year, including Naked Spring Bash, which will take place at Sunsport Gardens April 9-11. “About half the people at Naked Spring Bash last year had never been in that environment before. We had about 150 people come out for the first night for the drum circle and bonfire and 70 campers,” the 26-year-old White says. “But I’m pretty positive that every one of them since then is positive about it and has either come back or corresponded that they wanted to come back. We had an end-of-summer bash also last year, and almost everyone that came to our spring break party showed up at that.”

White, who grew up in a strict Christian home, was discouraged from walking around naked as a child. “I was afraid to be nude in front of my parents or see them naked. I was taught that it was a negative thing that only a husband and wife are supposed to see,” White recalls. “When I was 13, I went on a trip to Jamaica with a Christian group my dad was a part of and ended up at a nude beach by accident. I was shocked at first and didn’t know what to think of it, and I was embarrassed to talk to my dad about it. But ever since then, I’ve just enjoyed the freedom of being naked and some people don’t understand it.”

White says he aims to break though stereotypes about the naturist community. “I hear a lot of, ‘1) Is it old people? 2) Is it all guys? 3) Is it swingers?’ And my answer to all of those is, ‘No,’ ” White says. “Sure, there might be some swingers that are attracted to places like that, but I don’t even like to talk about that because it’s not the reason we’re there, especially Sunsport Gardens, which is a family park. I’ve been to places that seem to cater more to those types of people and those are the places I wouldn’t go back to. There’s a difference between a naturist resort and nudist resort.”

White says a main difference is alcohol. “Sunsport Gardens doesn’t sell alcohol,” he says. “They don’t make a big profit there. There’s a club in Tampa called Caliente, which is sort of like the Disney World of nudist resorts. It’s like being at a naked theme park. There are nightclubs, waterfalls and three or four huge pools, but they’ve kind of sold out. They are attracting more of that adult-lifestyle kind of thing so they’re no longer sponsored by the Naturist Society.”

White finds another difference between nudism and naturism is nudists generally like to go to nude beaches, but not for any particular reason. “They like how it feels or the freedom of it, which is fine,” he says. “But naturism is more about body acceptance and accepting of all people — Christian or pagan, gay or straight, single or couples. They’re really environmentally concerned. That’s another taboo thing: that you can’t be a certain religion and be a naturist because it’s wrong or deviant. But I know some naturists who are really involved with their church and youth group.”

White has been working with Sunsport Gardens owner Morley Schloss to attract more young people to the naturist movement. Schloss, who had his first nude-in-public experience at Woodstock in 1969, also runs a children’s camp during the summer for naturist families. Several hundred people live year-round at Sunsport Gardens, which opened in 1965 and also offers cabin rentals and RV hookups.

Schloss and a group of Sunsport members purchased the resort in 2001. The park’s buildings are covered with solar panels, and an on-site restaurant only serves healthy foods such as wild salmon. Outdoor showers, nature trails, a fitness center, butterfly garden, pool, sauna and Jacuzzi are spread across the 40-acre property, which also includes tennis and volleyball courts and a pond for kayaking. The park’s daily grounds fee costs $23, though students with ID only pay $6.

“Cost can be an issue for young people,” says Sam Miller, a Daytona Beach doctor who joined Florida Young Naturists with his wife, Pam. “I also think it’s something people are curious about. When you first get naked, you really feel naked. But then, you forget about it. I became a nudist at 19 and it was really a paradigm shift.”

Pam Miller wasn’t a nudist when she met her husband. “I was a homebody,” she admits. “I struggled with an eating disorder most of my life, and you come here and it’s extremely liberating. You’ll see women with stretch marks and mastectomies. It’s beautiful to see people in all shapes and sizes. It’s actually easier for me to be naked than wear a bathing suit now. And it’s not that I hate clothes. I love wearing dresses, too. It’s about finding that balance.”

Matt Burns, who graduated from the University of Indianapolis with a degree in business-entrepreneurship and now lives in Fort Lauderdale, says becoming a naturist allowed him to stop worrying about what clothing he wears. “You come here and realize just how much time you waste picking out clothes,” he explains. “A lot of people don’t understand it and think it’s something sexual.”

Burns, who had his first nude encounter in 2004 while spending a semester in Australia, says being a naturist has helped him overcome his shyness. “Some people think we’re a big naked cult. Being naked is actually less sexual to me now,” the 25-year-old says. “We’re all working with the same equipment. You start to pay more attention to faces. When you see someone nude, you can’t tell what their job is or really know anything about them just by looking at them.”

Burns’ comment reminds White of a 2008 trip he took with some naturist friends. “The last night of the event, we all went out in Orlando to do some sightseeing, and it was everyone’s first time seeing each other with clothes on,” White remembers. “Seeing everybody with clothes on, I realized the judgment I had for other people with what type of clothes they were wearing or how they did their hair. If they dressed ghetto or preppy … it just made me realize, ‘Wow, our culture is so critical of each other, especially young people.’ ”

Marco Zeno believes being a naturist allows him to better understand people. “To Americans, naked equals sex,” says Zeno, a Kissimmee resident who grew up on a Seminole reservation, where he wrestled alligators. In 2009, he won the title of Best Alligator Wrestler in the World at the Deep Water Alligator Wrestling Competition in Hollywood. The 22-year-old also has worked as a clown for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

“No matter what it is that you haven’t been exposed to, you will get shaken the first time,” Zeno says. “My last tweet was, ‘I’m driving through Florida with two nudists and an alligator.’ Some people might get freaked out by that, but honestly, that isn’t my strangest tweet.”

Even though more men than women belong to Florida Young Naturists, White says membership among women is growing. “The last time I looked at names, it was 60-40 men to women. But there’s a lot of girls that come out, and it’s just really positive for self-image and people who deal with weight issues,” he argues. “I had so many issues with myself, but seeing myself accepted in what most people would consider a vulnerable state is just so freeing. And you realize nobody has the perfect body and nobody can live up to those standards.”

Kathleen Kraft, a 26-year-old Florida Atlantic University student, officially became a naturist in 2008, though her mother and grandmother lived as naturists when she was a child. “I didn’t know there were more of me out there, especially young people doing this,” she says. “My first public nude experience was modeling for a body-painting artist at Haulover Beach in Miami. There were older people there, and it was a little awkward. I’m comfortable with people of all ages, but I knew there needed to be something like this for young people.”

Kraft says she is tired of the stereotype that naturists are all running around naked and hugging trees. “We come from all different walks of life. I even met an Amish girl,” she says. “There’s a lot of boundary-breaking in the young naturists movement. We’re generally very accepting of all people. We’re into photography and art. We play volleyball together and do yoga. We’re not carrying money or phones because there’s nowhere to put that stuff. It’s about celebrating humanity without the distractions.”

As the morning slides into afternoon, the Florida Young Naturists make a naked exodus from the picnic tables to wander off for a day of kayaking, sunbathing and swimming. “There’s a certain etiquette you must follow when you’re with a big group of naked people,” Zeno says. “If you come into that environment wearing clothes, it’s a lack of respect for the place. We look out for one another. Gawkers and creeps get told off.”

While many people who attend Naked Spring Bash begin the day wearing swimsuits, sarongs or towels, within three hours, Kraft says, many are comfortable enough to take it all off.

“My advice would be to try it. You have nothing to lose,” White says. “You can show up at one of our events or go to Sunsport on your own. And if you don’t like it, you can leave right away. But I think for most people, it would be a positive experience. People need to realize sex is not the only thing you can do naked.”

Naked Spring Bash is open to ages 18 to 30 only. It will take place Friday to Sunday at Sunsport Gardens, 14125 North Road, in Loxahatchee. Admission is free to newcomers, while members will pay $6 a day. Call 561-793-0423 or visit Floridayoungnaturists.com.

Contact Joanie Cox at jcox@citylinkmagazine.com.

Former Florida Marlins pitcher Scott Olsen after his July 21, 2007 arrest in Aventura.

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by Jake Cline and Dan Sweeney

This was Jacksonville Jaguars running back Fred Taylor on the occasion of his Aug. 30, 2008 arrest for disorderly conduct in Miami Beach: “I’m not going to sit here and BS you and say I should have been home. People say it was 4 o’clock in the morning. But we’re in Miami. We’re not in Jacksonville, where everything closes at 2. In Miami, everything opens at 2. You take your nap and you go and have a good time and go home. I was trying to go home.”

Oh, yes, Miami, a city where clubgoers see more sunrises than sunsets, where the real fun only begins after the rest of the world has gone to bed (instead of B.E.D.) and where professional athletes come to sample the libertine lifestyle, flaunt their fame and fortune and, more often than not, get themselves tossed into the hoosegow. But it’s not just Miami and its sister city Miami Beach that draw athletes to jail like frat boys to hazing parties. All of South Florida appears to have this magical ability to glimmer star jocks into behaving criminally at our end of the peninsula. So in honor of the upcoming Super Bowl at Dolphin Stadium, City Link has decided to look back at some of the most-significant athletic arrests in South Florida history. This is by no means a comprehensive list and, if history is any indication, the week of Super Bowl XLIV should provide us plenty of new names should we decide to update it in the future.

EUGENE ROBINSON
Arrested: Jan. 30, 1999
Charge: Solicitation for prostitution
Incident report: Following his accepting of the Bart Starr Award for outstanding moral character at the hands of Christian organization Athletes in Action (seriously, we’re not making that up), Atlanta Falcons safety Eugene Robinson was feeling his oats — or at the very least, the need to sow them. He flagged down a woman on the street and offered her $40 for a blow job. Said woman proved to be an undercover officer.
Sentence: Police dropped the misdemeanor solicitation charge after Robinson agreed to take an AIDS education course.
Aftermath: Robinson missed playing in the next day’s Super Bowl because of the arrest. He went on to play for a year with the Carolina Panthers before hanging up his cleats. He now works as a commentator for the Carolina Panthers Radio Network. On a side note, what the hell is an NFL player doing offering a streetwalker $40 for oral sex? For God’s sake, he’d have his pick of any of a thousand women across Miami Beach, for nothing, all of them way hotter than the average Biscayne Boulevard working girl. Anyway, being a john doesn’t seem to have sullied his reputation too terribly — along with his radio gig, Robinson also works as an assistant coach for the varsity squad at Charlotte Christian School in Charlotte, N.C.

ED BELFOUR AND VILLE PELTONEN
Arrested: April 2, 2007
Charges: Disorderly intoxication and resisting an officer without violence (Belfour) and criminal mischief (Peltonen)
Incident report: Florida Panthers goalie Ed Belfour and teammate Ville Peltonen were having a blast — or getting blasted, your view may vary — at Nikki Beach when they took things too far. Details of the onset of this incident are hazy, but Belfour apparently was acting like an idiot, because security called police to get the goalie to leave. Belfour shoved a cop, and that did it for him. Peltonen was arrested after he broke a metal pole off a nearby fire truck.
Sentence: Both players accepted plea deals. Peltonen did 15 hours of community service, made a $200 contribution to the Police Athletic League and paid $185.31 to fix the pole. Belfour served 20 hours of community service, made an equal contribution to the PAL and wrote an apology to the arresting officer. In Belfour’s case, he got off light, given that he had previously been arrested for resisting arrest in 2000.
Aftermath: Peltonen was re-signed by the Panthers, but Belfour’s next job was with a team in the Swedish Hockey Division. Belfour was already a little past his prime when the incident occurred, and we have to think that that’s why the Panthers released him. After all, what’s a little nightclub scuffle when your day job is beating the hell out of people for money?

LAWRENCE TAYLOR
Arrested: Nov. 8, 2009
Charge: Leaving the scene of an accident
Incident report: Taylor was cruising through Hialeah when he allegedly ran into another car and then took off. The Florida Highway Patrol later pulled him over and, when they explained to Taylor what he had done, the legendary New York Giants linebacker responded that he thought he had just struck a guard rail. Troopers did not administer a sobriety test.
Sentence: The case is ongoing.
Aftermath: The incident is too recent for any blowback to have happened yet, but come on now. It’s freaking Lawrence Taylor. He once showed up to practice in handcuffs because the hookers he was with the night before couldn’t find the key. By his own estimate, he blew thousands of dollars every day on drugs when he was in his prime. You think he’s sweating this?

GILBERT ARENAS AND AWVEE STOREY
Arrested: May 27, 2006
Charges: Failure to obey a command (Storey) and resisting an officer without violence (Arenas)
Incident report: Ah, Memorial Day weekend in Miami Beach. There’s always an arrest or 10, but it’s unusual when professional athletes get picked off. Back in 2006, the cops decided to get draconian in their crackdowns. When Storey was told by police to get out of the street and he didn’t, they arrested him. Arenas then left his car and stood by Storey. When the cops told him to get back in his car, he refused, saying, “I’m not going to leave my teammate.” They arrested him, too.
Sentence: Both players copped to plea deals in which charges were dropped in exchange for charity donations.
Aftermath: Storey had already been busted down to the Dakota Wizards, the Washington Wizards’ development team. The next season, he bashed a teammate in the head during a practice, fracturing his skull and giving him a concussion. Storey never played in the NBA again. He was last heard of Nov. 10, 2009, when it was announced that he was being released by the New Zealand Breakers. As for Arenas, you may have heard that he recently subjected his teammates to gunplay in the locker room at Verizon Center, where he still plays for the Wizards. This past Wednesday, the NBA announced it was suspending him indefinitely without pay until it had completed an investigation.

DONTE STALLWORTH
Arrested: March 14, 2009
Charge: DUI manslaughter
Incident report: After slamming shots with fellow Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards in the early-morning hours of March 14, 2009 at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, Donté Stallworth decided he wanted some breakfast to soak up all that Patrón Silver in his system. But first, the man needed to take a nap. So at about 4 a.m., he fired up his 2005 Bentley, drove to his Miami condominium for some shut-eye and woke up a couple of hours later with a belly full of hunger and a brain that was floating like a worm in a tequila bottle. Getting back in his car, the 28-year-old Stallworth boarded the already-busy MacArthur Causeway shortly after 7:15. Tragically, crane operator Mario Reyes had just knocked off work and was rushing toward a bus stop when an impatient Stallworth sped his car around the vehicle stopped in front of his at a red light and struck the pedestrian Reyes, killing the 59-year-old husband and father. A toxicology test revealed traces of marijuana in Stallworth’s system and a blood-alcohol level of .126. The legal limit in Florida is .08.
Sentence: After pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter, Stallworth was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 10 years’ probation and two years of house arrest. He was given 1,000 hours of community service and forbidden to drive for the remainder of his life. The football player also reached an undisclosed financial settlement with Reyes’ family. Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the Miami-Dade state attorney, reportedly didn’t seek a prison sentence for Stallworth because he manned up and accepted responsibility for killing Reyes. (Of course, Fernandez Rundle was not in the least starstruck by Stallworth and certainly would offer the same plea deal to any poor and nonfamous pedestrian-killer among us.) Stallworth was released from jail after only serving 24 days, proving that justice not only is blind but mentally imbalanced whenever it encounters a celebrity who breaks the law.
Aftermath: Even though the terms of Stallworth’s plea deal allow him to continue his career in the NFL, the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, suspended Stallworth indefinitely from the league this past June. Not surprisingly — because this is the way the world works for everyone save we little people — Stallworth remains on the Browns’ roster and will be eligible for reinstatement the day after the Super Bowl.

JOSE AND OZZIE CANSECO
Arrested: Oct. 31, 2001
Charges: Felony aggravated battery
Incident report: Jose Canseco appears to have never met an object he didn’t want to hit. Before retiring from Major League Baseball in 2002, the one-time American League MVP slapped 462 home runs, logged 1,401 RBIs and posted a career .286 batting average. While his off-field slugging percentage has been far from impressive, it certainly has been notable. In 1992, he reportedly slammed his Porsche into a BMW being driven by his first wife, picking up an aggravated assault charge in the process. Five years later, the Cuban-born, Miami-raised Canseco was arrested for smacking his wife and ordered by a judge to get counseling. All that was mere batting practice for the big game he and twin brother Ozzie played Halloween 2001 at the now-closed Miami Beach nightclub Opium Garden. Claiming a tourist partying at the club had groped a female companion of the Cansecos, Jose grabbed the man by the neck, reared back and popped him in the nose so hard he snapped it like a hollowed-out Louisville slugger over his steroid-enhanced knee. The tourist’s friend jumped in, and so did Ozzie, who left the second tourist with a gash in his lip that required 20 stitches to close.
Sentence: In November 2002, as jury selection was beginning in the Canseco brothers’ trial, Jose pleaded guilty to one count of felony aggravated battery and two counts of misdemeanor battery and received a sentence of three years’ probation, 250 hours of community service and anger-management training. Ozzie pleaded guilty to one count of felony battery and one count of misdemeanor battery and accepted 18 months’ probation, 200 hours of community service and anger-management training.
Aftermath: While Jose Canseco appeared to cease hitting everything save the steroids following his plea deal, he continued to take potshots at common sense. On Feb. 18, 2003, Canseco was arrested for violating the terms of his probation after he spent more than 30 days outside the state of Florida, didn’t clock a single community-service hour or show up to an anger-management class. A judge ordered him to get reacquainted with the Miami-Dade County Jail for 30 days, tacked on an additional three years’ probation and sentenced him to two years’ house arrest. None of this, however, prevented Canseco from becoming the prophet of Major League Baseball’s steroid scandal when in 2006 he published the best-selling tell-all Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids and How Baseball Got Big. In 2008, he unleashed a followup titled Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars and the Battle To Save Baseball.
Ozzie, meanwhile, scored his own probation violation in May 2003 when he was arrested in Charlotte County for possession of anabolic steroids and for driving with a suspended license. He reportedly was sentenced to four months in jail for the charges. Unlike his brother, he has not published any best-selling memoirs, though he pretended to be Jose on the fifth season of the VH1 reality program The Surreal Life.

SCOTT OLSEN
Arrested: July 21, 2007
Charges: DUI, resisting an officer with violence and fleeing and eluding a police officer
Incident report: Drafted by the Florida Marlins in 2002, when he was only 18 years old, Scott Olsen made his Major League debut with the team in 2005 and remained a starting pitcher for the team until he was traded to the Washington Nationals in 2008. He and his throwing arm posted decent numbers for the Fish: In 2006, he went 12-10 and broke the franchise’s single-season record for strikeouts with 166 K’s. The following season, he was one of three Marlins pitchers to earn 10 wins.
The problem for Olsen, at least during his time with the Marlins, was that his mouth could throw as much heat as his arm. With a temper that went nuclear at the slightest hint of insult, a relationship with baseball fans that bordered on dysfunctional, and the second-most-memorable incident of drunkenness in Marlins history (see Dontrelle Willis item below), Olsen acted more like a member of the 1986 Mets than the 2006 Marlins. He enjoyed well-documented dustups with teammates Sergio Mitre, Miguel Cabrera and Randy Messenger (who gave Olsen a black eye). Olsen once so angered then-Marlins manager Joe Girardi that the future Yankees skipper grabbed the pitcher by the jersey and dragged him inside the dugout tunnel during a game.
Now for that DUI: After leading the Marlins to a 10-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday, July 20, Olsen understandably felt like celebrating, which he did until 3:40 a.m. when his Infiniti SUV registered 48 mph in a 35 mph zone on an Aventura Police officer’s radar gun. When the officer signaled to Olsen to pull over, the pitcher took off, running a stop sign on the way to his home in Aventura, where he then rushed to his front patio and plopped down in a plastic chair. The officer called for backup, whom the apparently inebriated Olsen welcomed to the scene with a few poorly placed kicks he possibly learned by watching his long-legged peer Willis on the mound. (Willis, coincidentally, was acting as Olsen’s wingman that evening and was following behind him in his own car when the officer caught him speeding. Willis was not charged with any crime in connection with Olsen’s failed getaway attempt.) As Olsen demonstrated his pseudo-karate skills, one of the cops broke out a Taser and lit up the sodden Marlin like the scoreboard at Dolphin Stadium. Subdued at last, Olsen was booked into Miami-Dade County Jail on the above-mentioned charges. He posted an $11,000 bond the following day and was released.
Sentence: A month after his arrest, Olsen dodged a felony conviction by enrolling in a police-approved pretrial diversion program.
Aftermath: In November 2008, the Marlins traded Olsen to the Washington Nationals, the worst team in Major League Baseball. Injured throughout most of the 2009 season, Olsen only recorded 11 games, winning two, losing four and scraping together a 6.03 ERA. Nonetheless, the team re-signed him last month with a 1-year, $1 million contract.

DONTRELLE WILLIS
Arrested: Dec. 22, 2006
Charge: DUI
Incident report: Dontrelle Willis, the MLB pitcher known for his idiosyncratic windup, wildly erratic career and genial personality, was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 2003, the same year he won a spot on the NL All-Star team and helped lead the Florida Marlins to its second World Series championship. Willis’ greatest rookie move, however, came three years later during a night of hard partying on South Beach. About 4 a.m. Dec. 22, a police officer saw the 6-foot-4 ace double-park his black Bentley on Washington Avenue, stumble from the car and proceed to piss right there in the street. As ESPN reported, the officer was called to respond to an emergency but returned in time to find Willis “confused and disoriented,” reeking of alcohol and unable to maintain his balance. Willis was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and taken to Miami-Dade County Jail, where he refused to take a Breathalyzer test. He was released later that day after posting $1,000 bond.
Sentence: Willis’ drunk-driving charges were reduced to a careless-driving charge. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay fines and court costs of $761 and sentenced to six months’ probation and 50 hours of community service.
Aftermath: In a mea culpa outside the jailhouse upon his release, Willis told reporters that, and we’re paraphrasing here, taking a leak beside your double-parked Bentley in South Beach is not the kind of example a star baseball player should set for his fans. “I’ll do a better job,” he vowed. While Willis has backed up that statement by curbing his urge to whiz on city streets, his performance at his day job has been less than stellar. After being traded to the Detroit Tigers following a 2007 season with the Marlins that saw him go 10-15 in 35 games, the one-time 22-game winner spent his first year in the Motor City playing only eight games, winning none and losing two. His 2009 season was not much better. He went 1-4 in seven games and twice went on the 15-day disabled list for an anxiety disorder. Willis has one year remaining in his $29 million contract with the Tigers.

DENNIS RODMAN
Arrested: Nov. 15, 1999
Charge: Misdemeanor simple battery
Incident report: Ten years after retiring from the NBA, Dennis Rodman may be more famous for his post-basketball career as a reality-TV star, nightclub habitué and all-around troublemaker than for anything he achieved on the court (though his achievements arguably are worthy of the Hall of Fame). His run-ins with the law are too numerous to fully recount here, though he did have the decency to get himself arrested in our back yard on Nov. 15, 1999. At 7 that morning, police responded to reports that a man and a woman were fighting at the Bentley Hotel in Miami Beach. The officers arrived to find the couple was none other than Rodman and former Baywatch star Carmen Elektra, whose 10-day marriage had been annulled the year before. The pair was taken to Miami-Dade County Jail, where they remained handcuffed for several hours before being released on $2,500 bail each and ordered to stay at least 500 feet from one another.
Sentence: Perhaps realizing that it wouldn’t take Rodman long to show up in another courtroom on a more-serious charge, a judge dropped the misdemeanor charges against the former baller and his ex-wife.
Aftermath: Five weeks later, Rodman was arrested for drunken driving in Costa Mesa, Calif. He currently can be seen in the VH1 reality series Celebrity Rehab.

Contact Jake Cline at jcline@citylinkmagazine and Dan Sweeney at dfsweeney@citylinkmagazine.com.

• The Heavy Pets. South Florida’s finest jam band — and one of the best in the nation, really — will perform Monday through Wednesday at Tobacco Road, 626 S. Miami Ave., in Miami. Each show begins at midnight, admission is free and concertgoers can get to the venue via the monorail. Call 305-374-1198 or visit Tobacco-road.com.

• Landarado. Cribbing its name from the sadly defunct Langerado Music Festival, this event, cobbled together by Humbert bassist and serious Phishhead Tony Landa, will feature a performance by Humbert — the band’s first outing since singer-guitarist Ferny Coipel suffered life-threatening injuries in a freak scooter accident (welcome back, Ferny!) — as well as the Nag Champayons, King Bee and Electric Piquete. The concert, meant to welcome arriving Phish fans to our beloved 305, will take place 9 p.m. Sunday at Churchill’s Pub, 5501 N.E. Second Ave., in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Admission is free. Call 305-757-1807 or visit Landarado.com.

• Black Curtains at the White Room. This Phish afterparty will feature national dubstep and electro acts such as Break Science (playing Monday), Boombox (Tuesday) and EOTO (Wednesday, Dec. 30), which includes Michael Travis and Jason Hann of the String Cheese Incident. Several local acts will share the bill, including Afrobeta, DJ LeSpam and the JeanMarie. The headliners at the Black Curtain shows will take the stage as soon as Phish exits its own. The concerts will take place Monday through Wednesday at the White Room, 1306 N. Miami Ave., in Miami. Tickets cost $15 in advance, $20 at the door, and the White Room is just a mile from American Airlines Arena. Call 305-995-5050 or visit Underonebeat.com.

• The Word. Just as Landarado will welcome fans to South Florida, so the Word will see them off. The group, which includes Robert Randolph, John Medeski and the members of the North Mississippi All-Stars, will play a Jam Cruise preparty, but the concert dovetails nicely with the Phish shows, so what the heck. The show will begin 8 p.m. Jan. 1 at the Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Highway, in Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $30. Call 954-564-1074 or visit Cultureroom.net.

• Jam Cruise. For the true trustafarian, there is only one way to handle the new year –- Landarado, all four nights of Phish, the Word and, finally, Jam Cruise, which will leave from Port Everglades Jan. 3 for a six-day cruise that will stop in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and George Town, Cayman Islands. Also onboard: STS9, the Word, Dweezil Zappa, Galactic, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Maceo Parker and two dozen other bands. The cruise is sold-out. We just included this to taunt those of you who aren’t going. But if you’d like to start plans for next year, check out Jamcruise.com.

— Dan Sweeney

Men who stepped into yesterday: Phish will begin a four-night stand at the American Airlines Arena Monday, Dec. 28.

by Dan Sweeney

My first Phish show took place Nov. 15, 1996 at the Kiel Center in St. Louis, where the St. Louis Blues play hockey. I knew next to nothing about the band, apart from what I heard on A Live One and the then-recently released Billy Breathes. It was bitter cold, as late fall often is in Missouri, and the hippie chicks wore their winter dresses — the thick, woolen patchwork things, as opposed to the thin, cotton ones they’d wear on the summer tour. A whole sea of dropouts, freaks and acidheads ambled about before the show, interspersed with the occasional older man in a Starter jacket, scalping tickets to the few who needed them and had the ability to pay. The tour kids sold grilled cheese and burritos to make enough money for bread and gas, to make it the next show and the next, living like Gypsies.

I had just turned 20, and I fit right in with the crowd, despite being unaware of the band and what it could do. When our group stepped inside the Kiel, our brains were already half-fried. The band came on and opened with “Wilson,” and the crowd’s chanting along did in the other half.

That night was known henceforth as “the ‘M’ show” among tapers, as at least one word in each song in the second set began with that letter, with the exception of the closer, “Weekapaug Groove.” I recall “McGrupp” and the “Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” segueing into “Avenu Malkenu” back into “Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday” as being particular standouts, as well as the appearance of Blues Traveler’s John Popper halfway through a cover of the Beatles’ “Mean Mr. Mustard.” Trey Anastasio thanked the crowd at the end of the night and announced, “This show has been brought to you by the letter M and the number 420.”

Afterward, we drove the two hours back to the University of Missouri. The next day, we bought tickets for Phish’s Nov. 19 show in Kansas City, a show that featured, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest “AC/DC Bag” in the band’s history.

The next semester of college passed slowly. When it was over, I wrapped a tie-dye bandanna around my head, threw on a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, got in my car and turned Gypsy.The next three years were a weird road to travel. I’d meet people on the tour whom I’d met the year before, in different places and sometimes under different names. One time, I sat down to a poker game in Columbia, Mo., once I had gone back to school, and across the table was a guy who the summer before had saved my place in line at the showers in a campground near the Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Ind.

Even I wasn’t immune to the vagaries of the touring life. Some folks knew me as Dan, others knew me as Moses, for reasons that really are best left unwritten but have to do with a hotel party in Kansas City, a dozen police officers, the gang beating of a vicious crackhead and a midnight flight to the next show. Let it never be said that the touring life is all love and peace.

After three years of getting on and off the road, back and forth between college and concert venues throughout the country, I finally hung up my spurs after driving some 16 hours, followed by 13 hours of dead-stop traffic, to attend the band’s marathon show at South Florida’s Big Cypress Indian Reservation on New Year’s Eve, 1999. That night, after a three-set show the day before and an afternoon set on New Year’s Eve, Phish came onstage a few minutes before midnight and played for seven and a half hours, with no set breaks. When the sun came up as the band played a God-slaying version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” I stood among a sea of 85,000 people, most of whom had collapsed during the night, sleeping in the grass before the stage. But not me. I stood among the fallen, and though the band had not yet announced its hiatus or the subsequent breakup, I felt that I was seeing it for the last time, nonetheless.

I caught the group once more before its hiatus at the end of 2000, and once again between its return from hiatus and the announcement that the band would break up permanently following a final two-day festival in Coventry, Vt. By that time, I lived here in South Florida, far from the Green Mountain State. But I never harbored any doubt that I’d make it to Coventry for the shows on Aug. 14 and 15, 2004. A marathon drive up the East Coast, a couple of days freaking out in New York, and then, there was Coventry. A bad storm turned the festival site into a giant mud field. Cars could only get in one or two at a time. After 24 straight hours of dead-stop traffic, I arrived at the show with Brian Noonan, a friend who had been with me for most of my experiences with the band. The mud was a foot deep in places, as if those photos of naked, filthy hippies at Woodstock had all come to life in a writhing sea of dirt and tie-dye. Phish, drowned. But I had said goodbye to the band, for the last time, whatever it meant. I left my tie-dyed bandanna there in the mud, came home, and wrote an article headlined “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” with the subhead “Phish Plays Final Show in Ninth Circle of Hell, Sinful Fans Remain Unrepentant.”

Four years later, Phish announced it was getting back together. My first thought: Fuck. This. Band. Did I mention the 24 hours of nonstop, bumper-to-bumper traffic I went through to say goodbye? The horror show that was Coventry? Even the crowd hadn’t been the same there, all heroin and cocaine instead of acid and grass. And now, after wallowing in the sinister hard drugs and high tides, this band had the fucking balls to get back together? You’ve got to be kidding me! There was no way I’d see them again. No way.

And then, after Phish’s Halloween festival in California, Noonan called up and said, “They’re hot, man. Better than anything since the ’90s.”

Goddamn it.

So here I am, with ticket stubs in my hand, still tied in knots over the memory that the long road ended with a menacing “plunge in the sludge,” as the band’s “Destiny Unbound” goes. But maybe that tune has it right in its final words: There isn’t even any road. Our destiny was bound.

The rocky animal trails I and so many others traveled had been blazed by others long years before, beatniks and hippies, failed seekers on a pilgrimage to nowhere, in search of meaning and community in a world with little of either. So that now, when I look back and try to write a story on what the whole trip meant, what being on the road meant, I am struck by that line. There isn’t any road. Our destiny is bound.

And I am bound for the American Airlines Arena. Because however pissed I may be that this band made a mockery of my hard-earned goodbye, it doesn’t outweigh the giddy joy I feel in seeing it again. And I know everyone will be there, in spirit if not in body –- that gorgeous, tiny blond girl who gave me a backrub in a campground outside Noblesville, Ind. The man with the long, red hair who held my place in line and lost a bad beat to me months later, flush to four of a kind. That impossibly hairy guy who was drinking nacho cheese inside the Kiel Center, the first thing I saw inside my first show. A thousand other memories that made me laugh and sigh and feel a part of something larger. There isn’t any road, because a road implies that the traveler is moving forward with a goal in mind. There isn’t any road, because for those few years, the road was the goal.

Contact Dan Sweeney at dfsweeney@citylinkmagazine.com.

By Mike Rothman

Jaime Edmondson has quite the résumé. A former Boca Raton Police officer who left the force to rejoin the Miami Dolphins cheerleading squad, with whom she had worked while studying criminology at Florida Atlantic University, Edmondson last year added the title of reality-TV star to her curriculum vitae when she appeared as a contestant on the 14th season of CBS’ The Amazing Race.

Edmondson and her race partner, fellow ex-Dolphins cheerleader Cara Rosenthal, finished third in the competition, missing out on a million-dollar prize. The show may not have made Edmondson rich, but it did, thanks to her fiercely competitive nature, frequent shouting and apparent xenophobia, earn her the dubious distinction of being the closest thing the race had to a villain. This past April, the Yahoo! TV Blog named Edmondson one of the “Most Questionable Characters of Reality TV,” placing her on a list that also included Jon and Kate Gosselin, Hell’s Kitchen’s Gordon Ramsay and The Real Housewives of New York City’s Kelly Bensimon.

“She hates it when people do not speak English,” the blog’s author wrote of Edmondson, “so it makes perfect sense that she would want to go on a show that constantly requires her to communicate with people who do not speak English. She’s also ridiculously impatient, a yeller and a huge embarrassment to her lovely teammate Cara.”

The 30-year-old Edmondson seems to be unfazed by the criticism, none of which prevented her from making her latest high-profile career move: This Friday, Edmondson will appear on newsstands as Playboy magazine’s Miss January. City Link recently spoke to Edmondson about her centerfold, The Amazing Race, her time with the Boca PD and shooting guns in the Georgia woods.

How did you get involved with Playboy?

I didn’t go about it in the traditional way. I did not see myself at 30 becoming a Playmate. I didn’t know they had Playmates at 30, which they have, and I’m the first in five years. At the end of [The Amazing Race], I didn’t know what I was going to do. I joked that maybe Playboy would call.

So my friend talked to her agent, unbeknownst to me, and got in touch with the [magazine’s] West Coast editor. They called and wanted to do a story on the two of us. She is in law school and had to decline. A couple days later, they called back and wanted to know what I thought about trying to be a Playmate. I asked if they knew I was not 19 and not blonde. So I sent pictures in to the editor.

I got a call from them that said Hef loved my pictures and wanted to fly me out to test to be a Playmate. I was wondering where Ashton [Kutcher] was because I was sure I was being punked. So I spent four days at the mansion. One week later, I saw the phone ringing with a 310 area code. So I answered it and started to say, “Thank you so much for the opportunity … ” and they broke in and said that [Hefner] said yes. My whole body broke out in goose bumps.

What was the theme of your

centerfold shoot?

My theme was after racing around the world on The Amazing Race in all the unglamorous places, a mystery man is whisking me away. First, I take a vintage train to Paris. The next set is actually New Year’s Eve and it is a nightclub. In the background, you can see the Eiffel Tower. The inside is blues and purples like South Beach coloring. At the end, the last set is returning to the French hotel room.

I really liked it. It is not like their normal, cutesy look. They told me I’m just not the type of girl to be holding a teddy bear. Mine was a little bit more sophisticated and elegant than the normal sets.

You grew up in both South Florida and Georgia.

I was born passing through Bartow, Fla. My father was in the military and we were just passing through. I grew up in Georgia till I was 5. When I was 5, my mom met my stepdad and we moved to South Florida. From that point on, I spent every summer in Georgia with my dad and school year back in Florida with my mom.

So I can do both. I can ride four-wheelers and shoot guns in the country with my dad in a place in Georgia with one traffic light. I also went to high school in Oakland Park at Northeast High.

How did you end up working in law enforcement?

Well, my whole family consists of police officers. My whole life, that is just what I thought I was going to be. I wanted to work for the federal government and wanted to be an undercover spy. It was the only life I knew and I loved it.

So I graduated with my bachelor’s in criminology and went to the police academy right after. Then, I discovered that people are not receptive to people who don’t look like they are supposed to be police officers.

Why did you leave the Boca police department?

Well, I cheered for four years for the Dolphins when I was in college. I went to the police department for two years after. Then, I did two more years with the Dolphins after leaving the department.

So after my fourth year cheering, I thought I was done and hanging up my pompoms. As soon as I got hired, it spread like wildfire through the department that they had a cheerleader. And [my fellow officers said], “What do we need a cheerleader for?” I literally could have saved a school full of children and they would never have seen me in another way. They only saw me as a cheerleader. So I left and went back to the Dolphins. It was the best thing that could have happened because I have had so many more opportunities with that. If I had stayed, I’d still be working the night shift.

What is one of the craziest things that happened to you while working as a cop?

It was 3 a.m. and I saw this truck driving 5 mph. Obviously, he was probably drunk. I pulled him over, and it was one guy, who was looking around. I asked for his license and registration, and he’s looking at me, looking around, looking over his shoulder. I’m like, “I need your license and registration.”

He said, “Is this for my birthday?”

I did not catch on at first. I asked for his license and registration again. He was perplexed and kept looking around. I asked who he was looking for, and he said his friends. He asked again if this was for his birthday. Then, it dawned on me when I looked at his license and it was his birthday. This guy truly believed in his heart that I was his birthday present.

I said, “Sir, if I was for your birthday, I would not be wearing this asexual costume. I’d be wearing something more sexy like a Halloween costume.”

Describe your experience on The Amazing Race.

I had wanted to be on the show since I first saw it. Finally, last year I was committed to doing it and it was now or never. It was not fun. I am sure there were a few moments that were fun, like we had to sing karaoke in Bangkok. That was fun.

For the most part, it wasn’t fun but it was an amazing experience. You couldn’t have paid a million dollars to have that experience. … We went to nine countries in 23 days. I have to go back to these countries again because I never got a chance to stop and smell the roses while I was there. I am very competitive. I am very focused. So I never lost sight of that. My character oftentimes came off as a bitch and that everyone should have to help me. That was not the case. I was just not there to make friends. I was there to make a million dollars and this was a race. You have to have a sense of urgency or you are going to lose.

How do you feel about being included on that Yahoo! list along with Gordon Ramsay and Jon Gosselin?

I’m actually not offended by being compared to Gordon, because he is a no-nonsense kind of guy and I like that. I actually prefer people like that. He gives praise where praise is due and worries about the results. I also love his show.

As for Jon, you will see in my Playboy bio that I don’t like guys that wear Bedazzled shirts. He wears Ed Hardy, which I can’t stand.

Mike Rothman can be reached at mkrothman@tribune.com.