Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

by Carl Hiaasen

  "Let's Do It Till November," by DJ Jazzy Bob

  Yo, I'm Governor Bad

  And I'm happy to say

  Finally got an issue

  That breaks my way.

  Found some dirty words

  In a jive rap song

  So I'm takin' the position

  That smut is wrong.

  Now I ain't heard the music,

  And I ain't read the law,

  But I read my campaign polls

  And I know what I saw.

  I'm in real deep doo-doo

  So I better act fast,

  Gotta get me some headlines,

  Gotta save my a—.

  Hey, I don't wanna rap

  about the D.O.T.

  I know it's outta money,

  but don't blame me.

  And I don't wanna talk

  about the H.R.S.

  Yo, enough already!

  I know it's a mess.

  Don't know what's dirty?

  Say, leave it to me,

  For the final definition

  Of obscenity.

  Don't need no Constitution

  To tell me what to do.

  Gonna confiscate some albums,

  Maybe videos, too.

  Be a music censor,

  Just to see how it looks.

  If the polls jump up,

  Then I'm goin' after books!

  At his funniest and most playful, Hiaasen still remains dedicated to what he considers his responsibility to the public—being straightforward and up-front. "A columnist is paid to take a stand. If a reader can't figure out how I feel about something, then I don't deserve to take my paycheck home that week, because I copped out," Hiaasen says. "I feel strongly about the advocacy role of the columnist."

  Certainly, he has never shied away from directly tackling issues in the public interest, even when doing so cost the Herald money, as in 1994 when the Lennar Corporation, implicated in the construction scandals following Hurricane Andrew, withdrew advertising because Hiaasen lambasted his own newspaper for promoting Lennar's new home giveaway contest. "According to an exciting full-page advertisement," he wrote, "a lucky reader will win Lennar's 'Home of the Future.' This is not to be confused with Lennar's 'homes of the past,' many of which splintered like Popsicle sticks during Hurricane Andrew." Particularly scathing, this column suggests that, as a "marvel of modern engineering," the home of the future might be made of shingles "actually nailed to the roofs," gables "actually anchored to the walls," real plywood in place of "pressed fiber-board," and might therefore remain "vertical, even in 100-mile per hour winds." (Interestingly, two years later, Hiaasen again had occasion to write about Lennar Homes, when sinkholes full of trash opened up behind houses in a Miramar subdivision the company had built. After 250 truckloads of "tires, rotting tree limbs, rusty appliances and construction debris" were hauled away, the remaining pit filled with brown water and had to be fenced.)

  Despite its loss of a major advertiser, the Herald never told Hiaasen to stop writing about Lennar, even though "at many, many other newspapers there would have been a heel on the back of my neck to lay off," he says. The Herald also printed Hiaasen's criticism of the newspaper's then-publisher, Dave Lawrence, when he contemplated running for governor in 1998. While praising Lawrence as a "smart, decent, compassionate fellow who cares about Florida and believes fervently in the innate goodness of mankind," Hiaasen also vigorously objected to the "untenable and queasy position" his candidacy would have created for "this newspaper, the reporters, columnists and editors who produce it." Anything Herald staffers wrote about Lawrence or his opponent, Hiaasen pointed out, could have been perceived as coming from "Lawrence's personal campaign machine," and not from the independent voices the public was entitled to hear.

  "What would our readers have thought if I stayed silent? I couldn't. The only way I knew to let our readers know it's business as usual was to do the same kind of tough column on Dave I would do on anyone," Hiaasen says. "It put us in a helluva position." The column in which he takes on his own boss (who was less surprised perhaps than others at the Herald, Hiaasen says, and who remains to this day a friend) begins with that customary punch:

  It's definitely something in the water. First there was Mayor Loco, now we've got Publisher Loco.

  David Lawrence, Jr., the head honcho of this newspaper, is considering a run for the governorship of Florida. Seriously.

  Lawrence has never held public office. He has no fund-raising organization, and thus no funds. Most voters in Florida don't have a clue who he is. And the primaries are only five months away.

  But that's our Mr. Lawrence, optimist to a fault. Since he's the Big Cheese around the newsroom, I ought to be circumspect about this bizarre situation. So here goes:

  Dave, have you completely lost your marbles?

  Although Hiaasen claims he took no real risks in criticizing his own publisher, such columns illustrate why former city editor Dave Satterfield likens their impact to "a baseball bat to the forehead." Calling him "one of the strongest voices in Miami," Satterfield says that because Hiaasen looks at issues in terms of right and wrong rather than according to some narrower agenda, he appeals to a wide readership. "He's looked up to throughout the community not only to be the voice of reason, but to deliver," Satterfield says. "You can cross any of those racial, ethnic divides in Miami and everyone agrees, 'Boy, Carl hit the nail on the head.' He has a very good sense of what's right."

  Instead of being the voice of conscience, however, Hiaasen believes he articulates the common-sense view of an already existing but previously unrepresented constituency that has grown over the years. "People were fed up with corruption and overdevelopment," he observes, "but nobody said what everybody was thinking." Now, if an elected official is exposed by the Herald as having taken checks from taxpayers and bribes from special interests, Hiaasen weighs in. "Does that person deserve to be ridiculed and shamed? You bet," Hiaasen says. "He deserves to be miserable and wretched and go right off to jail and think about what he's done."

  Doug Clifton, who believes Hiaasen's greatest gift is using an "incredible command of the language to translate his raw passion into something that ignites passion in others," maintains that people read Hiaasen to be outraged, to experience the same emotion he directs toward those who have violated the public trust. Such a response in readers, Hiaasen thinks, can help prevent corruption from becoming acceptable. Such passion in Hiaasen himself—outrage composed of disappointment, anger, incredulity, and scorn, always freshly felt—argues that his reputation as a cynic might be based more on his choice of words than on his view of human nature. That he can still be disappointed at all, after having seen and commented on the worst of Miami's graft, suggests in fact an abiding or renewable belief in the possibility of human decency. While his outrage might express a deep sense of betrayal and loss, he refuses, as Jim Savage says, "to be silenced by anybody or anything."

  "When you quit trying and you accept it, that's when you're the ultimate cynic," Hiaasen says. "When you don't speak up and when you don't fight back and when you don't raise hell, that's the ultimate act of cynicism, and it's effectively surrender. It's saying, 'Things are so bad that it's now acceptable.' [But] it's not acceptable, it can't be acceptable."

  While a true cynic would maintain that nothing will or even can change, over the years Hiaasen has seen what he terms "small victories" brought about by the cumulative effort of many people. Fifteen years ago, for example, candidates ran for office without even mentioning the Everglades, because "they didn't think anybody cared, but the truth is, millions of people cared," Hiaasen says, and now environmentalism and water quality are big agenda items in Florida because writers, journalists, concerned citizens and activist groups spoke as one voice. Ten years ago, the buddy system allowed graft to be punished by a slap on the wrist, but now, Hiaasen says, "You have judges and prosecutors talking very, very tough about corruption."

  Some of Hiaasen's collea
gues at the Herald, however, would assess his impact and influence as being more individually direct, enough to determine elections in some cases, according to Jim Savage, and enough to make "government officials hold their breath every Thursday and Sunday," according to Bob Radziewicz, assistant city editor. About the quality of his work, his colleagues are in accord: Hiaasen has few, if any, peers but can, according to Gene Miller, be considered "as good as the dead ones. H. L. Mencken, A. J. Liebling, and Izzy Stone."

  Always modest, Hiaasen hopes his column will be remembered as sincere, passionate, and consistent. While certainly embodying those qualities, his work over the last thirteen years has contributed to the history and future direction of Florida in a unique way, perhaps best understood in the context of his move to the Keys when others were fleeing. Why, after all, he asks, does one sit with a dying relative?

  For Hiaasen, Florida does seem a form of flesh and blood, and his kinship to it as elemental and profound a relationship as there can be, based on love, time, gratitude, and a devotion that tells us something about the meaning of home. Hiaasen wants for us, I think, what he described John D. MacDonald as wanting for his readers: to care about Florida as deeply as he does, to celebrate it, marvel at it, laugh about it, grieve for it, and even fight for it.

  Welcome to South Florida

  Carl Hiaasen's South Florida stress test

  Now you can figure your stress quotient

  October 29, 1985

  Once again the Guardians of Miami's Image have been stung by a bolt of rotten publicity—the national Urban Stress Test that ranked the city dead last, citing overcrowding, lousy water and rampant crime.

  The establishment has resounded with the usual indignation, outrage and silly whining about how darned unfair the whole thing is. (I don't know precisely what the Chamber of Commerce thinks Miami's national image is, but I promise that the rest of the country wasn't exactly stunned to see us at the bottom of this list.)

  At the risk of joining the apologist chorus, I have to admit that the stress test was sort of a cheap shot: There's no way to compare Miami with any other city in America. We're a special place and we deserve our own special standards.

  So here's the South Florida Stress Test that I'm proposing for next year.

  Scoring is simple: 30 points or less means minimum stress—you're doing fine. Forty to 80 points means it's time to restock the Valium.

  Anything over 80 points and you'd better pull the kids out of school, call the moving van and start house-hunting in a quieter place. Say, Beirut.

  CARL HIAASEN'S SOUTH FLORIDA STRESS TEST

  1. On the average, how many nights a week are you awakened by the sound of gunfire?

  * Every night (10 points)

  * Four nights or fewer (5 pts.)

  * I sleep right through it (1 pt.)

  2. Judging by your experience, what kind of gunfire is it?

  * Saturday Night Special (1 pt.)

  * MAC-10 or Uzi (5 pts.)

  * Medium-range artillery (10 pts.)

  3. A safe neighborhood means less stress. If you could see over the eight-foot wall around your neighbor's house, you'd discover that he is:

  * A run-of-the-mill drug smuggler (1 pt.)

  * An exiled dictator (5 pts.)

  * An international arms merchant (10 pts.)

  4. How many times have you been taken hostage by a deranged lunatic who was not a member of your immediate family?

  * Only once or twice (1 pt.)

  * Three or more times (5 pts.)

  * I am currently a hostage (10 pts.)

  5. The last time a pipe bomb went off in your neighborhood, how long did it take the police to respond?

  * Less than 12 minutes (1 pt.)

  * Less than 12 hours (5 pts.)

  * I'm still waiting and the damn Cadillac has burned to the rims (10 pts.)

  6. Water quality is vital to the quality of life. When you turn on the faucet, what do you see?

  * A clear fresh liquid (1 pt.)

  * A liquid of some sort (5 pts.)

  * The bouillabaisse scene from The Exorcist (10 pts.)

  7. Recreation is one way to relieve stress. What do folks in your neighborhood do in their spare time?

  * Sacrifice live goats to the gods (1 pt.)

  * Work in a clandestine coke lab (5 pts.)

  * Train at a secret Everglades camp for the invasion of Nicaragua (10 pts.)

  8. What happened the last time you went to the beach?

  * A college kid got sick all over my sandals (1 pt.)

  * I tripped on a bale of grass and broke my ankle (5 pts.)

  * I got picked up by the Border Patrol (10 pts.)

  9. Culture is important to sophisticated urban dwellers. What was the last major cultural event you attended?

  * The taping of ABC's "Battle of the Network Stars" (1 pt.)

  * A dinner-theater production starring Bert Convy (5 pts.)

  * Charo live at the Eden Roc (10 pts.)

  10. A summer vacation is one way to beat South Florida stress. Where did you spend yours?

  * Disney World (1 pt.)

  * A military dungeon in Cartagena (5 pts.)

  * The median strip of I-95 (10 pts.)

  Etiquette at a crime scene: What to wear, how to act

  June 20, 1986

  Shoppers at a West Kendall plaza got a special treat this week when a pair of bullet-riddled corpses were found in the trunk of a Lincoln parked in the lot.

  Hundreds of spectators gathered in a festive atmosphere around the scene, many waiting up to six hours for the bodies to be extricated. Some onlookers drank lemonade while others took pictures and watched the death sedan through binoculars. A few even belly-crawled under parked cars to gain a closer vantage.

  As the crowd grew, traffic actually backed up on Kendall Drive. "It was a nice day, they didn't have anything else to do, I guess," says Dr. Jay Barnhart, the medical examiner sent to the scene.

  Look on the bright side. The fact that a routine trunk murder still draws an audience in Dade County proves we're not so desensitized to crime after all. If folks are so hungry for entertainment, maybe pro basketball really does have a chance down here.

  Of course it's one thing to gather out of idle curiosity at a gruesome homicide, and quite another to make it a block party. As at all social occasions, there must be rules of etiquette.

  Unfortunately the new maven of decorum, Miss Manners, has written virtually nothing about what is proper behavior at a crime scene. Such a guide is overdue in South Florida, where each day seems to offer a new Grisly Discovery.

  Q. What should I wear?

  A. Always pick out something that won't clash with the yellow police cordons; pastel greens and blues are nice. A sunbonnet can be fashionable, too. And choose sensible footwear—shoes with reinforced toes, so you can stretch and gawk.

  Q. Where should I stand?

  A. Upwind, always. Be considerate to fellow spectators. If somebody yells, "Down in front!" then sit down. Bring a lawn chair, or one of those portable stools you rent at golf tournaments. And stay off the fenders of the squad cars.

  Q. Is it OK to bring the kids?

  A. At burglaries, auto thefts, shopliftings—what the heck, unpack those strollers and give the little tykes a thrill! However, parental discretion is advised for most first-degree felony scenes.

  Q. What about some helpful photo tips?

  A. You'll want to use slide film, of course, so you can put together a carousel show for the neighbors. Bring a basic 3£mm with a long lens, in case the police make you stand far away (they can be so fussy). And no need to hurry the focusing—one thing about dead bodies, they tend to hold very still.

  Q. What about souvenirs?

  A. Usually it's unwise to try to collect souvenirs from a crime scene. Bullet fragments, shell casings, hair samples, ski masks, money satchels, bloody clothing—sure, the stuff would look swell in the rec room next to your bowling trophies. But, please, the crime
lab gets first dibs.

  Q. Do we have to bring our own food?

  A. Meals and munchies are rarely served at major crime scenes, except for the occasional Sno-Cone vendor. If you're packing a picnic basket, finger food is best—chicken wings, ribs, tacos. Stuff you can heat up on the hibachi.

  Q. Can we order some drinks?

  A. Conveniently, many exciting homicides are committed in bars, and these establishments gladly serve bystanders. However, if the scene of the crime is a street or shopping mall, plan to bring a small Thermos—soft drinks and wine coolers are acceptable, though champagne is considered poor taste. The sound of the cork sets the cops on edge.

  Q. What about wagering?

  A. It's simply bad manners to make bets on how many days a body has been inside a car, the number of bullet holes, the length of the victim's rap sheet, or the amount of cash and cocaine in his pockets.

  Q. How do we know when to applaud?

  A. Some say you should clap when the body bags come out, others say hold the ovation until the coroner leaves. In any case, shouting out "Yo, Quincy!" is considered rude, as is coaxing the crowd into doing The Wave.

  And please—no boat horns or cowbells. Have some respect.

  The mysterious death of Claude, the sheep dog

  February 6, 1987

  Last summer, Miami lawyer Frank Furci shot and killed a neighbor's dog during an afternoon stroll.

  It happened Aug. 8 in an affluent subdivision of Plantation. Furci was walking his Doberman Ginger, when he encountered Claude, a 73-pound French sheep dog with allergies.

  Seconds later, for reasons still not clear, Furci pulled a .45-caliber handgun and shot Claude through the jugular vein with a low-velocity exploding bullet.