Carl Hiaasen: Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Picture a shovel-wielding Richard Simmons chasing a pack of sleek Arabian steeds along the shimmering sands of Miami Beach—well, you just can't buy that kind of publicity.

And, for the kiddies, a boisterous "Dodge the Muffin" contest. Epcot, eat your heart out.

Some people are saying that thundering horses don't really fit the image of a tropical beach. Neither do Teamsters, yet they're down here every year with their conventions and loud shirts. Talk about a scary stampede.

With more polished extravaganzas like the Arabian Desert Classic, the future of the Beach is shining. No more cheap gimmicks and crackpot promotions. This is the big time now.

Sophistication with a capital S.

Fun and frolics reigned at Haulover Beach again this past weekend, as scores of chowderheads ignored posted warnings and plunged straight into a dangerous riptide.

If that weren't enough excitement, a mob of male high-school kids attacked several teenage girls, ripping off all their clothes, grabbing their breasts and genitals and chasing them down the beach. When one of the Haulover lifeguards tried to shield one of the girls, he was kicked repeatedly.

"She was naked and they were grabbing her. I just wanted to get her out of the crowd," said the lifeguard, Ken Chouinard. "It made me sick, and it also made me fearful for the people who come out here."

Some of these festivities were captured on tape by a WTVJ-Channel 4 news crew and should be recommended viewing for anyone who is considering a leisurely family outing at Haulover.

For years this has been a trouble spot, though the parks department doesn't advertise the fact. Keeping the beach safe apparently is a low priority in the budget, as evidenced by the minimal way in which the county polices the area and staffs its lifeguard crews.

"We get the same consideration as macrame classes and kickball games," says Lt. David Battenfield, a Haulover lifeguard for the past 15 years. "This county is providing people access to this beach, but it's not providing their protection."

For a long time, the lifeguards have been trying to get someone to pay attention. The near-riot this weekend, combined with the perilous surf conditions, portend a disaster in the making—an expensive one.

Currently, Haulover Park has 11 full-time lifeguards on staff. Part-timers are hired to fill out the shifts, though many are not trained as emergency medical technicians, as the full-time lifeguards usually are.

Haulover Beach is about 1.4 miles long, but almost 43 percent is out of immediate range of a lifeguard tower and basically unguarded. The biggest stretch between towers measures 810 yards—a long way to run, if somebody's drowning at the other end.

The last accident took place March 23. Lifeguards got there swiftly and pulled the 42-year-old tourist out of the water, but he died later.

The miracle is that it doesn't happen more often. During the past week or so, strong winds and spring tidal conditions have made Haulover particularly treacherous, with invisible run-out currents sweeping many swimmers out toward the open water. Lifeguards officially closed the beach on three days, but plenty of idiotic showoffs hopped in anyway.

On March 27, Haulover lifeguards logged 10 rescues. On March 29, the number was nine. On March 30, it was 15. Business peaked again this past weekend with 19 rescues on Saturday and 28 more on Sunday.

While the park is much more crowded than it was in 1975, there are five fewer full-time lifeguards now. During last year's budget crunch, the county proposed cutting back even more on the staffs, but the lifeguards successfully argued against it.

Today the lifeguards meet with county parks officials to plead—again—for help in making the beach safer. They aren't asking for salary hikes; they want more lifeguards, more towers and better lifesaving equipment. They also want a regular and visible police presence.

Saturday's clothes-ripping melee took place with a Metro crime suppression team nearby. Still, the teenagers ran wild. "A combat zone," Battenfield said. No arrests were made at the scene; police say they are trying to identify the assailants.

On the bright side, at least nobody took a bullet.

On March 26, startled Haulover beachgoers watched as one man pulled out a machine gun and shot another, while still a third drew his own pistol and popped off a few rounds. A bystander was shot and wounded as he walked his three children out of the park.

Just another day at the beach. If the undertow doesn't get you, the snipers will.

Let freedom ring!

Three dozen men cradling live chickens appeared at the Metro Justice Building the other day to demonstrate in favor of—don't laugh—cock-fighting.

The men were members of a Hialeah "social club" raided last week. Police arrested 186 people, seized 86 birds and grabbed $40,000 in gambling money.

The club offers live music, rides for the kiddies and a restaurant. But the main attraction is a i^o-seat fighting pit where grown-ups sit and cheer while two dumb barnyard animals mutilate each other. Can you think of a nobler cause for demonstration? Raise your placards high, boys.

How dare the police shut down such an enriching pastime! My goodness, if they strip us of our right to torture God's hapless creatures, then what next?

Granted, an organized cockfight isn't really an act of nature. Under normal farm conditions, most roosters are too busy chasing the hens to stop and disembowel each other.

But with a little human guidance and just a touch of inbreeding, a rooster becomes a ferocious fighting machine.

I know what you're thinking: chickens. Gamecocks are basically just chickens in drag. And how fierce can a chicken be?

Plenty fierce, especially if you attach razor-sharp spurs to its scrawny yellow legs. These devices are made of honed steel, bone or fiberglass. The purpose is to replace the rooster's natural spur with something slightly more effective.

Otherwise a cockfight is about as thrilling as a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Without artificial spurs, the birds just hop and squawk and pull each other's feathers out. Where's the drama in that?

But add those nasty little can-openers, and cockfighting becomes a macho life-or-death spectacle. In fact, matches often do not officially end until one of the two birds expires of its wounds. That's when the big money changes hands.

We're talking rich tradition. Dueling poultry goes back to the days of ancient Persia and Greece, before video games, when people were forced to amuse themselves with whatever was handy. Given the abundance of chickens, and the relative ease with which they could be dragooned, it was only natural that a mindless blood sport would evolve.

Popular among English nobility (what wasn't?), cockfighting was soon introduced in colonial America. Among its ardent fans was the highly cultured Andrew Jackson. Always controversial, cockfighting was outlawed in Great Britain and Canada. Massachusetts banned it in 1836. In recent years, the legality has been debated from Maryland to Louisiana to Key Largo.

In some places, cockfighting remains legal provided that the birds are not fitted with sharpened spurs, and that no gambling is allowed. This, of course, takes all the fun out of it. If the roosters can't slash each other to shreds, and if the spectators can't bet on it, where's the pleasure?

The argument from animal-rights sissies is that cockfighting is cruel, even sadistic. They like to mention that big raid in West Dade a few years ago, when police found live roosters with their eyes missing. It happens, sure, but at least they didn't wind up as fried nuggets in a Col. Sanders