Editor’s Note: A Spring In Our Step
Two years ago, Flamingo’s first issue launched with an ambitious theme, “Iconic Florida,” which captured the spirit of the magazine we wanted to create. Before Flamingo, the only iconic thing Florida lacked was a publication as grand as the state, with an authentic voice and a vision of bringing Floridians together. Since volume No. 1, […]
Editor’s Note: Hit Me Like a Hurricane
When my family and I returned to Florida five years ago, we took comfort in the fact that nearly 50 years had passed since a hurricane directly hit the Jacksonville area. According to local lore, Jacksonville didn’t really have hurricanes. Something to do with the shape of the coast-line up here. Well, we saw how […]
Editor’s Note: The Day the Music Lived
May 27 was a sunny spring day in North Florida. I was excited to see Tedeschi Trucks Band christen Jacksonville’s Daily’s Place amphitheater by performing on its opening night. Local guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks helms the 12-member band with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, and I was lucky enough to interview the couple for Flamingo last […]
Editor’s Note: Take Me to The River
People often ask me for travel recommendations. It’s true, I’m always on the hunt for fabulous hotels and restaurants to highlight for our readers, but I’m more interested in discovering those authentic Florida experiences that aren’t manufactured and created for the masses. As a family, we try to embrace a spirit of adventure in our […]
Editor’s Note: Time for a toast, friends!
The week before this issue of Flamingo went to print in February, I broke away from the office with our editorial team in the throes of fine-tuning layouts. None of us were sleeping, let alone socializing or going to parties. However, I had been invited to Tallahassee to attend a farm-to-table dinner in a refurbished […]
Editor’s Note: Bring on the Sunshine
It started off as just another Wednesday morning. Hurricane Matthew swirled out in the Atlantic, but inside the Flamingo offices, brains were storming, writing headlines and editing copy, paying no mind to the tropical cyclone headed for Florida. We had blown off earlier reports because our area had not been hit by a serious hurricane […]
Editor’s Note: Can’t Stop the Music
The past few months have left many of us emotionally drained, every day starting with a story more horrific than the day before. The list of cities recently marked by violence reads like a top-five of (formerly) carefree travel destinations: Baton Rouge; Dallas; Munich; Nice, France; and our own Orlando. When the Pulse nightclub shooting […]
Editor’s Note: From Florida with Love
I remember well the first moment I stepped off an airplane at the Douala International Airport in the Central African country of Cameroon, in 2009. The tiny, rectangular terminal looked like a rain-soaked paper bag perched atop toothpicks that would blow away in a storm. The thick humidity rolled over my face like a steamer. […]
Editor’s Note: Finding Flamingo
There’s no shortage of groundbreaking, protest-inducing, ridiculous—dare I sayiconic—headlines, cases and Supreme Court rulings that originate in Florida. The events and people in our state have the uncanny ability to become household names: hanging chads, Elian Gonzalez, Terri Schiavo, Casey Anthony, Trayvon Martin. Even the once revered CIA director and retired Army general David Petraeus […]
