Diversions >>

• BEST NEW CULTURAL TREND
  Warehouse district art gallery parties
  When the night ends, it doesn't matter if the artwork altered anyone's perception because, as they say, it was all good. Rocket Projects, at 3440 N. Miami Ave., was at the vanguard of this lowbrow cultural movement, always providing complimentary booze, DJ sounds, and even, on one chilly night,... More >>
• BEST LOCAL POET
  Kronos
  The future of poetry is on the streets. Urban angst and inner-city pressure have inspired the hip-hop generation to take up "spoken word," where emotion and intimation flow from moving lips to open ears. In Miami a young, dreadlocked, dark-skinned man known as Kronos (real name: Yves Verela)... More >>
• BEST LOCAL SPORTS TOURNAMENT
  Nasdaq-100
  This ten-day tennis tourney at Crandon Tennis Center on Key Biscayne has become the fifth biggest in the world, behind only the four competitions that form the Grand Slam. Last year's singles winners were Andre Agassi and, in a thriller against hometown favorite Jennifer Capriati, Serena... More >>
• BEST MOVIE THEATER
  Sunrise Cinemas at Intracoastal Mall
  In the absence of a full-fledged art cinema, the place to see a movie may as well be chosen for its parking as much as its programming. Narrow ramps, cavernous floors, electronic parking-payment contraptions? No thanks. When you have only five minutes to put butt to seat before the credits roll,... More >>
• BEST ART CINEMA
  Miami Beach Cinematheque
  Since the lights first flickered on less than a year ago, the Cinematheque has established itself as the screen to be seen. In the heart of South Beach, the movie house's art-gallery setting provides a perfect scene for cineastes eager to enjoy true classics (Hiroshima, Mon Amour), rare oddities... More >>
• BEST BUS RIDE
  Miami-Dade Metrobus Route 3
  Nobody truly escapes reality via public transportation, not even on a long day's journey from Government Center to Aventura via Biscayne Boulevard (and on to Miami Beach if you want). Go surreal: Put the L'Avventura in your field trip to Aventura and turn this ride into a mind film. Friends... More >>
• BEST MOVIE SHOT ON LOCATION
  Stuck on You
  When gross-out auteurs the Farrelly brothers were looking to jump-start their decade-old project, the Siamese twins comedy Stuck on You, where did they go? To Miami, of course, a prime shooting location for such "Hollywood" schlock as Bad Boys II and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Granted, this would-be plea... More >>
• BEST FILM FESTIVAL
  Rewind/Fast Forward Film & Video Festival
  South Florida does have a history, and it's damn rich, especially considering the city's relative youth. It begins about the same time Edison invented the movie camera. That's good news for the Florida Moving Image Archive, which collects and restores film and video to add to its visual... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO TAKE OUT-OF-TOWNERS
  Kitsch tour of South Dade

  Coral Castle

  After the out-of-towners get tired of the South Beach scene, load them in the car and drag them to South Miami-Dade for a tour of the old tourist attractions, the ones without neon and ex-models all over the place. If they were good enough for you when you were a tot, they're more than good... More >>
• BEST ACTIVITY TO DO WHILE INTOXICATED
  Sloshball
  There was a temptation to write this item about great ways to sober up. But then we realized that getting sober is, quite literally, the last thing anyone wants to do when they're drunk. So we dug out (pun alert) some plans for all to have a sloshing good time. It's not baseball. It's not... More >>
• BEST TOUR
  Miami Duck Tours
  One thing Bayside Marketplace didn't have, until recently, was land-and-sea tours. Literally. Thanks to Miami Duck Tours, passengers ride around the streets on the odd-looking World War II style vehicles (it's a truck! it's a boat!) and see the sights. Then the vehicles slide into Biscayne Bay... More >>
• BEST PLACE FOR A FIRST DATE
  Olympia Theater

  Gusman Center for the Performing Arts

  In our fantasy, the best place for a first date would be an exotic faraway locale like Casablanca or Spain's Costa del Sol. We'd meet in secret under the stars, perhaps pursued by nefarious forces, in the ruin of an old Moorish castle by the sea. You would look stunning in the half-light,... More >>
• BEST HEAT HOMEBOY
  Udonis Haslem
  A few seasons ago Tim James carried the University of Miami Hurricanes basketball team to its greatest heights, making it to the NCAA tournament known as "March Madness." He then qualified for the Miami Heat's twelve-player roster. Nothing came of it, though, and he was soon gone. This year... More >>
• BEST PLACE FOR A SECOND DATE
  Eden Roc
  You know you like each other. Now all you need is the spark that will set your love aflame. The grand circular lobby at the Eden Roc provides the perfect backdrop for larger-than-life romance. Get in the mood with a dry martini at the lobby bar while Patrick tickles the ivories and sings "The... More >>
• BEST FESTIVAL
  TransAtlantic Festival
  While most stateside bands balk at making the drive all the way down to our southern tip of the Florida peninsula, the Rhythm Foundation for more than ten years has been bringing in top international acts from every part of the globe. Last year the foundation's TransAtlantic Festival introduced... More >>
• BEST OUTDOOR ART
  Greenpeace Human Art Protest
  More than 1200 people showed up on a blustery winter day (January 17) to form a giant replica of Picasso's painting Amnistia on the sand of Miami Beach. The event was organized by the environmental group Greenpeace to protest the federal prosecution of activists who boarded a freighter ship off... More >>
• BEST LOCAL BOXER
  Glencoffe "The Gentleman" Johnson
  With a 40-9-2 record, Johnson would not, at first blush, be regarded as the favorite when he steps into a ring. But he danced around a spell of hard luck and bad decisions right into a victory over Clinton Woods to garner the International Boxing Federation's light-heavyweight championship.... More >>
• BEST LOCAL SPORTS COACH
  Jack McKeon
  Keep your sabermetrics, kiddo. The only number Jack McKeon needs to know when it comes to baseball is 72. That's how old McKeon was when Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria tapped the venerable coach to take over as manager of his rudderless young team midseason in May 2003. And that's how many... More >>
• BEST MARLINS PLAYER
  Juan Pierre
  As leadoff hitter, Alabama-born center fielder Juan Pierre set the pace for the 2004 Florida Marlins and helped slay giants (and Cubs and Yankees, oh my). The main artery in a world championship team filled with heart, Pierre gave his all to hitting, base running, and fielding. He almost always... More >>
• BEST DOLPHINS PLAYER
  Ricky Williams
  If the Miami Dolphins can conjure up a quarterback and an offensive line, Ricky Williams will set rushing records for years. Combining speed and agility with Riggins-esque old-school muscle, Williams was the only moving part in the Dolphins' offensive engine last season. Williams's personality... More >>
• BEST PANTHERS PLAYER
  Roberto Luongo
  The Florida Panthers are a mediocre team with an outstanding goalie. Despite tepid group play all around him, Luongo has been stellar this season, racking up six shutouts by late February, when he led the National Hockey League in saves and was second in the league with a stingy .934 save... More >>
• BEST HURRICANES FOOTBALL PLAYER
  Kellen Winslow, Jr.
  The tight end finished second in receiving for UM this past season, but first in catching hell for his explosive verbal slants. One somehow morphed into a long bomb. The game in question: a humiliating 10-6 loss to Tennessee. Winslow, son of NFL Hall of Famer turned TV commentator Kellen... More >>
• BEST TRADE
  Two minor leaguers for Jeff Conine
  It was a slow year for trades involving South Florida's major sports teams, but one that was executed with little fanfare turned out to be instrumental in a championship run. That was the trade for Jeff Conine by the Florida Marlins. One of the franchise's original players, Conine returned to... More >>
• BEST HEAT PLAYER
  Dwyane Wade
  Who needs a seven-foot center? Not the Miami Heat. They've found competitiveness without some towering freak taller than most trees. A small, fast approach can work when a team rosters a number of versatile weapons, the best of whom is this 6-foot 4-inch rookie guard who can play the point,... More >>
• BEST WEATHERCASTER
  Jackie Johnson
  If weathercasters were ever accurate, this award would probably go to the one who was most often on the money about rain showers and cold fronts. But because forecasts are all the same and as reliable as a Bush administration intelligence report, the winner here must have something beyond the... More >>
• BEST COMMANDO HANGOUT
  Loop Road
  A lovely hot winter's afternoon on this winding way through the Everglades adjacent to Tamiami Trail. Indians in new-model sedans waving as they blow by. Two French women pigmenting canvases with the bold black-and-white images of wood storks set against the verdancy of piny perches. A dozen... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO STARGAZE
  The Old Trail
  About 25 or 30 miles out on the Tamiami Trail there's a swerving turnoff that leads to a T-shaped strip of asphalt to nowhere. It runs parallel to the trail and about three or four city blocks in length, bordered by trees, marsh, and muck. At night especially, it's rare to encounter anyone other... More >>
• BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY
  The Baka Boyz
  If you're one of the few hundred thousand souls who lives through the daily purgatory of sitting in morning-rush traffic, finding an entertaining distraction is a priority on your FM dial. So forget the monotone chitchat provided by National Public Radio on WLRN-FM. Since their arrival at the... More >>
• BEST AM RADIO PERSONALITY
  Jacqueline Hazel
  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon, after you've finished a full day of terrorizing everyone in your office or shop, you don't have to hate yourself. Sure, you've made your secretary's job a living hell, you've tormented your codependent girlfriend, you've sadistically tortured your... More >>
• BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE RADIO PERSONALITY
  Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero
  Actually, make that personalities. With their El Vacilón de la Mañana show on El Zol, these two get away with stuff Howard Stern types can only dream about. Maybe no one at the FCC speaks Spanish. Despite the recent brouhaha over indecency, anybody who regularly listens to radio knows the... More >>
• BEST DANCE COMPANY
  Miami Contemporary Dance Company
  The body contorts. Masters of forms undefined, Divine and unmatched. More >>
• BEST MUSEUM
  The Gold Coast Railroad Museum
  Like any worth-his-salt railroad baron, Henry Flagler had his tracks laid and then proceeded to build a city around them. Several cities, actually, but we care only about Miami. It's not surprising a museum should honor, and document, this tropical "railroad" town's history. The museum began... More >>
• BEST WEEKEND GETAWAY
  Hutchinson Island
  This barrier island is roughly thirteen miles long. With the Atlantic on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway (known here as the Indian River) on the other, it's no more than a mile wide. But the most important measurement is this: It's about 130 miles from Miami -- far enough to escape the... More >>
• BEST TERMINATION (SPORTS)
  Pat Riley
  As a coach, he brought "showtime" and championships to the Los Angeles Lakers (with a little help from Magic Johnson and others). He weathered the pressure of the toughest coaching job in the NBA with the Knicks in New York. He almost -- always almost -- took the Miami Heat to the top with... More >>
• BEST TOURIST TRAP
  The Island Queen
  There are numerous boats (and even a tall ship) offering an array of cruises out of Bayside's marina. The Queen happens to be a favorite: an open-air upper deck ceilings an enclosed (but heavily windowed) lower deck ("The bar is now open," is heard as the flat-hulled, smooth-riding boat edges... More >>
• BEST ART MUSEUM
  Miami Art Museum
  Art experts know that the museum, as a socio-cultural institution, was pronounced dead by a group of neo-Dada performance artists during a 1987 visit to the Museum of the Medieval Torture Arts in Toledo, Spain. The word has yet to reach most other cosmopolitan cities, but as curators of MAM can... More >>
• BEST LOCAL ARTIST
  Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt
  Their five-tiered, twelve-foot-tall House of Cards, inhabited by humanoid dummies, was a big hit at Miami Art Museum. This artistic duo also deserves credit for a shack they never built. They had planned to construct Casa del Pirata on a wall of the historic La Cabaña fortress using boards they... More >>
• BEST LOCAL WRITER
  Carl Zablotny
  Rumors of South Beach's demise are greatly exaggerated -- at least according to Wire, the Beach weekly published and written mostly by Carl Zablotny, a one-man cheerleading army for the city's enduring charms. Since buying the paper from founder Andrew Delaplaine in 1999, Zablotny has continued... More >>
• BEST LOCAL WEBSITE
  www.BangBus.com
  Traditional feminists (but not Camille Paglia's pro-sex sect) will likely be aghast, but our choice features locally based and produced comedic porn "films," weekly episodes showing random women bribed off the street and into a van, then into depravity. This isn't your run-of-the-mill autoerotic... More >>
• BEST CUBAN-AMERICAN WEBSITE
  icuban.com
  Launched in 1996 by three Miami brothers-in-law who love to fish and eat la comida Cubana, this is a mouthwatering source of opinions about local Cuban cuisine, from restaurants to recipes. The three guys -- Jorge Castillo, Raúl Musibay, and Glenn Lindgren -- have made several appearances... More >>
• BEST WI-FI LOCATION
  Miracle Mile Business District
  Attention Internet hermits: Being online will no longer be an acceptable excuse for your antisocial behavior -- at least not in Coral Gables. Following the lead of many businesses in many cities, the Coral Gables Business Improvement District along with ADX Technologies and IDS Telecom have... More >>
• BEST THEATRICAL PRODUCTION
  The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?
  In the theater, sometimes everything just falls into place. That was definitely the case with GableStage's masterful presentation of The Goat. Featuring Edward Albee's bitterly funny script, a fine cast, exceptionally effective direction from artistic director Joseph Adler, and an outstanding... More >>
• BEST NEW PLAY
  Blind Date
  Mario Diament's tale of five characters in search of one another proved to be a fascinating exploration of chance, fate, irrational obsession, and love at first sight. Delighting audiences at the New Theatre in Coral Gables, the tale involved a seemingly simple string of impromptu encounters and... More >>
• BEST DIRECTOR
  Joseph Adler

  The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

  The ebullient, outspoken Adler might seem a complete mismatch with tart, taciturn Edward Albee (author of The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?). Nonetheless Adler's masterful staging of Albee's provocative tragicomedy at GableStage was a perfect meeting of master minds. Adler is well known for his gutsy,... More >>
• BEST HAIR TO WEAR
  Brian Grant's
  He's big, strong, a double-double rock of muscle and hustle in the center of the Miami Heat's tenacious defense. He has a soft touch on his jumper and adds a dimension of assets that can't be measured by stats. The iron man (with the forgivable iron hands) can even fish fairly well, his favorite... More >>
• BEST ACTRESS
  Julia Clearwood

  Stop Kiss

  Clearwood's performance in Stop Kiss as a restless New Yorker who finds herself falling in love with another woman was a significant creative achievement and a highlight not just of the Sol Theatre Project's offerings but of the entire theater season. Clearwood delivered a grounded, honest... More >>
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
  Margot Moreland

  Annie

  The multitalented Moreland has long been a South Florida favorite, but her performance as the boozy, deliciously nasty Miss Hannigan in the Actors' Playhouse version of Annie was a revelation. Moreland's comedic skills are tops, but she also discovered the character's dark, desperate side with... More >>
• BEST ACTOR
  Theodore Bikel

  The Chosen

  The renowned Bikel has been a major figure in American theater for so long, it's easy to take him for granted. But stage acting doesn't get any better than his turn in The Chosen at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. As an anguished rabbi, Bikel was both a deeply emotional character and a short course... More >>
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
  Geoffrey Wade

  Fortune's Fool

  Fortune's Fool opened a year ago at the Caldwell Theatre up in Boca Raton, a bit too late to honor this actor in last year's issue, but the memory of Wade's performance lingers on and now's the time to pay him his props and give him his award. As a supercilious Russian aristocrat, he was a model... More >>
• BEST FRINGE THEATER
  The M Ensemble
  This North Miami company devoted to African-American playwrights and culture has managed to survive a looong time, through thick and thin (mostly thin). Past work has been all over the map in terms of quality, but this season it all came together for the Ensemble. Jerry Maple, Jr., and John... More >>
• BEST BLACK BOX SPACE
  PS 742
  While the powers that be in this town have pinned all their most delirious PR pipe dreams (and taxpayer dollars) on ill-conceived money pits such as the Performing Arts Center and more arenas than we have teams, it's the small art spaces and their starving inhabitants that are building the... More >>
• BEST PERIODIQUITO
  Libre
  In shops along Calle Ocho and Hialeah's Palm Avenue rest bundles of Libre, a Spanish-language newspaper published by disgraced politician Demetrio Perez, Jr. In 2002 the former school board member was removed from office for defrauding two women out of $18,000. The same year, the Miami Herald... More >>
• BEST LOCAL 'ZINE
  Urban America
  Urban America is part community newspaper, part local-music rag. A recent issue transitioned from an op-ed piece encouraging pay raises for teachers to profiles of Orlando MC Swamburger and SoFla R&B act atripthroughthemind. The writing: ambitious and workmanlike, sparked by an unabashed belief... More >>
• BEST NEW FASHION TREND
  Beau Brummell bicyclists
  Suicidal bicyclists are nothing new to downtown, South Beach, the Grove, and other auto-clogged communities, but lately there's been a number of them who have tossed out the delightfully revealing bike shorts and tight shirts for three-piece suits and Italian leather shoes. This development... More >>
• BEST ART GALLERY
  Casas Riegner Gallery
  Much competition hangs when it comes to this award. We're happy about that. Upstart gallery Rocket Projects in Wynwood comes to mind, with its community art activism and edgy programming. Then there's Fredric Snitzer Gallery, the darling of Art Basel with the strongest collection in town. And... More >>
• BEST SPORTSCASTER
  Boog Sciambi
  The Tom Hanks megahit movie Big connected with audiences thanks to the actor's uncannily guileless portrayal of youthful joy. Listening to Boog Sciambi broadcast Florida Marlins games on WQAM-AM (560), including the team's unlikely ascent to a World Series championship this past season, brought... More >>
• BEST NEW WHEELS
  Segway Human Transporter rentals
  It was supposed to change the way people felt about urban transportation. A personal hovercraft destined to spearhead the brave new world of tomorrow? Maybe not. When the Segway Human Transporter was revealed to the public, the collective disappointment put a damper on the lofty dreams of... More >>
• BEST MAILBOX
  9260 SW 70th Street
  Faux sculpture (manatee, porpoise, et cetera) mailboxes have become a trend, but this is not that. The owners of this nice house have created an oceanic panorama of a mailbox, a swirl of fish and covellite, teal, aquamarine background that rises above trendiness and achieves the status of art.... More >>
• BEST FLOWERING TREE
  Trumpet tree (Tabebuia caraiba)
  In late winter/early spring, South Florida is blessed with a flowering tree so magnificent that residents and tourists alike stand in awe of its beauty. Then why is it that almost no one knows what it's called? Is it because for most of the year, this quiet tree's most distinguishing features... More >>
• BEST SPORTS VENUE RENOVATION
  Homestead Miami Speedway
  Naysayers were quick to bitch about putting ten million bucks into fixing up a nearly forgotten raceway in deep South Miami-Dade, but when the new version of the Homestead Miami Speedway opened this past autumn, it had its first sold-out race in nine years. The new variable-degree banking system... More >>
• BEST DAY AT THE RACES
  January 3 at Gulfstream Park
  The Lotto and Indian gaming gobble the gambling pie in South Florida, leaving the pari-mutuels crumbs. Gulfstream, located next to Aventura at the county line, belies this paradigm by continuing to present high-class racing, comfortable seating, diverse concessions, and other diversions within a... More >>
• BEST DRAG QUEEN (1 Comment)
  Tiffany Andretta Arieagus
  Take it from Adora, the hardest-working drag queen in Miami, the legendary Tiffany is the original transgender bomb. When looking for a special guest star for the final Adora and Ivana Noche Latina show at the Cactus Bar and Grill, the only choice was Ms. Arieagus. "She's fantastic," Adora says.... More >>
• BEST BOOK BY A LOCAL AUTHOR
  Loving Che by Ana Menéndez
  In Miami you don't ponder the now-mythical life of Che Guevara so much as argue about it. The legendary Argentine guerrilla's name is cursed, cried over, or simply shuddered at for the loss it represents to so many Cuban exiles. In fact Menéndez's own father, who fled the island in 1960,... More >>
• BEST LEISURE ACTIVITY OTHER THAN CLUBS OR MOVIES
  Surfing South Beach
  For the first time since the Sixties, and maybe ever, there's a thriving surfing community in South Beach. On most winter mornings, up to 400 rowdy surfers litter the ocean, straddling variations of long and short boards. No, our beaches haven't suddenly developed the kind of overhead breaks... More >>
• BEST NEW ADVERTISING TREND (4 Comments)
  Hongosan and Hongomex
  Tucked between the disorderly conducts on various afternoon Spanish-language courtroom programs, Telemundo has been airing a remarkable set of antifungal medication advertisements. Yes, remarkable antifungal medication advertisements. The first one, for Hongosan (hongo is Spanish for fungus or... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO GO STONED
  The Neighborhood Fish Farm
  You and your pals just completed your own version of Amsterdam's famous Cannabis Cup reefer contest by filling up bong bowls with White Widow and Northern Lights and maybe some Haze. Packing a couple of green leaf, Dutch Master blunts filled with Afghani. Rolling up some Summer Breeze,... More >>
• BEST TV NEWS ANCHOR
  Kristi Krueger
  Filling the oxfords of late local broadcast legend Ann Bishop of WPLG-TV was a challenge accepted by Kristi Krueger, who has proved herself up to the job at 5:00, 6:00, and 11:00 p.m. Maybe her eleven-year tenure as a health reporter helped her become sufficiently inured to calmly deal with... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO SAVOR THE FLAVOR OF MIAMI
  Maximo Gomez Park
  It's no coincidence that the benches at Domino Park (as this landmark is known) face toward Cuba. The old Cuban men from the surrounding neighborhood of Little Havana know the reason, and value it. As each takes a turn sitting on the benches playing dominoes (or fichas), they are reminded that... More >>
• BEST TV NEWS REPORTER
  Mike Kirsch
  During the overheated, slightly premature media frenzy that accompanied the fall of Saddam, CBS affiliate WFOR journalist and cameraman Mike Kirsch was our man in Iraq. As an embedded reporter with the British Army, he reported on the invasion of Basra, winning a 2003 Suncoast Emmy for his... More >>
• BEST TV STATION
  Miami-Dade County Cable Television Access Project
  You won't find localized renditions of The Sopranos or Law & Order on Cable TAP, but you will be inundated with half-hour vignettes about the people and organizations that make this subtropical, multiethnic frying pan their home. A droning commissioner maybe, a cultural lightweight for sure,... More >>
• BEST RADIO STATION
  WPYM-FM (93.1)
  The feverish world of dance music is populated by numerous and fluid subgenres, from the schaffel of Superpitcher to the dark new beat of the Lords of Acid, and each school has its fanatics and detractors. True, you may not hear Carlos D. spin the Deep Forest remix of "A Forest" unless you... More >>
• Personal Best
  Mario Artecona
  Mario Artecona makes an initial impression as the sort of unassuming nice guy who would stop during rush hour to help you change a flat; the type of fellow who would track you down to your house to return a lost wallet, a rememberer of first names and birthdays. But Artecona is also clearly... More >>