BEST SPORTSCASTER 2002 | Jimmy Cefalo | | WPLG-TV (Channel 10) | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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BEST SPORTSCASTER

Jimmy Cefalo

WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

The veteran sports guy has a couple of things going for him: He was a jock -- a star receiver for the Miami Dolphins -- and he's got great hair. But he also seems to know that a good sportscaster ought to do more than just recite the scores. Recent example: The Miami Heat pulled out a February overtime win against the Bucks in Milwaukee after Jimmy Jackson tied the score in regulation on a last-second three-pointer. But Jackson got the ball on a pass from Eddie Jones after Jones committed a blatant double dribble that the refs somehow missed. Television viewers saw it, the announcers announced it, and after the game Jones admitted it. That night some Miami television sportscasters never even mentioned the critical moment on which the game turned. But Cefalo led with the blown call. Moreover on most broadcasts Cefalo looks like he's actually interested in the subject, even when he's just reading hockey scores. And during the winter Olympics he reported the results of the ice-skating competition as if that were a real sport! Whoa.

BEST LOCAL WEBSITE

www.clubhoppers.net

Miami has had its fair share of zines and Websites vying to be the source when it comes to covering nightlife. Clubhoppers comes closest to earning the title. Listing various venues and acts is no difficult task; anyone with e-mail or a fax machine can obtain the info and regurgitate it for the public. Presenting the information with flair, humor, and hilarious photos sets Clubhoppers apart. Its evening guides, accurate and current, are indispensable, but it's the weekly photographs that put this site over the top. Moments of intoxicated bliss, gregarious foreplay, law-enforcement confrontations, and more. Clubhoppers reminds us what going out is all about.

BEST UPS MAN

Mike Bode

To the unaware, Mike Bode could be just any other UPS guy. He wears a brown shirt and brown shorts. He drives a brown van around South Beach, concentrating on Lincoln Road. But he's not. His customers describe him as the hardest-working human being on the planet. Store owners up and down the Road sing his praises unsolicited. Phrases like "amazingly conscientious" come up often. "He never gets down, no matter if he's lugging around dozens and dozens of boxes," marvels one merchant. "He's always up. They need to clone him. The whole world should just be like Mike." It's obvious Bode takes pride in his work. "The best part of my job is being able to make people happy," he explains. "My grandfather taught me to treat people the way you want to be treated. He also told me to enjoy my job. If you don't enjoy what you do, why do it?"

BEST PLACE TO TAKE OUT-OF-TOWNERS

Rancho Don Goyo

If they're visiting from out of town, there's a good chance they're not familiar with the word guajiro. In Cuba it's the name given to country folk, that island nation's noble peasants. Rancho Don Goyo, a rustic retreat in Miami's own countryside, keeps the guajiro spirit alive on Saturdays and Sundays, when Cuban immigrant Gregorio Arensibia, better known as Don Goyo, throws open the gates to his two-acre ranch and invites in the world. Bring your guests here and let them experience a peculiar and exotic aspect of Miami: This really is not the U.S.A. From noon until roughly 10:00 p.m. South Florida residents hailing from all over Latin America gather for food, drink, music, and dance in an atmosphere that feels a lot like home, whether that was Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, or Cuba. Rancho Don Goyo is marked by an unassuming sign on the north side of Okeechobee Road (U.S. 27) beyond the turnpike, after it opens up under a big sky and a landscape of broad fields. (If you reach the junction with Krome Avenue you've gone too far.) A dusty side road takes you to a makeshift parking lot, then on to the heart of the place -- a ramshackle general store and an immense open-air restaurant where patrons enjoy their beers along with a tempting variety of freshly grilled meats and tangy side dishes. When live bands aren't playing, the jukebox kicks in. Either way the dance floor will always be occupied. If possible try to be there on a Sunday afternoon when local enthusiasts of punto guajiro take to the stage. Punto guajiro is a Cuban musical invention of improvised lyrics set to the poetic decima, a traditional Spanish form favored by itinerant troubadours of yore. At Don Goyo's the tradition lives with an exuberance that requires no translation. Fun and games and barnyard animals for the kids. Ice-cold cervezas and back-slapping camaraderie for the adults. And a very special treat for your out-of-town guests.

SECOND-BEST LOCAL WEBSITE

www.cooljunkie.com

Yes, another nightlife Website. No surprise, given the pervasiveness of nightclubs and the intense competition among them. But this site has a somewhat different feel to it. A little more comprehensive. A little more complex. A little more commercial. But that's exactly what makes it the one you would recommend when visiting friends ask you for clubbing advice upon hitting South Beach. The love child of British expats Nick McCabe and Sarah Lynn, cooljunkie manages to maintain the pair's enthusiasm for the local dance scene while keeping the fluff factor to a manageable level. All the Beach's hotspots are laid out and evaluated, along with informed DJ interviews, coming attractions, and of course, plenty of party pics featuring clubland's ranks (and quite possibly you) hitting the dance floor.

BEST FESTIVAL

Argentine Festival

Every exodus deserves a festival. The epic flight inspired by the collapse of the Argentine economy is no exception. Luckily those fleeing the new bartering society of Buenos Aires already have Miami's best festival waiting for them. Every spring, for four years now, long-time expat Enrique Kogan has offered tens of thousands of his compatriots a daylong celebration of tangolandia. And thanks to performances by the biggest stars along the Rio Plata -- Miguel Mateo, Charly Garcia, Alejandro Lerner -- the folks back home can see you on Telefe. Whether you are Argentine or just wish you were, you'll find something to love at this paean to the civilization Sarmiento dreamed of: futbol, rocanrol, choripan, dulce de leche, and the national question, asked by patriots and expats alike: Che, how did we end up here?

BEST FILM SERIES

Cuban Cinema Series

Miami-Dade Community College

Who else but MDCC's Alejandro Rios could put together a top-flight, ongoing program of Cuban films -- from islanders and directors in exile -- attract full houses, and yet raise nary a peep from our AM talk-radio friends and their noisy shock troops? Maybe a free series with this kind of quality is just too good (and in this town, too needed) to assail.

BEST FLAME-BROILING

Burger King fire walkers

The irony is just too delicious. This past October marketing executives from Burger King, reeling from the botched introduction of their revamped French fries and gearing up to push the new Chicken Whopper sandwich, participated in an "achievement" team-building seminar on Key Largo. According to published reports, some 100 Burger King employees "used their bare hands to bend spoons, break boards, and smash bricks. Some bent steel bars with their throats and walked over a board of 6000 sharp nails." At the end of the seminar the executives were introduced to the highlight of the evening: an eight-foot-long pit of glowing-hot rocks they were told to walk across in their bare feet. Most of the participants made it over fine, and supposedly enjoyed a surge of confidence that comes from knowing they can overcome any obstacle. Unfortunately not everyone could overcome this particular obstacle. A dozen people suffered first- and second-degree burns on their feet. One woman had to be hustled to the emergency room. A day later several executives had yet to recover ambulatory status and were moving around in wheelchairs. As Burger King spokesman Rob Doughty told the Herald: "We certainly didn't intend for that to happen."

BEST TRADE (SPORTS TEAM)

Florida Marlins owner John Henry to the Boston Red Sox

Major League Baseball engineered this deal, allowing Henry to sell the Marlins, then turn around and buy the Red Sox. To Henry, who constantly cried poverty, tried to cajole South Florida taxpayers into building him a new stadium, and then when they wouldn't, orchestrated the $600 million purchase of the Sox by putting up $150 million of his own money, we say good riddance. And we offer one last bit of baseball trivia: Since 1919 the team you sold has one more world championship than the team you bought, chump.

BEST FARMERS MARKET

Robert Is Here

We know what you're going to say: Robert's is not a true farmers market. A splendidly eclectic fruit stand/reptile show/folk revue perhaps. What, you'll ask, about the Coconut Grove farmers market? Or the one outside Gardner's Market in Pinecrest? Fine. But this is our list and this year we're picking Robert Is Here. Yes, it's partly about the exotic fruit milkshakes, which are divine. But Robert Moehling and his crew have so much more to offer. In the fruit-and-vegetable department, for instance, just about everything grown in South Miami-Dade. In season there's U-pick strawberries. Plus live bees in a glass-enclosed honeycomb, every type of honey and preserve known to man, countless pepper and barbecue sauces, key-lime-infused chocolate-covered coconut squares, and many touristy trinkets. Out back is a large pen filled with giant tortoises and iguanas. There's also a one-man band playing in the corner on Saturdays. This is a place where you can truly eat, drink, and be merry.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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