Brindley "Bo the Lover" Marshall might not be the best-known radio personality in Miami, and he's certainly not the slickest, but he's definitely the hardest working and most consistent. The founder of Hot 97.7 FM ("The hottest, hypest radio station in South Florida"), which is by most accounts the longest-running underground station in Miami, can be heard at all hours of the day and night. In fact, if we hadn't heard him stumble over the same word on a few occasions, we might have figured he was broadcasting live 24/7. Highly regarded in the local hip-hop community for his early support of artists such as Trick Daddy, Trina, and Brianna, Bo the Lover has also been an indispensable asset to the local pirate radioscape. He emerged as a spokesman of sorts for airwave pirates after a 1999 FCC raid, which briefly shut down his station, and he's been a vocal supporter of Hot 97.7's home base of Liberty City, where he has led drives to raise money for families of murder victims. Perhaps most important, in an era of highly formatted radio programming, Bo the Lover is one of the few remaining DJs who emphasize spirited conversation and music in equal measure.

Sports talk radio is largely a vast, arid wasteland of vapid, mind-numbing obtuseness. Angry, failed, and washed-up athletes-turned-mike-jocks saturate the airwaves with meathead nonsense that feeds the bloated beast of sports cliché and celebrates antiquated and lazy-minded notions of sports myth and misinformation. But then there's Dan Le Batard and his afternoon drive show on 790 the Ticket offering a refreshing alternative. Yes, this is the same Dan Le Batard who wanted to get into the human element of Ricky Williams's abrupt retirement from the Miami Dolphins in 2004 when everyone else simply wanted to burn the running back in effigy. This is the same Dan Le Batard who can come across as a condescending, player-apologist, let's-make-every-topic-somehow-about-race know-it-all. But the Cuban-American University of Miami grad is also mostly right. And he's a fan of fun. Le Batard is as intelligent as he is silly — equal parts college professor and clown. And that's exactly why his is the highest-rated sports talk program on the radio from 3 to 7 every weekday. Along with cohost John "Stugotz" Weiner — who plays the perfect foil to Dan's academic, abstract, and nontraditional take on sports — Le Batard covers everything from Miami's pro and college teams to pop culture and animals. And it's his love of stats, intellectual discourse, and self-deprecating humor that make him a must-listen for all Miami sports fans. That, and his hilarious viral YouTube rants about the Miami Heat.

Every weekday, Ricardo Brown and Lourdes Ubieta provide Miami with a double dose of politics. Their show on Actualidad (WURN-AM, 1020) is like a cortadito to the cerebral cortex, skipping from local news to national and international politics so easily that before you know it, you've forgone your usual afternoon siesta and actually learned something. Unlike many Hispanic radio personalities, however, they don't ignore Anglo or African-American Miami. Case in point: They interviewed Miami New Times columnist Luther Campbell last year when he ran for mayor. On a recent show, Brown, a Cuban who has won four Emmy Awards and traveled more widely than Anderson Cooper, discussed the Trayvon Martin killing with a leading Miami attorney. In his warm, deep voice, Brown expressed disbelief that Sanford police had threatened journalists reporting the case. "How are they going to arrest you for sending an email to a public figure whose information might be important in a death investigation?" he asked. "As far as I know, asking questions is still legal in the United States." Alongside Brown, Ubieta's rapid-fire, Venezuelan-accented commentary and incisive wit come in handy for fielding the dozens of calls the duo takes on the air every day. Together, they're a doble espreso de noticias instead of that weak, watered-down stuff on other stations.

Djanet Sears's meticulously complex Harlem Duet is a provocative play that deals with race, sex, and mental illness in the black community. When the M Ensemble performed the play in March, the troupe turned to University of Miami drama professor Lowell Williams to take on the challenge of bringing out all of the show's multifaceted and nuanced layers. Williams, who holds a master's degree in psychology from Kent State, took an eclectic and talented cast and coached it into performing one of the finer dramas on a Miami stage in some time. The ever-modest Williams swore that his cast, made up of veterans such as John Archie and up-and-comers such as Ethan Henry, made the play excel. But tackling subjects such as interracial marriage and sexual politics in the African-American community takes a strong hand steering the production. Williams's direction was particularly crucial for the role of Billie, a woman dealing with a deteriorating psyche, played by Christina Alexander (not coincidentally our winner this year for Best Actress). "I told Christina that she can't play both sane and insane at one time," Williams said. "I told her not to get caught up in trying to bleed them together. A lot of actors make the mistake of playing competing emotions at the same time." The result was an outstanding performance from Alexander and a powerful, resonant production from the M Ensemble.

With all the handwringing that University of Miami fans were doing last year, they might have missed a historic, lineman-shredding effort by their sophomore running back. While former booster Nevin Shapiro was promising to destroy UM football and a decidedly mediocre 6-6 season unraveled on the field, Lamar Miller accomplished something no Cane had done in nearly a decade: topping 1,000 yards on the ground. (The last guy to do it? You may have heard of Willis McGahee.) In Miller's first season as a starter, the five-foot-11, 212-pound Miami Killian Senior High grad stiff-armed his way to seven different hundred-yard games, bashed in nine touchdowns, and finished with 1,272 yards on the year. Sadly for the orange-and-green, soon after his final game, the 20-year-old wrecking ball tweeted a farewell to the U — "It was a blessing to be a Miami Hurricane," he wrote — and declared for the NFL draft. Let's hope someone at Dolphins HQ took note of the righteous ass-kicking Miller left on the field in his last year in Coral Gables.

Unless you live in Southwest Dade, the Tropical Park Tennis Center isn't exactly convenient — but therein lies its unique appeal. You can actually nab a court without lurking for hours or booking days or weeks in advance. Sure, reservations are recommended during the peak hours of 6 to 9 p.m. (courts are open till 10 Monday through Thursday and 8:15 on weekends), but stop by on a weekday afternoon and you and your partner might just find yourselves playing in solitude. The dozen courts are well manicured, with few if any of the disorienting cracks that mar most public tennis courts. And if you find yourself in a queue for a court, there's almost always room to practice your stroke on one of eight nearby racquetball courts. Plus the price isn't bad: $3 per person per hour before 6 p.m. and $4 thereafter.

Plenty of films were shot in Miami this year. But only one of them featured the life story of 2 Live Crew's Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell, as told by two of our city's quirkiest and most entertaining artists: filmmakers Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva. Are we biased, considering that both Leyva and Mayer have won New Times MasterMind Awards and that Uncle Luke writes a column for our publication? Perhaps. But we're sure as hell not alone in fawning over this film. Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke received a rousing welcome at festivals from Sundance to South by Southwest. (It might have been in part due to the filmmakers' creative additions to the festivals' swag bags: whoopee cushions printed with a cartoon version of Uncle Luke.) Life and Freaky Times injected homegrown Miami talent into the international film scene. But it's also simply a damn fine movie, immersing the ever-entertaining Uncle Luke inside a fantasy world of Mayer's creation, featuring cartoonish, colorful handmade sets and adorably lo-fi special effects. There are booties and boobs and science and more booties and a whole lot of screaming. At one point, a character confirms to Luke what we've known all along: "According to our extensive research, you are the realest nigga in Miami." And it all proves that 20 years and a genre change later, Miami's artists are still as nasty as they wanna be.

The true-life events of the Million Dollar Quartet jam session of December 4, 1956 — when Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash popped in to Sam Phillips's legendary studio Sun Records to catch a Carl Perkins recording session while up-and-coming piano rocker Jerry Lee Lewis sat in — are found scattered through biographies, a scratchy recording, and word-of-mouth accounts. The account is more apocryphal than actual history, but this dazzling musical transported audiences to that fateful afternoon of the winter of '56. The actors portraying the iconic foursome oozed gobs of talent. With voice and movement, they blew away the crowd. They didn't just mimic the foursome; they slipped into their skins. Even more impressive was that the performers played their own instruments. Lee Ferris shone as the often-frustrated Carl Perkins, and his phenomenal guitar solos were the highlight of each song. Derek Keeling as Johnny Cash was superb, bringing down the house when his booming baritone belted out "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line." Cody Slaughter nailed it as the young, sexually charged Elvis, with his swiveling hips, crooked smile, and country-boy humility. And the production's standout was Martin Kaye as the kinetic and cocky Jerry Lee Lewis. Million Dollar Quartet was at once a time capsule, a concert, and a celebration of the birth of rock through myth, magic, and music.

It's the middle of the day on Ocean Drive a half-century ago. Cuban men sit in folding chairs on the grassy strip now known as Lummus Park, strumming tiny guitars and singing in Spanish. A businessman in a breezy white suit approaches and lingers for a moment to enjoy the music. Behind them, shiny pastel cars glide past pedestrians in circle skirts and cat's-eye sunglasses. Everything, from the familiar façades of the hotels in the background to the sepia tinge that the late-afternoon sun casts in the summertime, is picture-perfect Miami. Scenes such as those are what elevate Magic City from a standard premium-cable corruption drama to a loving homage to Miami's past. Sure, this town had its problems back in the day: political unrest brewing in Cuba, union scuffles and workers' disputes here at home, and just as many shady dealings then as today. But those times are the foundation upon which the city we call home was built, and this Starz drama does them justice. For that reason alone, you gotta love it. Of course, that's not the only reason to watch. Like any good cable show, Magic City treats viewers to healthy doses of T&A, with copious sex scenes steaming up the already-humid air. Plus, the performances that Jeffrey Dean Morgan and company turn in are as convincing as the scenery itself — and yes, the action was filmed in Miami, not some L.A. set designer's version of it. Magic City's elements combine into a sexy, stylish, sleazy, dramatic, and addictive package — much like Miami itself.

Three haiku about Laurie Jennings:

Soft! Lighter than air,

She glides behind her news desk

In a chair sans wheels.

United Way... eh.

Her community service

Is her smile, homey.

Her calm, sexy voice,

Her face on every screen

When robots take over.