So there was this Miamian named José who thought that it would be a joy to buy a boat and take full advantage of South Florida’s aquatic nature. He purchased a vessel and a trailer. On Saturday mornings, he figured, he’d hitch the trailer to the family SUV, drive to…
You’ve heard the arguments against America’s tragic prohibition of marijuana: how pot was only made illegal to protect the profits of corporate robber barons, how dangerous criminals are set free because the nation’s prisons are crowded with people arrested on reefer charges, how desperately ill citizens find respite in a…
Through three well-regarded bands, a half-dozen releases, and countless live shows, Rhett (who only uses one name), like so many Miamians born to Cuban parents, has always seemed as Anglo as the next straight-up rock and roll singer. His warm and sometimes stunning technique has brought him major recording contracts…
“The girls always looks good” has been Danny Jessup’s credo since the early Nineties, when he used the back of a real-estate office in Miami Springs to host a public-access TV show on local rock and roll. Sometimes you wonder if his glib style might be better received if he…
SAT 1/8 Paso Fino horses are born with a unique and graceful four-beat lateral gait which is smooth for the rider and beautiful to watch. See the pretty horses walk this way beginning at 9:00 a.m. today and Sunday at the Tropical Park Equestrian Center, 7900 Bird Rd. Free. Call…
Remember the celebration of the new year, decade, century, millennium? Maybe through a haze, but as New Year’s celebrations go, that was the biggest anyone living will ever experience, and when it comes to New Year’s celebrations, bigger is always best. One aspect of the 20th-to-21st century moment that was…
Heard locally on WLRN-FM (91.3), Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal once appeared in a music video starring (a) Michael Jackson, (b) Michael Moore, (c) Mandy Moore, or (d) Marilyn Manson? That’s right — (a) Michael Jackson! Carl, what has our listener won? Fans of National Public…
About a decade ago, Patrick Gleber — who, along with fellow FIU grad Kevin Rusk, had taken over Tobacco Road in 1982 and transformed the dingy dive into Miami’s best dining-drinking-entertainment complex — was meeting with a local radio personality who wanted to launch a new live-music night in the…
As with Jesus and Christianity, the Buddha lived as a human long before others created a religion in his name. Both of these great spiritualists had followings of devout people eager to learn their heroes’ secrets, but the Christian scriptures weren’t codified until at least 70, and likely 100, years…
Retail prices rising. Oil hitting $50 per barrel. Health care collapsing, schools failing, politicians scheming. What’s a working person to do? Work. Work overtime. Then work some more. And, should the occasion permit, party like it’s 1969. Visiting (or revisiting) the bygone provides some salve for quiet desperation. Don’t go…
On his latest album, Mules, Mistakes n’ Dirt, Fleet Starbuck is painted against a blue background as a mutant. He’s nearly mouthless, as if words no longer mattered. His eyes are swollen, as if he’s seen too much in life and doesn’t want to see no more. But even in…
Steve’s cat flew through the roof and into the trees, which flew down the street into the neighbor’s garage, which wasn’t a garage any longer. A teacher’s office building disappeared, but her desk was undisturbed. People near the ocean returned to homes and reported flooding, but insurance-claims investigators found the…
Thu 7/8 In the swelter of a South Florida summer, it is difficult to imagine anything more desirable than getting wet. Running the garden hose on your head is the low-end option. Much better is the high end, an aquatic chill-out that could change your life and maybe even allow…
Many years ago, when Atlantic Records was starting up in a New York apartment with the help of a loan from a dentist, Ruth Brown was signed to sing for the new label. Ruth Brown could sing the feathers off a bird, and she cut a number of excellent tracks,…
Snapshot 2004: Pentagon people sit before Congress attempting to explain some pictures of American military police and others humiliating captives in Iraq by forcing them to pose in ridiculous positions, often nude. At one point during the hearing a half-dozen people in the gallery, all with nice hair and Gap…
With aqua-driven economies and permanent-vacation mentalities, you’d think Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans would be sister cities. These are two places where everyone has a tan, a boat, and a drinking problem. Both cities indulge happily in things cultural, from buskers to giant festivals. Both offer fantastic food. Both enjoy…
In February and March Mareeta McIntyre’s Eagle Care Productions was so jammed up with the jams it was presenting that the Super Talent Showcase had to be delayed three weeks. A mere ten days before the event, she and her crew were still auditioning acts to find the best of…
Their official name: The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The “of Florida” came about in the Nineteenth Century when Euro-Americans waged war on the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes — several times — killing and maiming natives until the tribe was so deep in the Everglades, and so many had…
As of today, after dozens of national teleconferences and numerous in-house meetings, the secrets of newspapering can be revealed. Never before has the public been exposed to how journalism really works, but there’s no time like the present (even though “present” means in the future and the correct word –…
The Prada/Armani-clad speaker grew up in San Diego, graduated Brown, earned an M.B.A. at Duke, worked ten years as a junior vice president at a firm in Chicago. After fifteen years in South Florida, she (or he) was, after developing a successful insurance agency, elected councilperson for one of Miami-Dade’s…
There’s an apocryphal tale, or “urban legend” as such fables are now known, that New York’s Waldorf Astoria prepared a red velvet cake for some diners back in the Thirties or Forties — and then presented a $100 charge for the dessert. Back then $100 was big bucks, but even…
Reparations have to begin somewhere, so while circuses are generally thought of as one of those shows you have to take your children to lest they be forever traumatized by the denial, this gilly provides something more than guilt prevention for indulgent moms and dads and hay for its imprisoned…
