Imagine being Miami Beach mayoral candidate Raphael Herman’s volunteer campaign manager. You’re already battling an incumbent on behalf of a candidate who’s known only as a perennial loser, but you have a bit of momentum and are hoping to make a dent in the results when- oops, Herman shows up…
On Sunday, a gambler at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa was playing a $4 slot machine when its bells started ringing and an enormous figure began flashing on its jackpot screen: $166,666,666.65. Bill Seebeck thought he was set for life. Alas, ’twas not to be. After investigating the…
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. We haven’t been quite this flattered in a very long time.Three weeks ago, Riptide published a story about the very drastic fall of former pro basketball player Rumeal Robinson. We used court documents filed in Miami-Dade court and a revealing interview…
Forget Flagler, Tuttle, and Brickell. We need to start naming streets and bridges after a historical figure whose legacy is honored every day here in South Florida: Charles Ponzi. With heavyweight scammers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford basing their operations here, we’ve become the nation’s undisputed champion of the classic…
The world’s largest rubber band ball stands six feet seven inches tall and has a circumference of 25 feet. It took five years for Joel Waul of Lauderhill to create, weighs more than 9,400 pounds, and contains approximately 720,000 rubber bands. The outer layers consist of multicolored industrial-size bands that…
Since at least July, an abandoned and once pricey yacht has been beached on the trash-strewn and molester-patrolled shores of the Julia Tuttle Causeway. It’s been stripped of precious materials, spray-painted by some municipal entity, and slapped with stickers that say it’s not allowed here. It has also gained a…
Doesn’t the whole “balloon boy hoax” boondoggle feel like something that should have happened in South Florida? It’s one of those things where if you try to understand what might have motivated somebody to do something so dumb, you can feel your own brain melting a bit. Did the parents…
Halloween costumes based on Miami’s spookiest celebrities
South Florida’s elite graffiti crew MSG might have lost one of its most prolific taggers, as reported here last week, but it looks like the remaining artistes are picking up the slack. And while Riptide, for legal reasons, remains firmly against vandalizing other people’s property, this still wins our heart as…
Florida Memorial University has had a rough recent history. In 2005, 15 employees were accused of changing students’ grades in return for cash and sexual favors. Last November, a 17-year-old student was shot on campus. And this year, the school’s president was abruptly canned. Add yesterday’s near-riot to the list…
Between the state of the condo market, parking on South Beach, and the final price tag for the new Marlins stadium, Miamians have suffered through plenty of real-life horrors. So for Halloween parties this year, Riptide is going to put away the Freddy mask and show up in homemade costumes…
Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is finally playing hero in the post-season. That whole notion of A-Rod-can’t-hit-in-the-clutch seems but a distant dream this October. Ditto for the steroid revelations that dominated sports pages this off-season and Spring Training. But Miamian Yuri Sucart, his cousin and right-hand man made infamous for…
Hoops hero Rumeal Robinson lost his Maserati, machine gun, and mom
Remember that movie Falling Down, where Michael Douglas goes on a violent rampage against the everyday nuisances and obstacles of urban life? If you believe a police account, Miami-Dade Public Schools elementary substitute Rolanda Benjamin is Miami’s real-life William Foster — although, thankfully, instead of an arsenal, teach was armed…
With three seconds left in the game and his University of Michigan squad trailing Seton Hall by one point, 22-year-old guard Rumeal Robinson lined up for two all-important free throws. The NCAA Division 1 basketball title hung in the balance. The Zen-like junior fluttered one and then another shot through…
As you read this, Miami-Dade cops are making another arrest in relation to the rampant horse killings that have made headlines for the last year. Agriculture Crimes detective Mario Fernandez, a lead investigator of the phenomenon, tells Riptide that the squirrelly fellow on the right, 33-year old Eddy Lucio Guerra,…
Last year, Miamian Tamien Bain — an ex-con who had served time for robbing a McDonald’s — crafted a rap that nearly won a marketing contest for that same fast-food chain. Now some local high schoolers are finalists in a national dance contest for Baskin-Robbins. Maybe our city has an…
So the Marlins are shut out of the playoffs again, and the Dolphins have yet to win a game. But when it comes to moronic behavior, South Florida is always the reigning champion. With our apologies to Tomas Regalado — who, if you missed it, had a publicist brazenly lie…
On September 22, Riptide reported on the Funeral Store, a no-frills North Miami coffin emporium offering, via a big sign on the side of its building, “Caskets-4-Less.” A week later, CBS4 ran a “4 Your Money” segment — which can be viewed here — about the same store. We haven’t received…
Coconut Grove’s Justin Shaw has arm hair fit for Guinness World Records
Either there’s a glitch in the Matrix, or some government official in Georgia read up on Miami’s Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony and thought, What a swell idea!A couple of days ago, it was discovered — presumably by some plucky local alt-weekly — that probation officers had sent nine…
We at Riptide, like all good Americans, dream of making an obscene amount of money without doing any work. So when signs recently began popping up alongside Miami roads, reading in bold red lettering, “Rent your home during the Super Bowl for $10,000 a day!” best believe we called the…
