In the summer of 2005, 53-year-old Malika Oufkir stepped out of the oppressive 100-plus-degree heat in Marrakesh and into an orphanage where the air was equally stifling — filled with the odor of soiled diapers, medicine, and milk. It was the beginning of the exotic, Moroccan-born beauty’s third life, a…
Moldy Christmas Filed under: News Sweet baby Jesus would be so proud of the people running New Life Shelter for Homeless Families, which is operated by Catholic Charities, a nonprofit social service division of the Archdiocese of Miami. The fifteen-room facility in Wynwood provides downtrodden families with rooms for $200…
As daylight begins to fade outside the Dollar and Beauty store at 1062 North Miami Beach Blvd., a deafening tidal wave of traffic roars into view. Like a firefly, a lone motorcyclist flits through the torrent of commuters. Snippets of radio songs spill from cracked windows of the passing vehicular…
When Tammy met Bill, she was a freshman at Miami Northwestern Senior High School, a pretty girl of medium height with long black eyelashes and pearly white teeth. He was a handsome senior who played basketball. The pair began dating, and a couple of years later, son Robert was born…
Pay Fray Filed under: Scanner As the zero hour approached this past Friday, Shawn Beightol sat in his classroom at Michael Krop Senior High School, pondering the end. Then the hallway outside Beightol’s door began to fill with fellow teachers. They weren’t going to allow a meeting scheduled for that…
No Wham! No Bam! Thank You, MAM Filed under: Culture Local politicos sighed with relief this past week as years of delays, cost overruns, and questionable judgment calls came to an end with the raising of the curtain at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, north of downtown. While…
The Price of Victory Filed under: Scanner Let’s get this straight: Miami law firm Lydecker, Lee, Behar, Berga & De Zayas, where Mayor Manny Diaz moonlights as a freelance attorney, is not representing City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones pro bono. And there are no billing rate discounts for city commissioners, either…
Waterfront Access Is for Commies Filed under: Scanner When the Miami City Commission met this past week to discuss waterfront zoning, the exchanges went from surly to surreal. Fortunately Riptide was there to chronicle the, er, “conversation.” Pedro Martin’s lawyers and supporters came calling first, asking for a zoning change…
After Julie met Guido one evening earlier this summer, he plied her with alcohol and then forcefully sodomized her. “The whole time the greasy Italian piece of shit raped me, he kept on saying he had genital warts and that I deserved to have them, too, because I was a…
Feces is not usually a topic discussed during dinner. But at two South Beach restaurants, turd-related discourse is practically impossible to avoid; poop is a key ingredient in one of the most prestigious menu items. Vix at Hotel Victor, located in the heart of Ocean Drive, and Barton G, the…
A denim baseball cap tames Walter “Priest” Waters’s wiry salt-and-pepper hair. Snowy white sneakers adorn his feet, and crisp khaki shorts skim his knees. A baggy, brightly patterned shirt masks a middle-age paunch. Shortly before dusk on a recent Saturday outside Take One Lounge on NE 79th Street, silver cane…
Miami is not known for its profusion of bona fide black theater. But that is about to change — at least for a weekend. Through August 5, the first Urban Theatre and Entertainment Festival/Awards will showcase a variety of films, plays, musicals, lectures, and workshops at various locations throughout Miami-Dade…
Dressed in a fitted black T-shirt and plain dark pants, Miami artist Michael Israel stands alone on an expansive stage. In his right hand he clutches a paintbrush. Before him is a blank canvas that measures approximately six by four feet. Behind him are hundreds of people who have gathered…
Not long after noon on June 11 at the Playwright Irish Pub in South Beach, the predominantly pro-American crowd was silent. It had nothing to root for in this opening round of World Cup action. A flat-footed Team USA was unraveling against the Czech Republic, down two-zip entering the second…
Shannon Levy-Rowley is 21 years old and five feet seven inches tall. She weighs 108 pounds. During the past five and a half years, she has endured three major surgeries and diets ranging from fourteen weeks of consuming only liquids to sipping blended meals through a straw. But the brunet’s…
The Impressionists: In the 2000 movie Pollock, a crucially transformative scene places Jackson Pollock breaking through his previous conventions to slap paint on canvases. When wife Lee Krasner comes around to see what would forever after be recognized as his signature groove, she proclaims, “You’ve done it, Pollock. You’ve cracked…
The Impressionists: In the 2000 movie Pollock, a crucially transformative scene places Jackson Pollock breaking through his previous conventions to slap paint on canvases. When wife Lee Krasner comes around to see what would forever after be recognized as his signature groove, she proclaims, “You’ve done it, Pollock. You’ve cracked…
Watching M Ensemble’s production of Seven Guitars is like sitting in your neighbor’s back yard on Sunday: Although there’s not a lot going on, simply being invited generates a feel-good sense of belonging. But after spending an hour listening to strangers jabber about their lives without any real story line,…
What do you get if you combine eight musicians, forty-two singers, and one fast-talking con artist? Answer: “Seventy-Six Trombones.” Huh? Those good in math might be scratching their heads, wondering what the heck we’re talking about, but this was exactly the formula Meredith Willson used to create his legendary Broadway…
The Sunken Living Room: This is one instance when the story behind the scenes upstages the action in the play. David Caudle’s family drama was scheduled to open in New Orleans last summer, but Hurricane Katrina hit. The play is about a 24-hour period in the life of a dysfunctional…
John Beauregard was 39 years old when he fell from a construction site and broke his neck. In one awful moment, the builder who loved to ski became a C7 quadriplegic, largely paralyzed from the neck down. “I remember when I first got hurt and for all those many years,…
Balm in Gilead: Lanford Wilson was a master of realistic dialogue in which monologue, conversation, and direct address to the audience overlap. Written in 1965, this work was the playwright’s first full-length play. The drama takes place in Frank’s Café, a seedy all-night diner in New York City’s Upper Broadway…
