Miami is a notoriously tough town for jazz joints. For that matter, most types of musical venues encounter loads of trouble trying to survive here. Through the years jazz clubs have opened with much fanfare and closed with barely a whimper, leaving many a jazzhead in the proverbial lurch. Still…
Almost ten years ago, Shelton Hank Williams made a deal with the Devil. Even though the grandson of country-music legend Hank Williams and son of Hank Williams, Jr., owed $24,000 in delinquent child-support payments, the self-described long-haired, tattooed slacker with a taste for weed and whiskey was barely eking out…
Perhaps the most compelling question of our time has nothing to do with terrorists, civil liberties, or the economy. What we all secretly wonder is whether teen pop divas Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are really virgins or sluts, right? The singers’ image-makers do their best to confuse us. Britney…
So you won the disco-dance contest at your best friend’s bar mitzvah, you electric slide in your sleep, and you can salsa and merengue with every Hispanic around. Are you a dancing fool searching for a new groove to master? How about a little dabkeh? Dabkeh, you ask? That’s right…
They grazed on endless trays of pigs in blankets, nibbled piles of fried mozzarella, and washed it down with all the candy-flavored asti spumante a friend of David Dermer could imbibe. As Karen Maria something-or-other belted out a karaoke version of “La Isla Bonita” at Planet Hollywood on Miami Beach,…
Rev. Marilyn Hardy sinks into her couch with an exhausted sigh on a recent Friday. She has just returned home after what seems like a week of endless meetings and emergencies. Exhaustion is nothing new to the spirited minister who has the unenviable task of solving life-and-death dilemmas as the…
The mime who painted himself green and performed near the Nexxt Café on Lincoln Road was truly silenced by Miami Beach police for posing without a permit. The baby-faced clown lady no longer ambles around the Euclid Oval on her stilts, twisting balloons into animal shapes for kids. The disco…
By late Saturday evening it was clear Hurricane Hip-Hop had been downgraded to a tropical depression at best. While the Miami Beach and county police departments had been on high alert — with war rooms set up and riot control in place — the huge, mostly black invasion, still fresh…
My stomach rumbles but I’m not nauseous. I swallowed seasickness pills at Eckerd’s more than an hour ago and I’m sure they’ve kicked in. Last-minute nerves strike as I approach the edge of the boat. It’s just a wave of butterflies, not an all-out panic. I’m not going to break…
At 11:00 on a Friday night, former Miami Dolphins safety, now event promoter Louis Oliver, shoulders through the side door of the Marlin Bar at Twelfth and Collins. He’s carrying a bouquet of balloons with the words “Thank You” printed on the sides. His six-foot three-inch frame is packed with…
Pizza joints, like sushi bars, are not in short supply along Washington Avenue. On the eleven blocks between Sixth Street and Lincoln Road, there are eight pizzerias slinging cheesy Italian slices at the passersby. Though the kitchens are hot and loud, and the guys wrestling the dough sweat and grunt…
With five performance stages that featured salsa, hip-hop, jazz, and rock musicians; a gourmet restaurant; an art gallery; and an outdoor film space, Power Studios, in the heart of the city’s fledgling Design District, aimed to be an all-encompassing party place — which is saying something in Miami. The ambitious…
Eight years, 10,000 miles, and eleven time zones don’t seem to be enough to insulate former county Commissioner Joe Gersten from his notorious Miami past. Despite attempts to fashion a new life in Australia, the ghosts of his local infamy haunt his every move. In fact just a few weeks…
Monday night is a slow night at Club Madonna. As a dancer named Yvonne counts the tips in her garter, it dawns on her it might have been better to catch up on her sleep in her hotel room tonight. Having arrived from Australia by way of Japan less than…
Anthony Kennedy Shriver’s broad smile and Brahmin inflection are eerily familiar. The bushy hair, chiseled chin, and piercing eyes clearly identify him as kin to one of the world’s most famous and intriguing clans. And though for the past thirteen years he has immersed himself in the realm of nonprofit…
The petition drive aimed at repealing Miami-Dade County’s human-rights ordinance, which protects homosexuals from discrimination, is a time bomb capable of ripping apart the community if it is certified by county elections officials. So say members of SAVE Dade, the nonprofit political organization that worked for passage of the ordinance…
“Give me a beat, DJ. This child wants to walk!” demands Jojo Infiniti, who is MCing the House of Quest’s Awareness Ball at club Oz this past November. As the music starts, a lanky man waiting by the side of the dance floor in a petulant pose begins to strut…
As a group of women and children gather this past September at a New Haven Gardens public housing community meeting in Little River, Martin Siskind bursts into the stuffy room with the flair of a thespian. The aspiring activist and devotee of seminal Twenties lawyer Clarence Darrow speaks in smooth…
Nearly 15,000 gay men and lesbians gathered in Miami over Thanksgiving week to attend the string of opulent celebrations that have come to be known as White Party Week. Created in 1984 as a modest AIDS fundraiser, the affair now generates hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to combat…
To be black and gay in America is difficult enough. But to be a gay black clergyman seeking official sanction from one of the spiritual cornerstones of African-American life is beyond difficult. As Rev. Tommie Watkins discovered recently, it’s impossible — at least for now. Watkins preaches at the Greater…
On Saturday nights in Miami Beach, the wicked don’t begin stepping out before 9:30. Girls will squeeze into miniskirts, men will gel their hair, hopeful night crawlers will splash themselves with libidinous fragrances. But even at that hour, at Mango’s Tropical Café on Ocean Drive, early-bird tourists are already worshipping…
She has a way of making bureaucrats tremble. Combative and cantankerous, she combines a lawyer’s knowledge of federal housing regulations with an advocate’s passion for defending the disenfranchised. The resulting compound can be explosive. Detractors have disparaged Barbara Pierre as a “gang leader”; some have sought court injunctions against her…
