Tell him to go fuck himself!” shouts Eddie Garcia, manager of the strip club on Biscayne Boulevard formerly known as Club Madonna. Garcia is responding to a reporter’s question about Frank Pinter, owner of the neighboring Madonna’s Restaurant. “Tell him and his little friend to go fuck themselves, alright? I’ve…
“What the hell is this?” asked a woman standing outside the chainlink fence that separated her and her date from Lincoln Road Mall. Answer: the closing blowout party of Pow Wow 1999, a convention of international travel professionals held three weeks ago at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The conclave…
If you think Bill Clinton has suffered for his marital indiscretions, you haven’t heard about Miami City Commissioner Tomas Regalado’s problems. Four years after he obtained a criminal restraining order against his former lover, Regalado is still dealing with the fallout from an extramarital affair. In April Elba Miriam Mor…
Future anthropologists chronicling the evolution of America’s consumer culture will remember April 1, 1999, as the end of an era. For on that day, in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks, the Galleria closed forever. This mall not only starred in the movies Valley Girl and Fast Times at…
The mayor of Miami once wore the heavyweight crown of South Florida politics. Maurice Ferre once championed a more cosmopolitan downtown. His successor Xavier Suarez shuffled into Overtown after the McDuffie riots in 1980, acting as the city’s spokesman, its leader. Used to be. In 1996 the title belt passed…
“Who knows about the stupid things Wade did when he was young,” Kelley Seaman says. The South Miami-Dade resident is trying to remember why her husband purchased the used car that has caused them so much grief. At the time, in 1986, Wade Seaman was a single 21-year-old who needed…
No one who follows football can avoid Drew Rosenhaus. The omnipresent sports agent with the slicked-back helmet of hair craves airtime like an asthmatic in an iron lung. He also is a man who knows how to exploit a controversy. Three years ago, when Sports Illustrated called him “the most…
Rick Springfield is a rock star. At least he was in the early Eighties, when he hit number one with the single “Jessie’s Girl.” A few followups also cracked the Top 20 (“I’ve Done Everything for You,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers”), though none since Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term. Springfield…
In the summer of 1981, Miami attorney Julius Ser began contemplating life after litigation. He dreamed of opening a bookstore, an intimate den filled with his favorite rare texts. “I thought it would be great,” he told the Miami Herald, “just sitting around, selling a few books and talking with…
Info: Dumb and Dumber Luck After squandering much of his lottery jackpot, Bernardo Paz is acquitted of raping his pregnant teenage sister-in-law By Robert Andrew Powell As a daytime television talk show squawks in the background, Emma Castro plops down on an outdoor couch, her bare feet tickling the stone…
Alan Diaz is a senior at Florida International University. He has served as the editor of the college newspaper, and he was our most recent editorial intern. He’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He turned 21 years old this past November, which made him old enough…
Monday. A work day. Sonya is up at 6:00 as usual, strolling toward the pool. Her toes curl on a cool, pebbly patio as she strips down to a black bikini. Her belly is flat and the cut of her swimsuit shows off her youthful legs. The single mother swims…
In early 1998 the United States Attorney’s Office in Miami announced it would more than double the size of its anticorruption unit, from six to twelve attorneys. Just in time, too. Federal and state prosecutors have been busy over the last twelve months following trails of money in the form…
For the football players at Jackson High School, the game was a ticket to the state championship. For the thousands of Generals fans dancing in the Orange Bowl, it was bragging rights over their arch rivals, Northwestern, for the first time in twelve long years. For athletic director Jake Caldwell,…
With six seconds left in the first half, Florida City scored again. Charging downfield like the razorback hog that adorned his baby blue helmet, a Florida City wide receiver snagged a long pass and plowed his way into the end zone. And so the Razorbacks’ lead stretched to nineteen points,…
Across the Tamiami Trail, past The Pit barbecue and the Miccosukee gambling palace, and following 90 miles of monotonously swaying sawgrass sits a bar. This screened-in hut serves as an unofficial gatehouse to the fishing village of Everglades City. On a Friday at dusk, as the setting sun stains the…
This is the main reason I haven’t been able to sell the house, this room here,” Ardell Morton explains as she enters the master bathroom of her house at 168 NE 44th St. in Miami. It looks bombed out. Rough concrete reveals where a sink used to be. Wire from…
This is a story about a baseball man. His name is Lou Haneles. He’s 82 years old, lives along a canal in Kendale Lakes, and is married to a lovely woman named Evelyn. Back in the old days he possessed strong arms and reflexes so quick he could hit a…
You’d think Alberto Gutman would have been more focused. Federal prosecutors alleged in June that the state senator, his wife Marcie, and his business associate Maricela Maury conspired to defraud the government of more than two million dollars in false Medicare claims. Though the case isn’t expected to go to…
Four teenagers are gathered around a table in the north Miami-Dade studio of WAXY-AM (720). Each perches before a fuzzy black microphone as the music of Big Pun fades from overhead speakers. An illuminated “ON AIR” sign announces that a broadcast is under way. “Welcome to Teen Live Wire,” host…
It’s the fall season, a time when television networks prove their freshness and creativity. Fox offers That ’70s Show, a drug-laced, coming-of-age story set in suburban Wisconsin. The WB network gives us Felicity, a coming-of-age story set in New York City. ABC, in a bit of contrarian programming, invites us…
Henry Fraind could not have made his point any more forcefully. When it first became apparent that Miami High recruiting infractions would cost the school its 1998 boys’ basketball title, the deputy superintendent of Miami-Dade Public Schools assured reporters that violators would be punished. “We’re not going to tolerate any…
