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Best Of Miami® 2001 Winners

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Best Use Of A Small Space

Performance Space 742

Size does matter, you say? Well, when it comes to performance, there's one place in town where skill infinitely overrules dimensions: PS 742. Perhaps the only venue in Miami exclusively devoted to the promotion and production of South Florida artists, Little Havana's cozy PS 742 seats about 38 people comfortably, but even if there were 138, the word uncomfortable could never be associated with this amazingly unpretentious cultural hangout and performance space. Culture? Unpretentious? Miami? Yes, miracles other than Elian sightings do occur on SW Eighth Street. This season alone the intimate venue was transformed from a runway for Magaly Agüero's enigmatic, Spanish-language performance Ceremonia Inconclusa (Unfinished Ceremony) to a cabaret for Lourdes Simone's performance poetry and boleros. It's also worthy of mention that the space doesn't limit itself to one particular culture or genre. PS 742 has hosted acts as varied as the Isadora Duncan Dance Ensemble, Middle Eastern Dance by Hanan, and Ayabombe's Haitian Dance and Music Troupe. It's no surprise that the place already has the lived-in feel of other long-standing cultural institutions such as Casa Panza across the street.

Theatergoers found a lot of reasons to dislike Paul Tei this season. He played a cold-blooded child killer in New Theatre's Never the Sinner and a hot-blooded serial killer in GableStage's Popcorn. But he is so good at being bad that you can't really hold it against him. Tei is the kind of actor who looks at a role not only as an opportunity to perform but also as an opportunity to create a role. Consequently he can portray several different degenerates, and his performances never overlap. As Wayne, the gun-toting redneck in Popcorn, Tei kept us riveted to our seats -- appalled and laughing. As Richard Loeb, a wealthy young Chicago man who, along with his lover, kills a young boy on a Nietzsche-inspired whim, he was equally appalling. But Tei never let audiences simply dislike his characters. With his willingness to take risks and push the boundaries of character definition, he could make Ted Bundy funny. For example, in Never the Sinner, he dared to play this insolent, arrogant murderer as childlike and capricious -- clubbing a kid in the head one moment and going out for hot dogs the next. Tei's topnotch acting transformed these two good plays into excellent ones.

An actor's success in a dramatic role can fall into one of two categories: the ability to make the unbelievable believable, and the ability to make the believable unbelievably incredible. Bridget Connors managed to do both in her role as a young Jewish woman dying of a terminal illness. That's the believable part. Rachel's plight easily could have been a case study in Harold S. Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. She expressed all the predictable emotions and asked all the right metaphysical questions. The not-so-believable part is the conversion experience she had, which was facilitated by her sister, a devout member of the Christian Science faith. Believable or unbelievable, Connors brought something magical to the role from the moment she stepped onstage. Her ability to be simultaneously earthy and ethereal left theatergoers feeling as though they were seeing a tragedy for the first time.

Best AM Radio Personality

Joe Rose

Let's give it up, finally, for the Big Dog, Joe Rose. The former Miami Dolphin wide receiver is as close to a Miami sports institution as we have at this time, at least since Dan Marino and Don Shula have retired. Hard to believe in a way. Rose hardly distinguished himself as an athlete. (His greatest claim to fame, which he'll gladly tell you about, is catching Marino's first touchdown pass.) But as a broadcaster Rose has developed into a welcome, humorous personality, the ex-jock with a soft spot for the underdog. In his appearances on WQAM, on WTVJ-TV (Channel 6), and hosting numerous charity roasts, Rose plays the doofus, willingly attracting abuse from his co-workers, especially his linemates on the First Team, WQAM's very listenable morning sports-talk show. Clearly, though, Rose is no idiot. Compared with other sports clowns, such as former Steeler QB Terry Bradshaw, we'll take the underdog every time.
Best Art Cinema

Mercury Theatre

With the closing of the Alliance Cinema on Lincoln Road, it looked as though this category would be consigned to the cultural graveyard. Conventional wisdom had it that nobody could withstand the gravitational pull of the multiplex. Besides that, it seemed as if an audience for art movies simply didn't exist in Miami -- or didn't exist in large-enough numbers to make financial ends meet. But that didn't deter Cesar Hernandez-Canton, Johnny Calderin, and Ray Garcia (also operators of the Absinthe House Cinematheque in Coral Gables). In January of this year they opened the 103-seat, nonprofit Mercury Theatre to high hopes if not huge crowds. Although the opening was a year later than planned, the delay actually may have worked in their favor. Their hopes of riding the entrepreneurial wave in Miami's Upper Eastside created by restaurateur Mark Soyka were enhanced by giving Soyka (the restaurant) a chance to develop a following, which it has. With Soyka (the man) as landlord, Hernandez-Canton, Calderin, and Garcia remade an old warehouse adjacent to the restaurant, featuring amenities such as tables and chairs in the lobby, twenty-foot ceilings, unusual concession delicacies, and gallery space. Soyka installed a fountain outside and added more tables and chairs. Voila! An oasis was born. Films are screened twice nightly during the week. Matinees are added on the weekends. Yes, the movies don't change all that frequently, but it sure beats the only attractions formerly available in the neighborhood: streetwalkers and strip clubs.
Best Art Gallery

Cernuda Arte

In 1988 Ramon Cernuda presided over an auction of paintings held at the Cuban Museum of Art and Culture. The works were created by Cuban artists who had not broken with the Castro regime. The new owner of Manuel Mendive's Pavo Real promptly stepped outside and set it ablaze in the presence of cheering protesters. (Twice the museum was severely damaged by bombs.) A year later the feds accused Cernuda of purchasing Cuban art in violation of the embargo; they raided his Brickell Avenue condo and confiscated 240 paintings. A federal judge angrily denounced the seizure and ordered the works returned. Today the backsides of those paintings display U.S. Treasury/Customs Service seals, the same ones used to label intercepted drugs. Who would have thought that eleven years later, Cernuda would be opening an art gallery specializing in Cuban art from the island, smack in the middle of Coral Gables. This past fall Cernuda Arte made its debut with an exhibition of Cuban originals by masters such as Amelia Pelaez, Wifredo Lam, and Carlos Enriquez. Currently the gallery represents six working artists. Two of them, Demi and Sinuhé Vega, are based in Miami. The others create in Cuba. They are Flora Fong, Juan Roberto Diago, Alfredo Sosabravo, and Rigoberto Pelaez. "We are very open about what we do," Cernuda says. Boy, have times changed.
Best Art Gallery With Atmosphere

Wallflower Gallery

Hidden among the storefronts of downtown's shopping district is a horde of local talent: musicians and artists, poets and dancers. On any given night, many of them can be found at the Wallflower Gallery. Never heard of it? Well, listen up. You're the one missing out. Gallery hours are 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Performance events take place later, usually Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights beginning around 9:00. Unless otherwise advertised, admission is a modest six dollars. Performers have included Omine, Susan Laurenzi, Dr. Madd Vibe featuring Angelo Moore from Fishbone, Ladybud, and Boxelder. That's a lot of music for an art gallery, but it is indeed a gallery. The work of up to twenty artists and craftspeople can be on display at any given time. This is an unpretentious place that attracts unpretentious people; no snooty champagne-and-cheese receptions here. Try muffins and granola, or maybe some green tea. Before joining the chorus that whines, "Miami has no culture," check out Wallflower.

Best Baseball Camp

Red Berry's Baseball World

Since 1965 Red Berry has been teaching youngsters to pitch, catch, bat, and spit like a major leaguer. At various times he also has served as a coach for the University of Miami Hurricanes and a professional baseball scout. He likes to claim at least some of the credit for the careers of players who went on to play for teams such as the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, Montreal Expos, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, and Toronto Blue Jays. The secret to the decades-old formula? Teaching the kids proper player development, to be part of a team, and to have a good time. Summer camp begins in June. Sounds like fun, and if there's any truth to the Baseball World slogan, it is just that: "Home to America's happiest ballplayers."
Best Cuban Baseball Player (Recently Retired)

Rene Arocha

In 1991 Arocha became the first member of the Cuban national baseball team to defect to the United States, opening the floodgates for other Cuban peloteros such as El Duque, Osvaldo Fernandez, and Livan Hernandez. For that he will go down in history. Arocha didn't bag a multimillion-dollar contract like other Cuban players who followed. He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for a meager $15,000 and made less then $150,000 his first year. But for Arocha it's not about the money. It's about being first -- but definitely not last.
Best Dolphins Player

Zach Thomas

How to prove your mettle: After coming off another stellar year, injure your right ankle in an early season victory over New England. Miss five full starts. During your absence watch other teams run over your replacements as if they were Bermuda grass. Come back even though you're still in so much pain you feel, you say, "like an old man" at age 27. Still serve as the anchor of an excellent defense that carries your team to a division title. Still earn selection to the Pro Bowl. That's how.
Drag queens are like birthday cakes: layered and coated with thick frosting painstakingly applied to evoke strong reactions. The cake most full of surprises in this town full of queens is Ivana, the shiny-lipped, bawdy broad from Buenos Aires. When she struts atop the bar at Cactus in white hot pants and go-go boots, be prepared for an onslaught of camel-toe jokes from a girl who is just about ready to bust out of her own outfit. Try as she might to be classy, whiskey-voiced Ivana can't help it. If her lip-synching to saccharine pop is a little off, her sense of timing when she emcees her shows in Spanish is fierce. Watch her sparks fly Friday nights at Ozone and Saturday nights with Adora at Cactus.
Best Ensemble Cast

The Laramie Project

Artistic director Michael Hall did South Florida theatergoers two favors this season. First he brought the socially relevant and riveting docudrama The Laramie Project to his stage. It was the first production after the play's off-Broadway debut. Second he assembled a troupe with the range and experience to make the production not only important theater but good theater as well. Dressed in drab brown tones, the ensemble of eight portrayed more than sixty characters, from townspeople to ranchers, doctors, reporters, and friends of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die by two local boys in Laramie, Wyoming. With fluid and subtle transitions, these characters switched roles seamlessly, revealing an unforgettable cross section of small-town America and a staggering array of attitudes. The Laramie Project featured Kim Cozort, Jason Field, Laurie Gamache, Jacqueline Knapp, Pat Nesbit, Mark Rizzo, Robert Stoeckle, and Michael Warga.
Best Family Fun Center

Tropical Fun Center

No half-naked waitresses here. None of those annoying black-clad Dave and Buster's-style security guards talking into their walkie-talkies -- just good clean fun for the whole family. Well, maybe not so clean. The paintball does get pretty messy. Norm Kramer, owner and founder of Tropical Fun Center, is proud of his facility and with good reason: It is the only remaining establishment of its kind in Miami-Dade County. Open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., the illuminated outdoor paintball arena is just one of the many exciting entertainment choices this place offers. Start off with some miniature golf. The eighteen-hole course was rated "most challenging" by the chamber of commerce. Then strap the kids into a NASCAR go-kart and let them tear around Miami's only all-concrete, banked go-kart track. If eighteen miles per hour is too fast, then send the kids off to the "roller-racing track." Kids of any age can sit on these funny little contraptions and zip around till they're exhausted. The arcade is standard electronic and pinball (though low on the hyperviolence). But there's something refreshingly different about the posted signs that warn against smoking and using profanity. This truly is a place for the whole family.

Best Fashion-Forward Fin

O.J. McDuffie

Dolphins wide receiver O.J. McDuffie knows you can't play good unless you feel good. And you can't possibly feel good unless you ... look good. That's why, before a big home game against rival Buffalo, McDuffie petitioned head coach Dave Wannstedt to toss out the garish green pants the team had worn at home for the past three seasons in favor of the white pants and matching white shirts the team wore in its glory days. Wannstedt allowed the change, and the Fins looked positively resplendent in a 22-13 win. "Whatever it takes," said a victorious Wannstedt afterward, referring not to the gridiron war but to the wardrobe.
Best Film Festival

FIU-Miami International Film Festival

This year was a glorious one for the city's largest film festival. Getting off to a head start last December with the Miami premiere of Julian Schnabel's tour de force, Before Night Falls, the late-February event presented one of the best selections in the eighteen years since its inception. From the riveting French period drama The Widow of St. Pierre to the ambient Chinese study In the Mood for Love, the festival surveyed the best of contemporary trends in cinema. An especially strong Latin-American lineup included Barbet Schroeder's controversial existential meditation Our Lady of the Assassins; Andrucha Waddington's Brazilian feminist romp You, Me, Them; and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's brash music-video-style Mexico City epic Amores Perros. In these films, as in the documentaries set in Cuba -- Jane Burnett and Larry Cramer's Spirits of Havana and Uli Gaulke's Havana, Mi Amor -- the music made as strong an impact as the celluloid. The felicitous synching of sight and sound climaxed in the festival anchor and audience-award winner, Fernando Trueba's documentary of Latin jazz, Calle 54. As if Trueba's loving portraits were not magical enough, the festival's after-hours Baileys Club brought the film to life with standout performances by Puntilla, Cachao, and the venerable Bebo Valdés.

Best FM Radio Personality

The Big Lip Bandit

We want to send a shout out to the Big Lip Bandit. All right. All right. Okay. We'd kiss you if your lips weren't so big. All right. All right. Okay. A bppppppppppppppppppppppp raspberry your way, brother. The BL Bandit (actually a relatively modest-lipped Philadelphia native) has turned weeknights on 99 Jamz into a raucous and extremely social party in which the music may be played merely to give his lips a well-earned rest before he unleashes another explosion of distinctive, infectious patter. As most of Miami knows by now, the man has a mouth.
Best Fusion Player

Jim Rooney

Rooney has enjoyed one of those Abe Lincoln careers: failure after failure until, unexpectedly, emerging as an extraordinarily capable leader. The little-known player out of C.W. Post University arrived in Miami after being waived by the MetroStars. He struggled for playing time, and when he did take the field, he didn't score a goal in 22 games. Under new coach Ray Hudson, though, Rooney's talents began to emerge. Last season Rooney moved from defensive substitute to midfield starter. He began scoring goals and dishing out assists. Then he won the title of team captain. By the end of the year his gritty play was so respected by the media covering the team that the once-obscure reserve was voted Fusion MVP. At this rate of improvement, it's only a matter of time before the Rooney Memorial is built overlooking the Lockhart Stadium reflecting pool.
Best Haitian Cultural Center

Jakmel Art Gallery, Cultural Center, and Caribbean Backyard

Walking along Biscayne Boulevard in the Edgewater neighborhood, you may have noticed a smiling sun rising above a wooden fence. On the other side sits a Haitian culture garden. In one corner two large eyes look out from an altar to the sensual Ezili. Toward the center of the garden a larger-than-life cutout of a leader of the Haitian revolution towers above a mound dedicated to warriors. A poem calling for respect and justice for all is written on the wall in Kreyol beside a small wooden store. A pole that channels the vodou gods from the other world into the bodies of faithful dancers rises before a stage where on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights local musicians and poets perform. Inside the gallery, where proprietor Jude "Papaloko" Thegenus resides, hang ironworks, paintings, and photographs by local Haitian artists. The Caribbean Backyard is more evidence of the do-it-yourself culture that is sprouting everywhere across the neighborhoods of Miami.
Best Heat Player

Anthony Mason

Mason could be named the best Heat player simply for avoiding the sinful temptations of South Beach. Long known as one of the NBA's more volatile stars, during his pre-Heat days he racked up an impressive arrest record for gun possession, assault, battery on a police officer, endangering the welfare of a child, and public drunkenness. When he played for the New York Knicks under Pat Riley, the coach suspended him twice. This year Mase, as he is known, could win a good-citizenship award. He's quit drinking and taken up Bible study. His relationship with Riley is full of mutual praise. More important, he is having his second-best year in the NBA, with an average of 15.9 points per game and 9.7 rebounds. And he deserves much of the credit for the Heat's success in the absence of Alonzo Mourning. His excellent ball-handling has helped make up for Tim Hardaway's diminishing skills. More often than not it has fallen to Mason to guard some of the league's hardest covers, including Chris Webber, Tim Duncan, and Shaquille O'Neal. He has acquitted himself admirably against these big men. At age 34, which can be ancient in the NBA, he is averaging 40 minutes per game. Mase is a free agent next year. One can only hope Riley finds a way to keep him in the lineup.
Best Hurricanes Football Player

Ken Dorsey

The numbers alone are enough. This sophomore quarterback from Orinda, California, set a team record for pass attempts without an interception. He led the Big East in passing yardage and total offense, earning first-team all-conference honors ahead of Virginia Tech magician Michael Vick. The future alone is enough. In only his first full season as a starter, Dorsey played an instrumental role in the Canes' 11-1 record and near-miss of a national championship. But what about the drive? Ah, yes, The Drive. Fifty-one seconds. Seven plays. Six completions. Sixty-eight yards. When it was all over, when Dorsey raised his arms skyward in victory, Miami held a three-point lead over then top-ranked Florida State with less than a minute to play. And Dorsey had emerged as the most valuable player on a team full of talent.
The Florida Marlins pitcher had to be scratched from his scheduled May 11, 2000, home start against the Braves because he strained his back while rising from a reclining chair in front of his clubhouse's television set.

Best Local Artist

Glexis Novoa

If any single artist traces the trajectory of art in Miami from local pastime to global force, it's this graduate of Havana's vaunted Eighties Generation, who arrived in South Florida via Mexico City's alternative scene in the mid-Nineties. Novoa has steadily widened the frame of reference for his political critique to include not only Castro's Cuba but the shimmering promises of his new homeland. His 1996 exhibition at Ambrosino Gallery centered on "La Habana Oscura" ("The Dark Havana"), while the architectural renderings and installations of his "Recent Works," shown in the same gallery a few years later, examined the technology of surveillance generally. The literal frame of his work has widened as well: Te Fuiste (You Left) escaped the boundaries of canvas and took over gallery walls in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Sarasota, and Indiana. In the "social experiment" called "Publickulture" at the Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art this spring Novoa was one of seven artists who broke through the boundaries of the museum to become part of the social landscape. Just how prominent a point of reference Novoa has become will be clear when the Miami Art Museum's yearlong "New Work Miami" series culminates with a specially commissioned installation by Novoa in fall 2001.
Best Local Director

Joe Adler

In an interview with New Times last year, GableStage artistic director Joe Adler said, "Television, and to some extent movies, is about maintaining a level of mediocrity. This is not the case with theater. It's a much bigger commitment. The audience is a participant." Adler combined his numerous years of film and TV experience with his passion and directorial savvy, turning Popcorn into a dark and riveting satire about the movie industry, among other things. Known for his emotive directorial style, Adler knows how to get the best out of his actors. By pairing Claire Tyler and Paul Tei, he created just the right balance of innocence and evil. Adler consistently shows a keen awareness of the context of contemporary theater. He never makes theatergoers slaves to the stage. And he often uses film, video, music, and sound to propel the play into the imagination of the audience. In Popcorn Adler reminded audiences that live theater can offer excitement that television and film can't, without record, play, and rewind.
Best Local Electronica Artist

Audio Habitat, a.k.a. James Wagner

No, he's not a DJ, though he does spin vinyl, which he usually has to borrow because he deals in CDs and engineered beats. No, he's not into the club scene or making it past the velvet rope, though he currently spins at hot spot Blue. Nah, for James Wagner it's all about the love vibes. His debut CD, Felt, went public during a May 2000 Universal Source record-release party. Since then Audio Habitat has crept into regular rotation during WVUM-FM's (90.5) Electric Kingdom. Usually found burning his corneas in front of his computer screen, Wagner, with the help of advanced design software, makes music from just about anything. The fluid organic sounds of Felt are interrupted or accented by random whirs and clicks. A subtle bass line feels like drips of water amplified and extended. Seamlessly mellow, down-tempo strains emerge. Currently Wagner's music aims to appeal to the senses through the specific vibrations. The sounds are not aimed at the club set, nor at the dance floor, either. They're a little out there but not too far. Just enough to make him this moment's innovator.
Best Local Sports Coach

Larry Coker

What, you thought we were going to give it to Butch Davis? After that scurrilous former Canes coach bolted for Cleveland, and after offensive coordinator Coker took over the school's prestigious head football post, the status of Miami's recruiting class looked shaky. Coaches from rival schools told the talent pool that Coker wasn't a big-time coach, that he didn't have a name, that the Hurricane football program was in disarray after four years of steady improvement brought the team to the cusp of a national championship. Yet Coker's popularity with current players, coupled with his unquestioned offensive savvy, assuaged almost everyone who had committed to UM. In fact a few more blue-chippers came onboard, such as Coral Gables phenom Frank Gore. Thanks to Coker the Hurricanes will battle for the national championship next year and for years after that. Let Davis takes solace in his Cleveland riches. It will be Coker we cheer in Miami.
It's too easy. That's the problem. Just get online, punch up Amazon.com or bn.com, click the mouse a few times, whip out the credit card, and boom! Any book you want delivered to your door in just a few days. Unfortunately the convenience of online shopping has usually come at the expense of deserving local bookstores. Until now. Books and Books owner Mitchell Kaplan has unveiled a Website that allows Miamians to enjoy online ease while still supporting his store, priceless local institution that it is. Kaplan's site, which operates in partnership with a national network of independent bookstores, retains a neighborhood-bookstore feel. Posted on the Web page are upcoming in-store readings, news of different book clubs and when they meet, and helpful recommendations from his smiling staff, all pictured. And ordering is exactly as easy as at Amazon, with one crucial difference: Home delivery is merely one option. We prefer to pick up our orders in person at the Coral Gables flagship store (delivery also available to the Miami Beach satellite shop). Stacks of books. Brewing coffee. Interesting people. Some pleasures can't be found behind a keyboard.
Best Local Writer

Fred D'Aguiar

Most writers ardently believe in the power of language. Fred D'Aguiar believes in the power of the word. In that way he is a poet even when he writes prose. His fiction displays the poet's love for the word's evocative, lyrical, sensual resonance. In Feeding the Ghosts, published in the United States by Ecco Press in 1999, D'Aguiar prefigures the death of a group of slaves thrown into the sea with this beautifully horrific passage on drowning: "Surrender to its depths. Find its secrets. Become loose-limbed like the water. As boneless. Learn that home is always some other shore. Sink from sunlight and moonlight. Maybe see the stars distended on water, from below water. Or the constellation spread out on a moonlit sea." Born in London and raised in Guyana, D'Aguiar is now a professor in the creative-writing program at the University of Miami and an important and passionate voice in Miami's literary community. He won the Whitbread First Novel Award in 1994 for The Longest Memory. His work also has won the David Higham Prize and the Guyana Fiction Award. His verse novel Bloodlines, about a female slave who falls in love with a plantation owner, will be published by Overlook Press in July.
Rumors of the zine form's death likely are premature, but our operatives inform us that at this juncture Rag appears to be one of the last specimens still available in paper at local CD stores. Free of charge. Every scene needs its scribes and, for example, did you know there are 116 rock bands in South Florida? Well, that's the unofficial count, which you'd know if you were a Rag reader. More important, the first-person-scarcely-edited-raw-copy zine form also is alive and kicking, as in this passage from Todd McFlicker's account of last year's Zen Fest: "Behind the gates of Bicentennial Park, a range of stereotypes ran amuck [sic]. There was an older crowd of Dead Heads, looking and smelling like Woodstock, along with kids whose pants were falling off. All ages were welcome to the event, but drinks were too expensive for most consenting adults to bother.... Backstage after the [Blues Traveler] set, the friendly Popper was giving autographs. Popper was continually signing some Jackass's photos until a security guard barked him away." The eponymous rag also has a utilitarian streak: It contains classifieds. Of most note is the musicians-seeking-musicians category.
Best Locally Produced Drama

The Music Lesson

The Music Lesson dismantled the myth that good drama must arise from a dramatic situation. A couple of musicians, Irena and Ivan, take refuge in Pittsburgh from war-torn Sarajevo and end up giving music lessons to American children from a broken family. What made this drama exceptional was the acting. The alienation and suffering these individuals felt moved through the audience like slow ether, emanating from their simplest gestures. In fact the play is a gestural masterpiece. All the action centers around an invisible piano. More than a metaphor, classical music becomes a tangible character, so that The Music Lesson is not just another account of human tragedy desensitized by a flood of overt emotion and sentimentality. It is a moving account of people trying to rebuild their lives. The Music Lesson featured Maggi St. Clair Melin, Jessica K. Peterson, Joris Stuyck, Elizabeth Dimon, Amy Love, Ashton Lee, Craig D. Ames, Eddi Shraybman, and Ethel Yari.

Best Locally Produced Television Comedy

El Mikimbin de Miami

Mikimbin is Cuban slang for tacky, shoddy, lowbrow. Which perfectly describes the show and its completely tasteless hosts, Miguel "El Flaco" Gonzalez and Gilberto Reyes, a.k.a. Los Fonomemecos. They've been a fixture in Spanish-language Miami comedy circles for years, two Cuban immigrants earning their bread and butter with live appearances, principally at Club Tropigala at the Fontainebleau Hilton, and really awful television commercials. Their El Vacilon de la Mañana stint during morning drive on El Zol (WXDJ-FM 95.7) was largely responsible for the salsa station's long-time high ratings. When the duo left last year over a contract dispute, they wasted no time in putting together Mikimbin. If you don't watch Spanish-language TV, you won't get all their jokes, and not every skit is funny. But the good ones are screamingly hilarious. Gonzalez does the best Fidel Castro anywhere, and a recent parody of the truly mikimbin Laura en America (a Peruvian version of Cristina -- strange but true) was to die laughing for.

Best Marlins Player

Charles Johnson

He has a World Series ring -- a ring he won with the Marlins. He has four consecutive gold gloves. More than anyone else he will be responsible for harnessing the exciting young pitching talent the team has stockpiled. He's improving as a batsman. He's a Marlin by choice, signing a free-agent contract with Florida at well below his market value. He was the first draft pick in team history. His return is a very real reminder that the Marlins are on the right track -- if not yet worthy of the World Series, then at least headed the right way.
Best Movie Theater

Regal South Beach 18

Let's acknowledge that Lincoln Road is now the place to see movies in Miami Beach. Yes, it may be the only place, but still it's been ages since the hordes living on South Beach had a first-run movie theater within walking distance. Now they have a megaplex, a showplace with eighteen screens, a movie house that is as physically attractive as the beautiful patrons who glide up and down its long escalators. The Regal may be the main ingredient in the CocoWalking of Lincoln Road, but even with a movie theater, the famous outdoor shopping strip still trumps the Grove mall to which it is disparagingly compared. In fact it's time to cease arguments about Lincoln Road's retail direction. What's past is past. The present is dinner, a movie, and an ice cream stroll down the Road. Maybe a little window-shopping for furniture or shoes, maybe a dip inside the bookstore followed by a beer at Zeke's outdoor garden. That's not so bad. It really isn't.
Best Museum

Historical Museum of Southern Florida

People often say Miami has no history. Not true. And the Historical Museum of Southern Florida can prove it. This year's "Tropical Dreams" exhibition traces human activity in the region from the arrival of prehistoric peoples 10,000 years ago through the visit by Ponce de Leon in 1523, the building of Henry Flagler's FEC railroad in 1896, right up through the many waves of migration from the Caribbean and Latin America over the past century. Since its inception fifteen years ago, the museum's folklife program has documented the traditional arts of more than 60 communities, from the Seminoles to the Scottish, the Bahamians to the Nicaraguans. "At the Crossroads: Afro-Cuban Orisha Arts in Miami" put on display beadwork, ceremonial garments, altars, instruments, paintings, and ritual performance of more than twenty local artists in the Afro-Cuban religious tradition. Committed to involving the community, the museum conducts field research, hires local guest curators, and brings on the noise with feisty discussions, lively concerts, and overnight excursions, such as the ever-popular Everglades muckabout.
Best One-Act Play

Iphigenia in Orem

Even those who aren't theater buffs love one-acts. Perhaps it's because our brains have been conditioned by too many Budweiser and Taco Bell commercials, but one-acts have the strange appeal of being enigmatic, energetic, and, most important, short. This season Chuck Pooler took the one-act a step further by packing Neil LaBute's Iphigenia in Orem with so many maniacal twists and turns it took the emotional toll of a two-hour drama. As a middle-age salesman holed up in a roadside motel, Pooler led theatergoers from feeling sorry for his washed-out, pudgy, pathetic self to utter shock when the man confesses that he suffocated his infant daughter and then pretended it was an accident. On the dimly lit and barren stage of Drama 101, Pooler's subtlety and unassuming delivery managed to seep into the subconscious of the audience and root out all preconceptions of what it means to be a murderer while at the same time, replanting age-old questions about good and evil.
Best Panthers Player

Viktor Kozlov

If right wing Pavel Bure remains the Panthers' superstar, a goal addict forever in search of his next fix, then center Viktor Kozlov serves as his pusher. Kozlov, who skates with Bure on the team's number one line, feeds a steady supply of dazzling passes toward his Russian countryman. Kozlov is the best stick handler in the league. The attention defenders must give to his powerful wrist shot creates opportunities Bure is skilled at exploiting. Not that Kozlov can't score on his own; during the 1999-2000 season, he set personal bests in goals, assists, and points. A nagging shoulder injury kept his numbers down this season, but when he's healthy and in the lineup, he, Bure, and the rest of the team all play at their best.
Best Park Manager

Lee Niblock

"A place as busy as this could really become a mess without good management," said an alligator to another one evening in the mangroves of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.

"Yeah, I noticed one night them restrooms were cleaner than you'd normally expect, at least for Homo sapiens' restrooms."

"Yep. Quite clean. They were actually stocked with soap and paper."

"The Lighthouse Café over yonder is not too intrusive either. I kinda like the design."

"Lots of wood. Blends right in. Kind of reminds me of the beach at Cape Cod. The café is a little crowded on the weekends, but that must mean they got something mighty tasty in there."

"They'd probably be scared if we went, though. They'd think we'd eat them."

"But we wouldn't."

"No, sir. Strictly frogs and birds. Maybe an occasional poodle."

"They'd probably try to eat us."

"As long as they stay on the trails or on the beach, I think we'll be okay."

"I heard they don't give out straws at the café because they found out that when straws blow into the ocean, they hurt the aquatic animals. Now that's another sign of good management."

"Yeah, the place has come along way. Especially considering that amazing tornado we had back in '92."

"Tornado Andrew I think they called it."

"The humans did a nice job on the restoration. They looked at some historical photos and put in a lot of native plants like sea oats, sea grapes, spike rush, mangroves, and saw grass. That's pretty much why I came back."

"Me too. I love that saw grass. You notice how a lot more water birds started showing up?"

"Yum."

"A couple of crocodiles even came back."

"Are they the gray ones with the tapered snouts?"

"Yep, but they're harmless. As long as you stay away from their kids."

"Who is the manager anyway?"

"A guy named Niblock. Lee Niblock. Been superintendent since October '94. He recently helped get the state to change the place from recreation area to park, which means only twenty percent can be used for human recreation. You know, like parking and eating. Lately he's been trying to keep a group from building some baseball fields in here on 30 acres."

"Must be a good man."

Best Performance In Spanglish

Michael John Garces

Well, why not? This is one language in which at least 80 percent of Miami-Dade County residents can claim to have some proficiency. Besides making millions for the likes of Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan, bilingual performance, when done well, provides an entertaining aural experience and an intriguing oral history, as Michael John Garces proved in Agua Ardiente, the show he wrote and directed. Of Cuban, Colombian, and American origins, Garces skillfully scripted his heritage through a lusty and heartbreaking array of personae. The one-man performance was both soliloquy and son, monologue and dialogue; it was an ode and a diatribe, a rant and a meditation. Garces's mastery of various poetic styles (language poetry, beat poetry, and spoken word) and his strong theatrical foundation made Agua Ardiente not a grab bag of form and language but an organic and energetic piece of bilingual drama.

Best Place To Drink Like A Fish

Underwater bar

How low can you go? At this underwater watering hole, you can go about twenty feet down, to the sandy floor of the ocean. Think of it this way: Even if you hit rock bottom, you'll never again have to moan, "How dry I am!" Here you're as likely to see a mermaid as a barmaid. In a marketing stunt that sounds more like a drunken prank, tequila magnate José Cuervo celebrated the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo in 2000 by actually sinking a full-size bar, complete with six stools, about 200 yards off of the First Street beach on South Beach. But this $45,000 structure attracts more than potential consumers. Behind the bar a curved wall of interlocking tetrahedrons, made from recycled concrete by long-time artificial-reef builder Ben Mostkoff, promotes algae growth, promising sea creatures and divers a lush environment. So stick around for last call. Sometimes, round about 3:00 a.m., if you're really quiet, you can hear the shrimp sing: "José Cuervo, you are a friend of mine/I like to drink you with a little salt and lime."
Best Place To Play Darts

BB's Sports Bar

Let's get right to the point: BB's has more steel-tip dartboards than any public establishment in the county (thirteen). And there are two separate dart-throwing areas, which means there is plenty of room for the hotshots from the Miami-Dade Darting Association and the rest of us hacks. The dozen or so teams from the association regularly hold matches at BB's, which used to be called Norm's Hideout back when a guy named Norm and a gal named Dorothy founded the association in the Seventies. BB's is just off U.S. 1 in South Miami-Dade, which is the stomping grounds of most folks who are passionate about darting.

Best Radio Personality (Posthumous)

Emilio Milian

Milian was a voice for freedom and tolerance in a city that hasn't always understood those words. In 1976 terrorists tried to silence Milian by planting a bomb under his car. He survived the blast but lost both legs. "Six months after the bombing he walked out of a hospital on artificial legs," Milian's son Alberto noted during the eulogy to his father, who died March 15. "No warrior stood taller that day." But the bombing alone did not define Milian's life. He did that himself through word and deed, praying for a free Cuba but never accepting the notion that the goal justified employing the same tactics of fear and repression Castro uses to keep the island enslaved. In the final months of his life, his body began to fail him, but his spirit never faltered. And now, in death, his voice may at last be silenced, but his memory lives on as an inspiration.
Best Radio Station

Union Radio

How can an AM station be best, you ask? This could be a comment on the state of things on your highly predictable, highly commercial FM dial. But another reason is that many of us in Miami-Dade are living in the past, in more ways than one. For example the First Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1791, but many of us need a constant reminder that it still exists, especially when the words "Fidel Castro" are uttered. That's where WOCN comes in. It is the only Cuban-dominated AM station to offer a range of opinion from left to right. "We believe in freedom of speech," explains Richard Vega, who owns this station along with his father and uncle. "A lot of people in this town don't understand it." This is the station that airs the ironically titled Ayer en Miami (Yesterday in Miami), hosted by First Amendment freak Francisco Aruca, who operates a charter airline that flies to Cuba. Aruca is a loquacious opponent of the U.S. embargo against the island, which means that each day when he opens the phone lines, he confronts an onslaught of hecklers with no interest in dialogue but a great desire to shout obscenities and imitate gross bodily functions. Unlike radio hosts on other AM stations, Alvaro Sanchez Cifuentes has the gall to support diversity of opinion on his show, Transición (Transition), in which guests with different points of view discuss a panoply of issues regarding local and Cuban affairs. But being best in this cultural crossroads means broadening your ideological bandwidth and ethnic horizons. Hence, Vega notes, "Right-wing Nicaraguans are on the weekend." From 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. the station broadcasts an ever-meandering stream of programming aimed at the Haitian community.
Best Reading Series

Writers on the Bay

For more than fifteen years, the creative-writing program at Florida International University has been producing one of the more lively and interesting reading series in South Florida. Housed at the North Campus of FIU, the series runs in the spring and fall of each year and is free and open to the public. Among the authors who have recently attended are the distinguished poets Maureen Seaton, Rebecca McClanahan, and Lorna Goodison, and novelists Bruce Jay Friedman, Miles Harvey, and Andrea Barrett.

Best Reissued Book By A Local Author

Up for Grabs: A Trip Through Time and Space in the Sunshine State

Sixteen years after its original publication, Up for Grabs has been returned to print by the University Press of Florida, and it is as relevant as ever. As its author, John Rothchild, notes in the freshly written afterword to this enlightening local history, anyone pining for a more innocent era of our city's development needs to get a clue: "Miami rolled out the red carpet for Al Capone in the 1920s, became a playground for retired mobsters in the 1940s, was the target of a Senate crime committee in the 1950s, allowed bookies to operate openly in the lobbies of beachfront hotels in the 1960s, produced Watergate burglars in the 1970s, embraced the drug trade in the 1980s, and hosted the corruption epidemics of the 1990s." But forget about trying to pin all this chicanery on any one ethnic group or the elite. Rothchild offers a more compelling rationale for our hometown's ongoing loopiness: It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. He reminds us that upon its founding, much of Miami was swampland, while Miami Beach was entirely manmade -- a strip of sand dredged from the ocean's bottom. Both common sense and the cosmos suggest that we just weren't meant to live here. Our city is a living testament to man's folly in the name of year-round sunshine and real estate speculation. And here you thought it was just something in the water.

Best Solo Show

The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith

Very early on in The Devil's Music, Miche Braden belted out a low blues note to let everyone know this woman is not just an actress; she's also a phenomenal singer. But Braden's acting was the real prize. The range of her characterization was sassy, wise, bitter, and flirtatious. She was inexhaustible, singing thirteen gut-wrenching tunes in 90 minutes with no intermissions or scene changes. Her stamina and heartbreaking blues lent so many dimensions to the character of Bessie Smith, giving her the stage presence of a diva and the theatricality of a broken woman. As rare as it is to find a talented actress who also happens to have a voice like Bessie Smith's, Braden's exceptional performance proves it is possible.

Best Spanish-Language Production

La Ultima Parada

Miami theater is as alive and thriving en español as it is in English. From the reputable Teatro Avante to the burgeoning number of small theaters on SW Eighth Street, there's much to be said for local Spanish-language theater. But this season director Rolando Moreno's Spanish adaptation of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire took the prize. La Ultima Parada gave theatergoers a taste of what challenging theater can do when teamed with excellent acting. Transplanting Williams's streetcar of Southern decadence to Guantánamo, Cuba, circa 1970, La Ultima Parada turned decadence into misogyny and the tradition of Latin-American machismo into an intriguing pendulum of sexuality. Actors Carlos Caballero and Alexa Kuve stood out for their raw emotionalism as Guantánamo Bay's Stanley and Stella. The play was at times colloquially hilarious and at other times heartbreaking, but above all it provided Spanish-speaking audiences with an unflinching closeup of Castro's postrevolutionary wasteland. La Ultima Parada also featured Vivian Ruiz, Evelio Taillacq, Maria Hernandez, Hugo Garcia, Gerardo Riveron, and Ricardo Ponte.

Best Spanish-Language Radio Personality

Matias Farias

Miami's Spanish-language talk radio all too often suffers from a conformity that ill serves listeners, and from analysis that could more accurately be described as propaganda. For these reasons Col. Matias Farias's shows on weekday mornings and Thursday evenings are so refreshing. Where else on Spanish-language radio could one hear Commissioner Jimmy Morales dissect the Marlins stadium deal or listen in to frank talk about who will really benefit from the Latin Grammys coming to Miami? Farias's life is the stuff of novels. He escaped Cuba in a stolen crop-duster. After the failure of the Bay of Pigs, he joined the U.S. Air Force. He served in Vietnam and Laos, teaching military intelligence. While with the Southern Command in Panama he struck up a friendship with Gen. Manuel Noriega. Farias retired from the air force a full colonel in 1990. In addition to his radio duties, he consults on political campaigns both here and abroad. When this background comes to bear on political events in Miami, the result is an insight on which listeners have to come to rely.
Best Sportscaster

Edemio Nava

Broadcasting sports news to Cuba exclusively, which is Edemio Nava's job description, has to be a uniquely challenging task. Radio Martí's mission as a U.S. government station is to provide the people of Cuba with unbiased information not available to them in the state-controlled media. Often that information is about Cuban sports heroes who once were celebrated in the media but now are ignored because they defected. Yet they remain heroes on the island. Thus Nava works in a peculiarly two-faced world, bringing news to the island about figures who officially no longer exist in their own nation. He is well qualified for this unique job, having a broad familiarity with sports and sports heroes both inside and outside the island.
Best Stage Design

Rich Simone

This past season, every time a set caught the eye as aesthetically pleasing or clever, it was inevitably one of Rich Simone's creations. Simone's sets always seem to help bridge the gap between the audience and the actors, using the stage not only as a meeting point but also as a point of departure. Most recently his specialty seemed to be setting the mood for licentiousness, adultery, and other forms of sexual high jinks, as he did in Miracle Theatre's Things We Do for Love, and GableStage's The Real Thing. In Things We Do for Love Simone created a three-story home perfect for the bawdy upstairs/downstairs humor that British playwright Alan Ayckbourn had in mind when he wrote this farce about a nympho, a soon-to-be spinster, a drunkard, and a vegetarian. Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing had a more sophisticated design (clean lines and streamlined contemporary furnishings) for this more erudite group of lovers (also British, come to think of it). Simone cleverly made use of upstage space to depict the playwright's play within a play.
Best Supporting Actor

Ray Lockhart

This year Ray Lockhart proved that maybe you can trick the Devil, but you can't fool an audience. As Lem, the man who murdered Robert Johnson, Lockhart was not only pivotal to the play's denouement but also essential to the emotional chemistry onstage. Portraying a long-absent and embittered husband, Lockhart filled M Ensemble's tiny set with the emotional intensity and stage presence of a man who has spent the past few years splitting rocks and returns to find his wife bedding down with a handsome, mysterious stranger. Lockhart's raw physicality and confident stage presence elevated the quality of this drama immensely, without overshadowing the rest of the cast. Finding the balance between rage and passion, this quarry worker turned out to be the gem in this bitter tragedy.

Best Supporting Actress

Tanya Bravo

To succeed in a supporting role, an actress must know her part within the context of the play as well as the character itself, and Tanya Bravo is one local actress who accomplishes this so consistently that her presence on the cast list always ensures an enigmatic evening of drama. She possesses the intensity and stage presence of an actress who always inhabits her character -- be it a punked-out band groupie in Caldwell Theatre's As Bees in Honey Drown, the young-girl version of Ruth in New Theatre's The Book of Ruth, or more recently as Chrysothemis in New Theatre's Electra. As the practical but ultimately vulnerable sister of Electra, Bravo showed her ability to channel conflicting emotions in relatively limited speaking parts. Her control and sharp instinct guarantee that her performance is never diminished by the size of the role she plays.

Best Syndicated Am Radio Personality

Phil Hendrie

"Are you for real?" asks a caller to The Phil Hendrie Show. "You must be making this up." For Miamians who enjoyed Hendrie's satirical shtick during the two-and-a-half years he broadcast on WIOD-AM (610), the impressionist master's syndicated return this year on WINZ-AM (940) is the best thing to happen to Miami radio since he left, two years ago. Sure there are some changes. Stock characters such as steak house owner Ted Bell made the move west with him. Show-business columnist Margaret Gray no longer hails from Bal Harbour but from Pacific Palisades. (Recently she encouraged abortion as a way to generate fetal tissue that could be used to research a cure for the paralysis that cripples actor Christopher Reeve.) But like fans of a minor-league baseball team, those of us who heard Hendrie hone his act in Miami feel proud of his success and glad that he can now exploit an entire nation of gullible listeners, a never-ending supply of dupes questioning the credibility of, say, the recent guest who claimed to have invented solar power.

Best Theater For Drama

Coconut Grove Playhouse

What made Coconut Grove Playhouse stand out this season is the same phenomenon that made the birth of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup a hit -- the pairing of two things that normally don't go together. In this case two kinds of theater: the big-name, high-profile stars and full-scale productions the mainstage puts on, and the more intimate and diverse productions found in the Encore Room. This season each produced an outstanding show: Art and A Bicycle Country. Yasmina Reza's award-winning Art took satire beyond the limits of comedy into the hilarious drama of the human heart and its feckless sidekick, ego. The excellent acting and superb script transformed the Playhouse's mainstage into a blank canvas redolent with the gradations of comedy and drama essential to interesting theater. Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz made his Miami debut of A Bicycle Country, and the Encore turned out to be the perfect space for three balseros adrift at sea. The Encore's theater-in-the-round staging for the set heightened the sense of confinement, especially in the second half of the play, when the stage becomes a makeshift raft. (Set designer Steve Lambert used a hydraulic system to rock the stage as if it were on water in a subtle yet effective visual device.) While the playhouse has been teaming up its mainstage and Encore Room for at least a decade now, this season hit an especially winning combination.
Best Tour

The Mystery, Murder, and Mayhem Bus Tour

If you're gonna build a city in a swamp, expect slimy creatures. In Miami we actually import them. Mobsters, murderers, mayors -- it's just part of the attraction for tourists. Two or three times each year historian Paul George takes a lucky group on a bus tour to visit some of Miami's most infamous ghosts. He packs a lot in three hours around the city and Miami Beach, but still doesn't come close to fitting it all in. There was the time in 1895 when Sam Lewis went on a murder spree in Lemon City. A hundred years later developer Stanley Cohen was murdered in Coconut Grove by his wife's hit man. Famous mobster Meyer Lansky used to walk his dog along Collins Avenue. In 1968 developer Robert Mackle dropped a $500,000 ransom from the bridge leading to Grove Isle in Coconut Grove, this in hopes of freeing his kidnapped daughter, who had been buried alive. Andrew Cunanan committed suicide in a Miami Beach houseboat after murdering Gianni Versace. The assassination attempt on FDR in Bayfront Park. The notorious River Cops stealing drugs and leaving bodies in their wake. The list goes on. Call the museum for more information. Reservations are required, and seats go fast.
Best Tourist Trap

Coral Castle

When Edward Leedskalnin died in Miami in 1951, he left behind a genuine Florida wonder. Leedskalnin said he built the Coral Castle for his sixteen-year-old fiancée who ended up rejecting him. To furnish the couple's fantasy manse, the five-foot-tall, 100-pound former lumberjack labored obsessively for twenty years. Under cover of darkness he quarried, carved, and positioned more than 1100 tons of oolitic limestone using handmade pulleys and levers. Among his creations: a twenty-foot-long table shaped like the State of Florida with Lake Okeechobee as a finger bowl; 1000-pound rocking chairs that really rock; a sundial, a throne room, and a nine-ton revolving gate that opens with a gentle push and closes with only a quarter-inch clearance on either side. To this day Leedskalnin and the Coral Castle remain mysteries. (Two teenagers once claimed they saw him levitating coral blocks like helium balloons.) Billy Idol penned "Sweet Sixteen" after an inspired visit, and the edifice appears in the 1958 bomb The Wild Women of Wongo, available for $19.99 in the gift shop. The Coral Castle opens daily at 9:00 a.m. Call for closing times. Admission is $7.75 and free for children under age six.

Best Trade

Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason, Ricky Davis, and Dale Ellis for P.J. Brown, Jamal Mashburn, Tim James, Rodney Buford, and Otis Thorpe

Best TV News Anchor

Kelly Craig

As Grandma used to say, that Kelly Craig is a hoot. A member of the NBC 6 team since 1990, Craig cohosts the 10:00 a.m. edition of Today in South Florida with Gerri Helfman and Bob Mayer. Although it's an odd hour for a newscast, it does have its own cult following. One of the principal reasons people tune in is Craig's personality, especially her self-deprecating sense of humor. Don't misunderstand us. She still delivers the main news stories in a serious manner, but as the show progresses and the segments become a little lighter in tone, Craig begins to cut loose with Helfman, who often plays Abbott to her Costello, or Ethel to her Lucy. Craig never takes herself too seriously. And most important, she's not afraid to be herself, which is why she has such an easy time connecting with viewers.
Best TV News Reporter

Jilda Unruh and "The Investigators"

For more than a year now, Unruh and crew have been relentless in hammering away at incompetence and corruption in the biggest and arguably most important bureaucracy in Miami-Dade County: the public school district. They've chronicled misspent construction dollars, highly paid do-nothing employees, sex scandals, and nonexistent classes. Prying the lid off a secretive self-protective government entity ain't easy, but the red-faced, sputtering reactions of school officials confronted by Unruh indicate she's making progress. We all should take comfort in their discomfort. Thanks, Jilda.

Best TV Station

WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

Every station pays lip service to producing local programming designed to enlighten and educate the public, but WPLG makes good on that promise. Channel 10, for instance, was the only English-language station to broadcast a county mayoral debate last fall. And no other station in Miami devotes as much time to the problems plaguing the community. WPLG held a series of town-hall forums last year during the Elian Gonzalez crisis, and recently the station added to its lineup a new Saturday-evening public-affairs program called The Putney Perspective, hosted by reporter Michael Putney, who continues with his highly regarded Sunday-morning program This Week in South Florida. WPLG's news division produces the strongest investigative packages in the area, and the station's commentaries by general manager John Garwood pull no punches. All in all WPLG represents the very best of what a local television station should be.
Best TV Station To Die In The Past Twelve Months

WAMI

Barry Diller's ballyhooed experiment in local programming died with the sale late last year of his thirteen-station USA Broadcasting company to Univision for $1.1 billion. WAMI was designed to be the flagship station in Diller's empire, a groundbreaking experiment that would revolutionize the industry. Instead it turned out to be a pathetic joke. In its two-and-a-half years on the air, WAMI promised far more than it ever delivered. The station was supposed to produce hour upon hour of local programming but quickly abandoned that and became best known for its M*A*S*H* reruns. Shows like The Times and Sportstown were interesting but never received the financial support they needed. The station's only hit was a T&A jigglefest called 10s. Not exactly original television. Univision is expected to transform WAMI into a Spanish-language station.

Best Vertically Challenged Basketball Player

A.J. Castro

Southwest Miami High School's boys basketball team, led by five-foot eight-inch point guard A.J. Castro, gave its win-starved fans much to cheer about this year. After decades of lackluster seasons, the Eagles squad tallied a 22-7 record, upsetting perennial powerhouses and reaching the county finals for Class 6A play. At one point the gutsy Cinderella team was ranked second in the state. At the heart of the dream season was the team's fast and slippery playmaker Castro, who frustrated many a taller opponent. On the court he is fearless, taking control with lightning-quick passes, nervy rebounds, and wicked three-point shots. And he has a knack for scoring when the team needs it most. During the Eagles' final regular-season game against their district rivals, the South Miami Cobras, Castro whooshed an arching three-pointer that won it for the Eagles as the clock ticked off its final second. The short guy was named to the first-string all-state team by the Florida Sportswriters Association, the McDonald's All-American Team, and the county all-star roster. Not bad for a scrappy Cuban kid from the burbs. He's a senior now, and when he accepts that scholarship to Cornell, as expected, the hoops around Westchester will never be the same.

Best Weathercaster

Bill Kamal

It's all in the eyes. Those deep, penetrating eyes. You just know that when Bill Kamal says it's going to rain, it will rain. Watching him, you get the feeling he isn't just predicting the weather; he actually can see the weather, the same way a psychic sees the future. How else to explain the fact that he was the youngest meteorologist in the United States to receive the American Meteorological Society Television Seal of Approval for excellence in television presentation? He has been with Channel 7 since 1994 and currently is its chief meteorologist. In his 22-year career he has earned two Emmy Awards. Personally we think he should drop the first name and just go with Kamal. But not simply Kamal. It should be KAMAL! And he should wear a big white turban. And his segments should be backed with a dramatic and mysterious soundtrack. Now that would be exciting television.

Best Record Label To Leave Town In The Past Twelve Months

Chocolate Industries

Our city's international reputation as a hotbed of bass-influenced oddball electronica is owing in no small part to the steady stream of ear-grabbing records released by Chocolate Industries. Boasting a roster that includes local artists Edgar Farinas (Push Button Objects) and DJ Craze plus kindred Austrian spirits Funkstörung, the label is known for producing works with elaborate cover graphics that seem as labored over as the music within. The label's proprietor, Seven, has departed Miami for the chillier cultural climes of Chicago, but thankfully he's kept up Chocolate Industries' intriguing output, continuing to issue sonic weirdness from South Florida and abroad.
Best Local Rap Album

Dirty Life

More than a decade since Luther Campbell's 2 Live Crew grabbed the nation's headlines, South Florida still seems to be living in that outfit's shadow, saddled with the widespread notion that its hip-hop scene is just one long porn film. On Dirty Life Miami's latest rap hopeful, X-Con, doesn't exactly depart from his hometown's trademark sound of jittery beats and prominent synth lines, or its lewd lyrical tone. ("Whoa! Lil' Mama" offers a warning to a lap-dancing stripper -- "I don't care where you shake it/Just don't drip it in my cup" -- that would surely garner ol' Uncle Luke's approval.) What separates this gruff-voiced rapper from the current horde of gangsta-rap clones is his flair for vivid storytelling, gift for fashioning head-noddingly infectious hooks, and impassioned delivery that seems to summon up every ounce of his body's 285 pounds to drive home his gritty rhymes. Fuse all those traits, and you've got one of the past year's most memorable collections of songs.
It was one of the stranger sights of late: On an early Tuesday evening, about 50 people were enthusiastically gathered in the middle of Spec's record shop on South Beach. They weren't shopping; they were staring. And the performer who transfixed them wasn't singing or playing a guitar. In fact he didn't even look up at his audience. Instead DJ Stryke (a.k.a. Greg Chin) hunched over a set of turntables placed in the center of the store and simply spun records for an hour, artfully segueing in and out of throbbing techno tunes, cutting the low end out here for a disorienting lurch, slamming back there for a primal rush. The clipped beats of techno aren't a sound heard too often in Miami's currently trance-obsessed clubs and raves, but it's a testament to Stryke's mixing talent that when he does get an opportunity to play out, the faithful will be there -- even at a spot far from the dance floor.
Best Local Latin Singer

Francisco Cespedes

Lucky us: The pull of the Latin music industry means we can count among us monsters of song like Cuban crooner Francisco "Pancho" Cespedes, who moved from Mexico to Miami Beach this year. Fortunate were clubgoers who caught his show at Club Tropigala or his impromptu guest appearances at Radical, Starfish, and Café Nostalgia. No one knows heartache like Pancho, a master of the dramatic musical style filin', whose voice breaks like a powerful wave on the rocky shores of passion. Donde Está La Vida, this year's followup to 1998's Vida Loca, is pure pathos, late-night suffering, and impeccably arranged jazz.
Best Venue For Live Music

Café Nostalgia

Over the past year, makeshift venues from Señor Frog's to Bennigan's have been pushing the tables against the walls and squeezing in stages to feed our city's hunger for live music. Home to the ever-shifting roster of musicians who make up Grupo Nostalgia, the swanky nightclub Café Nostalgia has done its own double duty by clearing a space for guest artists in the hours before the house band starts to swing. The club's luxurious booths proved the perfect vantage point from which to view the Jerry-Lewis-meets-Beny-Moré antics of trovador David Torrens, while generous sightlines and dappled lights revealed pan-Latin rockers Bacilos even as dancers packed the floor. The holiday-in-Havana décor is a fabulous backdrop not only for the son-to-timba traditions of Cuban dance music but also for forward sounds such as Aterciopelados' future-lounge.
Best Local Rap Group

Slip 'N Slide Records

Okay, so it's not a rap group. It's a label. It's a lifestyle. It's the Dirty South, straight outta Liberty City. Founded in 1994 by Ted Lucas and home to Miami's number one nann, Trick Daddy, Slip 'N Slide represents the 305 to thugs worldwide. A graduate of Uncle Luke's luv-dem-'hos hip-hop school, Trick broke out on his own in 1997 with a heavy dose of urban reality on his autobiographical Based on a True Story. When www.thug.com shot up the charts in 1998, Trick took da baddest bitch, Trina, along for the ride. Two thousand one was the year Slip 'N Slide took it to da house, though. Trick proved once again that Thugs Are Us, while Slip 'N Slide associates Iconz got everybody crunked up. The whole crew broke out on the beach in Slip 'N Slide's documentary Dirty South. If y'all ain't feelin' Slip 'N Slide, shut up!
Second-Best Concert Of The Past Twelve Months

Orishas at Starfish, November 23, 2000

You could literally see the changing of the cultural guard as the Orishas whipped through their set of rumba-steeped rap at Starfish this past November. In front of the stage was a sweaty mass of Cuban-American teens and twentysomethings, singing along with every verse. Back at the bar was a cluster of older Cuban exiles, curious to hear the latest spin on Afro-Cuban music and perhaps a bit bemused to catch some Buena Vista-styled samples cropping up between the Orishas' percussive beats. It's certainly true that the group isn't the cream of Havana's burgeoning hip-hop scene. (In fact since they now reside in Paris as Cuban expats, their current material seems to owe as much to the smooth strains of French rap as to any of their native island's musical currents.) And some of its choreographed dance moves invoked a bit too much of 'N Sync's slick vibe for comfort. But once the Orishas got over their microphone troubles, they definitely proved they could not only bring the noise but introduce Miami to yet another revolution bubbling over across the Florida Straits.
Best Local Heavy-Metal Album

War to End All Wars

Miami's own heavy-metal warrior by way of Sweden and Los Angeles, Yngwie Malmsteen has settled on a novel solution to the ol' "Hope I Die Before I Get Old" quandary that plagues so many aging rock singers. Sure he still pens the same Dungeons and Dragons-esque tales of teen angst, marauding goblins, and demonic armies as he did nearly two decades ago. He just lets someone else sing them. And should that hired vocalist begin to lose his heavy-metal mettle, or (shudder) begin to mellow, Malmsteen simply fires his leather-jacketed ass and hires a new microphone slinger. It's a modus operandi that leaves him free to concentrate on his guitar playing -- the main reason, after all, his fans keep coming back, album after album. War to End All Wars certainly doesn't disappoint on that count. It's chock full of Malmsteen's squealing solo work and gloriously over-the-top allusions to his classical composer heroes. Bonus feature: The CD booklet reprints the lyrics so you can sing along. All together now: "In there dwells the wizard/His breath like a blizzard/Ancient incantations/Evil revelations."
Best Rock Radio Program

Invasión Latina

Last year Liliana Rodriguez's show (7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Wednesday) took honors for Best Latin Radio Program. This year the show breaks out of the barrio to take the prize for Best Rock Radio Program, period. This is a plea to all the powerful commercial stations across the dial: We want our Latin alternative!
Best Local Jazz Album

Detroit Meets Chicago

It's hard enough to be a working jazzman in South Florida, let alone one who treads the avant-garde side of the tracks. So rather than worry about pleasing club owners searching for nothing more than background noise, saxophonist Keshavan Maslak (a.k.a. Kenny Millions, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the local success-crazed vibe) devotes most of his live appearances to European music festivals. And rather than deal with record-company pressures, Maslak has recently taken to recording in his own living room, setting up the microphones himself and issuing the results on his own Hum Ha label. On his latest outing, he's invited noted pianist Burton Greene -- a fellow exiled veteran of the downtown NYC jazz scene -- for a series of forceful duets titled simply Detroit Meets Chicago, a reference to each performer's hometown and musical roots. Both men skip back and forth between traditional riffs and free jazz, with Maslak effortlessly shifting from a tender melodic line to some truly wigged-out honking. Likewise Greene is a master at both gentle ivory tickling and a jarring attack that could give even Cecil Taylor shivers. Yet as heady as the music gets, Maslak never lets listeners forget the point of it all. As he growls out loud in one song: "C'mon and have some serious fun/Don't worry about who's dead and gone!"

Best Local Solo Musician

Roberto Poveda

Have amplifier, will travel. Cuban singer-songwriter Poveda never misses an opportunity to perform, whether at scheduled shows in the funky dives of Little Havana or on a street corner near you. Not averse to playing with a band (as the rambling roster of his sometime ensemble Los Bloomers de Havana attests), he is in his element alone, accompanying his gravel-and-nicotine voice with an acoustic guitar, the click of his tongue, and the wind instrument that is his sighs.
Best Local Electronica Release

Brownout

For two young men who appear smiling goofily in virtually every picture snapped over the past year by their increasing number of international media admirers, Phoenecia's Romulo del Castillo and Josh Kay sure produce some creepy music. Indeed Brownout may be their darkest work yet, slowing down the frenetic pace of earlier singles such as "Odd Job" (drastically reworked herein) and allowing all manner of disturbing elements to slink into the mix. Small pieces of glass and an unsprung grandfather clock crunch underneath hypnotically churning rhythms, ghostly echoes, and ominous tones. Dance-floor fodder this ain't. Yet Brownout is oddly compelling, like a horror movie from which you can't turn away -- perfect for pulling on a pair of headphones, dimming the lights, and losing yourself. Just check underneath the bed first.
Best Rock Vocalist (Male)

Nil Lara

Okay, so the guy headlined New Times Vibe 2001, our multifaceted music blowout that nobody attended. But that doesn't mean we were deaf to other rock singers in town. Nil Lara just happened to be the frontman who didn't make our ears bleed. Lara's soulful voice and pleasant inflections are more Peter Gabriel than Beny Moré. Still the Cuban-American songwriter reaches into his guajiro roots to create a unique repertoire of meaningful and engaging tunes. Sporting his trademark flannels and bare feet, shiny-domed Lara cuts a playful and pensive presence while strumming his cuatro onstage. He returned to South Florida last year from a grueling 22-month tour that took him across the United States and to Japan and Europe. Since coming back he's been recuperating, writing new songs, and spending time in the studio. The legions of fans he began cultivating while a student at the University of Miami can bet they'll see more of Lara's high-spirited shows. And we can rest easy, knowing we won't have to deal with bloodstained earplugs.
Best Record Label

Beta Bodega Coalition

Awarding kudos to a record label may seem a bit odd initially. After all, it's the artists that make the all-important music. The labels simply are a conduit to the public. It's hard to imagine saluting, say Sony Records, for its selfless contributions to mankind. But Beta Bodega Coalition isn't your typical record label. In fact spend a little time talking with label founders Steven Castro and Rick Garrido, and their venture begins to sound a lot more like an agitprop art project -- one that, for now, just happens to express itself on vinyl and compact disc. Indeed both figures seem just as passionate about issues of social justice (particularly the ongoing civil strife across Latin America) as they do about experimental electronic music. And the steady stream of twelve-inch records and CDs they've issued over the past two years is an honest attempt to fuse those two loves. "This isn't dance-floor music," Castro explains. "It's music for you to sit down and ponder." Case in point: releases such as Needle's (longtime local aural terrorist Ed Bobb) trnsmssn, an unsettling weave of vintage FMLN guerrilla radio broadcasts and off-kilter beats; or Los Angeles leftist collective Ultra Red's Plan de Austeridad, an audio documentary that sets recordings from a condemned housing project to fuzzy, dubbed-out grooves and then lets figures such as Miami drum-and-bass tweaker Otto Von Shirach go nuts remixing it all. This commitment to unorthodoxy extends beyond the music itself to the packaging, an aesthetic that uses silk-screened sleeves and cryptic liner notes to a distinctive effect that's very, well, Beta Bodega-esque. Are the contents within easy listening? Rarely, which is what makes Beta Bodega's efforts all the more commendable. As the label's counter-parties during the Winter Music Conference reiterated, no one else in South Florida dedicates so much time, effort, and money to giving proudly noncommercial artists -- both here and abroad -- an outlet.

Best Local Rock Band

Psycho Daisies

Psycho Daisies guitarist and frontman John Salton has the kind of personal track record that would make even Keith Richards blush, but like that grizzled rock veteran, Salton keeps rasping and rolling along with equal parts admirable grit and laid-back cool. Two decades after the Daisies' original heyday backing Charlie Pickett (then under the moniker the Eggs), the Daisies seem to have placed a "semi" in front of their state of retirement. This past year has seen them return to Churchill's appropriately darkened stage to put their own ragged, organ-drenched spin on Sixties garage punk tunes such as the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me," and to pound out their own Dream Syndicate-styled originals. It's not pretty, and the group's abrasive feedback-friendly sound certainly isn't in fashion these days (especially here in Miami), but every note rings true.
Best Musical Rejuvenation

Luis Bofill

An artist's muse can be tricky to pin down. It's easy to recognize when a musician is in touch with it, drawing on some vibrant inner force. But what exactly causes that creative well to run dry? Fans of the singer and original Grupo Nostalgia band leader Luis Bofill have spent the better part of the past year or so pondering that very question. It was in no small part Bofill's soulful crooning -- as suited to a slow-burning ballad as to a growling, hip-grinding son workout -- that made Grupo Nostalgia's initial weekend residency at Little Havana's Café Nostalgia the local spot for serious fans of Latin music. And it's a credit to the rhythmic chops of all concerned that long after Bofill had settled into essentially going through the onstage motions, audiences still turned up to hear whatever new assemblage he was fronting. (Though that also speaks to many Miamians' desperate hunger for a Saturday-night alternative to clubland's canned beats.) But a funny thing happened on the way to Washed-up-ville: Without any advance fanfare, Bofill put together a new outfit, Cuba Libre (featuring several familiar faces), and adopted a decidedly new attitude. Just what precipitated this return to form is unclear, but as Cuba Libre's recent Friday-night performances at Coral Gables' Giacosa demonstrate, Bofill is back, and serving some of the hottest grooves around.
Best Local Latin Band

Andres Juliao y Sus Vallenatos

Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Andres Juliao did not have much opportunity to hear the accordion. It was only when he visited his family in Barranquilla that he came to appreciate the sound that is the backbone of vallenato, one of the many traditional musical genres of Colombia's Atlantic coast. He began studying the accordion four years ago. Two years later he rounded up a number of veteran Colombian folklore musicians living in Miami to form his own vallenato group here featuring singer Poti Lozana, Tayrol Carrillo on caja or box, Leo Ceballos on guacharaca, Francisco Prieto on bass, Mario Lozano on congas, and Hermides Benitez on timbales. Andres Juliao and his Vallenatos also play cumbia and contemporary vallenato-pop, but the accordionist says he still prefers classics such as "La Gota Fria." Carlos Vives, who made "La Gota Fria" an international hit, has been known to sit in at gigs around town, but even without the charismatic star, this exuberant ensemble more than holds its own.
Best Use Of A High School Marching Band

Trick Daddy's "Shut Up"

Can you define Southern rap? We mean beyond the obvious identifier of being made by rappers raised in the South. (Gee, thanks, professor!) Is there a telltale sign, an ingredient that makes a song undeniably from below the Mason-Dixon Line? Well, forget about drawled accents, thugged-out attitudes, or even a propensity to rap about barbecue. Miami's own Trick Daddy hit the gritty cultural nail on the head when he recreated the fat tubas and whoop-ass trombones of a Miami hard-stepping high school marching band, providing a unique low end for his "Shut Up" single. The result is irresistible, head-snapping funk that couldn't have come from anywhere else. For the tune's accompanying video, Trick even went one better: That's Northwestern High's own Marching Bulls strutting down the field. It's all about the Benjamins? Maybe in New York. Here in the Magic City, it's all about high school football, baby.
Best Local Latin Rock Band

Bacilos

No man is a prophet in his hometown. So maybe that's why in six years of gigging like crazy all over town, pan-Latin rockers Bacilos registered nary a mention in New Times. Now that they're off to greener pastures, touring Latin America for the Miami-based WEA Latina label, the trio of Colombian-born frontman Jorge Villamizar, Brazilian-born bass player Andre Lopes, and Puerto Rican drummer JJ Freire is sorely missed. The University of Miami alums were staples at the Marlin, Churchill's, Tobacco Road, and the celebrated Stephen Talkhouse. Their self-titled, self-produced release is a document of those years, capturing the energy of the band's live shows and hinting at the range of Villamizar's songwriting craft. His vocal skills are impressively versatile as well, whether warbling on the heartbreaker "Soledad," warning of environmental destruction on "There Goes the Wood," or packing a political punch on "Chronicle of an Announced Immigration." If it's true, as they sing, that now everybody wants Taco Bell, Bacilos' fusion of Latin folk traditions with good old rock and roll is just the antidote for homogenized Latin pop.
Best Concert Of The Past Twelve Months

The Shirley Horn Trio

An evening of exquisite understatement began when pianist-vocalist Shirley Horn took the stage at the Coral Gables Congregational Church and caressed the keyboard as she hadn't in Miami since the late Eighties. Joined by drummer Steve Williams and bassist Charles Ables, the 66-year-old Horn was touring in support of her album I Remember Miles. The Miles mentioned in the title was trumpet titan Miles Davis, who 40 years earlier had heard her album Embers and Ashes and lured Horn from her Washington, D.C., home to New York City. Subsequently she often opened for him at the Village Vanguard and carved out a career, which she relinquished a few years later for motherhood. Her piano chops remained, however, and when she and Davis reunited for her 1990 album You Won't Forget Me, it was as if they had never left each other's side. Even without her friend Miles, who has been gone for nine years, Horn proved that night in Coral Gables she could still astonish with her elegant piano styling, velvet voice, and serene presence. As she closed the show with a relaxed rendition of Butler and Molinary's wistful ode "Here's to Life," the awestruck audience realized at that very moment that life couldn't be any better.
Best Latin Radio Program

Saturday Night Fever

Another lonely Saturday night? Tune into to Edwin "El Huracan" Bautista's dance program on Classica 92 from 7:00 p.m. to midnight and connect to dozens of Latin house parties happening all over Miami. For two years Bautista has been building a steady following with an intoxicating mix of salsa, merengue, and disco guaranteed to move the most stubborn booty. Bautista squeezes Donna Summer classics between old-school Latin jams by the likes of Sonora Poncena and the original Fania All Stars. "I play salsa with descargas, instrumental jams that none of the other stations play because they are too long," he says. "I don't care. I play it in my show, and people love it."

Best Concert Series

Rhythm Foundation

Not even Hurricane Debby could rain out the Rhythm Foundation, the organization that for thirteen years has brought the very best in world music to Miami. When a twenty-minute downpour drenched the North Shore Community Bandshell in Miami Beach where Brazilian artists Chico Cesar and Rita Ribeiro were scheduled to perform last August, the artists improvised an intimate two-hour acoustic set in the adjacent community center for the fans who braved the storm to hear forro music. Like so many Rhythm Foundation events, the Chico Cesar show was a Florida premiere, as was the spectacular moonlit show by Afro-Colombian pioneer Totó La Momposina and the mesmerizing North American debut of the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus. Concerts range from the educational presentation of folklore at the Dominican Youth Arts Festival to the awe-inspiring bossa nova revival of Marisa Monte to the experimental cross-cultural collaboration between composer Philip Glass and West African griot and kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso. Without the Rhythm Foundation, Miami would be a quieter, less vibrant place.
Best Syndicated Jazz Radio Program

88 Jazz Place Overnight Session with Bob Parlocha

For night owls who like their jazz straight-ahead with no frothy filler, Bob Parlocha's show is as bracing as a shot of espresso. Saxophonist and record producer Parlocha brews an eye-opening dose of bebop and a smattering of contemporary interpretations by the masters from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. weekdays. Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker classics bounce alongside sides from contemporary greats Kenny Burrell, Jack DeJohnette, and Terence Blanchard. Although his show is beamed from San Francisco via satellite to more than 220 North American cities, Parlocha has a knack for creating an intimate setting. Subtle drum strokes, calm horns, and wild pianos can transport listeners to dark and smoky jazz dives of days gone by. Listen closely and imagine muffled conversations and tinkling highballs. "I want to take people out of their surroundings," Parlocha says. "If I can get them in a club in 1969, that's perfect. Jazz is the best of the human race -- it's our best hour."

Best Local Songwriter

Rafelito Marerro

Beloved Dominican television host Rafelito Marerro began his career at age four, dancing rumba with the voluptuous starlet Tongolele in the Fifties. In the Sixties he earned the nickname "pampered child of Dominican society," for his talk shows featuring international stars. In the past decade, he made his way to the radio airwaves in Boston as a host. At his house there, a prominent composer visiting from Puerto Rico found one of his verses in a drawer and told him he must dedicate himself to song. The moving ballads he has composed since have garnered awards across the United States. He moved to Miami just in time to win the grand prize in the Latin category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest 2000 for his tune "Anoche Soñé" ("Last Night I Dreamed"). Aptly Marerro's neoclassical love songs are the stuff dreams are made of.
Best Piano Man

Paquito Hechavarria

Paquito Hechavarria has played and recorded with everyone from bassist Israel "Cachao" Lopez to vocalists Gloria Estefan and Christina Aguilera ("You know, she doesn't speak any Spanish"). Back in the old days, he played with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., at the Fontainebleau. Currently he sits behind the baby grand at the Deauville five nights a week, pounding out standards, Latin jazz, and pop with equal parts perspiration and inspiration. The man is so good he's not only the winner for this category; he's the first three runners-up.
Best Rock Vocalist (Female)

Lady Bug

Lady Bug, Lady Bug, fly on the microphone! Your lyrics set fires; your message hits home! No woman or man, from her witty acoustic pan, can take on the global-military-industrial-masculine-musical-complex as well as she can.
Best Local Pop Band

The Tiny Show

This is the nightmare: Madame de Boredom and her band are on stage again. Off in the shadows stands a juggler from Hollywood. Suddenly out of nowhere he leaps onstage. The juggler goes for the jugular! Madame de Boredom runs out. The reality is that there is no Madame de Boredom when the juggler is onstage. In truth the juggler is Mr. Entertainment. And Mr. Entertainment is Steve Toth, former BellSouth operator, onetime prop for Boise and Moss, erstwhile juggler for the One-Eyed Kings, bassist in the now-defunct band Lee County Oswald, frontman for the dissolved Faberge Dildo, and leader of the short-lived Bob White Orchestra. In 1996, before the "tiny" concept was hatched, Mr. Entertainment embarked on the Living Room tour, in which he played rock originals and covers in living rooms throughout the South to teensy audiences ranging from one to a dozen people. Tragedy struck in 1999, when another venture, Mr. Entertainment and the Pookie Smackers, ended after producing a homemade CD, 1926 Funstown Street. The Pookie Smackers refused to tour, thus snatching fame and fortune from Mr. Entertainment's grasp. But out of those ashes the Tiny Show (previously Mr. Entertainment and the Tiny Show) was born. Among its first steps was Mr. Entertainment playing toy pianos and Fisher-Price xylophones on Thursday nights at Churchill's. But my how the Tiny Show did grow, into an ensemble including a saxophone, trombone, drums, steel guitar, and a bass fashioned from an inverted metal washtub sprouting an oar. The repertoire can range from Johnny Cash tunes to Who songs to Toth originals such as "Tour de Hotown" "Pete the Gay Republican," and "Plastic Dog Doodie Salesman."
Best Local Haitian Band

Adjah

Founded by Richard Laguerre, formerly of the popular roots band Boukan Ginen, the Haitian rasin group Adjah conjures the talents of dyaspora musicians living in Miami, including Georgina Padilla, Jean Francois Damas, Carline Ruiz, Jocelyn E. Gourdet, Billy Philomi, and Jimmy Daniel. To live up to its name -- which means spirit possession in Kreyol -- Adjah fuses rock and roll with a wide range of vodou rhythms. While most rasin music is founded on rara rhythms, Adjah incorporates congo, petwo, mahi, and yanvalou, making it all the more likely the gods will take over and set the crowd dancing.
Best Band Name

The Mary Tyler Whores

Oh, Mr. Graaaaant!
Best Jazz Radio Program

China's Jazz Thing

Revered jazz DJ China Valles won't let a little pink slip keep him from spinning his magic over the airwaves. As long as his blood is pumping, the 74-year-old "Mahj" (short for Maharajah Purveyor of Swirls, as Duke Ellington named him) says he'll keep the jazz beat thumping in Miami. After 24 years playing classic bop, blues, and fusion overnight at WTMI-FM (91.3), Valles was told last summer that his show no longer fit the format of the newly acquired classical music station. Valles, however, was not ready to put his huge collection of vinyl and CDs away for good. "What am I going to do, go to the beach?" the veteran DJ chuckles. "Music is my love; it's my life." He describes the loss of his late-night date as "a kick in the pants," but it wasn't enough to keep him down. Valles approached stations Love 94 (WLVE-FM 93.9) and WLRN-FM (91.3) for a steady time slot but got no commitments. When WDNA music director Arturo Gomez-Cruz heard Miami's sagacious jazz messenger was looking for a job, he immediately included him in the station's eclectic round-the-clock programming. Valles won his Friday afternoon (2:00 to 6:00 p.m.) gig, which he gladly accepted without pay, last December. Using a well-established format, he kicks off each show with upbeat instrumentals before sliding into his "What's New at Two" segment, featuring the latest releases. He then mixes things up with a featured-artist set, a blues hour, and wraps with swinging tracks to keep listeners bopping into the evening. Valles began his musical career as the road manager for saxophonist Jean-Baptiste "Illinois" Jacquet in the Fifties. He's met and interviewed musical giants such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra. He arrived in South Florida in 1963 to head an upstart jazz station and had been on the airwaves continuously ever since, that is until WTMI showed him the door. Still the Mahj and his devotees are thrilled to hear his show resurrected on the far left side of the radio dial. Gruff voice full of whimsy and charm, Valles is a well-worn local treasure.

Best Reggae Radio Program

Sounds of the Caribbean

Spin the FM dial and there's no shortage of reggae music to be heard. Commercial juggernaut WEDR-FM (99.1) gives time to the latest hits out of Kingston, a slew of local pirate stations pump out a steady diet of gruff dancehall, and Saturday afternoon's reggae showcase on WDNA-FM (88.9) usually opens with the sweetly skanking rhythms of ska. Amid all this competition, though, WLRN's overnight institution Clint O'Neil stands out for the very reason he's remained a beloved favorite of his listeners since he first hit the airwaves in 1979: He plays everything, from late-Sixties rock-steady classics through mid-Seventies roots tunes, right up to the latest records out of Jamaica. The one common denominator is that they're all songs O'Neil loves. And in a world of computer-generated playlists and corporate radio consultants, when even the pirate broadcasters often sound market-driven, that's no small feat. If he feels like spinning a solid half-hour of the Meditations' rippling melodies, that's just what he's going to do. Praise Jah, indeed.

Best Local Acoustic Performer

Angela Patua

You've heard of drum and bass? Angela Patua does drum and voice, bouncing her melodies against the beat in a crude counterpoint that originated long ago in Nigeria and needs no electricity. Patua also does guitar and voice. Her syncopated strumming is a joyful reminder that the acoustic guitar is a rhythm instrument that needs no amplification. The sounds of vibrating nylon strings over a wood box (i.e., her Spanish guitar) blend with her mellifluous, rough-along-the-edges vocals (in Portuguese, Yoruba, and other Brazilian dialects) to produce a feeling that seems to have traveled from far away. From her native Southeastern Brazil, perhaps. Or somewhere much more distant. In the Macumba religion, which Patua practices, things from heaven come down to Earth. In 2000 the frequency of Angela-ic manna decreased when her weekly gig at Big Fish ended. But keep looking skyward in the Tobacco Road vicinity in 2001. Or send a prayer to Evol Egg Nart Recordings (www.nartworld.com) for deliverance of her CD, The Force of the Sun.
Best House Band

The Don Wilner Quintet

To hear these guys smoke through a number on Tuesday nights is to infuse your life with a sudden dash of Fifties cool. You'll walk away feeling sharper. You'll want to crease your trousers and wear shades inside. Eddie Higgins's fingers float over the keyboard like darting minnows in a tide pool. Gilly DiBenedetto summons mesmerizingly fluid tones from his sax. And Wilner sets the foundation for it all with his upright bass. Half an hour or so into the set, Tony Fernandez's gilded pipes warble Frank Sinatra tunes with such effortless grace, you'd think you had just stepped off the set of Ocean's Eleven. Master violinist Federico Britos ignites his strings. Depending on the night Lenny Steinberg or James Martin will be tapping the drums. Put a boutonniere in your lapel, snap your fingers, and order a martini. One word to the wise: Higgins, who has recorded with the likes of Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie, spends his summers on Cape Cod. But fret not: He returns in the fall.
Best Local Jazz Artist

Jesse Jones, Jr.

Jazz critics like to carve up their chosen terrain into two diametrically opposed camps: musicians who play straight-ahead, and those who play "free." Miami saxophonist Jesse Jones, Jr., chooses to fudge this divide, and it's precisely that versatility that makes him such a delight to hear. Witness his occasional ensemble gigs at the Van Dyke Café. The band may start out on a faithful Cannonball Adderly-styled tip, casually working its way through some pleasant finger-snapping material. But just when you've eased back in your chair and gotten comfy, Jones will blow a playfully outré lick, simultaneously raising an eyebrow at the audience while slipping in a series of discordant honks to summon the group to take it up a notch. We're about to go somewhere special, Jones seems to be saying to the room, and you're all invited to come along.