Best Of Miami® 2001 Winners
People & Places
Opa-locka. Dusk. The parking lot of an abandoned housing project. The potholed lot is empty save the car of a reporter, who has pulled over to take a cell-phone call. Up ahead a round-faced man wearing a black Martin Luther King T-shirt slowly winds toward the car. He is sipping from a longneck bottle of Budweiser. When he reaches the car, he smiles, revealing a bridge of gold teeth.
"Hey man, you live here? Damn that's nice! I'd live here myself if I could. You're on the phone? Oh man, I know what you're doing. I know exactly what you're doing. You're talking to your girlfriend! Your wife doesn't get off work for another hour, so you're talking to your girl. Don't say no, man! Don't tell me you got no wife. I'm smart. Ah, yeah, that's what's happening man.
"Hey man, seriously. Don't be doing that. You got to stop that. Go home to your wife and kids. I know exactly what's going on here. This is what you do: You call your girl tomorrow, you tell her that you've talked to the Lord and he told you this wasn't right, that you've got to go back to your wife, that your kids need you. I'm smart. I'm smart. And I know. Every month you get more bills. Paying for your girl adds up. Then you get another bill, and you say, “Damn, another bill!' Then you have to look at your kids. Man, I'm tellin' you there's nothing worse in the world than to have to look in your kids' eyes and tell 'em you're a deadbeat dad. You hear me? Hang up that phone, brother! I love you. I want you to do the right thing.
"Oh man, my back hurts. You mind if I lean in here a little bit? You see how I walked up here, all slow and all? That's how I know what I'm talking about man, 'cause my wife shot me in the back. Look here, I'll lift up my shirt. Let me just turn around here. You see that? You see the hole? You don't ever want to be denying no child support. Listen to me! You're going to hang up that phone, brother. You're going to do the right thing. I can tell. I know. I'm smart, man. I'm telling you I'm smart. And I know."
The lady has cojones, which is more than we can say for the rest of the editorial page. Krog spends most of her time writing unsigned editorials, typically on the subject of county government. But she also pens signed opinion columns, which are sassier. For instance in a recent column she blasted Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas for opposing the hiring of Angela Gittens as the county's new aviation director. "For his political gain, Penelas is making it nearly impossible for MIA -- and therefore the public he purports to serve -- to get the strong, experienced management it needs," Krog wrote. "You have to wonder from whom Penelas is taking advice and counsel these days. I'd suggest he fire their butts."
On another occasion Krog was equally blunt toward the newest member of the school board. "It wasn't that I expected new Miami-Dade School Board member Jacqueline Pepper to start her public life with a quick display of leadership or anything," Krog allowed. "She's a political newcomer, after all, and has a lot to learn on the job. But I sure thought that for starters she'd do something smarter than hire her husband as a staff aide. It's legal, says Pepper. Sure, but it's not right."
And on the nomination by President George W. Bush of Linda Chavez as secretary of labor, Krog had this to say: "If Chavez is a victim of anything beyond her own bad judgment calls, it isn't the Beltway's witch-hunt atmosphere as she claims, but Bush's unwise selection of her in the first place."
Krog's strongest column of the past year, however, was far more personal. She wrote about the death of her father: "A few words about this man: He called dry cereal “pop-nuts-scrummies.' He took in strays -- both the two-legged and four-legged varieties. He baptized a basset hound that wandered onto the place and became his adoring shadow “Soupbone' for its sorry shape. He had only one usable arm after polio but played basketball, touch football, and softball with his kids on summer evenings after a long, hard day of farm work. He never whined, never complained, never looked back with regret, always leaning slightly forward into life, which he embraced and accepted for what it was -- and for what it could be."
What a difference a year makes. Back then Miami-Dade County was snubbing the Latin Grammys. Now Mayor Alex Penelas and Cuban American National Foundation chairman Jorge Mas Santos are rolling out the red carpet for the awards show. Why? Technically it's because a U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively nullified the county ordinance that barred groups that do business with Cuba from using county-owned facilities. But the real reason is simpler: Penelas, Mas Santos, and others in the Cuban-American community finally awakened to the fact that they were losing the public-relations battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. Rather than seeming sympathetic, Cuban Americans were viewed as intolerant, especially following the Elian Gonzalez affair. And Miami, rather than being the vaunted Capital of the Americas, was becoming increasingly isolated. Opening the doors to the Latin Grammys is the first step in a long-overdue effort to reverse that trend.
The smart flier used to love Fort Lauderdale's airport. Whereas Miami's airport is chaotic and crowded, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International was almost shockingly easy to navigate. Short-term parking was easy to find, so picking up and dropping off were a breeze. Long-term parking cost only three bucks per day. But Broward officials have made the tragic decision to buff up their airport, to make it more "world class." So far they've succeeded in making it more closely resemble MIA or even LaGuardia in its unwieldiness. Traffic now snakes around pylons erected to support a new terminal. Parking prices have increased across the board. Unwelcome stress has been added to the pickup and dropoff process. And inside the place, ceiling tiles are missing and escalators are shut down as workers labor to redesign terminals that were just fine the way they were. So forget it. From now on we're just taking a cab to MIA.
Best Argument For Craig Robins's Continued Professional Success
Aqua
When asked about his New Urbanism-inspired development now under construction on Allison Island in Miami Beach -- a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of moderate-height homes and townhouses -- Robins said what anyone offended by the condo canyon rising around South Beach longs to hear. "Everybody," he told the New York Times, "wants to build a 40-story building and sell you your shoebox in the sky without taking any responsibility for what effect a high-rise has on its surroundings."
Best Argument For Craig Robins's Continued Professional Success
Aqua
When asked about his New Urbanism-inspired development now under construction on Allison Island in Miami Beach -- a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of moderate-height homes and townhouses -- Robins said what anyone offended by the condo canyon rising around South Beach longs to hear. "Everybody," he told the New York Times, "wants to build a 40-story building and sell you your shoebox in the sky without taking any responsibility for what effect a high-rise has on its surroundings."
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.
Not only did our friends at WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) abandon South Florida's first television studio -- conveniently located across from the federal courthouse in downtown Miami -- to better bring us gripping developments from Plantation City Hall, and not only did they leave a physical and metaphorical black hole downtown, they also desecrated the structural shell they left behind. On their last day in Miami, staffers pulled out markers and paint and graffittied their historic studio's walls. There's symbolism here, none of it particularly appreciated.
"Oooh!" our car squealed as a young Cuban fellow yanked open her doors and began vacuuming nooks and crannies she didn't even remember having. They'd been crudded up that long. Somehow he's able to distinguish and therefore not throw away the valuables lost in a thick layer of gym clothes, fast-food bags, spilled laundry detergent, and work papers we meant to take home but have actually been ferrying around town for weeks. Car-wash packages range from $9 to $19, and detailing services run $30 to $40. We chose the $11.95 premium wash, which includes something called "wheel bright." Inside the building there's a long hallway with windows so you can satisfy that voyeuristic urge to watch the pressurized water and soap blasting off the bird droppings and thick layer of road dust covering the windows. The waiting room is cool, sufficiently stocked with coffee, soda machines, an ice cream freezer, and a stand supporting bags of plantain chips. The television gets remarkably clear reception and is perpetually tuned to lurid but alluring telenovelas. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and Sunday. On Saturday it's 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
All you need is a sense of adventure and a willingness to get a little dirty. Need a chair? A bookcase? An African mask? Who knows what you'll discover in the stylish home-furnishings center of Miami. Sneak around the back alleys, lift a lid, hoist yourself up, and peer inside. One advantage: There are practically no restaurants here (apologies to Piccadilly Garden and Buena Vista Café), so you won't be wading through rotting foodstuffs. For an added adrenaline rush, there's the risk of being questioned by a police officer who thinks it's mighty strange you're doing this. You may or may not be asked to leave, depending upon whether the Dumpster is on city or private property. And should you find something worth keeping, you'll have a nice little story to tell.
Last December the school board brushed aside a proposal by its maverick member, Marta Perez, to create an ethics commission that would act as a watchdog over the district. Why? Millions squandered on questionable land purchases. Fortunes spent to settle sexual-harassment lawsuits. Administrators with diploma-mill degrees. Overcrowded classrooms. Underpaid teachers. Unwelcome parents. But in rejecting the measure, Perez's colleagues argued that they didn't need an ethics commission because there weren't any problems. Now, that takes chutzpah.
Miami actually is controlled by a secret cabal of gay Cuban men known as Los Pollos Tropicales. (All right, we made up the name, but we're pretty sure about the rest of it.)
What more is there to say than "farewell"?
Best Disappearing Act
Judge Federico Moreno "disappears" the Cuba ordinance
"There is a substantial likelihood that the “Cuba Affidavit' will be found unconstitutional," Moreno declared in a seventeen-page ruling in May of last year. And with that he suspended the so-called Cuba ordinance, which required that anyone conducting business with Miami-Dade County sign a document vowing not to transact business with Cuba or with any business that conducts business with Cuba. The most prominent targets, however, were county-funded activities that brought musicians and artists from the island. Moreno put the handwriting on the wall in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Miami Light Project, GableStage, Teatro La Ma Teodora, and concert promoters Hugo Cancio and Debbie Ohanian. At the time the U.S. Supreme Court was reviewing a similarly repressive Massachusetts state law targeting business dealings, including cultural exchanges, with the repressive regime in Myanmar (the country once known as Burma). When the justices nixed that law in June of last year, Moreno dutifully followed suit with a pro-forma edict declaring the Cuba ordinance unconstitutional. Poof! County lawyers vanished from the courtroom without argument. Soon the highly uncomfortable (but constitutionally protected) rhetorical contortions performed by the ordinance's defenders, including county commissioners Javier Souto and Miriam Alonso, Mayor Alex Penelas, and lawyer Victor Diaz, also disappeared from view. There is, however, a substantial likelihood that some of them still believe it makes sense to oppose a dictator by thinking like one.
A repeat victory for the no-longer-so-boyish Herald columnist, who last won this award in 1996, following his arrest for disorderly intoxication at Johnny Rockets restaurant in Coconut Grove. (Charges were later dropped.) Five years later the still-single sportswriter has joined George Clooney, Derek Jeter, and Matt Damon as one of People magazine's "100 Most Eligible Bachelors." In the magazine LeBatard squats over a pool table and admits he's "never been in love." People made no mention of "I Am the Hunter," the notorious 1800-word essay LeBatard wrote for Cosmopolitan in 1997. "Men like me travel in packs, pursuing perfume, and we find the chase more intoxicating than everything after it," LeBatard admitted. "We dabble in relationships for the same reason we dabble in hunting: There's an incomparable rush wrapped in the search and discovery. But then, when the last bullet has been fired and the gun is spent, when the conquest is complete and the game is done and we get to see what we've done close up, all that remains is the blood and the smell and a mess to clean up. Doesn't mean we won't go hunting again, mind you. We drink after a bad hangover, don't we?" Hard to believe the guy hasn't found a mate.
Best Erratum
"Newspaper rewrites paragraph, reveals possible Castro infiltration of U.S. government radio station"
For reasons unknown it was a banner year for errata brimming with political intrigue, even paranoia. Any number of conspiracy theories spring to mind while reading them. For example an El Nuevo Herald story that ran July 20, 2000, reported that fallout from the Elian saga had caused a decline in Republican Party membership in these parts. Wait a minute. That's impossible! Everyone knows the Democrats take their orders from Fidel. The correction, which editors craftily dubbed a "clarification," affirmed that the Democratic Party (you know, Janet Reno's people) suffered the loss.
Another intriguing erratum ran after an article by Miami Herald reporter Elinor J. Brecher this past April contained a curious case of mistaken identity. The story was an account of a Bay of Pigs conference in Cuba that brought together veterans from the revolutionary army and five open-minded members of Brigade 2506, the anti-Castro invasion force. Like the invasion, the story had problems. It reported that a real-life relative of John F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Pierre Salinger were among the participants. It should have said Jean Kennedy Smith (JFK's sister) and Richard Goodwin (a JFK advisor) attended. Thanks to operatives deep inside the Knight Ridder organization, Anthony Shriver, who is considering launching a political career in Miami Beach, may have lost the Brigade 2506 vote. Unlike most of its corrections, this one did not include the phrase "The Herald regrets the error." Hmmm.
But the weirdest erratum resulted from an El Nuevo Herald story by Rui Ferreira about Radio Martí, the U.S. government station that broadcasts to Cuba. Angelica Mora, a Chilean journalist, filed a discrimination complaint after station management replaced her with a Cuban-American reporter. The original story read: "According to the testimony of Ramon Cotta -- at the time news director of Radio Martí -- [Office of Cuban Broadcasting director] San Roman [said] that the journalist's departure resulted from suspicions about her professional integrity." For unknown reasons the February 28, 2001, correction presented entirely new information, particularly allegations that the Cuban government had planted stories on Radio Martí and quotes from station employees about an open FBI investigation that was supposed to be kept quiet. "The paragraph that mentions ... Ramon Cotta should have said: “Cotta contacted the office of the Inspector General and reported that San Roman had told him the FBI was conducting an investigation about five reports transmitted by Radio Martí that were planted by the Cuban government. San Roman also told Cotta that Radio Martí employees could be involved in the conspiracy.... San Roman told Cotta not to talk to anyone about the FBI investigation." Oops.
The operative word is organic. This is the place to find it fresh and in a pleasant, natural setting. Cactus fruit and mustard greens, rutabaga and nectarines. Flax seeds and bee pollen to lift you up. Rows of tight green asparagus bundles, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. A rainbow of peppers like you won't believe: purple, green, red, yellow, orange. Fantastic mushrooms: oyster, portabello, shiitake, and crimini to name a few. Fruits to fit your moods. A variety of oils, butters, and freshly baked breads. Perfectly reasonable prices and a diligent staff of Birkenstocked twentysomethings to offer a helping hand. What more could you ask for?
For thirteen years Miami has been lucky enough to host the weird and wonderful sounds of new music concocted by local composers and freaks from around the world. Festival director Gustavo Matamoros looks for artists who push the boundaries of that thing called music into an exploration of pure sound. The Subtropics' sound safaris will travel anywhere from the street corner to innerspace. This year's festival captured, among other things, the random electronic patterns of Sony Mao and Needle; the analogue chaos of George Tegzes; the sonic deconstruction of Celia Cruz by Ileana Perez Velazquez; the musical meanderings of the Sephardic Jews as tracked by the Duo Kol-Tof; and Sam Ashley and Jens Brand's pseudo-collaborative performance "The Bugs Who Could Be Revived After Being Dead."
Call it a mixture of financial planning and public confession. "Money Makeovers," a column appearing every other Sunday in the Miami Herald's business section, is an addictive snapshot of a community's fiscal health. Readers volunteer to have their finances scoped by a certified financial analyst. While the volunteers receive free financial advice, they also must put their often-disastrous financial history on naked display. Notable participants include the high school science teacher who collects snakes. "My comfort level is not as okay as I'd like it to be," he said, referring to his stock portfolio, not to the albino boa constrictor he keeps on his property. There's the former professional baseball player who is dangerously -- perhaps embarrassingly -- leveraged in tech stocks. And there's the pathetic attorney and single mother who overspends her $70,000 income by $3000 per month, piling up enormous credit-card debt and squandering her IRA. Doh! Fortunately the column provides inspiration, too. Take the uniquely Miami story of John Quinteros. The former drug dealer, busted on national TV by Geraldo Rivera, is rebuilding his financial life after spending more than six years in prison. Now a restaurant manager, Quinteros wants to bump up his 401(k) contributions and increase his investment in stocks. "When I got out, I did not have a penny to my name," he said triumphantly. "Now I have a beautiful wife and a family, a nice house, and a growing portfolio." Beautiful indeed.
Government flacks are essential, and not just to disseminate information during emergencies like hurricanes or sewage spills. Good ones help journalists extract key, sometimes incriminating, public records from the bureaucratic maw. Whether they are called public-information officers, media-relations managers, or press agents, the best ones share some common traits: They are briskly efficient, and they understand the news business. Former Miami-Dade Communications Department director Mayco Villafaña set these standards for his staff. Anyone who observed the post-election insanity after the presidential vote witnessed Villafaña's Herculean effort to accommodate the media crush without letting that impede the important work of the elections department. As for Rhonda Barnett, she has never lost sight of the notion that public service means keeping the public interest foremost. Barnett always responds quickly and is never daunted by red tape. She also boasts a dream résumé: a master's degree in library science and a decade of experience as a television news producer in Boston and South Florida, picking up four Emmys along the way. Unfortunately politics and professionalism are uneasy bedfellows at county hall these days. Both Villafaña and Barnett were fired recently.
They get miffed about overdevelopment and lobbyists lurking at city hall. They've successfully battled high-rises, and don't even try to tell them what to do with their neighborhood's sidewalks. Go to just about any public meeting at Miami Beach City Hall, and you'll see a couple of them in the audience -- watching. They are members of the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club, and they like nothing better than to chew on a squirming public official along with their coffee and toast. Each Tuesday morning this motley gaggle of Miami Beach property owners, entrepreneurs, and condo-board types converges on South Beach's oldest Cuban diner about 8:30 to get a clean shot at invited guests. When the chatter from their rear corner table rises above the general restaurant din, you know the guest speaker is being sliced and diced. Although the group began meeting in 1995, it became a force to be reckoned with in 1997, when its members took on high-rise developer Thomas Kramer and his $1.5 million campaign to defeat the "Save Miami Beach" referendum. The ballot measure passed overwhelmingly, and now a citywide vote is required whenever officials seek to increase density on waterfront property. Political foes sniff that the group is more attitude than substance, but we like the club's tenacity and political savvy.
Many politicians, hoping to impress an increasingly influential voting bloc, attended the March 10, 2001, Fanm Ayisyèn Nan Myami (Haitian Women of Miami) fundraising banquet at a local hotel. Miami Mayor Joe Carollo was scheduled to award a key to the city to the featured speaker, Marie St. Fleur of Boston, the nation's first elected Haitian-American state representative. St. Fleur is a forceful advocate of programs to combat domestic violence and protect battered women. At the banquet St. Fleur spoke at length on the subject, at one point invoking Eleanor Roosevelt's words: "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water." And on St. Fleur went, oblivious to the controversy surrounding Carollo's recent arrest for allegedly hitting his wife -- with a tea canister no less. Although the mayor's staff later denied that Carollo's next surprising move was prompted by St. Fleur's words, he suddenly arose well before she had finished her speech and left the banquet room, key to the city and all.
The past year has provided uplifting proof that there is no shortage of locals willing to risk their lives to help others in a uniquely South Florida jam: rescuing people who have driven off the road into a canal. Remember these heroes next time you hear someone badmouthing Miami and its rude citizens.
•November 4, 2000: Four Miami-Dade police officers -- Eduardo Garcia, Will Sanchez, Pedro Polo, and James McDonnell -- dived into a canal at SW Seventh Street and 122nd Avenue to rescue a nineteen-year-old woman trapped in her sinking Nissan. The car was submerged when the officers reached it. "She had been holding her breath, and by the time we'd gotten there she was on her last breath," Garcia told the Miami Herald.
•December 7, 2000: Off-duty Hialeah police Lt. Joe DeJesus jumped into a canal on Griffin Road in Broward at 11:00 p.m. to rescue a woman whose van had veered off the road. She was unhurt.
•January 12, 2001: Hialeah residents Jim Gentilesco, Jr., and Rene Abreu jumped into a canal at West 44th Place and Fourth Avenue when they saw a 40-year-old woman's car slip into the water.
•January 14, 2001: Hans Schaefer, Eduardo Suarez, and his father, Eduardo Suarez, Sr., swam to the bottom of a murky canal off NW 137th Avenue and 104th Street to reach a woman whose car had plunged into the water.
This tiny, bucolic slice of South Florida, incorporated as a city in 1937 and sandwiched between the cities of Miami and Miami Shores west of Biscayne Boulevard at NE 86th Street, almost feels like a hippie commune in Vermont. Dogs roam freely, people actually sit on their porches. But the lush subtropical foliage (a sanctuary for birds, according to a sign greeting visitors at 86th Street) brings you back to Miami. Something else unique to South Florida that connects this charming village to the past: Along the edge of the Little River canal, on NE Fourth Avenue Road, you'll find a Tequesta Indian habitation mound. A tablet erected in 1949 in honor of the natives marks the spot. Directly in front of it is a grassy patch of land overflowing with plants and trees for all to enjoy. But it's the neighborhood's ungentrified feel and a varied and colorful array of residential architectural styles -- from English Tudor to Spanish Mediterranean -- that give this city of 2000 residents its real charm.
Known the world over for opulent accommodations, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group constructed its latest masterpiece adjacent to downtown on overcrowded Claughton Island, also known as Brickell Key. A November 2000 opening introduced Miamians to a heretofore unknown brand of low-key luxury. More than $100 million was spent on the wedge-shaped building, which includes a serene lobby accented by elegant bamboo trees, 329 expansive rooms decorated with modern furniture and plush fabrics (bamboo floors in suites), bathrooms covered in Spanish marble, and balconies that overlook Biscayne Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, or the Miami skyline. Add to that a state-of-the-art gym, a charming swimming pool with Jacuzzi, a lush full-service spa, the splendid restaurant Azul, and the more-casual but equally enticing Café Sambal. Rates that range from $550 to $4000, and recent guests Spanish rulers King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia suggest a stay that few simple folk can afford except in the off-season.
Oh, how many, many times have we heard the complaints: You newspaper people only care about bad news. Everything you print is so negative. Why can't you ever write about the good things? How about being uplifting for a change? Well, we are delighted to announce that someone has been listening. Someone who cares. Someone who works at the malevolent Miami Herald, of all places. In his role as the paper's television critic, Terry Jackson can be as viciously snarky as they come. But once a week he parks his mean streak. Every Thursday, in the "Wheels and Waves" section, he pens a column called "Behind the Wheel," in which he test-drives and reviews new automobiles. We have it on good authority that the column represents Jackson's quiet effort to bring some sunshine to the otherwise gloomy pages of Miami's Only Daily -- despite what cynics say about the influence of automobile dealers and their advertising dollars. No, for his determination to utter nary a discouraging word, for his selfless service to the community, Jackson deserves praise and a reprise of some typical headlines from the past twelve months: Luxury in a pickup? The nimble Sierra C3 suspends our disbelief. •Escalade a classy SUV competitor. •Extra-roomy, redesigned Le Sabre gives families alternative to minivans, SUVs. •SC430 convertible coupe is eye-catching. •The new explorer is better in every way: handling and ride vastly improved. •Toyota takes a fun mini-SUV and makes it larger, better. •Nissan aims for cutting edge in reviving the Z. •Interior makes Lexus LS430 a ride in lap of luxury. •Chrysler's minivans improve on success. •Acura's MDX meets demand for luxury SUV. •Volvo's XC: Wagon for a new age. •Fast and stylish, Lexus IS 300 a top performance sedan. •Performance is a plus for redesigned Aurora. •Breakout designs mark a new course for Cadillac. •New SUVs look like performance vehicles. •Pickups keep on truckin' -- new models far from basic. •Going topless is the secret of Pontiac Sunfire's success: fun convertible shows less is more.
All right, so the winner isn't actually in Miami. What's more important -- your children's happiness or simple logistics? Exactly. Drive eighteen miles west of West Palm Beach on State Road 441, and you'll be at Lion Country Safari, where the kids can observe beasts in their nearly natural environment, as opposed to watching out for them in school hallways. When it opened in 1967, the animal park was the United States' first drive-through cageless zoo, a place where you could drive right through into a herd of zebras and cruise by a few rhinoceros as they graze by the side of the road. These are wild animals, though, and you'll have to make sure the little ones don't roll down the windows to get a better look at the lions. In fact if you drive a convertible, the park will insist that you rent a car at the gate. After the kids get restless, you can park and step into Safari World, the walk-through portion of the park. Here's a tip: To catch the animals at their liveliest, get to the park in the morning, before the heat of the day takes its drowsy toll. The park is open 365 days per year, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Last car enters at 4:30. Admission is $15.50 per adult and$10.50 per child, but be sure to check local papers and visitor centers for discount coupons. Lion Country's Website also offers coupons. One more thing: Beware of the ostriches and emus. They have a thing for windshield wipers.
Um, $145 billion. Yeah, that's with a b. That's how much this husband-and-wife team won for their clients in July 2000. The astounding award was the culmination of a seven-year legal battle against the nation's tobacco industry, and it all played out in the Miami courtroom of Judge Robert Kaye. The Rosenblatts' argument was deceptively simple: "My key strategy was to show that these people have knowingly sold ... a product they 100 percent knew will kill a certain number of their customers. And that they didn't give a damn," Stanley told the National Law Journal. The jury bought it. The victory for their estimated 500,000 clients is all the more impressive in light of the fact that these two local advocates faced a veritable army of high-priced attorneys hired by the tobacco giants. Faced them down and kicked their butts.
Baby Huey became the poster child for the Clinton pardon scandal when it was revealed he had received more than $400,000 to work on a pair of clemency petitions, both of which ultimately succeeded. A former public defender, Rodham seemed to spend all eight years of the Clinton administration trying to find ways to cash in on being the First Lady's brother. He ran a laughable campaign for the United States Senate in 1994 and later attempted to become a captain of industry by cornering the hazelnut market through contacts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. That last venture caused all sorts of problems for the U.S. State Department. But if his prior attempts to exploit his family name were oafish, his profiteering in the pardon scandal was downright obscene, and proved to be a major embarrassment not only for former President Clinton but also for Rodham's sister, Hillary, the newly elected senator for New York, who ordered her brother to return all the money. Perhaps most embarrassing were the television images of Rodham in the days after the scandal broke. He refused to speak to the media, so news footage frequently showed him running back and forth from his car to his house wearing flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a T-shirt that was just a little too tight for his globular frame. Not a pretty picture.
This past December, when NBC named 35-year-old Miami native Jeff Zucker as the head of its entertainment division, he was not only one of the youngest hotshots to fill such a high-profile slot, he also was the first executive with a news background to take over the company's entertainment arm. And he's one of us: North Miami Senior High, class of 1982. "Hey, I'm a Miami boy," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, explaining a style quirk. "Wearing shoes without socks is very Miami." The word wunderkind is used so frequently in describing him it's almost become his middle name. After joining NBC Sports in 1986 as a researcher/writer, he moved on to the Today show, where he rose to become executive producer at the tender age of 26. Critics give him full credit for imbuing that program with a news edge it previously lacked, and more important, for guiding it to unprecedented popularity and prosperity. He's also been the driving force behind many of NBC's highest-rated news specials. Moving from New York to Los Angeles may be just as shocking as going from presidential interviews to sitcom scripts, but he's a hearty lad who likes a challenge. No further proof is needed than his success in battling colon cancer -- twice.
When songwriter Robert "Raven" Kraft made a New Year's resolution in 1975 to jog along the Miami Beach shore every day for a year, he didn't think he'd attract a following. But after 26 years of late-afternoon runs (even through gale-force hurricane winds), and after logging 76,500 miles, the man was bound to get attention. A coterie of locals, old-timers, and snowbirds gathers daily at the Sixth Street lifeguard stand for a casual eight-mile jog with Raven. Dressed in his trademark black running shorts, black headband, and single black glove, Raven leads his pack with a slow, methodical chug. (He reportedly is one of the nation's top "streak runners," people who literally never miss a day of jogging.) Through the years more than 200 individuals, from financiers to corrections officers, have trotted with the man in black. Complete a run and you're part of this quirky gang. Membership is free, plus you'll be christened with a funky nickname such as Tangerine Dream, the Plantain Lady, and Chapter 11.
It was a harrowing fall. Before: Helps lead a successful zoning fight to keep denser housing out of suburban Hialeah Gardens. Touted as first Latina mayor in the United States when elected in 1989. Divorces Angel Ramos, loses seat in 1993, marries Angel Ramos again, becomes mayor again in 1995. Wears miniskirts with blazers.
After: Swept up in storm of anonymous letters accusing her of lascivious, corrupt acts at city hall. Jailed in June 2000 on charges she conspired to kill her ex-husband in order to collect $45,000 in insurance money. Also charged with voter fraud. Convicted a month later and sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Gov. Jeb Bush removes her from office. Touted as Women's Detention Center inmate No. 0053063. Released on $100,000 bond pending appeal. Denies wearing miniskirts with blazers. Former city employees file a harassment lawsuit against her for lewd and lascivious remarks.
Once she was just another young, attractive woman on South Beach. A student assembling a portfolio at the Miami Ad School, a part-time employee at Books & Books on Lincoln Road. Browsers who even noticed her behind the register probably never realized they were in the presence of "America's Sweetheart," as Bryant Gumbel would soon anoint her. Yet the cutest member of the cast of the first Survivor, the spectacularly popular television show she joined almost by accident, shed her anonymity forever by lasting until the show's final six contestants. An entire nation fell in love with her voice, her spirit, and her fresh look. Suddenly a celebrity, Haskell maintained a healthy attitude about the fame thrust upon her. "All the publicity is a complete joke," she told Detour magazine soon after her island banishment was broadcast, "and I don't know how long this phenomenon is going to continue." Long enough for her to take on an agent, cash in on an endorsement contract with Blistex, and win a role as a love interest in a major Hollywood movie, due out in June. Through it all Haskell appears completely in control of her ride, perfectly sane about the hype, lovelier now than when she left us.
New Yorkers have Miss Liberty towering above their harbor. Washingtonians have the noble Pocahontas perched atop the U.S. Capitol. And Miamians have a 21-foot-tall, virtually naked Tequesta Indian blowing into a conch shell on the grounds of the Three Tequesta Point condominium tower at the mouth of the Miami River. He stands on a nineteen-foot coral-rock pedestal surrounded by palm trees. Historians believe the last Tequesta died in the 1700s from diseases borne by the dreaded Spaniards, but this big bronze one will be impervious to such calamities. Commissioned by the Swire Group, which has developed most of Brickell Key (also known as Claughton Island), the statue, whose Spanish name translates to Sentinel of the River, was created by Cuban-born sculptor Manuel Carbonell and unveiled in July 1999. (Another Tequesta statue by Carbonell adorns the nearby Brickell Avenue bridge.) Our sentinel doubles as an ersatz lighthouse. The conch, which he holds pointed skyward, glows at night. The work is best seen from Biscayne Bay by boat, though it is visible from the northern seawall of the river near the Hotel Inter-Continental.
Winds blows, storms flood, drought plagues, citrus canker rages, Elian goes home, Warshaw goes down, MIA radar goes down, Shalala arrives, Reno returns, Stierheim's out, juice bars are out, pirate radio lives, Bicentennial Park lives, Emilio Milian dies, Frosene Sonderling dies, Milt Sosin dies, Brickell Key gets built up, South Beach gets built up, Performing Arts Center still not built, Tom Tomlinson takes off, Angela Gittens touches down, Cuban spies pervade, chads hang, ballots get counted, ballots get recounted, Homestead Air Force Base goes down for the count, Reboredo steps down, musicians strike, Marlins strike out, sewage spills out, oil spills onto beaches, beaches disappear, Cuban ballplayers defect, Cuban doctors defect, Brickell Emporium closes, Body Positive closes, WAMI closes, Hurricane Debby fizzles, Latin music sizzles, cops and drugs, cops and hookers, priests and hookers, educators and hookers, hookers and killers, killer tires, killer trains, killer canals, kids kill, rip currents kill, light poles kill, lobbyists survive, Stiltsville survives, GableStage survives, Margarita Ruiz dies, Wayne Brehm dies, Heberto Padilla dies, Morris Lapidus dies, South Miami locks guns, Carollo gets locked up, insurance rates go up, Cuban politicos get violent, Gables politicos get the boot, Boy Scouts get the boot, traffic clogs, drought persists, Alfonso Sepe goes to jail, Gilda Oliveros goes to jail, Noriega stays in jail, Latin Grammys go, Latin Grammys arrive, City of Miami Lakes arrives, Versace's mansion gets sold, Madonna's mansion gets sold, SoBe nightlife gets old, and just when the magic seems to have vanished from the Magic City, a minor miracle occurs: The address of little Elian's Miami home, 2319, pays $5000 in the Florida lottery.
It goes without saying that in South Florida it's rare to find politicians who don't betray themselves and their constituents within 30 minutes of taking the oath of office. But the newest Miami City Commissioner, a quick study and a hard worker, has remained true to his beliefs: Always be honest and straightforward, keep citizens' interests first, no backroom funny business. Winton's rectitude was most evident in his handling of the site-selection process for the Florida Marlins' proposed stadium. Citizens and activists who feared the Marlins were going to steamroll the city into accepting its demand that the stadium be located in Bicentennial Park found a champion in Winton. While most of Miami's established power structure believed it was a foregone conclusion that the team would usurp the park, Winton countered that the city commission had formed a task force to explore ways to reinvigorate that neglected parcel of land and turn it into a jewel. He argued that it was wrong simply to brush aside those efforts so the Marlins could place a concrete behemoth on the water. His willingness to speak out in a forceful manner galvanized public opinion against the Marlins and forced the team to accept an alternate location.
The array of lights illuminating the 47-story Bank of America Tower quite literally provides a beacon in a city that too often seems to lose its way. Public officials are hauled off in disgrace at an alarming rate. Racial and ethnic tensions threaten to boil over at any moment. Cold-war passions still dominate civic life. But on any given night we can glance up at the Miami skyline and see the tower bathed in soothing bands of colors: red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July; red on Valentine's Day; orange and green to salute UM's football squad; icy blue with giant snowflakes at the winter holidays. We gaze upon it and instinctively our mood softens. Beyond that, the structure's history entails the kind of bumpy ride that is the Miami experience. Designed by famed architect I.M. Pei, it was inaugurated as the headquarters for David Paul's CenTrust Savings Bank in 1987. CenTrust collapsed, and Paul went to prison for gutting the institution. The Resolution Trust Corporation has sold it twice since then. Current owner is National Office Partners, which considers the building's illumination to be a serious matter. "We view this as a civic-pride thing, really," says property manager Jay Windsor. Two workers require nearly four hours to change the colored lenses on nearly 400 1000-watt lights. But one glance at the incandescent glow over a darkened Biscayne Bay and you can see it's clearly worth the effort, a reminder that no matter what else, we live in a beautiful place. Sometimes that's enough.
Best Mile Of Miami
SW Eighth Street between 12th and 21st avenues
The symbolic heart of Little Havana once again is beating strong, thanks to an infusion of new blood from artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs. The old landmarks are still there. The smells of café cubano and oven-roasted pork still emanate from El Pub. Domino Park remains the site of some of the fiercest domino games and political conversation anywhere. And the historic Tower Theater has reopened as a neighborhood cinema. But what's really put this strip back on the map is its growing arts scene, a collection of studios and galleries that has turned the area into Miami's cultural district. The best way to get acquainted with all that's new -- and old -- on Calle Ocho is to attend Viernes Culturales, Cultural Fridays, a neighborhood open house and street festival held the last Friday of every month.
Who will ever forget those images of well-dressed young men with neatly cropped hair pounding on the doors of the Miami-Dade County Elections Department during the height of the presidential recount? And when a few of them erroneously thought county Democratic Party chairman Joe Geller was trying to steal ballots, they pounced on him like he was the last piece of Brie at a wine-and-cheese social. Initially television viewers must have thought the hooligans were local citizens, but anyone living in Miami knew right away this wasn't a hometown horde. For one thing there wasn't a single guayabera in the crowd. Sure enough it turned out this rabble was imported from out of state, many of them the aides to Republican congressmen from around the nation. Eventually the roving band of Republican thugs was forced to disperse, but not before they caused Miami-Dade County to cancel its recount and ensure a victory for George W. Bush.
Led by Mayor Julio Robaina, the City of South Miami passed an ordinance last year requiring gun owners to place safety locks on all weapons. The measure is intended to reduce the number of accidental shootings, especially those involving children. "We're trying to protect the safety of the children of this community," Robaina declared. "And this is just the beginning." Despite heavy pressure from the National Rifle Association and a lawsuit attempting to derail the law, Robaina and the South Miami City Commission have remained steadfast in their support, mounting an aggressive gun-safety education campaign in addition to handing out free gun locks to any individual who asks for one. During the kick-off celebration of the campaign last August, city officials distributed more than 300 locks. Individuals who do not comply with the law will be subject to a $250 fine for their first infraction, $500 for their second. Already the South Miami ordinance is being copied by cities and counties around the nation.
True, animal-rights activists are up in arms about it, but it's difficult to resist the experience of actually getting into a tank and splashing around with the Seaquarium's dolphins. Shooting through the warm water like a, well, dolphin, watching them leap above and around you is a kick for kids and adults alike. But it's titillation with a price. You'll pay $125 per swimmer. And if you're allowing your kid to do it but want to watch, that's an extra $32. And children are required to have a guardian present, so consider that fee mandatory. Fortunately the money buys you some safety and reassurance as well: Four trainers are in the tanks along with three to five dolphins per session. Just one warning: Raw sardines may be a treat for the dolphins, but it's doubtful you'll find them as tasty.
The dreamer dreams that we are watching his dreams. On the back of the Buick Building in the Design District is a magical diptych by husband-and-wife artist team Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt. The 35-by-50-foot digital print of an original oil painting depicts a man sleeping peacefully in a bed. In the panel next to him is an Angel and Devil box. "In fact he is dreaming, perhaps of who he will be that very day," says Behar with a mischievous laugh. "Am I going to be the good Roberto or the bad Roberto?" The piece was designed to be seen from the westbound lanes of the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a reminder to drivers of the intimate space they've just left behind as they guide their cars to work. Real estate developer Craig Robins commissioned and financed the piece, which went up February 2000. Behar and Marquardt don't really consider the work a mural; they think of it as a two-dimensional sculpture because details from the diptych -- two surreal portraits hanging in the sleeping man's room -- also adorn the front of the building. The artists say that creates a sense of "seeing through the building."
The only invitation you need to this soiree is a big, fat full moon climbing into the night sky. Each month, on the official calendar night of the full moon, an often motley but gentle crew assembles on the sand -- with no central planning and no velvet rope. The crowd can grow as large as 500; 1000 is not unheard of. Over the course of the nighttime hours, the Beach is transformed from a tourist mecca where the self-satisfied lounge to a vibrant, feral gathering. You make your own fun here. There's no bar and no sound system. But inevitably drum circles form, people chant, and dancing erupts spontaneously. Sit in the sand and stare at the ocean. Strike up a conversation with that aging hippie or that sleek young club kid or the bewildered sales rep who stumbled up from the Loews hotel. When was the last time you returned home from a night on South Beach with sand in your shoes, a smile on your face, and money still in your wallet?
Sometimes an activist craves a little action. In these post-Elian days, politicos of the Cuban-exile community are full of words like tolerance, understanding, and mutual respect. That's all fine and dandy, but it's also, well, a little boring. For any ideologues pining for the bomb-throwing glory days of el exilio, try an issue of ¡Grita!, where the prevailing sentiment is "The Cold War's not over until we say it's over!" Vintage right-wing rants brand Bill Clinton an "extreme leftist" (Lord only knows where they place Jesse Jackson on the political spectrum) while decrying the closet Marxists ensconced within Brickell Avenue's tony high-rises, all just itching for a little commie subversion. (Somebody warn Johnny Winton!) All that plus goofily over-the-top cartoons that single out Alex Penelas for as much abuse as good old Fidel. ¡Viva las pragmatistas!
Every successful liberation movement has its printed matter. American patriots rallied support for the U.S. Constitution with the Federalist Papers; students railed against the Vietnam War with rags like the Berkeley Barb; the Sandinistas published Barricada while wearing down the Somoza dictatorship. Here in Miami we have Urban Environment League's Urban Forum. The diminutive gazette (six by eight inches) is cute, but it packs a rhetorical wallop. "Make no mistake about it," wrote attorney and UEL member John de Leon in a 1999 issue, "public property belongs to all of us -- rich, poor, black, white, landowners, and the dispossessed -- and not to some politicians who are trying to sell these properties as a quick fix for the financial mess they may have created." That was an early salvo in a skirmish that grew into the war over the future of Bicentennial Park. When hostilities were in full rage, UEL president Gregory Bush penned this epic prose for the October/November 2000 issue: "If you seek explanations for the progress made in revitalizing the waterfronts of Sydney, Baltimore, Portland, New York, Charleston, Providence, and Seattle ... there appears to be a common thread related to time, courage, and vision. It takes time to forge a consensus behind a coherent plan of action. It takes time to listen to the voices from nearby neighborhoods and to assess the different constituencies throughout the region.... Without a thoughtful and powerful vision, poorly thought-out decisions will predominate." The Forum chronicles other land-use and planning struggles as well, though the civic equivalent of guerrilla warfare sometimes leads to irregular publishing dates. Back issues are available on the group's Website (www.uel.org).
Since the object of a first date is getting to know the other person well enough to determine if you like him/her, consider Dave & Buster's the ideal venue. This sprawling 60,000-square-foot entertainment-and-dining complex offers a variety of options for learning about someone else. Consider the Million Dollar Midway, which features more than 200 interactive and virtual-reality games. See just how much that guy really likes to play golf, or exactly how big a princess she is if she won't risk her manicure. Find out if he's sensitive (does he cry when his virtual Corvette crashes?) and see if she's got game (can she swish a basket?). Then move on to one of the countless bars, where you'll discover if your date can hold his/her liquor of if he/she ends up literally being a crashing-off-the-barstool boor. If the date goes smoothly, consider heading for one of several dining areas for a meal. If not, try scanning the Skeeball. No need to bust your chops when there's plenty of pickings at Dave & Buster's.
Best Place To Make Up
NE Second Avenue beneath the I-395 overpass
If you want to get back together good and fast, just spend a half-hour or so together in this dark, desolate zone of urban destitution. Seven years ago a huge homeless encampment known as the Mud Flats was spread out here, and despite a multimillion-dollar cleanup and relocation, the area is still a haven for people with serious problems: window-washers, panhandlers, all manner of lame and halt. They don't so much live here anymore as work here -- there's money in those SUVs trapped in lines at the traffic lights leading to the expressway entrance ramps. This is the time and the place where you and your estranged need each other most. You need, at all costs, to escape from these looming shadows, and this you can do with the help of that wonderful person next to you, clutching your arm like a tourniquet, who will never let you go again.
It can be a little difficult to tell if the men indeed are single, since sitting in saunas and baths is an easy excuse to take off that ring. And a certain percentage are going to be tourists, seeing as how this is in a hotel. But a surprising variety of employed, respectable men make their way to Miami's most soporific hot spot on any given evening (days are not recommended as employed, respectable nontourists should not be lounging). The age and ethnic range also is desirable -- all over the place, that is. But what makes the baths a particularly conducive meeting ground? Well, having no choice but to sit side by side in one of the many overheated rooms or the Jacuzzi has a way of forcing conversation. "It wasn't this hot last time I visited." "Oh, do you come here often?" That kind of thing. But more serious talk can, and sometimes does, follow. How ecotourism is a mixed blessing for Ecuador; which hotels are the best bang for your buck in Moscow; what the best waterways are for boating in Miami. The high temperatures have a way of loosening more than leg muscles, and often attitude gets checked at the door as stress and shyness dissipate into the humid air. If you need more loosening, there are white Russians (the drink) in the café. Open every day, noon till midnight. All days are coed.
The frozen drinks and spicy merengue beat have a way of shaking loose a girl's inhibitions. This Ocean Drive patio bar is full of out-of-town women looking for a Miami adventure. Slick back your hair, splash on the alluring cologne, and join the local Lotharios on the dance floor. Don't worry if you don't know how to salsa. If you can fake it well enough, you'll be a mambo king in the eyes of that little blond sales rep from South Jersey.
Park the car for the day and get on Miami's billion-dollar transportation boondoggle for a self-guided tour of the city. You can enter a station at any point along the 21-mile convex curve from Hialeah to Kendall. You'll travel a crazy parabola through neighborhoods as different from each other as the people are in this highly stratified society. The views are by turns breathtaking and depressing on the journey through Hialeah, Brownsville, Allapattah, Overtown, downtown Miami, and the Brickell area, then south along Dixie Highway through Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and South Miami. Then jump to the Metromover downtown for a photo-worthy whirl above the Miami River and the pulsing streets of the center city, catching occasional glimpses of Biscayne Bay. Metrorail's history is one for the books. Voters approved a bond issue to build it in 1978, but plagued by cost overruns and construction delays, the complete $1.3 billion elevated train track wasn't open for business until 1985. And it hasn't exactly done much to relieve our ridiculously congested roads; only a tiny percentage of Miami-Dade's population actually uses it. Still we like Metrorail (or Metrorail, as its detractors lovingly call it). It's as much adventure as you can have for a pocketful of quarters.
As a member of the county commission since 1993, Natacha Seijas (the former Mrs. Natacha Millan) has perfected a foolproof method of alienating people. She's mean. She's arrogant. She can throw a scowl that cracks granite. And so as she prepared to run for re-election in 2000, most political observers predicted her time was up. Her archenemy, Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, had made her defeat one of his top priorities. Her opponent in the commission race was Roberto Casas, a popular and affable member of the state Senate. Seijas's chances for survival were considered so slim that even some of her natural allies, such as Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and his stable of cronies, hedged their bets by financially supporting both candidates. But in this case the pundits were wrong. Seijas worked harder than Casas, knocking on doors and acting throughout the campaign as if she were twenty points behind in the polls. Simply put, Seijas wanted it more than Casas. And she concentrated on the right issues: responding to constituent concerns, introducing an ordinance to provide higher wages for employees of companies that do business with the county, and looking out for elderly residents. If a victory by an incumbent can ever be considered an upset, then Seijas pulled off an upset last fall, winning another four-year term. She's still mean. She's still arrogant. And she's still insufferable. But you've got to hand it to her: She fought a hell of a good race.
As the mayor of Coral Gables for the past eight years, Raul Valdes-Fauli treated the electorate as if they were serfs and he their lord and master. He was more than haughty. He was brazenly contemptuous of the public. Drunk with power, he did his best to turn the City Beautiful into the City Hideous by disregarding its history and tradition, throwing open the doors to one bloated eyesore of a development after another. But Valdes-Fauli and two other members of the city commission, Dorothy Thomson and Jim Barker, finally went too far. Last year they approved a $16.5 million construction project that included a 60,000-square-foot annex to the historic city hall. The plan also called for closing a portion of Biltmore Way. Their actions solidified public sentiment against them, and in April all three were voted out of office and replaced with a reform-minded slate of candidates that immediately halted construction on the new annex and promised to sharply regulate all future development.
In 1998, after eking out a victory in one of North Miami's ugliest mayoral elections ever, attorney Frank Wolland faced widespread doubts about his ability to overcome the town's growing racial and social rifts. At least a quarter of North Miami's 60,000 residents are Haitian; blacks now make up 55 percent of the population in this once-lily-white stronghold. Wolland's 1998 opponent, Joe Celestin, was the first Haitian to run for North Miami mayor, and his passionate supporters took the loss hard. But Wolland began an effort to encourage Haitians' involvement in civic life. He even inquired about enrolling in Kreyol classes but couldn't attend regularly. The feared ethnic polarization didn't occur in North Miami, and some Celestin supporters even wound up on Wolland's side for re-election. Thus his decision to take a breather from politics prompted a flood of calls to Wolland's law office, begging him to reconsider. "A lot of people were very unhappy," he concedes. "They came to me, and we talked it out. I just think it's time to spend a little more time with my kids and my [law practice]. So I decided to sit this one out." In retrospect Wolland's departure ushered in, as gracefully as one could hope, a new era of majority black leadership in North Miami.
The Cagney and Lacey of the Clinton administration are now in South Florida. There was never much doubt that native Miamian Janet Reno would return home, even with the hard feelings among Cuban Americans over Elian. But landing Donna Shalala as the new president of the University of Miami was indeed a coup. For political junkies looking to add a little West Wing sizzle to their next humdrum cocktail party, inviting one or (dare we imagine) both of these Beltway vixens would be just the ticket. Imagine the stories they could swap while munching on croquetas and sipping mojitos. "Well, that's what I told the president. “No, sir, I don't know if club soda is really good at removing stains.'"
They are the children of the Cuban exiles who formed modern Miami, and they are among those who will shape the future of the United States. There also is the possibility they will play leading roles in a future Cuba. But regardless of how things shake out in their ancestral home, Garcia and Ugalde are a force to be reckoned with here and now. Garcia, as many in both Miami and Washington, D.C., are aware, is the new executive director and long-time spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. He has been active in politics for a good part of his 37 years, and no doubt his political star will continue to ascend. Ugalde, Garcia's wife of nine years, has been less publicly visible though no less accomplished. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard with a law degree from the University of Miami, she served for six years as associate general counsel for UM. This past February she moved into the spotlight when she was named senior advisor to Donna Shalala, the new University of Miami president and former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration.
The county's architectural, cultural, and environmental heritage is precious and should be preserved. At least what's left of it should be preserved. For the past 25 years, the Dade Heritage Trust has worked to save historic sites (the Cape Florida lighthouse, the Miami Circle), restore historic properties, improve historic neighborhoods, and instill a sense of place and community in Miami's diverse environment. One of the trust's best functions is its annual Dade Heritage Days, a two-month spring celebration of Miami's cultural heritage that gives residents a chance to experience a bit of where their neighbors are coming from. The celebration includes hikes through the county's wild places, evenings of contemplating Haitian art or Miami Beach architecture, Miami River boat rides, and tours of the Miami Circle, Stiltsville, and the Biltmore Hotel. The list goes on.
-- Miami mayoral spokesman Jay Rhodes, reassuring the public that everything was fine, even though his boss, Joe Carollo, had just spent the night in jail on domestic-violence charges.
Thanks to the work of Barbara Stein, this 54-year-old landmark is in the final phase of a seven-million-dollar renovation that will return the Miracle Theatre to its former glory. For Stein this has been a labor of love since 1995. Along with her husband, Stein founded the Actors' Playhouse theater company in Kendall thirteen years ago but eventually relocated to Coral Gables and the Miracle Theatre. In addition to her dedication, the key to this project has been Stein's ability to persuade local companies to donate their time and services to the restoration effort. While preserving the historic nature of the building, the theater is being divided into three parts. The main theater seats 600 people; on the second floor a special children's theater, called the Balcony, can hold as many as 300 tykes and their parents. There also are plans for a more intimate black-box stage setting, which will cater to audiences of between 75 and 100.
While serving as the nation's first female attorney general, Reno appointed special prosecutors six times to investigate top officials in the Clinton administration, more than any other attorney general before her. Yes, she botched the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, where more than 80 people died. And snatching Elian from his relatives in Little Havana didn't win her friends back home among Miami's Cuban community. But it's the way Reno left office that said something about where her heart lies. The former U.S. Attorney General bought a used pickup truck to tour the country, returned to the house her mama built by hand in 1947, and made plans to kayak the 100-mile Wilderness Waterway from Everglades City to Flamingo in Everglades National Park. Welcome home. Relax. Enjoy.
There is something pleasantly dreamlike and unreal about Black Point Marina. It's an improbable mix of natural and human construction. On some sea charts the area is known as "the featherbeds." Dog walkers have been known to meet crocodiles on Black Point's walkways. To the south looms the region's only peak, Mount Trashmore. At the marina's dockside restaurant and bar, the Pirate's Den, the beer runs cold, the food is passable, and customers can down pitchers while watching herons fish. A 1.5-mile jetty path that juts into the bay is the perfect place for a stroll afterward. Couples spread blankets on the grass. Families picnic and fish. Manmade Miami is rarely this peaceful.
This past November, when Delfin Gonzalez announced he had bought the modest Little Havana home where Elian stayed, and that he planned on turning it into a shrine, some people thought it would only serve to perpetuate -- even institutionalize -- the tensions that had split the community into warring factions. But that evening, when the winning numbers came up on the Florida lottery, even skeptics had to pause. Maybe the kid does have some kind of supernatural powers after all. The Cash Four drawing paid off $5000 to 192 players who picked the numbers 2319. The Cash Three drawing paid $500 to 913 people who picked 023. Even the number of people who won were combinations of Elian's address. Now what was that story about dolphins saving the boy's life?
Leave the enormous helium-filled cartoon characters to those big-budget department-store spectacles in major metropolitan areas. The little City of North Miami's parade, which has plodded along NE 125th Street every Thanksgiving morning for the past 26 years, offers a satisfying sampling of marching bands, floats, classic cars, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, clowns, costumed characters, and Shriners. Topping things off: a local celebrity grand marshal (past honorees have included a former football player, astronaut, and news anchor). And lest we forget, Santa Claus. Naturally it's all free, but that's not all. In addition to hailing the day to give thanks and marking the start of the Christmas season, this quaint procession ushers in the WinterNational Festival, three days of family-oriented fun featuring food, music, arts and crafts, carnival rides, and sometimes even fake snow. Yes, fake. After all, this is South Florida.
Almost 80 years after John and Zada Schleucher founded a program to help Miami's poor, the Miami Rescue Mission is still serving "soup, soap, and salvation" to the city's lost souls. The mission has grown into a multifaceted facility featuring residential programs for men and women, a thrift store, an education center, and a companion operation in Broward County. Every day the mission's Men's Center on NW First Avenue serves a hot meal at both lunch and dinner to about 200 men, women, and children. The lunch, however, isn't free. Those who wish to eat must first attend a religious service in the mission's chapel. Although that may turn off some people, it makes others feel as though someone has helped the whole man rather than just filled his stomach. At least that's what Horace says as he eats a lunch of beans and rice, salad, cabbage, cookies, and chocolate milk. An ex-addict who has been in the Rescue Mission's residential program for a year, Horace adds optimistically that in three more months he'll be back on his feet, working as a long-distance truck driver. The Miami Rescue Mission helped make that possible when he had nowhere else to turn.
Maybe it's the unobstructed view of the Intracoastal Waterway one gets driving along this winding strip of road that connects Bay Harbor Islands to North Miami. Perhaps it's the fact that, with relatively little traffic coming through, the tollbooth operators will take not only your money but the time to wish you a nice day or a good evening. Whatever the reason we don't mind that it costs 50 cents each way. Really.
"Hence! Wilt thou lift up Florida?"
"Great Gore --"
"Doth not Alex bootless kneel?"
"Speak, hands for me!"
"Et tu, Alex? Then fall, Gore."
If you absolutely, positively must go to South Beach, leave your car in the municipal lot at 45th Street and Collins Avenue, then walk to the nearby Eden Roc or Fontainebleau, where you can grab a cab any hour of the day or night.(Aside from the airport, these are the only places in Miami-Dade where taxis line up ten deep.) Head to South Beach. At the end of the evening, cab it back. You won't spend half the night looking for parking, and you won't have to worry about tooling around under the influence. Now if we could all just stop going to South Beach.
True, we renew our licenses only once every six years, but on that fateful day (which, cruelly, comes on our birthday), most of us would rather wake up dead than confront the idea of three hours at the DMV. No more. Thanks to the forward-thinking folks at the division of driver licenses, you can now schedule an appointment at the office nearest you, usually from one day to the next. In and out in about an hour. (What, you expected better?)
Opa-locka. Dusk. The parking lot of an abandoned housing project. The potholed lot is empty save the car of a reporter, who has pulled over to take a cell-phone call. Up ahead a round-faced man wearing a black Martin Luther King T-shirt slowly winds toward the car. He is sipping from a longneck bottle of Budweiser. When he reaches the car, he smiles, revealing a bridge of gold teeth.
"Hey man, you live here? Damn that's nice! I'd live here myself if I could. You're on the phone? Oh man, I know what you're doing. I know exactly what you're doing. You're talking to your girlfriend! Your wife doesn't get off work for another hour, so you're talking to your girl. Don't say no, man! Don't tell me you got no wife. I'm smart. Ah, yeah, that's what's happening man.
"Hey man, seriously. Don't be doing that. You got to stop that. Go home to your wife and kids. I know exactly what's going on here. This is what you do: You call your girl tomorrow, you tell her that you've talked to the Lord and he told you this wasn't right, that you've got to go back to your wife, that your kids need you. I'm smart. I'm smart. And I know. Every month you get more bills. Paying for your girl adds up. Then you get another bill, and you say, “Damn, another bill!' Then you have to look at your kids. Man, I'm tellin' you there's nothing worse in the world than to have to look in your kids' eyes and tell 'em you're a deadbeat dad. You hear me? Hang up that phone, brother! I love you. I want you to do the right thing.
"Oh man, my back hurts. You mind if I lean in here a little bit? You see how I walked up here, all slow and all? That's how I know what I'm talking about man, 'cause my wife shot me in the back. Look here, I'll lift up my shirt. Let me just turn around here. You see that? You see the hole? You don't ever want to be denying no child support. Listen to me! You're going to hang up that phone, brother. You're going to do the right thing. I can tell. I know. I'm smart, man. I'm telling you I'm smart. And I know."
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.
This past November, when Delfin Gonzalez announced he had bought the modest Little Havana home where Elian stayed, and that he planned on turning it into a shrine, some people thought it would only serve to perpetuate -- even institutionalize -- the tensions that had split the community into warring factions. But that evening, when the winning numbers came up on the Florida lottery, even skeptics had to pause. Maybe the kid does have some kind of supernatural powers after all. The Cash Four drawing paid off $5000 to 192 players who picked the numbers 2319. The Cash Three drawing paid $500 to 913 people who picked 023. Even the number of people who won were combinations of Elian's address. Now what was that story about dolphins saving the boy's life?
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.
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.
What more is there to say than "farewell"?
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.
This past December, when NBC named 35-year-old Miami native Jeff Zucker as the head of its entertainment division, he was not only one of the youngest hotshots to fill such a high-profile slot, he also was the first executive with a news background to take over the company's entertainment arm. And he's one of us: North Miami Senior High, class of 1982. "Hey, I'm a Miami boy," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, explaining a style quirk. "Wearing shoes without socks is very Miami." The word wunderkind is used so frequently in describing him it's almost become his middle name. After joining NBC Sports in 1986 as a researcher/writer, he moved on to the Today show, where he rose to become executive producer at the tender age of 26. Critics give him full credit for imbuing that program with a news edge it previously lacked, and more important, for guiding it to unprecedented popularity and prosperity. He's also been the driving force behind many of NBC's highest-rated news specials. Moving from New York to Los Angeles may be just as shocking as going from presidential interviews to sitcom scripts, but he's a hearty lad who likes a challenge. No further proof is needed than his success in battling colon cancer -- twice.
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.
In 1998, after eking out a victory in one of North Miami's ugliest mayoral elections ever, attorney Frank Wolland faced widespread doubts about his ability to overcome the town's growing racial and social rifts. At least a quarter of North Miami's 60,000 residents are Haitian; blacks now make up 55 percent of the population in this once-lily-white stronghold. Wolland's 1998 opponent, Joe Celestin, was the first Haitian to run for North Miami mayor, and his passionate supporters took the loss hard. But Wolland began an effort to encourage Haitians' involvement in civic life. He even inquired about enrolling in Kreyol classes but couldn't attend regularly. The feared ethnic polarization didn't occur in North Miami, and some Celestin supporters even wound up on Wolland's side for re-election. Thus his decision to take a breather from politics prompted a flood of calls to Wolland's law office, begging him to reconsider. "A lot of people were very unhappy," he concedes. "They came to me, and we talked it out. I just think it's time to spend a little more time with my kids and my [law practice]. So I decided to sit this one out." In retrospect Wolland's departure ushered in, as gracefully as one could hope, a new era of majority black leadership in North Miami.
It goes without saying that in South Florida it's rare to find politicians who don't betray themselves and their constituents within 30 minutes of taking the oath of office. But the newest Miami City Commissioner, a quick study and a hard worker, has remained true to his beliefs: Always be honest and straightforward, keep citizens' interests first, no backroom funny business. Winton's rectitude was most evident in his handling of the site-selection process for the Florida Marlins' proposed stadium. Citizens and activists who feared the Marlins were going to steamroll the city into accepting its demand that the stadium be located in Bicentennial Park found a champion in Winton. While most of Miami's established power structure believed it was a foregone conclusion that the team would usurp the park, Winton countered that the city commission had formed a task force to explore ways to reinvigorate that neglected parcel of land and turn it into a jewel. He argued that it was wrong simply to brush aside those efforts so the Marlins could place a concrete behemoth on the water. His willingness to speak out in a forceful manner galvanized public opinion against the Marlins and forced the team to accept an alternate location.
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.
"Oooh!" our car squealed as a young Cuban fellow yanked open her doors and began vacuuming nooks and crannies she didn't even remember having. They'd been crudded up that long. Somehow he's able to distinguish and therefore not throw away the valuables lost in a thick layer of gym clothes, fast-food bags, spilled laundry detergent, and work papers we meant to take home but have actually been ferrying around town for weeks. Car-wash packages range from $9 to $19, and detailing services run $30 to $40. We chose the $11.95 premium wash, which includes something called "wheel bright." Inside the building there's a long hallway with windows so you can satisfy that voyeuristic urge to watch the pressurized water and soap blasting off the bird droppings and thick layer of road dust covering the windows. The waiting room is cool, sufficiently stocked with coffee, soda machines, an ice cream freezer, and a stand supporting bags of plantain chips. The television gets remarkably clear reception and is perpetually tuned to lurid but alluring telenovelas. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and Sunday. On Saturday it's 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
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.
Winds blows, storms flood, drought plagues, citrus canker rages, Elian goes home, Warshaw goes down, MIA radar goes down, Shalala arrives, Reno returns, Stierheim's out, juice bars are out, pirate radio lives, Bicentennial Park lives, Emilio Milian dies, Frosene Sonderling dies, Milt Sosin dies, Brickell Key gets built up, South Beach gets built up, Performing Arts Center still not built, Tom Tomlinson takes off, Angela Gittens touches down, Cuban spies pervade, chads hang, ballots get counted, ballots get recounted, Homestead Air Force Base goes down for the count, Reboredo steps down, musicians strike, Marlins strike out, sewage spills out, oil spills onto beaches, beaches disappear, Cuban ballplayers defect, Cuban doctors defect, Brickell Emporium closes, Body Positive closes, WAMI closes, Hurricane Debby fizzles, Latin music sizzles, cops and drugs, cops and hookers, priests and hookers, educators and hookers, hookers and killers, killer tires, killer trains, killer canals, kids kill, rip currents kill, light poles kill, lobbyists survive, Stiltsville survives, GableStage survives, Margarita Ruiz dies, Wayne Brehm dies, Heberto Padilla dies, Morris Lapidus dies, South Miami locks guns, Carollo gets locked up, insurance rates go up, Cuban politicos get violent, Gables politicos get the boot, Boy Scouts get the boot, traffic clogs, drought persists, Alfonso Sepe goes to jail, Gilda Oliveros goes to jail, Noriega stays in jail, Latin Grammys go, Latin Grammys arrive, City of Miami Lakes arrives, Versace's mansion gets sold, Madonna's mansion gets sold, SoBe nightlife gets old, and just when the magic seems to have vanished from the Magic City, a minor miracle occurs: The address of little Elian's Miami home, 2319, pays $5000 in the Florida lottery.
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.
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.
The lady has cojones, which is more than we can say for the rest of the editorial page. Krog spends most of her time writing unsigned editorials, typically on the subject of county government. But she also pens signed opinion columns, which are sassier. For instance in a recent column she blasted Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas for opposing the hiring of Angela Gittens as the county's new aviation director. "For his political gain, Penelas is making it nearly impossible for MIA -- and therefore the public he purports to serve -- to get the strong, experienced management it needs," Krog wrote. "You have to wonder from whom Penelas is taking advice and counsel these days. I'd suggest he fire their butts."
On another occasion Krog was equally blunt toward the newest member of the school board. "It wasn't that I expected new Miami-Dade School Board member Jacqueline Pepper to start her public life with a quick display of leadership or anything," Krog allowed. "She's a political newcomer, after all, and has a lot to learn on the job. But I sure thought that for starters she'd do something smarter than hire her husband as a staff aide. It's legal, says Pepper. Sure, but it's not right."
And on the nomination by President George W. Bush of Linda Chavez as secretary of labor, Krog had this to say: "If Chavez is a victim of anything beyond her own bad judgment calls, it isn't the Beltway's witch-hunt atmosphere as she claims, but Bush's unwise selection of her in the first place."
Krog's strongest column of the past year, however, was far more personal. She wrote about the death of her father: "A few words about this man: He called dry cereal “pop-nuts-scrummies.' He took in strays -- both the two-legged and four-legged varieties. He baptized a basset hound that wandered onto the place and became his adoring shadow “Soupbone' for its sorry shape. He had only one usable arm after polio but played basketball, touch football, and softball with his kids on summer evenings after a long, hard day of farm work. He never whined, never complained, never looked back with regret, always leaning slightly forward into life, which he embraced and accepted for what it was -- and for what it could be."
True, animal-rights activists are up in arms about it, but it's difficult to resist the experience of actually getting into a tank and splashing around with the Seaquarium's dolphins. Shooting through the warm water like a, well, dolphin, watching them leap above and around you is a kick for kids and adults alike. But it's titillation with a price. You'll pay $125 per swimmer. And if you're allowing your kid to do it but want to watch, that's an extra $32. And children are required to have a guardian present, so consider that fee mandatory. Fortunately the money buys you some safety and reassurance as well: Four trainers are in the tanks along with three to five dolphins per session. Just one warning: Raw sardines may be a treat for the dolphins, but it's doubtful you'll find them as tasty.
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.
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 Mile Of Miami
SW Eighth Street between 12th and 21st avenues
The symbolic heart of Little Havana once again is beating strong, thanks to an infusion of new blood from artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs. The old landmarks are still there. The smells of café cubano and oven-roasted pork still emanate from El Pub. Domino Park remains the site of some of the fiercest domino games and political conversation anywhere. And the historic Tower Theater has reopened as a neighborhood cinema. But what's really put this strip back on the map is its growing arts scene, a collection of studios and galleries that has turned the area into Miami's cultural district. The best way to get acquainted with all that's new -- and old -- on Calle Ocho is to attend Viernes Culturales, Cultural Fridays, a neighborhood open house and street festival held the last Friday of every month.
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.
Leave the enormous helium-filled cartoon characters to those big-budget department-store spectacles in major metropolitan areas. The little City of North Miami's parade, which has plodded along NE 125th Street every Thanksgiving morning for the past 26 years, offers a satisfying sampling of marching bands, floats, classic cars, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, clowns, costumed characters, and Shriners. Topping things off: a local celebrity grand marshal (past honorees have included a former football player, astronaut, and news anchor). And lest we forget, Santa Claus. Naturally it's all free, but that's not all. In addition to hailing the day to give thanks and marking the start of the Christmas season, this quaint procession ushers in the WinterNational Festival, three days of family-oriented fun featuring food, music, arts and crafts, carnival rides, and sometimes even fake snow. Yes, fake. After all, this is South 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.
-- Miami mayoral spokesman Jay Rhodes, reassuring the public that everything was fine, even though his boss, Joe Carollo, had just spent the night in jail on domestic-violence charges.
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.
Every successful liberation movement has its printed matter. American patriots rallied support for the U.S. Constitution with the Federalist Papers; students railed against the Vietnam War with rags like the Berkeley Barb; the Sandinistas published Barricada while wearing down the Somoza dictatorship. Here in Miami we have Urban Environment League's Urban Forum. The diminutive gazette (six by eight inches) is cute, but it packs a rhetorical wallop. "Make no mistake about it," wrote attorney and UEL member John de Leon in a 1999 issue, "public property belongs to all of us -- rich, poor, black, white, landowners, and the dispossessed -- and not to some politicians who are trying to sell these properties as a quick fix for the financial mess they may have created." That was an early salvo in a skirmish that grew into the war over the future of Bicentennial Park. When hostilities were in full rage, UEL president Gregory Bush penned this epic prose for the October/November 2000 issue: "If you seek explanations for the progress made in revitalizing the waterfronts of Sydney, Baltimore, Portland, New York, Charleston, Providence, and Seattle ... there appears to be a common thread related to time, courage, and vision. It takes time to forge a consensus behind a coherent plan of action. It takes time to listen to the voices from nearby neighborhoods and to assess the different constituencies throughout the region.... Without a thoughtful and powerful vision, poorly thought-out decisions will predominate." The Forum chronicles other land-use and planning struggles as well, though the civic equivalent of guerrilla warfare sometimes leads to irregular publishing dates. Back issues are available on the group's Website (www.uel.org).
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.
The only invitation you need to this soiree is a big, fat full moon climbing into the night sky. Each month, on the official calendar night of the full moon, an often motley but gentle crew assembles on the sand -- with no central planning and no velvet rope. The crowd can grow as large as 500; 1000 is not unheard of. Over the course of the nighttime hours, the Beach is transformed from a tourist mecca where the self-satisfied lounge to a vibrant, feral gathering. You make your own fun here. There's no bar and no sound system. But inevitably drum circles form, people chant, and dancing erupts spontaneously. Sit in the sand and stare at the ocean. Strike up a conversation with that aging hippie or that sleek young club kid or the bewildered sales rep who stumbled up from the Loews hotel. When was the last time you returned home from a night on South Beach with sand in your shoes, a smile on your face, and money still in your wallet?
Since the object of a first date is getting to know the other person well enough to determine if you like him/her, consider Dave & Buster's the ideal venue. This sprawling 60,000-square-foot entertainment-and-dining complex offers a variety of options for learning about someone else. Consider the Million Dollar Midway, which features more than 200 interactive and virtual-reality games. See just how much that guy really likes to play golf, or exactly how big a princess she is if she won't risk her manicure. Find out if he's sensitive (does he cry when his virtual Corvette crashes?) and see if she's got game (can she swish a basket?). Then move on to one of the countless bars, where you'll discover if your date can hold his/her liquor of if he/she ends up literally being a crashing-off-the-barstool boor. If the date goes smoothly, consider heading for one of several dining areas for a meal. If not, try scanning the Skeeball. No need to bust your chops when there's plenty of pickings at Dave & Buster's.
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.
The dreamer dreams that we are watching his dreams. On the back of the Buick Building in the Design District is a magical diptych by husband-and-wife artist team Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt. The 35-by-50-foot digital print of an original oil painting depicts a man sleeping peacefully in a bed. In the panel next to him is an Angel and Devil box. "In fact he is dreaming, perhaps of who he will be that very day," says Behar with a mischievous laugh. "Am I going to be the good Roberto or the bad Roberto?" The piece was designed to be seen from the westbound lanes of the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a reminder to drivers of the intimate space they've just left behind as they guide their cars to work. Real estate developer Craig Robins commissioned and financed the piece, which went up February 2000. Behar and Marquardt don't really consider the work a mural; they think of it as a two-dimensional sculpture because details from the diptych -- two surreal portraits hanging in the sleeping man's room -- also adorn the front of the building. The artists say that creates a sense of "seeing through the building."
"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.
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.
Once she was just another young, attractive woman on South Beach. A student assembling a portfolio at the Miami Ad School, a part-time employee at Books & Books on Lincoln Road. Browsers who even noticed her behind the register probably never realized they were in the presence of "America's Sweetheart," as Bryant Gumbel would soon anoint her. Yet the cutest member of the cast of the first Survivor, the spectacularly popular television show she joined almost by accident, shed her anonymity forever by lasting until the show's final six contestants. An entire nation fell in love with her voice, her spirit, and her fresh look. Suddenly a celebrity, Haskell maintained a healthy attitude about the fame thrust upon her. "All the publicity is a complete joke," she told Detour magazine soon after her island banishment was broadcast, "and I don't know how long this phenomenon is going to continue." Long enough for her to take on an agent, cash in on an endorsement contract with Blistex, and win a role as a love interest in a major Hollywood movie, due out in June. Through it all Haskell appears completely in control of her ride, perfectly sane about the hype, lovelier now than when she left us.
"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."
Park the car for the day and get on Miami's billion-dollar transportation boondoggle for a self-guided tour of the city. You can enter a station at any point along the 21-mile convex curve from Hialeah to Kendall. You'll travel a crazy parabola through neighborhoods as different from each other as the people are in this highly stratified society. The views are by turns breathtaking and depressing on the journey through Hialeah, Brownsville, Allapattah, Overtown, downtown Miami, and the Brickell area, then south along Dixie Highway through Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and South Miami. Then jump to the Metromover downtown for a photo-worthy whirl above the Miami River and the pulsing streets of the center city, catching occasional glimpses of Biscayne Bay. Metrorail's history is one for the books. Voters approved a bond issue to build it in 1978, but plagued by cost overruns and construction delays, the complete $1.3 billion elevated train track wasn't open for business until 1985. And it hasn't exactly done much to relieve our ridiculously congested roads; only a tiny percentage of Miami-Dade's population actually uses it. Still we like Metrorail (or Metrorail, as its detractors lovingly call it). It's as much adventure as you can have for a pocketful of quarters.
For thirteen years Miami has been lucky enough to host the weird and wonderful sounds of new music concocted by local composers and freaks from around the world. Festival director Gustavo Matamoros looks for artists who push the boundaries of that thing called music into an exploration of pure sound. The Subtropics' sound safaris will travel anywhere from the street corner to innerspace. This year's festival captured, among other things, the random electronic patterns of Sony Mao and Needle; the analogue chaos of George Tegzes; the sonic deconstruction of Celia Cruz by Ileana Perez Velazquez; the musical meanderings of the Sephardic Jews as tracked by the Duo Kol-Tof; and Sam Ashley and Jens Brand's pseudo-collaborative performance "The Bugs Who Could Be Revived After Being Dead."
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.
It was a harrowing fall. Before: Helps lead a successful zoning fight to keep denser housing out of suburban Hialeah Gardens. Touted as first Latina mayor in the United States when elected in 1989. Divorces Angel Ramos, loses seat in 1993, marries Angel Ramos again, becomes mayor again in 1995. Wears miniskirts with blazers.
After: Swept up in storm of anonymous letters accusing her of lascivious, corrupt acts at city hall. Jailed in June 2000 on charges she conspired to kill her ex-husband in order to collect $45,000 in insurance money. Also charged with voter fraud. Convicted a month later and sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Gov. Jeb Bush removes her from office. Touted as Women's Detention Center inmate No. 0053063. Released on $100,000 bond pending appeal. Denies wearing miniskirts with blazers. Former city employees file a harassment lawsuit against her for lewd and lascivious remarks.
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.
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.
This tiny, bucolic slice of South Florida, incorporated as a city in 1937 and sandwiched between the cities of Miami and Miami Shores west of Biscayne Boulevard at NE 86th Street, almost feels like a hippie commune in Vermont. Dogs roam freely, people actually sit on their porches. But the lush subtropical foliage (a sanctuary for birds, according to a sign greeting visitors at 86th Street) brings you back to Miami. Something else unique to South Florida that connects this charming village to the past: Along the edge of the Little River canal, on NE Fourth Avenue Road, you'll find a Tequesta Indian habitation mound. A tablet erected in 1949 in honor of the natives marks the spot. Directly in front of it is a grassy patch of land overflowing with plants and trees for all to enjoy. But it's the neighborhood's ungentrified feel and a varied and colorful array of residential architectural styles -- from English Tudor to Spanish Mediterranean -- that give this city of 2000 residents its real charm.
Thanks to the work of Barbara Stein, this 54-year-old landmark is in the final phase of a seven-million-dollar renovation that will return the Miracle Theatre to its former glory. For Stein this has been a labor of love since 1995. Along with her husband, Stein founded the Actors' Playhouse theater company in Kendall thirteen years ago but eventually relocated to Coral Gables and the Miracle Theatre. In addition to her dedication, the key to this project has been Stein's ability to persuade local companies to donate their time and services to the restoration effort. While preserving the historic nature of the building, the theater is being divided into three parts. The main theater seats 600 people; on the second floor a special children's theater, called the Balcony, can hold as many as 300 tykes and their parents. There also are plans for a more intimate black-box stage setting, which will cater to audiences of between 75 and 100.
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.
Baby Huey became the poster child for the Clinton pardon scandal when it was revealed he had received more than $400,000 to work on a pair of clemency petitions, both of which ultimately succeeded. A former public defender, Rodham seemed to spend all eight years of the Clinton administration trying to find ways to cash in on being the First Lady's brother. He ran a laughable campaign for the United States Senate in 1994 and later attempted to become a captain of industry by cornering the hazelnut market through contacts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. That last venture caused all sorts of problems for the U.S. State Department. But if his prior attempts to exploit his family name were oafish, his profiteering in the pardon scandal was downright obscene, and proved to be a major embarrassment not only for former President Clinton but also for Rodham's sister, Hillary, the newly elected senator for New York, who ordered her brother to return all the money. Perhaps most embarrassing were the television images of Rodham in the days after the scandal broke. He refused to speak to the media, so news footage frequently showed him running back and forth from his car to his house wearing flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a T-shirt that was just a little too tight for his globular frame. Not a pretty picture.
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.
It can be a little difficult to tell if the men indeed are single, since sitting in saunas and baths is an easy excuse to take off that ring. And a certain percentage are going to be tourists, seeing as how this is in a hotel. But a surprising variety of employed, respectable men make their way to Miami's most soporific hot spot on any given evening (days are not recommended as employed, respectable nontourists should not be lounging). The age and ethnic range also is desirable -- all over the place, that is. But what makes the baths a particularly conducive meeting ground? Well, having no choice but to sit side by side in one of the many overheated rooms or the Jacuzzi has a way of forcing conversation. "It wasn't this hot last time I visited." "Oh, do you come here often?" That kind of thing. But more serious talk can, and sometimes does, follow. How ecotourism is a mixed blessing for Ecuador; which hotels are the best bang for your buck in Moscow; what the best waterways are for boating in Miami. The high temperatures have a way of loosening more than leg muscles, and often attitude gets checked at the door as stress and shyness dissipate into the humid air. If you need more loosening, there are white Russians (the drink) in the café. Open every day, noon till midnight. All days are coed.
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.
Government flacks are essential, and not just to disseminate information during emergencies like hurricanes or sewage spills. Good ones help journalists extract key, sometimes incriminating, public records from the bureaucratic maw. Whether they are called public-information officers, media-relations managers, or press agents, the best ones share some common traits: They are briskly efficient, and they understand the news business. Former Miami-Dade Communications Department director Mayco Villafaña set these standards for his staff. Anyone who observed the post-election insanity after the presidential vote witnessed Villafaña's Herculean effort to accommodate the media crush without letting that impede the important work of the elections department. As for Rhonda Barnett, she has never lost sight of the notion that public service means keeping the public interest foremost. Barnett always responds quickly and is never daunted by red tape. She also boasts a dream résumé: a master's degree in library science and a decade of experience as a television news producer in Boston and South Florida, picking up four Emmys along the way. Unfortunately politics and professionalism are uneasy bedfellows at county hall these days. Both Villafaña and Barnett were fired recently.
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.
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.
True, we renew our licenses only once every six years, but on that fateful day (which, cruelly, comes on our birthday), most of us would rather wake up dead than confront the idea of three hours at the DMV. No more. Thanks to the forward-thinking folks at the division of driver licenses, you can now schedule an appointment at the office nearest you, usually from one day to the next. In and out in about an hour. (What, you expected better?)
What a difference a year makes. Back then Miami-Dade County was snubbing the Latin Grammys. Now Mayor Alex Penelas and Cuban American National Foundation chairman Jorge Mas Santos are rolling out the red carpet for the awards show. Why? Technically it's because a U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively nullified the county ordinance that barred groups that do business with Cuba from using county-owned facilities. But the real reason is simpler: Penelas, Mas Santos, and others in the Cuban-American community finally awakened to the fact that they were losing the public-relations battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. Rather than seeming sympathetic, Cuban Americans were viewed as intolerant, especially following the Elian Gonzalez affair. And Miami, rather than being the vaunted Capital of the Americas, was becoming increasingly isolated. Opening the doors to the Latin Grammys is the first step in a long-overdue effort to reverse that trend.
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.
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.
They are the children of the Cuban exiles who formed modern Miami, and they are among those who will shape the future of the United States. There also is the possibility they will play leading roles in a future Cuba. But regardless of how things shake out in their ancestral home, Garcia and Ugalde are a force to be reckoned with here and now. Garcia, as many in both Miami and Washington, D.C., are aware, is the new executive director and long-time spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. He has been active in politics for a good part of his 37 years, and no doubt his political star will continue to ascend. Ugalde, Garcia's wife of nine years, has been less publicly visible though no less accomplished. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard with a law degree from the University of Miami, she served for six years as associate general counsel for UM. This past February she moved into the spotlight when she was named senior advisor to Donna Shalala, the new University of Miami president and former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration.
La Experiencia Crankshaft
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.
The past year has provided uplifting proof that there is no shortage of locals willing to risk their lives to help others in a uniquely South Florida jam: rescuing people who have driven off the road into a canal. Remember these heroes next time you hear someone badmouthing Miami and its rude citizens.
•November 4, 2000: Four Miami-Dade police officers -- Eduardo Garcia, Will Sanchez, Pedro Polo, and James McDonnell -- dived into a canal at SW Seventh Street and 122nd Avenue to rescue a nineteen-year-old woman trapped in her sinking Nissan. The car was submerged when the officers reached it. "She had been holding her breath, and by the time we'd gotten there she was on her last breath," Garcia told the Miami Herald.
•December 7, 2000: Off-duty Hialeah police Lt. Joe DeJesus jumped into a canal on Griffin Road in Broward at 11:00 p.m. to rescue a woman whose van had veered off the road. She was unhurt.
•January 12, 2001: Hialeah residents Jim Gentilesco, Jr., and Rene Abreu jumped into a canal at West 44th Place and Fourth Avenue when they saw a 40-year-old woman's car slip into the water.
•January 14, 2001: Hans Schaefer, Eduardo Suarez, and his father, Eduardo Suarez, Sr., swam to the bottom of a murky canal off NW 137th Avenue and 104th Street to reach a woman whose car had plunged into the water.
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.
The smart flier used to love Fort Lauderdale's airport. Whereas Miami's airport is chaotic and crowded, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International was almost shockingly easy to navigate. Short-term parking was easy to find, so picking up and dropping off were a breeze. Long-term parking cost only three bucks per day. But Broward officials have made the tragic decision to buff up their airport, to make it more "world class." So far they've succeeded in making it more closely resemble MIA or even LaGuardia in its unwieldiness. Traffic now snakes around pylons erected to support a new terminal. Parking prices have increased across the board. Unwelcome stress has been added to the pickup and dropoff process. And inside the place, ceiling tiles are missing and escalators are shut down as workers labor to redesign terminals that were just fine the way they were. So forget it. From now on we're just taking a cab to MIA.
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.
Almost 80 years after John and Zada Schleucher founded a program to help Miami's poor, the Miami Rescue Mission is still serving "soup, soap, and salvation" to the city's lost souls. The mission has grown into a multifaceted facility featuring residential programs for men and women, a thrift store, an education center, and a companion operation in Broward County. Every day the mission's Men's Center on NW First Avenue serves a hot meal at both lunch and dinner to about 200 men, women, and children. The lunch, however, isn't free. Those who wish to eat must first attend a religious service in the mission's chapel. Although that may turn off some people, it makes others feel as though someone has helped the whole man rather than just filled his stomach. At least that's what Horace says as he eats a lunch of beans and rice, salad, cabbage, cookies, and chocolate milk. An ex-addict who has been in the Rescue Mission's residential program for a year, Horace adds optimistically that in three more months he'll be back on his feet, working as a long-distance truck driver. The Miami Rescue Mission helped make that possible when he had nowhere else to turn.
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.
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.
There is something pleasantly dreamlike and unreal about Black Point Marina. It's an improbable mix of natural and human construction. On some sea charts the area is known as "the featherbeds." Dog walkers have been known to meet crocodiles on Black Point's walkways. To the south looms the region's only peak, Mount Trashmore. At the marina's dockside restaurant and bar, the Pirate's Den, the beer runs cold, the food is passable, and customers can down pitchers while watching herons fish. A 1.5-mile jetty path that juts into the bay is the perfect place for a stroll afterward. Couples spread blankets on the grass. Families picnic and fish. Manmade Miami is rarely this peaceful.
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."
Not only did our friends at WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) abandon South Florida's first television studio -- conveniently located across from the federal courthouse in downtown Miami -- to better bring us gripping developments from Plantation City Hall, and not only did they leave a physical and metaphorical black hole downtown, they also desecrated the structural shell they left behind. On their last day in Miami, staffers pulled out markers and paint and graffittied their historic studio's walls. There's symbolism here, none of it particularly appreciated.
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.
Who will ever forget those images of well-dressed young men with neatly cropped hair pounding on the doors of the Miami-Dade County Elections Department during the height of the presidential recount? And when a few of them erroneously thought county Democratic Party chairman Joe Geller was trying to steal ballots, they pounced on him like he was the last piece of Brie at a wine-and-cheese social. Initially television viewers must have thought the hooligans were local citizens, but anyone living in Miami knew right away this wasn't a hometown horde. For one thing there wasn't a single guayabera in the crowd. Sure enough it turned out this rabble was imported from out of state, many of them the aides to Republican congressmen from around the nation. Eventually the roving band of Republican thugs was forced to disperse, but not before they caused Miami-Dade County to cancel its recount and ensure a victory for George W. Bush.
Um, $145 billion. Yeah, that's with a b. That's how much this husband-and-wife team won for their clients in July 2000. The astounding award was the culmination of a seven-year legal battle against the nation's tobacco industry, and it all played out in the Miami courtroom of Judge Robert Kaye. The Rosenblatts' argument was deceptively simple: "My key strategy was to show that these people have knowingly sold ... a product they 100 percent knew will kill a certain number of their customers. And that they didn't give a damn," Stanley told the National Law Journal. The jury bought it. The victory for their estimated 500,000 clients is all the more impressive in light of the fact that these two local advocates faced a veritable army of high-priced attorneys hired by the tobacco giants. Faced them down and kicked their butts.
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.
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.
The Cagney and Lacey of the Clinton administration are now in South Florida. There was never much doubt that native Miamian Janet Reno would return home, even with the hard feelings among Cuban Americans over Elian. But landing Donna Shalala as the new president of the University of Miami was indeed a coup. For political junkies looking to add a little West Wing sizzle to their next humdrum cocktail party, inviting one or (dare we imagine) both of these Beltway vixens would be just the ticket. Imagine the stories they could swap while munching on croquetas and sipping mojitos. "Well, that's what I told the president. “No, sir, I don't know if club soda is really good at removing stains.'"
Call it a mixture of financial planning and public confession. "Money Makeovers," a column appearing every other Sunday in the Miami Herald's business section, is an addictive snapshot of a community's fiscal health. Readers volunteer to have their finances scoped by a certified financial analyst. While the volunteers receive free financial advice, they also must put their often-disastrous financial history on naked display. Notable participants include the high school science teacher who collects snakes. "My comfort level is not as okay as I'd like it to be," he said, referring to his stock portfolio, not to the albino boa constrictor he keeps on his property. There's the former professional baseball player who is dangerously -- perhaps embarrassingly -- leveraged in tech stocks. And there's the pathetic attorney and single mother who overspends her $70,000 income by $3000 per month, piling up enormous credit-card debt and squandering her IRA. Doh! Fortunately the column provides inspiration, too. Take the uniquely Miami story of John Quinteros. The former drug dealer, busted on national TV by Geraldo Rivera, is rebuilding his financial life after spending more than six years in prison. Now a restaurant manager, Quinteros wants to bump up his 401(k) contributions and increase his investment in stocks. "When I got out, I did not have a penny to my name," he said triumphantly. "Now I have a beautiful wife and a family, a nice house, and a growing portfolio." Beautiful indeed.
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.
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.
Led by Mayor Julio Robaina, the City of South Miami passed an ordinance last year requiring gun owners to place safety locks on all weapons. The measure is intended to reduce the number of accidental shootings, especially those involving children. "We're trying to protect the safety of the children of this community," Robaina declared. "And this is just the beginning." Despite heavy pressure from the National Rifle Association and a lawsuit attempting to derail the law, Robaina and the South Miami City Commission have remained steadfast in their support, mounting an aggressive gun-safety education campaign in addition to handing out free gun locks to any individual who asks for one. During the kick-off celebration of the campaign last August, city officials distributed more than 300 locks. Individuals who do not comply with the law will be subject to a $250 fine for their first infraction, $500 for their second. Already the South Miami ordinance is being copied by cities and counties around the nation.
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.
When songwriter Robert "Raven" Kraft made a New Year's resolution in 1975 to jog along the Miami Beach shore every day for a year, he didn't think he'd attract a following. But after 26 years of late-afternoon runs (even through gale-force hurricane winds), and after logging 76,500 miles, the man was bound to get attention. A coterie of locals, old-timers, and snowbirds gathers daily at the Sixth Street lifeguard stand for a casual eight-mile jog with Raven. Dressed in his trademark black running shorts, black headband, and single black glove, Raven leads his pack with a slow, methodical chug. (He reportedly is one of the nation's top "streak runners," people who literally never miss a day of jogging.) Through the years more than 200 individuals, from financiers to corrections officers, have trotted with the man in black. Complete a run and you're part of this quirky gang. Membership is free, plus you'll be christened with a funky nickname such as Tangerine Dream, the Plantain Lady, and Chapter 11.
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.
The array of lights illuminating the 47-story Bank of America Tower quite literally provides a beacon in a city that too often seems to lose its way. Public officials are hauled off in disgrace at an alarming rate. Racial and ethnic tensions threaten to boil over at any moment. Cold-war passions still dominate civic life. But on any given night we can glance up at the Miami skyline and see the tower bathed in soothing bands of colors: red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July; red on Valentine's Day; orange and green to salute UM's football squad; icy blue with giant snowflakes at the winter holidays. We gaze upon it and instinctively our mood softens. Beyond that, the structure's history entails the kind of bumpy ride that is the Miami experience. Designed by famed architect I.M. Pei, it was inaugurated as the headquarters for David Paul's CenTrust Savings Bank in 1987. CenTrust collapsed, and Paul went to prison for gutting the institution. The Resolution Trust Corporation has sold it twice since then. Current owner is National Office Partners, which considers the building's illumination to be a serious matter. "We view this as a civic-pride thing, really," says property manager Jay Windsor. Two workers require nearly four hours to change the colored lenses on nearly 400 1000-watt lights. But one glance at the incandescent glow over a darkened Biscayne Bay and you can see it's clearly worth the effort, a reminder that no matter what else, we live in a beautiful place. Sometimes that's enough.
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.
Known the world over for opulent accommodations, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group constructed its latest masterpiece adjacent to downtown on overcrowded Claughton Island, also known as Brickell Key. A November 2000 opening introduced Miamians to a heretofore unknown brand of low-key luxury. More than $100 million was spent on the wedge-shaped building, which includes a serene lobby accented by elegant bamboo trees, 329 expansive rooms decorated with modern furniture and plush fabrics (bamboo floors in suites), bathrooms covered in Spanish marble, and balconies that overlook Biscayne Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, or the Miami skyline. Add to that a state-of-the-art gym, a charming swimming pool with Jacuzzi, a lush full-service spa, the splendid restaurant Azul, and the more-casual but equally enticing Café Sambal. Rates that range from $550 to $4000, and recent guests Spanish rulers King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia suggest a stay that few simple folk can afford except in the off-season.
The operative word is organic. This is the place to find it fresh and in a pleasant, natural setting. Cactus fruit and mustard greens, rutabaga and nectarines. Flax seeds and bee pollen to lift you up. Rows of tight green asparagus bundles, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. A rainbow of peppers like you won't believe: purple, green, red, yellow, orange. Fantastic mushrooms: oyster, portabello, shiitake, and crimini to name a few. Fruits to fit your moods. A variety of oils, butters, and freshly baked breads. Perfectly reasonable prices and a diligent staff of Birkenstocked twentysomethings to offer a helping hand. What more could you ask for?
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.
A repeat victory for the no-longer-so-boyish Herald columnist, who last won this award in 1996, following his arrest for disorderly intoxication at Johnny Rockets restaurant in Coconut Grove. (Charges were later dropped.) Five years later the still-single sportswriter has joined George Clooney, Derek Jeter, and Matt Damon as one of People magazine's "100 Most Eligible Bachelors." In the magazine LeBatard squats over a pool table and admits he's "never been in love." People made no mention of "I Am the Hunter," the notorious 1800-word essay LeBatard wrote for Cosmopolitan in 1997. "Men like me travel in packs, pursuing perfume, and we find the chase more intoxicating than everything after it," LeBatard admitted. "We dabble in relationships for the same reason we dabble in hunting: There's an incomparable rush wrapped in the search and discovery. But then, when the last bullet has been fired and the gun is spent, when the conquest is complete and the game is done and we get to see what we've done close up, all that remains is the blood and the smell and a mess to clean up. Doesn't mean we won't go hunting again, mind you. We drink after a bad hangover, don't we?" Hard to believe the guy hasn't found a mate.
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.
Many politicians, hoping to impress an increasingly influential voting bloc, attended the March 10, 2001, Fanm Ayisyèn Nan Myami (Haitian Women of Miami) fundraising banquet at a local hotel. Miami Mayor Joe Carollo was scheduled to award a key to the city to the featured speaker, Marie St. Fleur of Boston, the nation's first elected Haitian-American state representative. St. Fleur is a forceful advocate of programs to combat domestic violence and protect battered women. At the banquet St. Fleur spoke at length on the subject, at one point invoking Eleanor Roosevelt's words: "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water." And on St. Fleur went, oblivious to the controversy surrounding Carollo's recent arrest for allegedly hitting his wife -- with a tea canister no less. Although the mayor's staff later denied that Carollo's next surprising move was prompted by St. Fleur's words, he suddenly arose well before she had finished her speech and left the banquet room, key to the city and all.
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.
Miami actually is controlled by a secret cabal of gay Cuban men known as Los Pollos Tropicales. (All right, we made up the name, but we're pretty sure about the rest of it.)
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.
As a member of the county commission since 1993, Natacha Seijas (the former Mrs. Natacha Millan) has perfected a foolproof method of alienating people. She's mean. She's arrogant. She can throw a scowl that cracks granite. And so as she prepared to run for re-election in 2000, most political observers predicted her time was up. Her archenemy, Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, had made her defeat one of his top priorities. Her opponent in the commission race was Roberto Casas, a popular and affable member of the state Senate. Seijas's chances for survival were considered so slim that even some of her natural allies, such as Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas and his stable of cronies, hedged their bets by financially supporting both candidates. But in this case the pundits were wrong. Seijas worked harder than Casas, knocking on doors and acting throughout the campaign as if she were twenty points behind in the polls. Simply put, Seijas wanted it more than Casas. And she concentrated on the right issues: responding to constituent concerns, introducing an ordinance to provide higher wages for employees of companies that do business with the county, and looking out for elderly residents. If a victory by an incumbent can ever be considered an upset, then Seijas pulled off an upset last fall, winning another four-year term. She's still mean. She's still arrogant. And she's still insufferable. But you've got to hand it to her: She fought a hell of a good race.
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.
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.
If you absolutely, positively must go to South Beach, leave your car in the municipal lot at 45th Street and Collins Avenue, then walk to the nearby Eden Roc or Fontainebleau, where you can grab a cab any hour of the day or night.(Aside from the airport, these are the only places in Miami-Dade where taxis line up ten deep.) Head to South Beach. At the end of the evening, cab it back. You won't spend half the night looking for parking, and you won't have to worry about tooling around under the influence. Now if we could all just stop going to South Beach.
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.
Sometimes an activist craves a little action. In these post-Elian days, politicos of the Cuban-exile community are full of words like tolerance, understanding, and mutual respect. That's all fine and dandy, but it's also, well, a little boring. For any ideologues pining for the bomb-throwing glory days of el exilio, try an issue of ¡Grita!, where the prevailing sentiment is "The Cold War's not over until we say it's over!" Vintage right-wing rants brand Bill Clinton an "extreme leftist" (Lord only knows where they place Jesse Jackson on the political spectrum) while decrying the closet Marxists ensconced within Brickell Avenue's tony high-rises, all just itching for a little commie subversion. (Somebody warn Johnny Winton!) All that plus goofily over-the-top cartoons that single out Alex Penelas for as much abuse as good old Fidel. ¡Viva las pragmatistas!
All you need is a sense of adventure and a willingness to get a little dirty. Need a chair? A bookcase? An African mask? Who knows what you'll discover in the stylish home-furnishings center of Miami. Sneak around the back alleys, lift a lid, hoist yourself up, and peer inside. One advantage: There are practically no restaurants here (apologies to Piccadilly Garden and Buena Vista Café), so you won't be wading through rotting foodstuffs. For an added adrenaline rush, there's the risk of being questioned by a police officer who thinks it's mighty strange you're doing this. You may or may not be asked to leave, depending upon whether the Dumpster is on city or private property. And should you find something worth keeping, you'll have a nice little story to tell.
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.
They get miffed about overdevelopment and lobbyists lurking at city hall. They've successfully battled high-rises, and don't even try to tell them what to do with their neighborhood's sidewalks. Go to just about any public meeting at Miami Beach City Hall, and you'll see a couple of them in the audience -- watching. They are members of the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club, and they like nothing better than to chew on a squirming public official along with their coffee and toast. Each Tuesday morning this motley gaggle of Miami Beach property owners, entrepreneurs, and condo-board types converges on South Beach's oldest Cuban diner about 8:30 to get a clean shot at invited guests. When the chatter from their rear corner table rises above the general restaurant din, you know the guest speaker is being sliced and diced. Although the group began meeting in 1995, it became a force to be reckoned with in 1997, when its members took on high-rise developer Thomas Kramer and his $1.5 million campaign to defeat the "Save Miami Beach" referendum. The ballot measure passed overwhelmingly, and now a citywide vote is required whenever officials seek to increase density on waterfront property. Political foes sniff that the group is more attitude than substance, but we like the club's tenacity and political savvy.
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.
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."
The county's architectural, cultural, and environmental heritage is precious and should be preserved. At least what's left of it should be preserved. For the past 25 years, the Dade Heritage Trust has worked to save historic sites (the Cape Florida lighthouse, the Miami Circle), restore historic properties, improve historic neighborhoods, and instill a sense of place and community in Miami's diverse environment. One of the trust's best functions is its annual Dade Heritage Days, a two-month spring celebration of Miami's cultural heritage that gives residents a chance to experience a bit of where their neighbors are coming from. The celebration includes hikes through the county's wild places, evenings of contemplating Haitian art or Miami Beach architecture, Miami River boat rides, and tours of the Miami Circle, Stiltsville, and the Biltmore Hotel. The list goes on.
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.
All right, so the winner isn't actually in Miami. What's more important -- your children's happiness or simple logistics? Exactly. Drive eighteen miles west of West Palm Beach on State Road 441, and you'll be at Lion Country Safari, where the kids can observe beasts in their nearly natural environment, as opposed to watching out for them in school hallways. When it opened in 1967, the animal park was the United States' first drive-through cageless zoo, a place where you could drive right through into a herd of zebras and cruise by a few rhinoceros as they graze by the side of the road. These are wild animals, though, and you'll have to make sure the little ones don't roll down the windows to get a better look at the lions. In fact if you drive a convertible, the park will insist that you rent a car at the gate. After the kids get restless, you can park and step into Safari World, the walk-through portion of the park. Here's a tip: To catch the animals at their liveliest, get to the park in the morning, before the heat of the day takes its drowsy toll. The park is open 365 days per year, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Last car enters at 4:30. Admission is $15.50 per adult and$10.50 per child, but be sure to check local papers and visitor centers for discount coupons. Lion Country's Website also offers coupons. One more thing: Beware of the ostriches and emus. They have a thing for windshield wipers.
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.
While serving as the nation's first female attorney general, Reno appointed special prosecutors six times to investigate top officials in the Clinton administration, more than any other attorney general before her. Yes, she botched the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, where more than 80 people died. And snatching Elian from his relatives in Little Havana didn't win her friends back home among Miami's Cuban community. But it's the way Reno left office that said something about where her heart lies. The former U.S. Attorney General bought a used pickup truck to tour the country, returned to the house her mama built by hand in 1947, and made plans to kayak the 100-mile Wilderness Waterway from Everglades City to Flamingo in Everglades National Park. Welcome home. Relax. Enjoy.
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.
New Yorkers have Miss Liberty towering above their harbor. Washingtonians have the noble Pocahontas perched atop the U.S. Capitol. And Miamians have a 21-foot-tall, virtually naked Tequesta Indian blowing into a conch shell on the grounds of the Three Tequesta Point condominium tower at the mouth of the Miami River. He stands on a nineteen-foot coral-rock pedestal surrounded by palm trees. Historians believe the last Tequesta died in the 1700s from diseases borne by the dreaded Spaniards, but this big bronze one will be impervious to such calamities. Commissioned by the Swire Group, which has developed most of Brickell Key (also known as Claughton Island), the statue, whose Spanish name translates to Sentinel of the River, was created by Cuban-born sculptor Manuel Carbonell and unveiled in July 1999. (Another Tequesta statue by Carbonell adorns the nearby Brickell Avenue bridge.) Our sentinel doubles as an ersatz lighthouse. The conch, which he holds pointed skyward, glows at night. The work is best seen from Biscayne Bay by boat, though it is visible from the northern seawall of the river near the Hotel Inter-Continental.
As the mayor of Coral Gables for the past eight years, Raul Valdes-Fauli treated the electorate as if they were serfs and he their lord and master. He was more than haughty. He was brazenly contemptuous of the public. Drunk with power, he did his best to turn the City Beautiful into the City Hideous by disregarding its history and tradition, throwing open the doors to one bloated eyesore of a development after another. But Valdes-Fauli and two other members of the city commission, Dorothy Thomson and Jim Barker, finally went too far. Last year they approved a $16.5 million construction project that included a 60,000-square-foot annex to the historic city hall. The plan also called for closing a portion of Biltmore Way. Their actions solidified public sentiment against them, and in April all three were voted out of office and replaced with a reform-minded slate of candidates that immediately halted construction on the new annex and promised to sharply regulate all future development.
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 Disappearing Act
Judge Federico Moreno "disappears" the Cuba ordinance
"There is a substantial likelihood that the “Cuba Affidavit' will be found unconstitutional," Moreno declared in a seventeen-page ruling in May of last year. And with that he suspended the so-called Cuba ordinance, which required that anyone conducting business with Miami-Dade County sign a document vowing not to transact business with Cuba or with any business that conducts business with Cuba. The most prominent targets, however, were county-funded activities that brought musicians and artists from the island. Moreno put the handwriting on the wall in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Miami Light Project, GableStage, Teatro La Ma Teodora, and concert promoters Hugo Cancio and Debbie Ohanian. At the time the U.S. Supreme Court was reviewing a similarly repressive Massachusetts state law targeting business dealings, including cultural exchanges, with the repressive regime in Myanmar (the country once known as Burma). When the justices nixed that law in June of last year, Moreno dutifully followed suit with a pro-forma edict declaring the Cuba ordinance unconstitutional. Poof! County lawyers vanished from the courtroom without argument. Soon the highly uncomfortable (but constitutionally protected) rhetorical contortions performed by the ordinance's defenders, including county commissioners Javier Souto and Miriam Alonso, Mayor Alex Penelas, and lawyer Victor Diaz, also disappeared from view. There is, however, a substantial likelihood that some of them still believe it makes sense to oppose a dictator by thinking like one.
Best Trade
Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason, Ricky Davis, and Dale Ellis for P.J. Brown, Jamal Mashburn, Tim James, Rodney Buford, and Otis Thorpe
Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason, Ricky Davis, and Dale Ellis for P.J. Brown, Jamal Mashburn, Tim James, Rodney Buford, and Otis Thorpe
Oh, how many, many times have we heard the complaints: You newspaper people only care about bad news. Everything you print is so negative. Why can't you ever write about the good things? How about being uplifting for a change? Well, we are delighted to announce that someone has been listening. Someone who cares. Someone who works at the malevolent Miami Herald, of all places. In his role as the paper's television critic, Terry Jackson can be as viciously snarky as they come. But once a week he parks his mean streak. Every Thursday, in the "Wheels and Waves" section, he pens a column called "Behind the Wheel," in which he test-drives and reviews new automobiles. We have it on good authority that the column represents Jackson's quiet effort to bring some sunshine to the otherwise gloomy pages of Miami's Only Daily -- despite what cynics say about the influence of automobile dealers and their advertising dollars. No, for his determination to utter nary a discouraging word, for his selfless service to the community, Jackson deserves praise and a reprise of some typical headlines from the past twelve months: Luxury in a pickup? The nimble Sierra C3 suspends our disbelief. •Escalade a classy SUV competitor. •Extra-roomy, redesigned Le Sabre gives families alternative to minivans, SUVs. •SC430 convertible coupe is eye-catching. •The new explorer is better in every way: handling and ride vastly improved. •Toyota takes a fun mini-SUV and makes it larger, better. •Nissan aims for cutting edge in reviving the Z. •Interior makes Lexus LS430 a ride in lap of luxury. •Chrysler's minivans improve on success. •Acura's MDX meets demand for luxury SUV. •Volvo's XC: Wagon for a new age. •Fast and stylish, Lexus IS 300 a top performance sedan. •Performance is a plus for redesigned Aurora. •Breakout designs mark a new course for Cadillac. •New SUVs look like performance vehicles. •Pickups keep on truckin' -- new models far from basic. •Going topless is the secret of Pontiac Sunfire's success: fun convertible shows less is more.
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.
Born Again Voodooist
Best Erratum
"Newspaper rewrites paragraph, reveals possible Castro infiltration of U.S. government radio station"
For reasons unknown it was a banner year for errata brimming with political intrigue, even paranoia. Any number of conspiracy theories spring to mind while reading them. For example an El Nuevo Herald story that ran July 20, 2000, reported that fallout from the Elian saga had caused a decline in Republican Party membership in these parts. Wait a minute. That's impossible! Everyone knows the Democrats take their orders from Fidel. The correction, which editors craftily dubbed a "clarification," affirmed that the Democratic Party (you know, Janet Reno's people) suffered the loss.
Another intriguing erratum ran after an article by Miami Herald reporter Elinor J. Brecher this past April contained a curious case of mistaken identity. The story was an account of a Bay of Pigs conference in Cuba that brought together veterans from the revolutionary army and five open-minded members of Brigade 2506, the anti-Castro invasion force. Like the invasion, the story had problems. It reported that a real-life relative of John F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Pierre Salinger were among the participants. It should have said Jean Kennedy Smith (JFK's sister) and Richard Goodwin (a JFK advisor) attended. Thanks to operatives deep inside the Knight Ridder organization, Anthony Shriver, who is considering launching a political career in Miami Beach, may have lost the Brigade 2506 vote. Unlike most of its corrections, this one did not include the phrase "The Herald regrets the error." Hmmm.
But the weirdest erratum resulted from an El Nuevo Herald story by Rui Ferreira about Radio Martí, the U.S. government station that broadcasts to Cuba. Angelica Mora, a Chilean journalist, filed a discrimination complaint after station management replaced her with a Cuban-American reporter. The original story read: "According to the testimony of Ramon Cotta -- at the time news director of Radio Martí -- [Office of Cuban Broadcasting director] San Roman [said] that the journalist's departure resulted from suspicions about her professional integrity." For unknown reasons the February 28, 2001, correction presented entirely new information, particularly allegations that the Cuban government had planted stories on Radio Martí and quotes from station employees about an open FBI investigation that was supposed to be kept quiet. "The paragraph that mentions ... Ramon Cotta should have said: “Cotta contacted the office of the Inspector General and reported that San Roman had told him the FBI was conducting an investigation about five reports transmitted by Radio Martí that were planted by the Cuban government. San Roman also told Cotta that Radio Martí employees could be involved in the conspiracy.... San Roman told Cotta not to talk to anyone about the FBI investigation." Oops.
Last December the school board brushed aside a proposal by its maverick member, Marta Perez, to create an ethics commission that would act as a watchdog over the district. Why? Millions squandered on questionable land purchases. Fortunes spent to settle sexual-harassment lawsuits. Administrators with diploma-mill degrees. Overcrowded classrooms. Underpaid teachers. Unwelcome parents. But in rejecting the measure, Perez's colleagues argued that they didn't need an ethics commission because there weren't any problems. Now, that takes chutzpah.
"Hence! Wilt thou lift up Florida?"
"Great Gore --"
"Doth not Alex bootless kneel?"
"Speak, hands for me!"
"Et tu, Alex? Then fall, Gore."
Best Place To Make Up
NE Second Avenue beneath the I-395 overpass
If you want to get back together good and fast, just spend a half-hour or so together in this dark, desolate zone of urban destitution. Seven years ago a huge homeless encampment known as the Mud Flats was spread out here, and despite a multimillion-dollar cleanup and relocation, the area is still a haven for people with serious problems: window-washers, panhandlers, all manner of lame and halt. They don't so much live here anymore as work here -- there's money in those SUVs trapped in lines at the traffic lights leading to the expressway entrance ramps. This is the time and the place where you and your estranged need each other most. You need, at all costs, to escape from these looming shadows, and this you can do with the help of that wonderful person next to you, clutching your arm like a tourniquet, who will never let you go again.
Maybe it's the unobstructed view of the Intracoastal Waterway one gets driving along this winding strip of road that connects Bay Harbor Islands to North Miami. Perhaps it's the fact that, with relatively little traffic coming through, the tollbooth operators will take not only your money but the time to wish you a nice day or a good evening. Whatever the reason we don't mind that it costs 50 cents each way. Really.
The frozen drinks and spicy merengue beat have a way of shaking loose a girl's inhibitions. This Ocean Drive patio bar is full of out-of-town women looking for a Miami adventure. Slick back your hair, splash on the alluring cologne, and join the local Lotharios on the dance floor. Don't worry if you don't know how to salsa. If you can fake it well enough, you'll be a mambo king in the eyes of that little blond sales rep from South Jersey.
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