Best Of Miami® 2002 Winners
People & Places
It's Cultural Friday over on SW Eighth Street, except there isn't really any culture. For that you need to go north a couple blocks and find this eclectic building. Upstairs: lab6 art gallery, showing new and alternative works, usually by locals. Downstairs: PS 742 performance space, featuring new and alternative productions from here and afar. On the sidewalk outside: alternative types looking for camaraderie or a place to drum or strum for the evening. Both upstairs and downstairs accommodate such desires, usually after 10:00 p.m. Next door: artist Carlos Alves's quirky studio and Adalberto Delgado's 6g music studio. The all-white, 3000-square-foot space at lab6 is new. Owners Carlos Suarez de Jesus and Vivian Marthell moved up in October after closing their appropriately titled show "Intimate Addictions: Living Large in Tight Spaces." PS 742 moved into the old space, which director Susan Caraballo transformed into a black-box theater and began presenting Surreal Saturdays and other nights of dance, song, and show. A highlight of the year: Upstairs and down joined together in celebrating Babalu Aye, or San Lazaro, the patron saint of healing, which brought together all alternative forms of Miami for a nightlong bash.
You have to hand it to the City of Miami. Faced with the daunting task of persuading voters to pass yet another bond issue to improve the same parks the city had failed to improve after two previous bond issues, commissioners were wringing their hands over this difficult sales job. Then terrorists felled the World Trade Center in New York. And then letters spiked with anthrax began circulating in the mail. And then city officials came up with a bright idea. The bond issue's name was changed to "The Homeland Security and Neighborhood Enhancement" bond. After earmarking a tiny portion of the $255 million to buy a few gas masks, commissioners got what they wanted. City voters approved the bond. Let the spending begin!
You have to hand it to the City of Miami. Faced with the daunting task of persuading voters to pass yet another bond issue to improve the same parks the city had failed to improve after two previous bond issues, commissioners were wringing their hands over this difficult sales job. Then terrorists felled the World Trade Center in New York. And then letters spiked with anthrax began circulating in the mail. And then city officials came up with a bright idea. The bond issue's name was changed to "The Homeland Security and Neighborhood Enhancement" bond. After earmarking a tiny portion of the $255 million to buy a few gas masks, commissioners got what they wanted. City voters approved the bond. Let the spending begin!
The pop-radio wars have just begun. Dance-only upstart WPYM-FM (93.1) calls out the big dogs at Power 96 to put up or shut up. Power takes the bait and responds decisively. Sure it plays more commercials, and it saturates us regularly with hip-hop we've heard before, but Power still spins the better dance music, particularly after hours, and it gets bonus points for effectively mixing two very distinct and progressive urban sounds. It doesn't hurt to have competitors dropping Power 96's name so ridiculously often. Latin grooves still reign in the Magic City, but like it or not hip-hop is now and dance is the future. Power has them both covered and plenty of advertisers to keep it in business.
Rain stops, drought threatens, Okeechobee drops, tolls rise, cops shoot, kids die, manatees die, Pan Courtelis dies, Shepard Broad dies, Elizabeth Virrick Park lives, Cubans get smuggled, John Boles gets fired, Tony Perez gets hired, Cuevas gets fired, Stierheim gets hired, the Beach goes hip-hop, Latin Grammys arrive, rain arrives, Latin Grammys split, Reno runs, AIDS infects, more cops shoot, more Cubans smuggled, Lenore Nesbitt dies, Howard Sharlin dies, Luis Sabines dies, Bryan O. Walsh dies, sex plane goes down, Bobby Maduro Stadium goes down, Sunny Isles motels go down, Miami cops throw down, Elian museum opens up, rain falls, thunderstorms roar, Chediak quits, Ninoska quits, Shalala takes charge, UM turns 75, Versailles turns 30, Norcross returns, Yahweh Ben Yahweh returns, Demetrio Perez busted, lawmen busted, civil servants busted, federal agents busted, Surana goes to jail, David Paul stays in jail, Cuban spies convicted, Reno faints, Castro faints, Judd quits, Cristina quits, Fraind quits, more rain falls, Okeechobee fills up, Lincoln Road fills up, tornadoes touch down, crime goes down, sharks bite, snakes bite, Hialeah Park folds, clinics fold, Dolphins fumble, Heat tumbles, Panthers dump Bure, Henry dumps Marlins, Loria arrives, Haitians detained, Miami cops indicted, smugglers indicted, Ramon Saul Sanchez indicted, Warshaw goes to jail, Humbertico stuck in jail, Noriega still in jail, terrorists strike, security tightens, tourists stay away, Art Basel stays away, layoffs arrive, Colombians arrive, Venezuelans arrive, Argentines arrive, Leonard Abess dies, Carlos Salman dies, Carlos D'Mant dies, anthrax strikes, recession strikes, budgets shrink, more layoffs, more AIDS, more cops indicted, still more rain, OB parade gets drenched, Bass Museum leaks, Sweetwater floods, West Nile virus arrives, Ricky Williams arrives, WTMI goes silent, Al Milian gets silenced, school board gets gouged, priests get exposed, Victor Posner dies, Rolando Barral dies, David Poland quits, DeFede quits, Reno stalls, Miami Circle stalls, Indian graves discovered, desecrated graves discovered, OJ gets searched, OB parade gets dumped, Carnival dumps, Miriam Alonso gets busted, Willie Logan gets off, Jennifer Rodriguez gets bronze, billboards take root, AIDS takes off, Tom Fiedler takes charge, Carollo is out, Diaz is in, Kasdin is out, Dermer is in, Pepper is out, Cobo is in, Marlins stadium is booed out, but Miami's animal lovers can cheer at last: After more than 30 years living in the same cramped Seaquarium tank, Lolita the hapless killer whale finally gets a new home.
Being a cineaste in Miami means making your peace with malls. Over the past few years most choice indies and foreign flicks have landed at either the eighteen-screen South Beach Regal or one of the area's other multiplexes -- not our hit-and-miss art houses. So getting your celluloid fix has meant braving arena-size crowds and nightmarish parking. Fortunately the new Intracoastal Cinema has stepped into a comfortable middle ground, consistently earmarking several of its six screens for art fare. Even better, Mitchell and Nancy Dreier, the couple who own the Intracoastal (as well as five Broward theaters including the Gateway and the Sunrise), have moved past the usual Miramax suspects to spotlight such fare as the joyously whacked Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, Charlotte Rampling's haunting comeback Under the Sand, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's timely Kandahar. Plenty of free parking just steps from the front door, big screens, cushy seats, and (in stark contrast to most multiplexes) a relaxed air all combine to make moviegoing an experience instead of a trial.
This ain't the Waverly in Greenwich Village or anything, but it's as close as Miami gets. Part of the pleasure of going to the Cosford is meandering through that gorgeous, lush (and very non-NYC) University of Miami campus. The magic room on the second floor of Memorial Hall is where we get to see, a year or two after the New York crowd does, the recent labors of European directors and their counterparts in the Americas and elsewhere. Among the films on Cosford's multinational marquee this year were French director Jean-Pierre Ameris's Bad Company, a tale of twisted adolescent love and sex; Runaway, an English-Iranian documentary by Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini set in a women's shelter in Tehran; and Israeli director Joseph Cedar's Time of Favor, a drama involving a Jewish soldier who plans a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. And let's not forget the latest screen gems from Canada. "Maelström [director Denis Villeneuve's 2001 opus] is the most celebrated work in French Canadian film history," Cosford's program guide proclaims. The theater screens two films each week. Movie nights are Friday through Sunday. The downside to the Cosford: It's closed during the summer. The schedule is online at www.miami.edu/com/cosford. Admission is five dollars for the general public, three bucks for senior citizens and university employees, and free for UM students. Take Granada Boulevard into the university and look for the signs, which will take you to Campo Sano Avenue and the parking lot. Best to call for directions.
Bumper to bumper to bumper on I-95. Multicar pileup? Construction? Who cares? You're stuck. But the left lane promises release. You careen up and onto the turnpike. The on-ramp curves up and around and so do you, swerving madly to avoid the little blue Toyota doing 20 and the silver Lexus doing 90, both of which want your spot. Having successfully defended your turf, you cruise on up to the toll plaza at the Golden Glades Interchange. You shoot through the SunPass lane, and in no time you're making speed, a blissful smile on your face. But you've done more than escape gridlock. You've penetrated the barrier between two worlds -- from lunacy to normalcy, from citified to sedate. You've crossed the county line. Miami awaits your return.
Film and theater directors and actors, poets and writers have been allowing audience members to have at them for years in frank exchanges about content and merit, seriousness and triviality. Now the Rubell family, boutique hoteliers and major art collectors, are applying the principle to visual artists. Several times a year accomplished artists like Jeff Koons, Andres Serrano, Ross Bleckner, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst will display their work and appear in the cozy Bamboo Room of the Rubell's Beach House hotel to talk about art with fans and perhaps less-than-fans. So far this year's artists have included Rineke Dijkstra, the famed Dutch chronicler of youth at bay (April 25), and Maurizio Cattelan, the impish sculptor who portrayed Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite and got the art world all upset (May 2).
They line up hours in advance, sitting on lawn chairs and atop plastic coolers. Kids with balloons tied to their wrists drink orange sodas and nibble on sugar bread purchased from Calle Ocho bakeries doing brisk business. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen walks by prior to the start, absorbing the throaty cheers of her core constituency. Miami's Three Kings Parade debuted in 1971 after Fidel Castro canceled Christmas and its ancillary celebrations in Cuba. (Three Kings Day honors Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, the three kings who followed a bright star to Bethlehem, where they presented the newborn Christ child with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.) Now a Calle Ocho tradition, Miami's parade features a slow-rolling procession of high school marching bands, Spanish-language radio hosts, entertainers such as Willy Chirino and Elvis Crespo, and sports stars such as gruesomely muscled baseball slugger José Canseco. The greatest cheers, though, rise for the rogues gallery of local politicians. City Commissioner Tomas Regalado and his daughter. City Commissioner Joe Sanchez twice, once on a car with his name stuck to the side and once again, later, on horseback. A grinning Joe Carollo, unaccompanied by a bikini-clad model now that he's unaffiliated with any public office. Angel Hernandez, a convicted felon and newly elected city commissioner, is greeted warmly, as is new mayor Manny Diaz, dapper in a blue guayabera. A red Corvette convertible slowly motors past. In the back seat, receiving blown kisses and the loudest cheers of the day, is the Fisherman, Donato Dalrymple, still a man of honor in Little Havana.
Renewing a passport can be a pain. You have to call for an appointment, then you have to wait two weeks or so, then you have to go downtown, then you have to wait, and then -- well, like we said, it's definitely a hassle. Not so at Miami City Hall. The extremely professional city clerk's office offers a painless way to apply for or renew a passport. The whole thing takes eight minutes, tops, and you don't even need an appointment. Just drop by the clerk's office window on Dinner Key, fill out a short form, hand over a small check, then walk over to the camera. Smile. After the photo develops, blush at how good-looking you are, then leave. Your passport will arrive in the mail in a matter of days. If you pay an expediting fee, you can have it even sooner. It's that easy.
This is no joke. Jim Clark, a former WAMI-TV (Channel 61) sports producer with otherwise good credentials, began whipping Channel 9 into shape in the fall of 2001. Under his guidance we can still witness extraordinary performances by one of South Florida's best acting troupes, the Miami Commission, but now we can enjoy the show without the garbled audio. The station also transmits meetings of other bodies that occasionally make important decisions, including the Code Enforcement Board, the Historic and Environmental Preservation Board, the Parks Advisory Board, the Planning Advisory Board, the Urban Development Review Board, the Waterfront Advisory Board, and the Zoning Board. But there's more. Viewers, and perhaps some of our elected officials, can bone up on the basics of our system of government in the United States by watching On Common Ground. This program is funded by various state governments and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Channel 9 also offers the PBS-produced show Crossroads Café, which is designed for people learning English as a second language. For those of us whose first language is English but still need a little more practice, the station presents TV 411, a production of the Adult Literacy Media Alliance. Call for current program times. The station is carried only on cable within Miami city limits, but Clark hopes to have it streaming on the Internet in the near future.
Really, this is more an award for founder/director Robert Rosenberg than it is for a collection of films. As we saw this year with the Miami Film Festival, there's more to creating a successful event than meets the camera's eye. Rosenberg started his fest four years ago with a combination of love, enthusiasm, a good curatorial eye, and a healthy respect for organization. That great mix shows. Each year the festival has grown, but at a controllable pace. The offerings are not so disparate as to lose cohesion, but fresh enough to give us something out of the ordinary. Films were selected well in advance, as were the dates and times they would screen. Thematically this year the issue of identity broke new ground -- gone are those teenage coming-out stories; in are ones about gay men falling for straight women. Not all the films worked, but the festival itself has a firm grasp of its own identity, the best template indeed.
Before you enter this 76-year-old landmark, you already know you're close to paradise. The magnificent Giralda Tower, languorously and glamorously lit against the blue-black Florida night sky, is one clue. But as you walk from parking lot to pool area, the smell of jasmine is so heavy you lose your bearings. Where are you? In a world of which you can only dream? Or Miami-Dade's most elegant province? That's right, this is not simply a hotel. This is another universe. You walk through archways and courtyards, click across elaborate tile floors, sit against carved wood and detailed tapestries, and know you are not in Miami anymore. You swim in one of the world's greatest pools. You eat among brilliant pinks and purples of bougainvillea and verdant banana leaves, treated like a member of the old raj. Speaking of colonial treatment, you take high tea indoors in the fabulous lobby, with choices of tea and finger sandwiches that embarrass Harrods. You sit on your private balcony and take in the tropical landscape cleverly disguised as a golf course. Good theater next door at GableStage, spa in the basement. Nooooo, you're not going anywhere.
The lobby of architect Melvin Grossman's classic Fifties hotel is a monument to space-age design, space-age glamour, and just plain space. Think MiMo (Miami Modernism) meets Grand Central Station. Massive decorative columns hold up an imposing plaster canopy in the center of the room. Underneath it five separate islands of couches and chairs float on a sea of vintage marble tile. A full-size hotel bar runs along one wall. Overlooking the bar is a landing big enough to be its own lobby. And if that's not enough to convey the sense of limitless optimism that fueled the Fifties: Large, curved window walls look out over the enormous pool area and onto Collins Avenue, giving the illusion of even more space. Whoever said bigger isn't always better never set foot in here.
Pit stop not really required, though for joggers and bikers it's ideal. This roadside fresh fruit, vegetable, chocolate brownie, and fruity milkshake stand, located on an otherwise residential stretch of Red Road, is worth a trip all by itself. Located far (and not so far) from the madding crowds of U.S. 1 and the Shops at Sunset Place, and just down the street from Parrot Jungle, Wayside is a true oasis, a quiet little spot with outdoor tables and chairs beneath a lush South African sausage tree and tall, lanky bamboo, where you can bring a friend, a pooch (dogs are welcome), or a good book. The perfect refueling station for the long, strange, never-ending trip we call daily life in South Florida.
The thing is, he'll come to you on those weekends when the bird doo-doo has piled up on your hood from trying to park under trees to avoid the sun, and when you just don't feel like negotiating the traffic to get to the cheapo deals along NE Second Avenue or the expensive sloshings in the parking garages of Brickell high-rises. Joel is a great big guy with an obsession for getting things right (he used to be a plant-maintenance specialist). He'll wash your car for just ten bucks. Vans and SUVs are $20, trucks are $45, RVs are $60, and boats are a little cheaper at $55. ("I like boats," he explains.) He arrives with a truck and all his own equipment, including a pressure washer with a 100-gallon tank so he doesn't have to hook up to your spigots, and he has his own generator and super-vacuum, which he applies to those areas you don't see, like under the seat. "I guess I'm a perfectionist," Alfonso says modestly. And before you know it, even your old Sentra looks swell again. Open seven days, Monday through Sunday, 9:00 to 5:00.
BEST PIT STOP ON THE WAY TO KEY WEST
The Lor-e-lei
Mile Marker 82
This bar, restaurant, and marina is more than merely a pit stop for hungry tourists on their way to Key West. It's a piece of Islamorada history, a place to bask in the warm sun and the spirit of the Keys, and it's a popular watering hole for locals. Start your visit with a fresh fish sandwich and a cold beer inside the unpretentious restaurant or on its shaded patio. If you can manage to pull yourself away from the table, stagger a few steps through the hot sun over to the Lor-e-lei's waterfront bar, where you can have another cold beer, gaze out at the calm waters, and eavesdrop on the relaxed conversations. If you're looking to cool off, just walk a few steps to the water and take a dip. Closer to sunset the mood changes as the fishing boats glide in after a day out on the flats, breathing new life into the lazy afternoon. The quiet bar begins to bustle as fisherfolk make their way to the barstools to share perfectly accurate, self-deprecating accounts of the day's adventures. There's no better place to watch the sunset. You didn't really want to drive all the way to Key West, did you?
Sailboats and small pleasure craft float in front of historic Twenties and Thirties homes. Neighbors enjoy leisurely sunset walks along the water. One of South Florida's myriad gated communities? Try again. An affluent, private residential island sandwiched between Miami Beach and the mainland? Nope. Would you believe unincorporated Miami-Dade County? It's true. This eight-square-block area, located between NE 87th and 91st streets, NE Tenth Avenue and Biscayne Bay, offers a unique twist on waterfront living. Instead of facing the bay, homes sit on "Lake Bel Mar," which according to folks in the area is the only canal in Miami-Dade County located in front of a row of homes. The place is so charming, secluded, and quiet that residents begged us not to tell people about it. Sorry.
BEST LOCAL SPORTS COACH
Larry Coker
University of Miami football
We know he's duller than dirt. Hell, he knows it. And as soon as he loses a game and/or doesn't win a national championship, New Times, shallow and fickle publication that we are, will hold it against him. But until then, Larry, congrats: You da man!
BEST CURE FOR AIDS ISOLATION
The Center for Positive Connections
Positive Connections was unique seven years ago and remains one of the nation's few comprehensive support centers for HIV-positive heterosexuals. In 1995 Sheri Kaplan, newly diagnosed with HIV and feeling out of place at existing resource centers mainly catering to gay men, decided to start her own support group. Today Positive Connections, with the help of grants and donations, has grown into a one-stop hub that anyone with HIV or AIDS can benefit from. Whether your concern is finding a physician, a financial planner, or a dog groomer, Positive Connections can steer you in the right direction. The center itself offers a diversity of free classes and workshops covering everything from Reiki and acupuncture to past-life regression and art therapy. There are regular heterosexual support groups for English-, Spanish-, and Creole-speaking men, women, and their families and friends. Also a group for gay men recently started.
It's the train-wreck effect. No one walks by without slowing down, turning their heads. They lean in close to each other and whisper. "Versace," "shot," "steps." Casa Casuarina, now the property of North Carolina telecommunications mogul Peter Loftin, sits in ostentatiously grand Mediterranean style in the middle of Ocean Drive, awaiting its transformation into an unaffordable boutique hotel. Orange tape surrounds the grand fence. Landscapers stride in and out. But no passersby look beyond the steps where the fashion mogul was gunned down on July 15, 1997. And that's where the tourists pose, in twos and threes and fours, in bikinis and shorts, smiling broadly for each others' cameras. After all, nothing says Miami like a murder site.
In a town where far too many public servants graduated from the school of corruption and incompetence, Merrett Stierheim stands out as a beacon in the darkness. Since 1959, when he began his career as an assistant manager with the City of Miami, Stierheim has kept an able hand on the tiller of our biggest and most complex governments, often called up on deck just as the ship was about to hit the rocks. By dint of his reputation as a fixer of big problems, he has become an almost mythic figure in his own lifetime. In 1967 he left for Florida's west coast but returned in 1976 to become Dade County's manager during a most difficult period (the Mariel boatlift, riots, cocaine cowboys) until his retirement in 1986. In the early Nineties Stierheim became Miami's chief cheerleader as president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. Then in 1996, as the City of Miami faced a financial meltdown amid political scandal, Stierheim was coaxed out of his second retirement to become the pro bono city manager. In no time he discovered a $68 million shortfall in the city's general fund and led the beginning of a long recovery effort. In 1998 he was again tapped to become county manager as Miami-Dade reeled from scandals and corruption at the airport and the Port of Miami. He retired in early 2001 when it became clear Mayor Alex Penelas wanted a less independent and forceful manager. Stierheim kept himself busy through the spring and summer by becoming interim manager of newly incorporated Miami Lakes and leading another emergency recovery team through Homestead's shaky finances. In October 2001 Stierheim took on what is arguably his most challenging and important job yet -- superintendent of Miami-Dade County's mammoth public-school system. The school district is a magnified version of the bureaucracies Stierheim had wrestled with earlier: unwieldy, riddled with corruption, and filled with a demoralized workforce. But with the future of 370,000 children in his hands, the stakes are much higher. Stierheim has already begun to heal an ailing bureaucratic culture. Only time will tell whether he can successfully complete the job.
In Miami-Dade County, Steve Spratt was always a little shocking. Low-key, competent, respected -- what could be more shocking in a county employee? Spratt was not only thoroughly informed but able to relay that information without lying, obfuscating, or double-talking. He was a budget expert who wasn't afraid to call a scheme a scam. Surely it was too much to ask someone like Spratt to stick around forever. But he did last a remarkable 25 years at county hall before departing in December 2001 to become the Pinellas County administrator (their version of county manager). Now 47 years old, Spratt began his government career in 1976 as a lowly complaint-taker in the Dade County manager's office, eventually moving to budget director and finally to assistant county manager. Known for his directness and impartiality, Spratt did what he had to do, even if it meant recommending the suspension in 1999 of parks director Bill Cutie, who was later indicted in the famous "missing trees" caper, in which the county paid $1.6 million for 4200 palm trees that were never accounted for.
Radio Carnivale is the first Haitian-owned radio station in the nation (not counting pirate stations and two so-called FM subcarriers that can be picked up only by a specially tuned radio). The Kreyol-language station went on the air in early 2001 after last-minute complications: a name and call-letter change and the resignation of its general manager. But more than a year later Radio Carnivale has proved to be an ever-strengthening presence in South Florida's Haitian community. It's starting to make inroads on the traditional brokered-time programming arrangement that has always ruled the Haitian airwaves, and which has always meant a few powerful programmers are licensed to tell the Kreyol-speaking public anything, including slanderous lies about people they dislike and who may have no way of replying. But Radio Carnivale is a genuinely professional operation featuring music, news, and talk shows. The station is attracting more advertisers, and though it has not been able to avoid brokering (selling) some airtime, it has raised the level of Kreyol discourse in Miami.
He's received this award before. He deserves it again. Not that Snitzer is alone these days in promoting the new, the local, the quality art. No indeed. Genaro Ambrosino's gallery, transplanted to North Miami, continues to showcase just that, as do those gallery-homes that stole much of the scene recently. Still if you only visited one gallery and it was Snitzer's, you would have caught almost every interesting vibe Miami is creating. Passing through his walls, ceilings, floors: the very young Hernan Bas and Bert Rodriguez; the very local Purvis Young; the very Cuban José Bedia and Glexis Novoa; the very diverse Lynn Golob Gelfman and Mette Tommerup; and many many others. Snitzer has also been integral to some of the most exciting art events we've ever seen, such as the site-specific and ephemeral Freedom Rocks and Espirito Santo Bank exhibitions, energy and insight from which continue to reverberate throughout his own space. It's a lot to take in -- thank goodness.
When Doug Yoder went to work for the county in February 1971 he was fresh out of Cornell University and full of youthful idealism. At the age of 24 he sincerely believed in the notion of public service. And guess what? Thirty-one years later he still does. Yoder has been with DERM since July 1977. In that time he has seen county managers and agency chiefs come and go, but he's still there, worrying about air pollution, water quality, and dump-site contamination while fielding citizen queries and complaints and serving on several national boards, including the Urban Consortium Environmental Task Force. Yoder is beginning to think about retirement in the next few years, but that does not mean he's slacking off. He returns phone calls, brown-bags his lunch, pays attention at boring budgetary meetings and hearings on airborne particulates, and recognizes that he is a servant of the taxpayers. Good man.
The Miami Film Festival's David Poland may have moved on, but it would be a shame if the former director's innovation of showing festival flicks free on the sands of South Beach -- on a 70-foot-high screen beneath the night sky -- went with him. (Organizers of Miami's Brazilian Film Festival have been doing this for years with great success.) Catching Moulin Rouge under those circumstances, with the surrounding crowd of 5000 oohing and ahhing in delight, revealed precisely how that film was meant to be seen: as a larger-than-life spectacle. And if you could tear your eyes away from the sight of a gigantic Nicole Kidman spinning through the air, you'd see the celebrated diversity of Miami come to life: queer couples strolling hand-in-hand past wizened viejos; Beach fashionistas popping open a bottle of wine; Latino families grilling over an open flame; and everybody simply losing themselves in the sheer magic of the cinema. "For the love of film" indeed.
BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE MEN
Miami International Boat Show
Annually in February
While many locals complain about the snarled traffic and incessant bridge openings, single women should know otherwise. Not all of the close to 150,000 people who descend on Miami are men, and not all are rich. But lots are. And they're here to let loose, have some fun, and spend some money. Stroll the marinas and convention center and oooh and ahhh at the gleaming vessels and the exorbitantly priced stuff that fills them. Your giddy, grinning neighbor is sure to fill you in on what he thinks about objets d'ark. And just about anything else -- silence is not socially acceptable here. Now you tell him where to go for a drink afterward. Or he'll tell you: "Hey, we found this great place on the water where you can watch more boats," and you'll pretend that Monty's is indeed a hidden gem. All you have to do now is move with the flow. Easy.
Despite his friendly, low-key manner, Ralph Delly isn't shy about repeating the raciest tidbits circulating in the New York and Miami Haitian communities. In fact it's probably because Delly is so likable that prominent people (mostly entertainment and media types) tell him things -- you know, things that really matter, such as how the size of one band member's member played a decisive role in his acquisition of a new girlfriend from another musician. But make no mistake, Delly dishes plenty of solid material you couldn't find anywhere else (in English, anyway). A band suffers persecution, for example, because it played years ago at a now-politically incorrect venue in Haiti. A songwriter's original compositions are repeatedly stolen by fellow musicians. A prominent Port-au-Prince radio personality decides to move to Miami to escape Haiti's instability. Only one problem, Delly confesses: He'll be mingling at a soiree and find some of his famous sources, worried their secrets may be revealed, clam up in his presence.
We waited and waited (and waited) for the old Bass Museum to reopen after an extensive, eight-million-dollar renovation and expansion. It turned out to be worth the wait. For more than three years the City of Miami Beach, which owns the museum, suffered through interminable, costly construction problems. First the roof fell in. Then a new concrete floor came crashing down from its broken support beams. Then the new climate-control system had to be completely retooled. Then a water valve burst and soaked the hardwood floors. Then the new roof began to leak. It was as if Job were building the museum. But now that it's open (we hope for good), the Bass is a beautiful structure to behold, thanks to the design of Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. Added to the old Bass's 11,000 square feet is a skylight-connected new wing with twice the room and a spectacular 22-foot ceiling in the second-floor gallery. The lighting is better too. The addition of a café, outside terrace, and typically overpriced gift shop complete the Bass's transformation into a truly modern exhibition space.
McGrath, a Miami Beach resident and professor at Florida International University, moved here a few years ago and then set for himself a Whitmanesque challenge: Write a defining poem about his adopted home state. And then he had the temerity to call it "The Florida Poem." This piece, a highlight of the book, is long, sardonic, and conversational, and as the poem threads its way through the conquistadors and swamp-draining history it is often sad. But McGrath is a romantic optimist, and so he offers hope: "And yet, all it takes/is a day at the beach/to see the slate scrubbed clean/and scribbled anew/by the beautiful coquinas, to witness/the laws of hydraulics rendered moot by the munificent/tranquility of their variegated colonies/thriving amid the chaos of wave-break and overwash."
Old guy with a skeptical look and big horn-rims sitting in the last booth on the right at Enriqueta's on NE Second Avenue, rattling his newspaper, masticating his eggs, a magnet for fight and art fans throughout Miami, the Fight Doctor, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco. Remember him? For many years he worked Muhammad Ali's corner, through all the boxing classics -- the Thrilla in Manila, the Rumble in the Jungle, the Brawl for It All -- an era when sports-as-show-biz took off behind Ali and Don King's logorrhea, with the Fight Doctor bringing up the rear. To hear him today, after fifteen years on NBC, negotiating a seamless two-hour narrative with hardly a break for breath -- "Sherman's march to the sea, a jerk in Coconut Grove giving a historical-society reading, he doesn't want to admit what a racist bastard General Sherman was! How his 'total war' program in Georgia anticipated the Nazis, how America's policies have frequently been casuistic..." and demonstrating how "hustlers" such as Ali, King, and himself were using the culture's own hot-air tendencies as guerrilla tactics against the general bullshit -- is true instant replay. What's remarkable is that Pacheco had a stroke last year yet hasn't lost a mile off his fast ball. He's still grinding out books and paintings for mainstream and Little Havana consumption; still accepting speaking engagements; and would still beat the pants off HBO's boxing analyst Larry Merchant if Sumner Redstone at Viacom had enough sense to let him anchor the rival Showtime fight shows.
Behold the big yellow school buses unleashed on a racetrack designed for stock cars, running figure eights, nearly crashing into each other, dumping fluids and parts where they shouldn't. Fun for the whole family! It's an exhibition, not a competition, held every other month at one of Florida's oldest speedways. And for a mere fifteen bucks the energized crowd of thousands, most of whom were once carted off to school by those hulking monsters, can't get enough. Call for dates and times.
There can't really be a more authentic South Beach tale than the rise of Chris Paciello, the New York small-time mobster who headed to Florida and glamorously reinvented himself as the crown prince of clubland. Splashed across the gossip pages, there he was canoodling with supermodels, dancing with Madonna, downing shots alongside Dennis Rodman inside his nightclubs Liquid and Bar Room, and at his restaurant Joia. It was quite a life -- that is until his goomba past in Staten Island caught up with him in the form of a murder indictment. Michele McPhee chronicles it all in a hard-boiled noir style whose dime-store prose is often as overheated as the lurid tales themselves. Given the literary attention span of most of South Beach's habitues, what could be more appropriate?
This Peruvian native likes intimacy. He uses words (English and Spanish), everyday items, penciled sketches, postcard-size spaces, kinetic video, even entire houses to bring us into the world of the private life. Cordova has described his art as a diary, but his personal life reflects our own colorful, diverse, alienated Miami life, which is one reason his works are so memorable. He's only in his early thirties but already he has left his mark all over our city. His miniature paintings are his trademark so far, but you've encountered Cordova in many other forms. He was part of Miami Art Museum's December video installation (along with an earlier MoCA video show), and his arrangements incorporating stereo bits and car tires were an ingredient in the Kevin Bruk Gallery's "Summer Tossed Salad" exhibit. Cordova has also joined the growing ranks of artists-as-curators. He organized the creatively titled and executed "You were always on my mind" at Ambrosino Gallery, and together with artist Eugenia Vargas took over her home in North Miami and filled it with the intimate and quirky works of seventeen local artists for "Homewreckers: It's Over," one of Miami's first "home shows." For being both at the forefront of creating art and standing behind interesting local artists, Cordova gets our nod this year.
BEST NOT-SO-CHEAP THRILL
Heckler & Koch Mark 23 .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun
This superbly crafted sidearm is light enough for women and seniors, and it doesn't have the tremendous recoil of the old Colt blue-steel Army and Navy .45 models of yesteryear. Inspired by the great popularity of the Austrian Glock, it's a top seller in South Florida gunshops like Eagle Arms (14123 South Dixie Highway; 305-234-8446). At $763, without a box of ammo, it's not exactly cheap, but according to George Soler at Eagle Arms, the Mark 23 is safe to handle and a joy to use on the target range: "It's now the weapon of choice for the Special Forces and is seeing a lot of service in Afghanistan."
Our weather is no secret -- sun, sun, sun -- and our kids are used to it. Which is why they have a wardrobe consisting of shorts and cotton T-shirts rather than corduroy pants and wool sweaters. But Magic City munchkins can still get a cold-weather chill if they head up to North Miami and the only regulation-size ice-skating rink in town. Chances are it'll be a new experience for them, but with role models like Miami Olympian Jennifer Rodriguez, who made the switch from Rollerblades to ice skates, they may already be gung-ho. The arena staff offers lessons (group and individual) for all levels, from beginners to budding figure-skating stars. Hockey lessons too. And hockey leagues. And rental skates. And infrequent but regular free skating. And some of the coldest air conditioning in the subtropics on a hot and muggy summer afternoon. Call for rates and hours of operation.
At the risk of starting a family feud, we'll venture to say that it isn't the accomplished Robert Thiele who's the true shining art star in town. It's Robert's own daughter Kristen, who's returned home from a spell in Chicago to take a studio at Lincoln Road's ArtCenter South Florida. And the Windy City's loss is definitely our gain. Kristen's whimsical use of anthropomorphic cats and dogs may be initially, intentionally goofy and cartoonish, but it's also moving. Like vintage Fifties Peanuts strips, her work disarms with its misleading simplicity and then turns downright sublime. Her latest series, "The Masters," transposes these furry critters into a slew of hallowed works. You'll never look at Mona Lisa the same way again.
You know his work. Or maybe you don't know that you know. Rodriguez is rather hard to keep an eye on sometimes. Like his piece for what turned out to be the Art-Basel-replacement-event of the year at the Bass Museum, "globe>miami>island." His was the music you heard in the freight elevator, on the outside door of which were written the words "The End," those chords from the ending of movies, from The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the like. Elevator music indeed. You may know that you know Norberto (Bert) Rodriguez, the recent New World School of the Arts grad who also helps take care of the Rubell collection. Easier to see but maybe not so easy to grasp was his first solo show in 2000, "Bert Rodriguez: A Pre-Career Retrospective" -- wrap your brain around that witty title from a 25-year-old -- a Duchampian exhibit with child's drawings, ready-made objects (not a urinal but a signed toilet-cleaner brush), and clever captions. That was Bert you saw at the "Skins" exhibit at the Dorsch Gallery when you gazed at all those prints of a topless LaToya Jackson on the bathroom walls. Bert too at MoCA's "Making Art in Miami: Travels in Hyperreality," one of the inaugural museum shows to showcase young Miami talent. But maybe you still don't know him. That's okay. His "pre-career" just ended. Now you have time to watch him emerge.
Hurling a household object at your wife + cavorting with tawdry Latin bombshells = successful re-election.
The reason we love this all-suite hotel has nothing to do with the fact that it's only a block from the Lor-e-lei, the legendary waterfront restaurant and bar where you can get great fish sandwiches, down piña coladas with a rum floater, and applaud the ever-setting sun. No, it has something to do with Casa Morada's terrazzo floors, resident iguanas, sprawling sea grape and hibiscus groves, and serene, sparkling pool located just off Florida Bay. And it has even more to do with the individually decorated studio apartments. If you like the wrought-iron furniture you can buy it. Every item is actually for sale. Not only does that policy allow you to take some of the restful Islamorada lifestyle home with you, it guarantees that the next time you come down for a visit, you'll be treated to new décor.
The title of this author's fifth book of poetry, The Mastery Impulse, forthcoming from Carnegie-Mellon University Press, pretty much sums it up: Pau-Llosa has got it down. Whether he's writing poetry, short fiction, or art criticism, this Miami Cuban knows how to reach his local as well as international audience. And once grabbed, we're kept. Pau-Llosa's first three poetry collections -- Sorting Metaphors, Bread of the Imagined, and Cuba -- earned him our respect with this same award in 1998. His continued dedication to regional emphasis in 1999's Vereda Tropical, comprising poems such as "View of Miami Across Biscayne Bay from the Rusty Pelican" or "Books and Books," which pays homage to one of our most respected bookstores, ensures him our devotion. As "the fisher of metaphors/that bind the layered water/to bark and fronds," Pau-Llosa becomes not only the literary ombudsman of this strange new world, he succeeds in documenting the mystery of the Magic City.
Valentine's Day, 2001. The scene: More than three dozen Miami notables, from county Mayor Alex Penelas and Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler to Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce chairman Philip Blumberg and United Way chief Harve Mogul, gather before the school board and urge members to grant bumbling back-slapper Roger Cuevas another two years in office as superintendent of schools. Union-boss-for-life Pat Tornillo is also present. As he has on other occasions (such as the time this paper made a stink about the diploma-mill degrees held by Cuevas and several of his top administrators), Tornillo comes to the defense of Cuevas, arguing that, with all the other problems facing the school district, the continuity of leadership Cuevas could provide is needed. The school board decides to extend the superintendent's contract by two years (at $251,690 per annum). Just seven months later the school board is under heavy fire from the media, state politicians, and the public for financial and ethical scandals. Cuevas, until then the board's happy, well-fed puppet, becomes the board's well-compensated scapegoat and is fired. At the same time the district faces a huge shortfall in state funds. When the cash-strapped district suggests that teachers take a couple of days off to ease the strain on the budget, Tornillo agrees. But then the disgusted union rank and file vote down the compromise. His back against the wall, Tornillo suddenly adopts the language of militant union bosses of old, charging that teachers shouldn't have to take a cut just because the school board wasted so much money on things like Cuevas's lucrative golden parachute -- up to $800,000. Now that's chutzpah!
Why Elaine? Here's one reason: At a recent Perry Ellis fashion show, this South Beach diva famous for her killer Cher impression had the unenviable task of working the crowd following the parade of beauties who had just pranced down the runway. The fashion elites, with their low tolerance for tacky, were restless. Rather than resort to the common drag conceit of outrageousness, Elaine appeared in a stylish gold evening gown, dazzling earrings, and a perfect Sixties beehive. She was classy not trashy. As she well knows, drag is more than just shock value. It's about performance and poise. Flawless in her appearance, Elaine knows there's something even more important: being the consummate hostess. That she is.
Mayco survived years in the trenches at county hall as a competent and fair-minded bureaucrat, only to be knocked off by county Manager Steve Shiver for -- gasp! -- releasing public information to the press! Shiver forced him to resign and then had the gall to seize his computer minutes later, a humiliating blow to a veteran professional like Villafaña. After knocking around town and a brief stint at the State Attorney's Office, he followed old boss Merrett Stierheim into a true snake pit -- the public school district. May he bring sunshine to the dark corners.
Was that a wink? Is she flirting with me? Man, she seems happy tonight. Maybe she's tipsy. No, I think she's just flirting with me. Viewers of WSVN's nightly newscasts can be excused for wondering if Laurie Jennings is communicating directly with them via the tube. When she began at Channel 7 in February 1998, she was a mechanically rigid human automaton improbably paired with blowhard Rick Sanchez. After the voluble Sanchez split for MSNBC, Jennings began a subtle but noticeable transformation, from straightlaced news reader to emotive broadcaster with personality. Those saucy little winks. The lead-in comments spiced with attitude. A relaxed posture that hinted at seduction. The change has been a bit unsettling, but ultimately it's just what we want and expect in our love-hate relationship with Seven News, the big show.
No one can adequately explain the day-long, perpetual traffic jam on the westbound Dolphin Expressway (SR 836) just after you pass over Le Jeune Road and Miami International Airport appears on the north side of the road. This is our Bermuda Triangle, the place where time inexplicably vanishes. There never appears to be a good reason for the sudden crush of cars slowing to a crawl -- no accident, no disabled vehicle, no construction. It just is. Could there be some unknown force field that compels Miami drivers to drop to school-zone speed (which, ironically, they rarely observe in actual school zones)? What up, Miami?
If there were a category for best hair on television, Schmidt would win hands down. That pompadour of his rises at least two feet above his head. Even more impressive is his voice: deep, serious, pontifical. Schmidt could make a routine Krome Avenue car crash sound as important as the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact that's exactly what he's done for NBC 6 on numerous occasions. In fact Schmidt comes across as so authoritative he may even startle himself. As he told one of our colleagues: "Can you believe I'm actually reading the news and that people actually believe what I'm saying?" Sure, man. Absolutely. The potent combination of voice and hair is enough for us to predict big things for this swarthy Wesleyan grad. We're talking national news. Stone Phillips, watch your back.
The table of contents in this four-by-five-and-a-half-inch monthly magazine tells the story. Bartender of the month. DJ of the month. Artist, chef, and model of the month. Concierge of the month. Doorman of the month. Bulwarks of our community. The front line in our noble struggle for the dollars of the rich and often not famous. In their own words. How does Stacey, an Aquarius who works the door at a strip club for women, keep himself entertained? "My job at La Bare pretty much does that," he explains. Each issue the "What's your ego trip?" page, in which local cognoscenti answer that bold question, presents yet another window on our bodies, ourselves, our naked souls. "A full glass of Bacardi 8 with a full breasted Latina," responds an assistant marketing manager for Bacardi. "Fashion consulting," replies a fashion consultant. "Cutting hair," reveals a haircutter. But Ego Trip cuts even deeper with its regular "Fifteen minutes of fame" interview. Look out, Michael Putney. Here comes the prince of South Florida reporting, the journalist still known as Buster, who recently confronted Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer in a historic Q&A. Buster: "During a commission meeting you said chances are there're just as many people doing illegal drugs at the Mix as there are at the Delano." Dermer: "There are some [clubs] that were bad and there were some that were good. I think Pump was actually one that had a pretty good record.... Since the nightlife industry is so important to the city, we want to make sure it's done properly." Ego Trip could be considered an authority on that topic, thanks to experts such as millionaire former club owner Shawn Lewis, who told New Times he bought the magazine in late 2000. Lewis left the South Beach club industry in early 2001 after a nasty legal dispute with former business partners. But such woes are nothing a cheerful disposition and a keen astrological awareness can't cure. "Keep smiling," advises publisher Buzzy Sklar, "because you never know when you might end up in Ego Trip magazine."
Let's face facts: It's no secret that thoroughly married women have by and large given up on the frills along with the sexual thrills. So you can pretty much assume that any female shopping at Victoria's Secret for lacy apparel that couldn't cover a kitten's rear end is on the legitimate prowl. And if she's not now, she's planning to be. So go ahead. Give it your best shot. Try picking her up while she's picking up a teddy.
Part records technician, part social worker, part comedienne, Minnie Bishop is a pleasant surprise when you walk into the Miami Beach Police Department's snazzy building at 1100 Washington Avenue. Even if it's five minutes till closing time, Bishop will deal with your problem without the hostile stare we've come to expect from government service workers. With a hearty laugh and a "Hold on, baby, we'll see what we can do for you," Bishop swings into action, brown eyes sparkling behind wire-frame glasses. She can help a domestic-abuse victim needing a battery report, fax police documents to the U.S. Attorney's Office, and keep up on the office gossip all at the same time. Bishop also has a million stories for every occasion, some sad, some funny, whatever she thinks you need to hear. "I've laughed at my desk and cried at my desk," she says.
According to OpenZine editors Humby and Kiki Valdes, this is an "urban subculture magazine." Did you know Destro is back? Bet you didn't even know Destro had left. (That's the name of a straight-edge rock band.) You'd be up on it had you been reading this zine. Just like you'd be privy to what's going on in the head of Kendall's own DJ EFN. "Yo, sometimes I'm like turn off that rock shit," he admitted in one OpenZine interview. "I can't even listen to salsa. My mind is strictly on hip-hop. As much as I love other types of music, I do have my periods where I only want hip-hop." Sons of Cuban immigrants who settled in New Jersey, the Miami-based Valdes brothers started their zine as a photocopied handout in the early Nineties. Humby, a 26-year-old graphic designer, first devoted it to punk/hardcore. Kiki, a 22-year-old painter, later inspired him to include hip-hop, "but with a punk attitude," the kid bro insists. It now is a glossy publication with some color pages (along with the Web presence). A news section keeps graffitiheads, art freaks, and all homies informed of important developments from MIA to NYC. Did you know, for example, that a New Jersey high-school teacher shut down students painting a mural of dead rappers Eazy-E, Tupac Shakur, B.I.G., and Big Pun? One memorable 64-page edition in 1998 included a spread on graffiti art in Miami and, as the editors promoted it, "a funny story about the Cuban Mafia." Three bucks an issue. Order or subscribe online.
Offense may fill the seats but defense fills the trophy case. UM can thank senior safety Ed Reed for playing a major role in delivering the 'Canes' fifth national championship. He led UM with 9 interceptions this year and a school-record 21 for his career there. With Reed calling and delivering the shots, the 'Canes finished the year first in scoring defense (9.4 points per game), shutouts (3), interceptions (27), and forced turnovers (45). Reed also came through with the defining play of the season when he ripped the ball from defensive tackle Matt Walters and romped 80 yards for the dagger that killed Boston College's hopes for an upset.
BEST RESOURCE FOR RECENT ARRIVALS
El Paracaidista: La guia del recien llegado a Miami
More than any other city in our great nation, Miami can use El Paracaidista (The Parachutist: Miami Newcomers' Guide), a year-old monthly newspaper that also appears online. Venezuelan Ira Guevara and Argentine Cynthia Zak, both thirtysomething journalists, say they founded El Paracaidista largely as a response to the Cuban balsero influxes of 1994 and 1998. The sheer numbers of Latin Americans who move to Hispanic-majority Miami every year make it expedient to form enclosed networks and never become integrated into mainstream U.S. society. Thus El Paracaidista does what its name implies: helps soften an immigrant's landing with an introduction to the complexities of American institutions and practices (of which even many natives are ignorant) -- everything from filing an income tax return or securing a home or business mortgage to locating the right magnet school, a doctor who makes house calls, or a good deal on a cell phone.
This award wasn't about to go to Pavel Bure, that's for sure, even if the Panthers hadn't traded the sulking Russian wingman to the Rangers in exchange for -- for, well, absolutely nothing. Bure's simmering discontent affected the whole team and kept the Panthers from seriously improving. Now, with him gone, the squad can build around its strengths, the most promising of which is Luongo. The one and only time the Panthers achieved success, including a trip to the Stanley Cup finals, was when a solid goaltender anchored a team of workmanlike scrappers. The goalie back then was named Vanbiesbrouck. Now, at the start of an era free of plastic rats raining down on the ice, Luongo is positioned to shine.
A swingin' bachelor pad's bathroom? The lavatory in a villain's hideout? Actually the ultracool restrooms at the museum of things made between 1885 and 1945 look more like the facilities in the Batcave, so don't be surprised if at any moment crime-fighting superheroes Batman and Robin roll up in the Batmobile for a pit stop. Gleaming black-glass walls, stainless-steel sinks and fixtures, tiny halogen pendant lights brightening the way to relief. As gleaming clean as Alfred would keep it. Holy modern conveniences, Batman, this is the perfect place to adjust your tights!
Following a trade from New Orleans, Williams comes to Miami as a bit of a weirdo (he used to keep his helmet on while signing autographs) and a bit of a slacker (so underwhelmed were the Saints with Williams they drafted another running back, in the first round, only one year after drafting Williams). Yet the Dolphins have every reason to expect great things from this youngster. The Heisman Trophy winner from Texas finally gives the Fish the offense they've needed for years, or at least since Jimmy Johnson returned to town: a big-time running back to anchor a pass-dependent offense. If Williams performs even marginally up to expectations, the Dolphins' offense should finally score some points. Even in the playoffs.
BEST SANCTUARY FROM THE FAST TRACK
Beach Bar at the Delano Hotel
The Beach Bar at the Delano opened in 1995 and was recently refurbished to a kind of post-Gatsby sheen. The best time to experience that sheen is about 1:00 a.m. on a weeknight, stretched out at one of the tables down at the end of the hotel's magnificent pool (officially known as the Water Salon). Designed by Philippe Starck, with its Liz Taylor-movie backlighting and drama, the curtains from the ground-level suites wafting like veils, the talk from the pool-shooters way back in the hotel wreathing you with tales of George Clooney and Elle McPherson, you soon forget the day's hustle and competition. And relax. The guys who work the bar -- Roberto, Bruno, Nick, Luis, and Dennis -- will build you a caipirinha, a kind of Brazilian mojito. If you get there a little earlier, you might want to go for the "grille menu," which includes two kinds of steaks, mahi-mahi, salads, and desserts, all for $40, and the Veuve Clicquot, which you can purchase by the glass for $20. If you get there really early, as of this spring, you can enjoy the Beach Party, which begins a half-hour before sunset and will feature DJs playing low-key lounge music. Because the idea is to get ... away ... from ... it ... all.
Anyone who needed proof that Zo is the heart, soul, and muscle of the Miami Heat got it when the most intense center in the NBA was knocked out of most of the 2000 season by a kidney ailment. He returned, half-strength, at the beginning of the 2001 season to a team as shaky as he was. But then the star power came through when a reinvigorated Zo rallied a ragged team in the second half of the season, turning an abysmal losing streak into a real shot at the playoffs. That even made the dour Pat Riley crack a courtside smile.
After working for others and then co-owning a short-lived but ambitious venture (The Strand), Bernstein took a major leap: She left South Beach for Brickell Key and the luxe Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Within a year food critic John Mariani from Esquire named her restaurant, Azul, the best of 2001. The Food TV network hired her to host a series on tropical foods. And the Vita-Prep people picked her to pose with a blender between her legs, an advertisement that numero uno trade mag Food Arts featured prominently. Can any other native make that kind of claim to national fame?
Forgive us our pride. Miami native Greenman worked for New Times after graduating from Palmetto Senior High and Yale University. In his time at the paper he wrote some excellent film and music criticism and several pretty darn funny stories. "Cracking Up" chronicled an experiment in which Greenman followed a mad scientist (the late John Detrick) around downtown Miami on a very hot summer day to see if eggs really would fry on sidewalks. During the 1991 tourism crisis, when violent criminals were targeting rental cars, Greenman produced the "New Times Rental Car Conversion Kit," a handy package of mail-order accessories tourists could use to give their rented vehicles a local look. Now based in New York, Greenman has embarked upon a bona fide literary career. By day he edits the extensive calendar section of The New Yorker magazine, to which he also contributes reviews and other material. In his free time he writes quirky and clever pieces of fiction that regularly appear in McSweeny's, the journal and Website (www.mcsweeneys.net). Last year the McSweeney's publishing imprint released Greenman's debut book, Superbad. According to reader postings on Amazon.com (and quoted by Greenman on his Website, www.bengreenman.com), "Superbad has been described as 'a masterpiece,' a 'piece of garbage,' and 'a book I haven't read yet but which I heard was pretty good in parts if annoying in other parts.'" Author Susan Minot had this to say after reading Superbad: "I don't know what goes on in Ben Greenman's mind, but inside there seems to be a Russian short-story writer, a slapstick gag writer, an art critic, a literary critic, a cultural commentator, a cowboy, a satirist, a scientist, a postmodernist, an anti-postmodernist, a surrealist, a nut, a genius, a stand-up comedian, a child prodigy, a dreamer, and a poet." When Greenman unveiled Superbad recently at Books & Books in Coral Gables, his proud parents invited the entire audience over to their house for coffee and cookies. As Greenman pointed out, this wasn't a take on some classic Andy Kaufman gag. Then again, he admitted, it kind of was.
On a young team loaded with prospects and emerging pitching talent, we especially like the promise that Beckett holds. The right-handed pitcher from Spring, Texas, was named USA Today's high-school pitcher of the year in 1999. He was also the first prep pitcher drafted by the Marlins in the first round. After starting last season with the AA Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs, Beckett debuted in the major leagues in September. Immediately he proved he belonged, allowing only one hit in six innings in a victory over the Cubs. In four starts Beckett allowed only one-and-a-half earned runs and struck out an average of one batter every inning. That was good enough to be named the team's rookie of the year by area sportswriters. That's no small achievement on this young team. And Beckett is no small talent.
She was a late entry in this contest, but Alonso decisively swept the field of contenders. At press time the Miami-Dade County Commissioner was facing one misdemeanor charge, three felony charges, and up to five years in prison. More charges are possible. Way back in 1993 New Times devoted 13,000 words to Alonso during her failed campaign to become mayor of Miami. The opus by former staff writer Steven Almond, "Meet Miami's Next Mayor," began with this: "On those days when passions flare, when Miami cannot help revealing its more ominous shadings, half the city seems determined to have Miriam Alonso canonized. And the other half to have her eliminated. There is no middle ground when it comes to the woman who would be Miami's next mayor. She is savior or demagogue, invisible outside extremes, and impossible to ignore." In retrospect the criminal charges shouldn't really surprise anyone. Questions about Alonso's integrity began the moment she arrived in the United States with her husband Leonel, who has been charged with four felonies and faces up to fifty years in prison. What were the circumstances under which they defected from Cuba? When exactly did they arrive in the United States? How had Miriam managed to obtain a Ph.D. in only three years? Why can no professor at Catholic University (Washington, D.C.) recall advising or approving her doctoral thesis? Where did she and her husband acquire the half-million dollars they'd spent by 1979 purchasing Miami real estate? These troubling questions and others remain unanswered. But a Miami judge had a solid answer for her in 1988: He yanked her from her debut race for a seat on the county commission after it was proven she didn't live at the address she listed on her oath of candidacy. If she was willing to cheat in order to run for office, is it such a stretch to imagine her cheating once she gained office? Here's something else to imagine, something even Alonso's sworn enemies must have thought improbable: Miriam behind bars.
You know there's something going on when 600 people turn out to watch a football game featuring four-year-olds. Yet that's what happens, dependably, when these two Liberty City parks play each other in Pop Warner football. No matter what the weight class, from the four-year-old pee wees up to the fifteen-year-old midgets, a game between Gwen Cherry and Liberty City generates an astounding amount of community interest. It's not uncommon for dedicated fans to wager a thousand dollars or more on their teams. In the past few seasons Gwen Cherry has held the upper hand, winning most of the games and even winning a national championship last year in the 110-pound weight class. But in Hadley Park, where the Warriors play, they've hardly abandoned hope. "We started the whole thing," one Warriors booster crows. "Our program was the first program in the inner city. Gwen Cherry was a spinoff from us, and they got all the money from the [Greater Miami] Boys and Girls Club and all these grants from the county so now they've got better uniforms and better equipment and that means they're getting better players. But the one thing they don't have, the one thing they'll never have, is Warrior pride. And without that? Shit, man, you don't got nothin'."
After buying the dismantled 1997 World Series champion Marlins from H. Wayne Huizenga, John Henry made lots of promises to South Florida baseball fans, a couple of which he actually kept. In the process he proved the fallacy of the expansion-team philosophy: Add more teams because TV needs more sports and fans will come. He also proved that, these days at least, megamillionaires have a hard time convincing the public of the need to underwrite new sports stadiums, even when they issue threats and plead a kind of rich man's poverty. So Henry sold the Marlins to Jeff Loria for $158.5 million and disappeared from Miami-Dade. But not before plunking down $600 million to purchase the Boston Red Sox.
Why do so many sanctimonious people turn out to be wicked? And has there been anyone in public life more sanctimonious than Demetrio Perez? Back in the Eighties, as a Miami City Commissioner, he sought to consecrate the Cuban-exile cause by, among other things, introducing a resolution to have the city honor convicted terrorist Orlando Bosch, handing the violently anti-Castro group Alpha 66 a taxpayer gift of $10,000, and demanding that director Brian De Palma rewrite the script of Scarface to soften its harsh portrayal of Cuban immigrants. Later, as candidates maneuvered for appointment as city manager, he was accused of but never charged with offering to sell his vote for $50,000. As a member of the school board he argued that students should be forced to rise whenever an adult entered their classroom, that the National Guard provide school security, and that uniforms be mandatory at all schools. As a "safety measure" he wanted all students to squeeze through a human cattle chute lined with metal detectors and x-ray machines. Suspension as a form of punishment was ineffective, he argued, and should be replaced with hard labor. All this while lying about where he lived in order to run for his seat on the board. And don't forget his shrill pronouncements against the violence fostered by America's gun culture -- this from a man whose concealed-weapon permit allowed him to pack heat at all times, which he did with relish and without apology. He even was arrested carrying two handguns through a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport. His chain of private Lincoln-Martí schools teach a rigid and hateful form of moral discipline, to which he gleefully subjected little Elian Gonzalez while simultaneously and shamelessly exploiting the boy for publicity purposes. But the end of Perez's long turn on the public stage revealed the depths of his depravity. A rich man, he was caught stealing $18,000 in rent and subsidies from two elderly women who were his tenants. In September he pleaded guilty to five federal criminal charges, but he escaped prison time. Too bad. Some hard labor might have done him good.
Architect B. Kingston Hall designed the Seymour in 1936 for developer Benjamin London, who named it after his son Seymour. Sixty-six years later the tropical Art Deco jewel still stands, nestled in the center of the nation's only historic district composed entirely of twentieth-century structures. But it lives a new life. In keeping with the Miami Beach Community Development Corporation's mission of illuminating the economic viability of historic preservation, the property, acquired in January 1998, underwent a complete renovation and reopened in August 2001. Currently MBCDC headquarters, it also houses a local office of the Florida Department of Children and Families and a one-stop career center for the Hispanic Community Center, plus it plays host to exhibitions and lectures. The Seymour boasts smart touches, including original color schemes such as a gleaming white exterior and forest-green and deep-burgundy lobby, a restored ziggurat fireplace, and tile-and-wood floors in the exhibition space featuring patterns that outline the original floor plan. An exuberant example of Art Deco, the Seymour also accommodates the Urban Arts Committee, a group of concerned citizens passionate about preserving and promoting midcentury Miami modern architecture (MiMO), the Technicolor splendor of which was evident in the Seymour's inaugural art display: "MiMO -- Miami Modern Architecture, 1945-1972: A Photography Exhibit."
We like Don Noe for what he is not. He's not a bumbling grandpa bouncing through the low and high temperatures. Nor is he a slinky siren in a miniskirt relaying the boating conditions in a sweater tight enough to impede speech. He's just a no-nonsense guy, friendly enough but with a reliable weather forecast delivered quickly and without pretense. That's all we ask. Noe is no mere weather reader. He's a certified meteorologist, meaning he knows about the science of weather patterns. Armed with this knowledge, he shines brightest when facing a crisis, such as a hurricane, which fortunately we haven't had in a while. When we do, as we inevitably will, we trust Noe to steer us through it calmly, professionally, and capably.
Reasons the loquacious, pugnacious, and thoroughly informed emcee of Habla el Pueblo (The People Speak) likes his new home at WKAT-AM (1360), Radio Uno: "It's very professional. There's no interference from the management." Compared to, say, WWFE-AM (670), La Poderosa, whose owner canceled Milian's show this past November after the host criticized Miami City Commission candidate Angel Gonzalez. (Gonzalez then paid the station several thousand dollars to use Milian's time slot for campaigning.) Milian had inherited the show on La Poderosa from his father Emilio, whose legs were blown off by a bomb in 1976 after he criticized the violent tactics of anti-Castro extremists. A former Broward County assistant state prosecutor, Milian peppers his aggressive style of public-policy debate with the most elevated put-downs on the Spanish-language AM dial. (Habla el Pueblo airs on WKAT weekdays from noon to 1:00 p.m.) During one show about allegations that Jackson Memorial Hospital is saving money for buildings rather than spending it on suffering patients, Milian offered a characteristically sharp simile: "It's like having money in the bank while your relatives are dying of hunger." He recently upbraided a caller with this: "I came here to live freely, not to live in another dictatorship. The only thing evil needs to triumph is for us to remain silent." Staying quiet is not in Al Milian's program, which he sees as a tool for pounding the moral turpitude out of Miami-Dade's sleazy ancien régime. "We're going to overcome the corrupt bastards," he assures between shows. "I have the sledgehammer."
It's an enormous inverted salad bowl. Or maybe it's headquarters of the Justice League of America, where superheroes Aquaman, Superman, and Wonder Woman gather to hatch world-saving strategies. Actually the distinctive building that distracted you so much you nearly veered off the road is the Aventura Government Center. Dreamed up by Michael A. Schiff & Associates and Arquitectonica, the striking contemporary structure swathed in glass and Indiana limestone features a spectacular sloped rotunda, where elected officials meet to make city policy. Since it opened in May 2001, the 72,000-square-foot marvel, housing all government operations (including the police department) has become what its creators had hoped: a one-stop shop for dealing with city business. And quite the looker as well.
And girlfriend, we do mean personality. Although Mark Moseley did a decent job for years pretending to be queer, Lita lit up the airwaves with tough-as-nails humor only a real big queen could hammer home. Whether dispensing no-nonsense fashion sense to Hialeah hootchies or dishing the dirt on that tacky J-Lo, Lita told it like it is. We don't care if she did write a column for that other weekly. In these sensitive post 9/11 times, who else dared go where Lita went, beyond bad taste to the cavities where the vulgar becomes sublime? Who else could shut up the whole morning crew with tales of playing hide-the-bin-laden in a boyfriend's deep dark caves? We'll miss Lita so.
Like all truly great annual traditions, Lincoln Road's Halloween parade just sort of happened. There is no sponsor, no formal organization, no one in charge. It's simply an outgrowth of the Road's late-Nineties transformation from a deserted strip into one of South Florida's prime people-watching spots. For locals who hardly need a holiday as an excuse to pose for a closeup, showing up in their Halloween costumes has become a no-brainer. Consequently veteran attendees know to stake out a sidewalk café seat early. Order dinner and a few drinks -- by nightfall the pedestrian mall is engulfed with dead Elvises, vampires, and every drag queen within a 50-mile radius -- all strutting their stuff for an appreciative audience. Never has the phrase freak show been so apropos, or so enjoyable.
A lot of South Floridians quietly cheered this past November when Gittens, less than a year into her tenure as Miami-Dade County's aviation director, lambasted the county commission as "lobby heaven," and accused a lobbyist of lying during a presentation. (Carl Hiaasen described MIA at the time Gittens took over in March 2001 as "operating with all the charm and efficiency of a hillside brothel during an earthquake.") Gittens had a history of successfully fighting corruption in her previous job as director of Atlanta's sprawling Hartsfield International Airport. And even though Miami-Dade County Manager Steve Shiver called her on the carpet for her lobbyist outburst, Gittens hasn't stopped telling it like it is at MIA, or working hard for a more equitable and efficient system of awarding contracts.
BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE RADIO PERSONALITY
Ninoska Perez Castellon
Ninoska a la una
WQBA-AM (1140)
Ninoska isn't for everyone, but unlike most of her peers in the anti-Castro radio business, she's not a megalomaniac and she isn't using her high-profile platform as much for her own career advancement as for communicating her passionately held beliefs about her homeland. Ninoska is in fact a good communicator and her shows have more flavor than the endless other exile call-in programs, simply because she makes an effort to be in touch with real Cubans, both on and off the island. These days she doesn't do as much of what made her famous -- those often hilarious crank phone calls to Cuba meant to expose the foibles of self-important Communist Party officials and of the system they uphold. But Ninoska, despite a predictably Evil Fidel spin on everything, still manages to be more on top of Cuba-related events and trends than just about any other exile talk-show host anywhere.
Somogyi gets the nod for her droll, inventive Fifties design scheme, in itself a hilarious social critique. From nightmarish polka dots and pony skirts to her big-shouldered suits for the men, the New York designer brought Red Herring an added level of comedy and social commentary. Somogyi has tailored her craft to this era before. She was the one who dressed up Kathleen Turner as Tallulah Bankhead at the Coconut Grove Playhouse and sent us back, through ball gowns, to Forties post-war America.
For anyone not familiar with the local "rancho" phenomenon, Rancho Grande is a revelation. It really is a ranch of sorts, complete with horses and the occasional whiff of barnyard, way out in what passes for the countryside. But it's a club of sorts too. Tables and chairs are spread around a dance floor, all open to the breeze but sheltered from rain by a patchwork roof. You can drop by any weekend (not open weekdays) dressed like a guajiro or a prom queen or a yachtsman and lounge around drinking beer, sampling the excellent Cuban cooking (while it lasts), and watching. Infants and grandparents, fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, hairless, hirsute. The main reason to drop by is to dance to the DJ music (all Latin varieties), and that's another revelation: On any given Saturday night there's the lone exhibitionist, seemingly a different man each week, stepping and turning for hours in extended experimental theater. There are the couples with amazing vibrating butts. The salseros. The bachateros. The vendors of flowers, toys, chains and watches, snapshots of you, and "African art." Sooner or later almost everyone joins the parade at Rancho Grande.
There's nothing quite like surrounding oneself in bromeliads to ease the troubled mind. This lush little enclave has 150 different kinds. "Bromeliads are cherished for their lovely variations of color, spectacular bloom shoots, and their important role supporting animal life via rainwater collected in their rosettes of leaves," notes the garden's Website. From time to time a greedy subspecies of urban wildlife has been known to sneak in and run off with a few orchids from the Arthur Laufferberger Memorial Orchidaria, another feature of this sanctum. But you can relax. That security problem has been addressed, according to the nonprofit Beach Garden Conservancy, which manages this refuge from the sands and sidewalks of South Beach. The Japanese Garden is an oasis within an oasis. A number of tables and benches scattered throughout the grounds provide perches for those who may enter to slake their thirst or hunger with a little food or drink. The gardens are open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free.
Using an all white-set and a series of mobile screens, Becker created an ever-shifting fun house of mobile space, a perfect setting for Lee Blessing's elusive, dreamlike comedy that offered director Michael Bigelow Dixon plenty of staging opportunities. The space allowed the play itself to expand into the marvelous production that it was. If you wanted to see how it's done, this was the perfect learning ground.
It's a bright and sunny weekend morning. You're headed down to the Keys for some R&R. You think you're pretty smart to use the Shula (SR 874) because it isn't heavily traveled at this hour and it's the quickest way to join up with the southbound turnpike. As you approach the exit for SW 107th Avenue you become aware of a change in your surroundings. Everything seems to open up -- wider lanes, broad grassy median, a smooth ribbon of highway beckoning to you. Is this the turnpike already? Just as you're about to pass under the bridge some involuntary reflex causes you to floor it. You begin to smile. So does the state trooper standing on the bridge, radar gun aimed right at you. Then a quick radio call to one of several FHP cars poised at the on-ramp. You're doomed and don't even know it.
This Palm Beach County company serves up challenging productions with a nice blend of local and New York actors and a welcome infusion of very talented directors and designers from across the nation. Artistic director Louis Tyrrell has an excellent instinct for play selection and maintains close relationships with several important playwrights. The result is a sophisticated level of theater artistry that sets the standard in South Florida. Some highlights this season: the sly and sophisticated comedy Red Herring, set during the McCarthy era (hey, red baiting can be a hoot!), and Lee Blessing's Black Sheep, also a dark comedy that takes aim at racial relations, the idle rich, and insipid pop culture (hey, maybe it's American culture in general that's a hoot!).
More kudos for the little Florida Stage that could. But here's why: Stephen G. Anthony, Patricia Dalen, Suzanne Grodner, Kendra Kassebaum, Johnathan F. McClain, and Gordon McConnell. This outstanding cast served up an endless stream of hilarious yet sometimes touching characters in this black comedy, from Anthony's tortured G-man to Grodner's wacky Mrs. McCarthy, the wife of Senator Joe, to Kassebaum's smoldering, sex-hungry good girl. This romp of a production included romance and intrigue, spies and bagmen, nuclear secrets and red scares, hard liquor and clever parody. The cast took the basket of outrageous thematic goodies and ran with spirit, hilarity, wit, and panache. Can't wait for more.
Grimm displays a willingness to actually leave his desk, unlike some columnists we know. And as far as we've seen, he has never wasted column space writing about the comments generated by his last column. No, Grimm goes down to city hall and rummages through files. He visits the boulevard where protesters marched, and he witnesses the sentencing hearing from the courtroom. Such shoe-leather reporting informs Grimm's intelligent opinions on the news of the moment. Generally warm and funny, Grimm can definitely be prickly on occasion, and appropriately so. His subjects are as far-ranging as cockfighting, black-market plastic surgery, failed shopping malls, swingers clubs, and the tasteless campaign of "Pete the Fireman" Iriardi, an obscure political candidate who attempted to exploit a 9/11 heroism he completely fabricated. Grimm makes all these issues (and many others) relevant to his readers. In his eyes, South Florida is the most interesting, crazy place in the country. He is, of course, right about that.
What's the difference between a black box and a full theater? Size, yes. The first is much more intimate. But in the right hands a black-box experience becomes something entirely new. Like when a director decides to ignore the confines of a stage and work with the space as a whole. Like when homegrown writer/director Michael John Garces decides to use Juggerknot's Biscayne Boulevard box for his one-act audiovideo, which blew away just about everything else produced in this town. The other half of the show, land, as well as most stuff performed at Juggerknot, was top-notch, but audiovideo stands alone. We didn't watch actors on a stage. We watched two teenage boys move around our literal and metaphorical basement as they discussed what to do with a lost sex videotape they had made. The directing was so tight, the acting so skilled (bravo to Oscar Isaac and David Perez), the dialogue so clever (the speech is often fragmentary, the boys finish each others' sentences, or let physical acts do the talking) that the audience was left wondering just exactly what they had seen -- that was not simply theater, was it? No, it was simply great.
Somehow we missed that particular issue of Caretas, the respected Peruvian newsweekly, the one in which it reported that Peruvian congresswoman Cecilia Tait was pregnant with a child conceived with the cooperation of Miami Herald reporter Tyler Bridges. But there it was in Joan Fleischman's "Talk of Our Town" column, in the very paper that employs Bridges. "He looks like Richard Gere but with green eyes," Tait told Caretas. Seriously? Tyler Bridges? The same Tyler Bridges who, in a Herald opinion piece, pondered the eerie similarities between his life and that of the late John F. Kennedy, Jr.? (Sample: "John John went to Brown. I went to Stanford.") More recently Bridges shared with readers his experiences preparing for and running a marathon. Surely he won't keep us waiting too long for the details of his long-distance political liaison. We'll be patient -- and maybe nervous.
BEST LOCALLY PRODUCED STAGE COMEDY
Here in My Car
Mad Cat Productions
Miami Light Project's Light Box Theatre
The trick of a successful comedy is to walk the fine line between life and art, which the local acting troupe Mad Cat did so humorously in their third production, Here in My Car. It cleverly combined a bit of Melrose Place with a healthy dose of The Real World and plunked it down in Miami. This original piece, penned by Ivonne Azurdia and Paul Tei, was a series of vignettes that connected the loves and lives of eleven Miamians. All the action took place in an early-Eighties model Honda, an artifice that gave the piece cohesiveness and a dramatic starting and finishing point. The two writers, approximately ten years apart in age, brought an interesting blend of decades to the writing: references to Paul McCartney and Wings and Less Than Zero spliced with talk of Green Day and Blink-182. What kept Here in My Car from being a narcissistic, "Hey! A Play About Me and My Friends!" production was Tei's excellent direction and the Mad Cats themselves, one of the most spontaneous and adventurous group of actors Miami has to offer.
BEST PARKING GARAGE
Seventeenth Street at Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach
You don't have to live in South Beach to be painfully aware of the fact that finding a place to park your car qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. Keep this garage in mind next time you're about to lose your mind in the quest for parking. Owned by the City of Miami Beach, the Seventeenth Street garage could not be more conveniently located. It's an easy walk to the Jackie Gleason Theater, the convention center, Lincoln Road, and only five short blocks from the beach. It's open 24 hours a day and has space for a whopping 1460 vehicles. The dollar-per-hour rate (maximum eight hours) is quite reasonable. On special-event days it's a flat rate of five dollars. According to city officials, the garage opened 25 years ago, but a thorough renovation in 1996 expanded the facility and spruced it up considerably. You can almost always count on finding a space there, shielded from the blazing sun and close to where you want to go.
"Buenos dias" in the morning. "Buenos tardes" in the afternoon. "Buenas noches" after the sun goes down, just before they lock up the store for the night. "¿Como andas?" "¿Como andamaos?" "¿Que pasó?" The list runs through your head every time you go for a newspaper. The fates have placed you in Little Havana and you're okay with it. In fact you like it, how real the neighborhood feels, how different it seems from everywhere else in America you've lived. Unfortunately you don't speak Spanish -- at all. Or at least not more than a few words. You're painfully monolingual, though you keep trying. Every day you buy your paper at the neighborhood bodega, the one with the shrine to San Lazaro burning near the cash register. Every day you wave and say hello to the butcher. He's 92 years old, you're told. He sits there every day, liver spots sprinkled over his face, all his hair gone. Plastic-wrapped hams and strange-looking cheeses mummify in a cooler. "¡Hola!" he says to you one morning. You do know that one and respond in kind. The next day, when you see him, you smile and prepare for a similar exchange. "¿Como andas?" he asks. What?!? What are you supposed to say to that? You head home and flip through a Spanish dictionary. You call a friend and ask for an appropriate reply. By the next morning you're smarter. But so is he, sitting behind his meat cooler, eating cheese off a cracker. "¿Que tal, mi amigo?" he calls out, reaching over the cooler to warmly grasp your hand. You stare at him blankly, frozen in fear. ¿Que tal? Where the hell did that come from? You mumble something, "Bien" probably, grab your paper and scurry back to your dictionary. Tomorrow you'll be ready.
As Max, a spoiled rich kid turned film critic, Tei turned in an over-the-top performance that stole the show, no small feat in a very strong cast and very strong play. But Tei's done it before, in the fabulous Popcorn last year at GableStage and other productions around town. It was time, however, for Tei to break mold and this year he did, pushing into new emotional territory in his own Mad Cat company's dark tale, Portrait, and as the tortured, sarcastic, vodka-swilling Sergio in New Theatre's Smithereens. Yet Tei's ability to wring humor out of twisted situations is one of his best assets, and as the terminally juvenile Max he did just that, giving South Florida a genuine treat.
The Miami Light Project, a nonprofit cultural arts organization founded by Janine Gross and Caren Rabbino, gained a solid reputation soon after its debut in 1989. Today it is best known for bringing to Miami performances by renowned contemporary music, dance, and theater artists. Miami Light also commissions new works and provides an outlet for Miami's own avant-garde performing artists. In this town, however, unfettered artistic expression has been a complicated affair, particularly when Cuban nationals are involved. By the time Beth Boone became executive director of Miami Light, in May 1998, the complications had gained national notoriety, facilitated by a county law severely restricting the circumstances under which Cuban artists could appear here. Despite very real risks to her organization's financial health, in May 2000 Boone and Miami Light joined with the ACLU and several others in successfully challenging the so-called Cuba ordinance in federal court. With the law on her side, Boone proceeded to introduce Miami to a glittering array of Cuban artists. In just the past twelve months she's sponsored performances by Grupo Vocal Desandann, Los Fakires, and the legendary Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. But Miami Light has a much broader mission. Under Boone's guidance, in the past year alone we've had the opportunity to see Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, and Miami's own Teo Castellanos as he created his one-man hit NE 2nd Avenue. That's the kind of cultural kaleidoscope that makes living in Miami worthwhile.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Brenda Thomas
Bee-luther-hatchee
Florida Stage
Thomas was outstanding as Libby Price, a world-weary black woman adrift in the Southern racial struggles of the Sixties in this interesting production. ("Bee-luther-hatchee" is early twentieth-century African-American slang for a faraway, damnable place, the next station after the stop for Hell.) This was the New York-based actress's first stop in South Florida, and her emotionally compelling work was a model of simplicity and clarity, and left an indelible mark on the memory. With more such roles, maybe we'll be fortunate enough to see more of Thomas on our stages.
On the University of Miami campus it is possible to take a short walk in the woods and end up on what seems like a tour of the globe. Founded in 1947, the Gifford arboretum was named for the first graduate forester in the U.S., a UM professor and expert on tropical woods. At one time there were more than 500 species here, but in the Seventies and Eighties the collection suffered from neglect and a few were lost. Then, as bulldozers prepared to carve more parking lots out of the campus's north end, local activist Kathy Gaubatz stepped in and saved the place from ruin. The collection, which now includes about 450 species, has been renovated and inked in on the university's master plan. The plants are being retagged and a new checklist of the holdings compiled. It is a little-known sanctuary, and according to director Carol Horvitz, a UM biology professor, one of the few places in South Florida to find a fully labeled grouping of more than 90 percent of the 130 species of shrubs and trees native to the area. From a box by the parking lot, pick up a brochure and begin a self-guided tour through thirteen families of tropical and subtropical plants, including palms, figs, hardwoods, and ornamentals. The trail is well marked, the plants all wear tags bearing their common and Latin names, and benches here and there invite repose and reflection. Note the handsome lignum vitae tree, planted more than 50 years ago.
Serving up a rogues' gallery of local Miami characters, Castellanos showed off his considerable performing and writing gifts in one of the theater season's highlights. Donning different hats, literally, Castellanos took on the accent, the movements, indeed the appearance of a Haitian jitney driver, a small-time Wynwood ("Wynwooood") Puerto Rican drug dealer, a Cuban vendor, a Hialeah teenager, a black woman, Jamaican man, Jewban grandfather. With humor and an authentic feel for the streets, Castellanos brought home the wonderful diversity that is Miami in the cozy Encore Room at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, a bravura theatrical experience sponsored by the Miami Light Project.
Roza was memorable as a tightly wound professional woman in Manhattan being stalked by a would-be suitor. Her emotional range and willingness to explore the character's ugly sides helped turn Rebecca Gilman's issue-driven potboiler into a dark, troubling character study. We've seen Roza before in other psychological dramas, such as Extremities, where she played a rape victim who turns the tables on the perpetrator, literally and emotionally trapping her tormentor; and in her disturbing performance in Medea Redux (the title tells you something), one of three plays in Bash by Neil LaBute, where she revealed a simultaneous vulnerability and hardness that made us remember why watching live performances by talented actors is a riveting experience.
In Miami, the poorest large city in the nation, women and girls make up the majority of those living below the poverty line. It's a disgrace for Miami and a disgrace for mainstream charities that historically have shortchanged programs specifically for women and girls. And it should embarrass the Florida legislature, which continues its relentless drive to eliminate desperately needed social services. The Women's Fund makes up for some of the neglect by funding innovative and often ignored organizations and projects, programs that cultivate creativity and self-reliance, that help girls and women break abusive or addictive bonds and develop their strengths and talents. Women's Fund grantees don't get a lot of money. Last year the three-year-old nonprofit (affiliated with the worldwide Women's Funding Network) awarded a total of $51,500 to sixteen specific projects, some operated by local social-services and immigrant-relief organizations, but most of them unknowns such as MZ Goose, Pridelines Youth Services, and URGENT Inc. The funding totals a mere fraction of what most lobbyists make in a year, but it's a start.
Haig's performance in this show (at the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation) was little seen but indelible. An insular literature professor imprisoned in war-torn Beirut, chained in place for the entire play, Haig could barely move, not even stand, but nevertheless managed to conjure up a moving, nuanced portrait of a limited, conflicted man who discovers a well of strength he never knew existed. As a medieval scholar, Haig's character initially seems the frail one, a man living through his ancient texts in an ivory tower into which harsh reality never makes its way. But Haig reveals a man capable of something more, and shows us a strength derived from words, not force. Haig has always chosen intelligent roles, so it's worth your while to choose his performances whenever they pop up.
The Banana Bungalow is a youth hostel, but a nice one. Pastel-colored and improbably located in one of the most expensive tourist traps in the world, the bungalow is low-key and freewheeling. The young and adventurous from around the globe pour in and out of this place, wedged into the southern end of the Indian Creek waterway. They sit by the pool, play billiards, trade tall tales by the bar. The bartender decides nightly what the happy-hour special will be, but the beer is always cheap. A night will cost you around $15 to share a room with three other travelers; private rooms $50 and up.
They were proof of Miami's status as the Latin-music capital of the world. They were an engine of economic growth. They were a sign of our slowly developing political tolerance. They were a plot to thrust subversive Cuban musicians into our midst. They were the pride and joy of Emilio Estefan, Jr. They were the downfall of exile extremists. They were a glamorous, gaudy, God-awful fuss. But most of all, they were gone. Poof! Somewhere in Southern California, then-Grammys honcho Michael Greene is still smiling at his sleight-of-hand.
And the winner is.... Once again the award goes to Adler for his range of work and the professionalism with which it is produced. From gritty naturalism in the creepy and mind-bending Boy Gets Girl to lyrical musical drama in The Dead to the brilliant absurdism of Edward Albee's The Play About the Baby, Adler moves all over the stylistic map and handles each stop with assurance. His direction is marked by clarity, energy, and a palpable love for the actor's craft. It's no coincidence that many actors shine in his productions. Until someone else manages all this in one season, the crown remains firmly planted.
Sure, the heat and humidity is a killer. But just look at those soft curls you've developed, the streaks of gold in your hair, the silky texture. Who needs a high-priced salon when you can get touched up by the sun? Think of it as deep-heat conditioning for free. Indeed the only folks who don't have a reason to stay in Miami for the summer are, well, the high-priced stylists.
BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
Cenizas Sobre el Mar
Teatro Avante
On a metaphorical sea four rafters (a soldier, an explorer, a priest, and an archetypal female) became more than refugees -- they grew into symbols of rebirth and redemption in Teatro Avante's rendition of Colombian playwright José Assad's Cenizas Sobre el Mar (Ashes on the Sea). An enigmatic elixir of magical realism and theater of the absurd, the play, written by Assad in 1989 to commemorate the 500-year anniversary of the so-called discovery of America, concerned four rafters who have been adrift at sea for 100 years. They are symbols of Latin America as a continent of people uprooted, at war, searching, creating and re-creating identities. The key to the play's success? The trinity of theater's most fundamental elements: script, set, and performance. Assad's wonderfully poetic text worked like waves, using the ebb and flow of fixed refrains to give it cohesiveness. Ingeniously, set designer Leandro Soto, an accomplished Cuban visual artist himself, wove together shells, rags, and rope in a circle on the floor, making the raft a blank canvas rather than the site for a real voyage. The actors managed to shape-shift yet remain recognizable. They were at once thumb-sucking and ornery children, raving madmen, soldiers, travelers, and lovers. Cenizas Sobre el Mar revived and reinvigorated the age-old symbol of the sea as the universal metaphor for life, travel, birth, passage, and death. We were lucky to have it wash up on our shores.
Who's afraid of putting on Edward Albee? Not GableStage. And this production of the playwright's mind-bending verbal labyrinth was a dizzying, enigmatic tour de force. Strong all around, from Joseph Adler's crisp staging through the tight and engrossing performances (including some nifty work from John Felix and Cynthia Caquelin). Add to the mix the excellent work of Jeff Quinn, Daniela Schwimmer, and Nat Rauch -- for sets/lighting, costumes, and sound respectively -- and what you get is hard to beat, even if it were competing in a theatrical capital.
The best new building won't be there much longer. It will be taken down not because it is an historic landmark no one cared about but because it wasn't meant to last. But while it stands, it's incredible to behold. Artist George Sanchez decided to create a model of the famous 1929 Le Corbusier house in France, an exquisite example of modernist architecture, and put it up underneath the I-395 underpass off NW Thirteenth Street. That's right -- Overtown at its most blighted decrepitude. It sits clean and sleek -- at night it glows -- amid the concrete and filth of Miami's neglected urban core. Sanchez called it "The Blessing." Maybe that's what the city will need to follow the artist's path and create permanent beauty and hope in an area too long without it.
This place is known for its amazing Saturday and Sunday dim sum brunches, in which customers choose from authentic comestibles presented on rolling carts. And it is precisely this movable feast that makes Tropical a great venue for a debut date. For one thing, you can order as much or as little as you want, which means the date can last as long or short as you wish. Like her? Slowly sample all 56 dumplings, buns, rolls, and tarts. Less than thrilled with him? Over shrimp rice pasta, develop a sudden seafood allergy. Want to test his spirit of adventure? Grab an order of chicken feet or fried squid heads. Need to know if she's got a gag reflex? Serve her a sample of congee garnished with a thousand-year-old egg. Best of all, whatever the outcome of this encounter, dim sum ends at 3:30 p.m., which means you've got the rest of the day to, uh, fool around.
Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion Leonard has done what retired fighters just don't do. He's crossed over from the exploited to the exploiter. He has become a boxing promoter. But Leonard isn't much like the parasitic thugs who control professional pugilism. He says he wants to make boxing shows more competitive instead of producing snoozers staged to build up the records of contenders. In two programs so far this year at the American Airlines Arena, both televised on ESPN2, Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing delivered two IBA world-title fights, including Roy Jones, Jr.'s first-ever bout in Miami, and some quality undercard bouts. You can't give Leonard all the credit for raising the boxing profile in Miami. The first fight program at the AAA -- Don King's Felix Trinidad-Mamadou Thiam matchup in July 2000 -- sold out, and the regular televised shows at Miccosukee Indian Gaming aren't all bad. Some sportswriters are saying Miami is making a comeback as a major fight venue. And the presence of Leonard, who recently signed Miami-based Cuban star Diobelys Hurtado, is definitely a catalyst.
A recent Mendez client is serving a nineteen-year sentence in federal prison after a Miami jury convicted him of espionage, along with four other Cuban agents. But one must judge a lawyer by the principles for which he stands, even when they are misunderstood and unpopular. For Mendez one of them is the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." Numerous Cuban-American lawyers in Miami declined to defend those charged with spying for Cuba. And sure enough, once the trial began, fanatical anti-Castro radio commentators called Mendez a "scoundrel" for taking the job. In so doing they impugned not only Mendez but one of the most crucial of American judicial institutions, the Office of the Federal Public Defender, Mendez's employer. The public defender provides counsel even to the most unseemly of characters, who are, under our system, still innocent until proven guilty. Beating an espionage rap, however, is almost impossible, and jurors were not about to forgive anyone who appeared to be snooping around U.S. military bases. Judge Joan Lenard slammed four of the defendants with the maximum penalties allowed, but Mendez managed to shave 11 years off the nearly 30-year sentence federal prosecutors had sought for his client.
At any given moment, in some time zone, a fashion show is under way. Don't believe us? Just click your cable remote to Fashion TV and observe 24 solid hours a day of runway shows, complete with strutting models, over-the-top haute couture, and bowing designers. The eye candy is equal-opportunity -- there's just as much beef- as cheesecake on display -- and the segments even get historical (ah, so that's what Versace's fall 1999 line looked like). Captured by video crews at events from downtown New York to downtown Moscow, shipped back to FTV's Miami Beach studio, and then beamed around the globe by more than 30 satellites, it's enough to make a fashionista's heart flutter. True, not everyone needs a steady diet of runway walkers. In that case just crank up your television's volume and discover one of our city's best unsung radio stations, spinning 24 uninterrupted hours of cutting-edge beats, down-tempo hip-hop, and a dash of underground rock and roll. (Check your local cable listings for Fashion TV's channel.)
The Fontainebleau was ten years old in 1964, when the James Bond film Goldfinger opened with a glorious view of the high-rise curving toward the sea and its guests drinking martinis by the huge swimming pool and its waterfall. That was when the Fontainebleau was a celebrity hotel that attracted the stars of the day: Steve Allen hosted the Tonight Show there, and its La Ronde Room booked the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and even Elvis Presley. Other movie scenes have since been set at Morris Lapidus's sublime temple of whimsy, loved and loathed by critics for its colorful and hyper-glamorous design and furnishings. Like an aging screen siren, the Fontainebleau has inevitably had its nips, tucks, and makeovers. In keeping with Miami's Latinization, the La Ronde Room is now the Tropigala nightclub, redone in a tropical motif, and Latin-American tourists make up much of the hotel's clientele. And of course time and the economic downturn have dulled the glitz overall. But the Fontainebleau will always be an icon.
The veteran sports guy has a couple of things going for him: He was a jock -- a star receiver for the Miami Dolphins -- and he's got great hair. But he also seems to know that a good sportscaster ought to do more than just recite the scores. Recent example: The Miami Heat pulled out a February overtime win against the Bucks in Milwaukee after Jimmy Jackson tied the score in regulation on a last-second three-pointer. But Jackson got the ball on a pass from Eddie Jones after Jones committed a blatant double dribble that the refs somehow missed. Television viewers saw it, the announcers announced it, and after the game Jones admitted it. That night some Miami television sportscasters never even mentioned the critical moment on which the game turned. But Cefalo led with the blown call. Moreover on most broadcasts Cefalo looks like he's actually interested in the subject, even when he's just reading hockey scores. And during the winter Olympics he reported the results of the ice-skating competition as if that were a real sport! Whoa.
Miami has had its fair share of zines and Websites vying to be the source when it comes to covering nightlife. Clubhoppers comes closest to earning the title. Listing various venues and acts is no difficult task; anyone with e-mail or a fax machine can obtain the info and regurgitate it for the public. Presenting the information with flair, humor, and hilarious photos sets Clubhoppers apart. Its evening guides, accurate and current, are indispensable, but it's the weekly photographs that put this site over the top. Moments of intoxicated bliss, gregarious foreplay, law-enforcement confrontations, and more. Clubhoppers reminds us what going out is all about.
To the unaware, Mike Bode could be just any other UPS guy. He wears a brown shirt and brown shorts. He drives a brown van around South Beach, concentrating on Lincoln Road. But he's not. His customers describe him as the hardest-working human being on the planet. Store owners up and down the Road sing his praises unsolicited. Phrases like "amazingly conscientious" come up often. "He never gets down, no matter if he's lugging around dozens and dozens of boxes," marvels one merchant. "He's always up. They need to clone him. The whole world should just be like Mike." It's obvious Bode takes pride in his work. "The best part of my job is being able to make people happy," he explains. "My grandfather taught me to treat people the way you want to be treated. He also told me to enjoy my job. If you don't enjoy what you do, why do it?"
If they're visiting from out of town, there's a good chance they're not familiar with the word guajiro. In Cuba it's the name given to country folk, that island nation's noble peasants. Rancho Don Goyo, a rustic retreat in Miami's own countryside, keeps the guajiro spirit alive on Saturdays and Sundays, when Cuban immigrant Gregorio Arensibia, better known as Don Goyo, throws open the gates to his two-acre ranch and invites in the world. Bring your guests here and let them experience a peculiar and exotic aspect of Miami: This really is not the U.S.A. From noon until roughly 10:00 p.m. South Florida residents hailing from all over Latin America gather for food, drink, music, and dance in an atmosphere that feels a lot like home, whether that was Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, or Cuba. Rancho Don Goyo is marked by an unassuming sign on the north side of Okeechobee Road (U.S. 27) beyond the turnpike, after it opens up under a big sky and a landscape of broad fields. (If you reach the junction with Krome Avenue you've gone too far.) A dusty side road takes you to a makeshift parking lot, then on to the heart of the place -- a ramshackle general store and an immense open-air restaurant where patrons enjoy their beers along with a tempting variety of freshly grilled meats and tangy side dishes. When live bands aren't playing, the jukebox kicks in. Either way the dance floor will always be occupied. If possible try to be there on a Sunday afternoon when local enthusiasts of punto guajiro take to the stage. Punto guajiro is a Cuban musical invention of improvised lyrics set to the poetic decima, a traditional Spanish form favored by itinerant troubadours of yore. At Don Goyo's the tradition lives with an exuberance that requires no translation. Fun and games and barnyard animals for the kids. Ice-cold cervezas and back-slapping camaraderie for the adults. And a very special treat for your out-of-town guests.
Yes, another nightlife Website. No surprise, given the pervasiveness of nightclubs and the intense competition among them. But this site has a somewhat different feel to it. A little more comprehensive. A little more complex. A little more commercial. But that's exactly what makes it the one you would recommend when visiting friends ask you for clubbing advice upon hitting South Beach. The love child of British expats Nick McCabe and Sarah Lynn, cooljunkie manages to maintain the pair's enthusiasm for the local dance scene while keeping the fluff factor to a manageable level. All the Beach's hotspots are laid out and evaluated, along with informed DJ interviews, coming attractions, and of course, plenty of party pics featuring clubland's ranks (and quite possibly you) hitting the dance floor.
Every exodus deserves a festival. The epic flight inspired by the collapse of the Argentine economy is no exception. Luckily those fleeing the new bartering society of Buenos Aires already have Miami's best festival waiting for them. Every spring, for four years now, long-time expat Enrique Kogan has offered tens of thousands of his compatriots a daylong celebration of tangolandia. And thanks to performances by the biggest stars along the Rio Plata -- Miguel Mateo, Charly Garcia, Alejandro Lerner -- the folks back home can see you on Telefe. Whether you are Argentine or just wish you were, you'll find something to love at this paean to the civilization Sarmiento dreamed of: futbol, rocanrol, choripan, dulce de leche, and the national question, asked by patriots and expats alike: Che, how did we end up here?
BEST FILM SERIES
Cuban Cinema Series
Miami-Dade Community College
Who else but MDCC's Alejandro Rios could put together a top-flight, ongoing program of Cuban films -- from islanders and directors in exile -- attract full houses, and yet raise nary a peep from our AM talk-radio friends and their noisy shock troops? Maybe a free series with this kind of quality is just too good (and in this town, too needed) to assail.
The irony is just too delicious. This past October marketing executives from Burger King, reeling from the botched introduction of their revamped French fries and gearing up to push the new Chicken Whopper sandwich, participated in an "achievement" team-building seminar on Key Largo. According to published reports, some 100 Burger King employees "used their bare hands to bend spoons, break boards, and smash bricks. Some bent steel bars with their throats and walked over a board of 6000 sharp nails." At the end of the seminar the executives were introduced to the highlight of the evening: an eight-foot-long pit of glowing-hot rocks they were told to walk across in their bare feet. Most of the participants made it over fine, and supposedly enjoyed a surge of confidence that comes from knowing they can overcome any obstacle. Unfortunately not everyone could overcome this particular obstacle. A dozen people suffered first- and second-degree burns on their feet. One woman had to be hustled to the emergency room. A day later several executives had yet to recover ambulatory status and were moving around in wheelchairs. As Burger King spokesman Rob Doughty told the Herald: "We certainly didn't intend for that to happen."
BEST TRADE (SPORTS TEAM)
Florida Marlins owner John Henry to the Boston Red Sox
Major League Baseball engineered this deal, allowing Henry to sell the Marlins, then turn around and buy the Red Sox. To Henry, who constantly cried poverty, tried to cajole South Florida taxpayers into building him a new stadium, and then when they wouldn't, orchestrated the $600 million purchase of the Sox by putting up $150 million of his own money, we say good riddance. And we offer one last bit of baseball trivia: Since 1919 the team you sold has one more world championship than the team you bought, chump.
We know what you're going to say: Robert's is not a true farmers market. A splendidly eclectic fruit stand/reptile show/folk revue perhaps. What, you'll ask, about the Coconut Grove farmers market? Or the one outside Gardner's Market in Pinecrest? Fine. But this is our list and this year we're picking Robert Is Here. Yes, it's partly about the exotic fruit milkshakes, which are divine. But Robert Moehling and his crew have so much more to offer. In the fruit-and-vegetable department, for instance, just about everything grown in South Miami-Dade. In season there's U-pick strawberries. Plus live bees in a glass-enclosed honeycomb, every type of honey and preserve known to man, countless pepper and barbecue sauces, key-lime-infused chocolate-covered coconut squares, and many touristy trinkets. Out back is a large pen filled with giant tortoises and iguanas. There's also a one-man band playing in the corner on Saturdays. This is a place where you can truly eat, drink, and be merry.
When Major League Soccer finally catches on in the United States, the decision to fold the Miami Fusion will make America's most apathetic sports town look even more stupid, as if that were possible. (Hello? The Dolphins couldn't sell out a playoff game?) Soccer is followed with feverish fanaticism throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. South Florida has a huge and ever-growing population of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. You do the math. Bad management and inept marketing -- not a starless team with a lousy playoff record -- led to this humiliating loss. But nature hates a vacuum. Professional soccer will return to Miami. It is inevitable.
From the Miami Herald, Thursday, December 20, 2001: "On Sept. 23, 2000, The Herald published a story about a house donated to the Fort Lauderdale Branch NAACP. It included information provided by Hansel Williams, who was interviewed at the house, that is not correct. Williams subsequently said he is not married, has no children, did not live in the house rent-free and that his grandmother did not live there with him."
The seasoned cats who preside over Jazz in the Afternoon play all the cool hits. You know: Kind of Blue, Giant Steps, A Love Supreme (the whole blessed album). This is noncommercial (and unlicensed, meaning "pirate") community radio as it was meant to be. These guardians of the bebop, hard-bop, and post-bop jazz flames liberate the airwaves on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One way to make a good thing even better would be to extend the holy sounds of Miles, Trane, and Dolphy into weekday evenings, currently the domain of an emcee who preaches to us about things we already know regarding the current state of slavery in America.
Miami has no mountains. There are no hills, buttes, or mesas. But there are clouds, and they appear almost daily on the big palette that is South Florida's sky. Our cosmic placement at the tip of a peninsula located to the east of the Gulf of Mexico, north of the Caribbean Sea, and downwind of the jet stream puts us at the crossroads of breezes and moisture that can produce spectacular celestial works. High up are the thin, wispy cirrus clouds, delicate free-form brush strokes of white that flow and curl against the blue of eternity. In the foreground on a fair day the cumulus play, those billowy shape-shifters, puffing effortlessly by on the breeze. Here are our mountains, inspiring and variable, and our view is unobstructed.
From the Miami Herald, Wednesday, October 24, 2001: "A story in Friday's editions referred to the Batman costume Elian Gonzalez wore at Halloween. Elian arrived in the United States in November and left in June, so he did not wear the costume at Halloween."
Before finding happiness in a warm gun, the Beatles found a buddy in a Miami Beach cop. Sgt. Buddy Dresner was assigned to provide security to the Beatles during the group's South Florida invasion in February 1964. The Hard Rock Café has no photos of the screaming female mob that besieged the boys when they descended from their rooms for a dip at the Deauville Hotel pool. But there are shots of them at Dresner's house, where Mrs. Dresner served a nice dinner and Paul read to the couple's children. Back in London several months after the two-week February tour, Paul scrawled a letter to Dresner apologizing for not writing sooner. "I lost your address. I've only just got it again -- from George," he wrote. "We'll be out [again] in America soon. That's if they don't start a war or something. For instance, all this business in Vietnam." (The Beatles indeed invaded the States again in late August, as the U.S. military presence grew and grew in Southeast Asia.) Other historic scrawlings appear on a work of abstract art the Fab Four signed and shipped to Dresner after the February visit. The drawing (by one D. Spence) consists of four splotches of black ink dripping to the bottom of a piece of brown paper. On it one can observe hints of the psychedelic wordplay John later embraced: "To good old Buddy, what is our Buddy, good Bubby (get a job Buddy), all the best and thanks from me." In a separate letter Brian Sommerville, the group's agent, penned a sentiment about our subtropical burgh that many still find apt. "I'll never forget that wonderful place and its people," he wrote.
On South Beach attending and critiquing over-the-top parties isn't just a leisure activity, it's a way of life. And for local fashionistas, one of the most anticipated fetes is Ocean Drive's annual birthday bash, where the magazine's glossy pages, chock full of beautiful people, come to life. Even the Herald bought into the hype this past year, giving the Loews Hotel-hosted party front-page coverage, and in light of the hordes of would-be crashers lauding it as the season's most coveted invite. Once inside, however, a different truth emerged. Yes, there were the requisite flocks of aspiring models trucked in by their agencies, and a smattering of celebs were coaxed to the shindig by Ocean Drive's wunderkind publisher. But the overall vibe was less fabulous than bar mitzvah: serving stations of food, well-mannered members of the tribe schmoozing away, and a DJ spinning an early-Eighties playlist that stopped just short of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" -- the usual cue for a hora circle. Only the writhing, half-naked "living sculptures" added a welcome touch of Beach tackiness, reminding everyone this wasn't a post-synagogue affair.
A unique confluence of ugly events led the citizens of Miami to overwhelmingly approve the creation of a Civilian Investigative Panel in November 2001. Leaders and activists in black communities, enraged over the alarming tendency of police to shoot suspects dead even when they were in wheelchairs, had long insisted that someone other than cops should investigate cops. But it took Cuban-American outrage over beatings and questionable arrests during the April 2000 Elian Gonzalez riots to provide the critical mass needed to put the idea to a citywide vote. After that it was groups such as Brothers of the Same Mind and People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality (PULSE), along with the legal expertise of the American Civil Liberties Union, that kept the flame blazing. CIP members, when the slow-turning wheels of Miami city government finally get around to appointing them, will be able to subpoena witnesses and recommend penalties to the police department.
For its first 43 blocks, narrow little Collins Avenue is at best an inconvenient way to get around Miami Beach. At 44th Street, however, it widens to six lanes, becoming one of South Florida's premier boulevards, a show street lined with fancy and famous hotels, luxury condos, palm trees, and private yachts. This also marks the exact location where South Florida's true character is revealed, for this is where automobile-industry magnate Harvey Firestone built his magnificent Georgian Colonial mansion. Lured by the warm winter weather and the phantasmagoric hype of Miami Beach hucksters Carl Fisher and John Collins, Firestone and other American tycoons scooped up oceanfront property (Firestone's estate encompassed fourteen acres) and erected ostentatious monuments to capitalist wealth. By the Roaring Twenties this stretch of Collins Avenue boasted some of the most audacious private homes south of New York. But Miami Beach was really nothing more than a shifting sandbar, and the alluring vision of South Florida as a land of boundless opportunity under the bright subtropical sun was as illusory as the mythical landscapes that decorated crates of oranges heading to the frozen north. So it was fitting that Harvey Firestone's dream home should be demolished to make way, in 1954, for another dreamscape, the Fontainebleau hotel. Thus began another chapter in the life of this section of Collins Avenue. As the mansions went down, the fantastical hotels went up, followed by the towering condominiums that isolated bay from ocean and man from nature. From inhospitable, mosquito-infested mangroves to concrete canyons in the bat of an eye. It's magic. It's what Miami is all about. And it's all there in this nine-block-long postcard.
Rain stops, drought threatens, Okeechobee drops, tolls rise, cops shoot, kids die, manatees die, Pan Courtelis dies, Shepard Broad dies, Elizabeth Virrick Park lives, Cubans get smuggled, John Boles gets fired, Tony Perez gets hired, Cuevas gets fired, Stierheim gets hired, the Beach goes hip-hop, Latin Grammys arrive, rain arrives, Latin Grammys split, Reno runs, AIDS infects, more cops shoot, more Cubans smuggled, Lenore Nesbitt dies, Howard Sharlin dies, Luis Sabines dies, Bryan O. Walsh dies, sex plane goes down, Bobby Maduro Stadium goes down, Sunny Isles motels go down, Miami cops throw down, Elian museum opens up, rain falls, thunderstorms roar, Chediak quits, Ninoska quits, Shalala takes charge, UM turns 75, Versailles turns 30, Norcross returns, Yahweh Ben Yahweh returns, Demetrio Perez busted, lawmen busted, civil servants busted, federal agents busted, Surana goes to jail, David Paul stays in jail, Cuban spies convicted, Reno faints, Castro faints, Judd quits, Cristina quits, Fraind quits, more rain falls, Okeechobee fills up, Lincoln Road fills up, tornadoes touch down, crime goes down, sharks bite, snakes bite, Hialeah Park folds, clinics fold, Dolphins fumble, Heat tumbles, Panthers dump Bure, Henry dumps Marlins, Loria arrives, Haitians detained, Miami cops indicted, smugglers indicted, Ramon Saul Sanchez indicted, Warshaw goes to jail, Humbertico stuck in jail, Noriega still in jail, terrorists strike, security tightens, tourists stay away, Art Basel stays away, layoffs arrive, Colombians arrive, Venezuelans arrive, Argentines arrive, Leonard Abess dies, Carlos Salman dies, Carlos D'Mant dies, anthrax strikes, recession strikes, budgets shrink, more layoffs, more AIDS, more cops indicted, still more rain, OB parade gets drenched, Bass Museum leaks, Sweetwater floods, West Nile virus arrives, Ricky Williams arrives, WTMI goes silent, Al Milian gets silenced, school board gets gouged, priests get exposed, Victor Posner dies, Rolando Barral dies, David Poland quits, DeFede quits, Reno stalls, Miami Circle stalls, Indian graves discovered, desecrated graves discovered, OJ gets searched, OB parade gets dumped, Carnival dumps, Miriam Alonso gets busted, Willie Logan gets off, Jennifer Rodriguez gets bronze, billboards take root, AIDS takes off, Tom Fiedler takes charge, Carollo is out, Diaz is in, Kasdin is out, Dermer is in, Pepper is out, Cobo is in, Marlins stadium is booed out, but Miami's animal lovers can cheer at last: After more than 30 years living in the same cramped Seaquarium tank, Lolita the hapless killer whale finally gets a new home.
Bumper to bumper to bumper on I-95. Multicar pileup? Construction? Who cares? You're stuck. But the left lane promises release. You careen up and onto the turnpike. The on-ramp curves up and around and so do you, swerving madly to avoid the little blue Toyota doing 20 and the silver Lexus doing 90, both of which want your spot. Having successfully defended your turf, you cruise on up to the toll plaza at the Golden Glades Interchange. You shoot through the SunPass lane, and in no time you're making speed, a blissful smile on your face. But you've done more than escape gridlock. You've penetrated the barrier between two worlds -- from lunacy to normalcy, from citified to sedate. You've crossed the county line. Miami awaits your return.
They line up hours in advance, sitting on lawn chairs and atop plastic coolers. Kids with balloons tied to their wrists drink orange sodas and nibble on sugar bread purchased from Calle Ocho bakeries doing brisk business. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen walks by prior to the start, absorbing the throaty cheers of her core constituency. Miami's Three Kings Parade debuted in 1971 after Fidel Castro canceled Christmas and its ancillary celebrations in Cuba. (Three Kings Day honors Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, the three kings who followed a bright star to Bethlehem, where they presented the newborn Christ child with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.) Now a Calle Ocho tradition, Miami's parade features a slow-rolling procession of high school marching bands, Spanish-language radio hosts, entertainers such as Willy Chirino and Elvis Crespo, and sports stars such as gruesomely muscled baseball slugger José Canseco. The greatest cheers, though, rise for the rogues gallery of local politicians. City Commissioner Tomas Regalado and his daughter. City Commissioner Joe Sanchez twice, once on a car with his name stuck to the side and once again, later, on horseback. A grinning Joe Carollo, unaccompanied by a bikini-clad model now that he's unaffiliated with any public office. Angel Hernandez, a convicted felon and newly elected city commissioner, is greeted warmly, as is new mayor Manny Diaz, dapper in a blue guayabera. A red Corvette convertible slowly motors past. In the back seat, receiving blown kisses and the loudest cheers of the day, is the Fisherman, Donato Dalrymple, still a man of honor in Little Havana.
Renewing a passport can be a pain. You have to call for an appointment, then you have to wait two weeks or so, then you have to go downtown, then you have to wait, and then -- well, like we said, it's definitely a hassle. Not so at Miami City Hall. The extremely professional city clerk's office offers a painless way to apply for or renew a passport. The whole thing takes eight minutes, tops, and you don't even need an appointment. Just drop by the clerk's office window on Dinner Key, fill out a short form, hand over a small check, then walk over to the camera. Smile. After the photo develops, blush at how good-looking you are, then leave. Your passport will arrive in the mail in a matter of days. If you pay an expediting fee, you can have it even sooner. It's that easy.
Before you enter this 76-year-old landmark, you already know you're close to paradise. The magnificent Giralda Tower, languorously and glamorously lit against the blue-black Florida night sky, is one clue. But as you walk from parking lot to pool area, the smell of jasmine is so heavy you lose your bearings. Where are you? In a world of which you can only dream? Or Miami-Dade's most elegant province? That's right, this is not simply a hotel. This is another universe. You walk through archways and courtyards, click across elaborate tile floors, sit against carved wood and detailed tapestries, and know you are not in Miami anymore. You swim in one of the world's greatest pools. You eat among brilliant pinks and purples of bougainvillea and verdant banana leaves, treated like a member of the old raj. Speaking of colonial treatment, you take high tea indoors in the fabulous lobby, with choices of tea and finger sandwiches that embarrass Harrods. You sit on your private balcony and take in the tropical landscape cleverly disguised as a golf course. Good theater next door at GableStage, spa in the basement. Nooooo, you're not going anywhere.
The lobby of architect Melvin Grossman's classic Fifties hotel is a monument to space-age design, space-age glamour, and just plain space. Think MiMo (Miami Modernism) meets Grand Central Station. Massive decorative columns hold up an imposing plaster canopy in the center of the room. Underneath it five separate islands of couches and chairs float on a sea of vintage marble tile. A full-size hotel bar runs along one wall. Overlooking the bar is a landing big enough to be its own lobby. And if that's not enough to convey the sense of limitless optimism that fueled the Fifties: Large, curved window walls look out over the enormous pool area and onto Collins Avenue, giving the illusion of even more space. Whoever said bigger isn't always better never set foot in here.
The thing is, he'll come to you on those weekends when the bird doo-doo has piled up on your hood from trying to park under trees to avoid the sun, and when you just don't feel like negotiating the traffic to get to the cheapo deals along NE Second Avenue or the expensive sloshings in the parking garages of Brickell high-rises. Joel is a great big guy with an obsession for getting things right (he used to be a plant-maintenance specialist). He'll wash your car for just ten bucks. Vans and SUVs are $20, trucks are $45, RVs are $60, and boats are a little cheaper at $55. ("I like boats," he explains.) He arrives with a truck and all his own equipment, including a pressure washer with a 100-gallon tank so he doesn't have to hook up to your spigots, and he has his own generator and super-vacuum, which he applies to those areas you don't see, like under the seat. "I guess I'm a perfectionist," Alfonso says modestly. And before you know it, even your old Sentra looks swell again. Open seven days, Monday through Sunday, 9:00 to 5:00.
Sailboats and small pleasure craft float in front of historic Twenties and Thirties homes. Neighbors enjoy leisurely sunset walks along the water. One of South Florida's myriad gated communities? Try again. An affluent, private residential island sandwiched between Miami Beach and the mainland? Nope. Would you believe unincorporated Miami-Dade County? It's true. This eight-square-block area, located between NE 87th and 91st streets, NE Tenth Avenue and Biscayne Bay, offers a unique twist on waterfront living. Instead of facing the bay, homes sit on "Lake Bel Mar," which according to folks in the area is the only canal in Miami-Dade County located in front of a row of homes. The place is so charming, secluded, and quiet that residents begged us not to tell people about it. Sorry.
BEST CURE FOR AIDS ISOLATION
The Center for Positive Connections
Positive Connections was unique seven years ago and remains one of the nation's few comprehensive support centers for HIV-positive heterosexuals. In 1995 Sheri Kaplan, newly diagnosed with HIV and feeling out of place at existing resource centers mainly catering to gay men, decided to start her own support group. Today Positive Connections, with the help of grants and donations, has grown into a one-stop hub that anyone with HIV or AIDS can benefit from. Whether your concern is finding a physician, a financial planner, or a dog groomer, Positive Connections can steer you in the right direction. The center itself offers a diversity of free classes and workshops covering everything from Reiki and acupuncture to past-life regression and art therapy. There are regular heterosexual support groups for English-, Spanish-, and Creole-speaking men, women, and their families and friends. Also a group for gay men recently started.
In a town where far too many public servants graduated from the school of corruption and incompetence, Merrett Stierheim stands out as a beacon in the darkness. Since 1959, when he began his career as an assistant manager with the City of Miami, Stierheim has kept an able hand on the tiller of our biggest and most complex governments, often called up on deck just as the ship was about to hit the rocks. By dint of his reputation as a fixer of big problems, he has become an almost mythic figure in his own lifetime. In 1967 he left for Florida's west coast but returned in 1976 to become Dade County's manager during a most difficult period (the Mariel boatlift, riots, cocaine cowboys) until his retirement in 1986. In the early Nineties Stierheim became Miami's chief cheerleader as president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. Then in 1996, as the City of Miami faced a financial meltdown amid political scandal, Stierheim was coaxed out of his second retirement to become the pro bono city manager. In no time he discovered a $68 million shortfall in the city's general fund and led the beginning of a long recovery effort. In 1998 he was again tapped to become county manager as Miami-Dade reeled from scandals and corruption at the airport and the Port of Miami. He retired in early 2001 when it became clear Mayor Alex Penelas wanted a less independent and forceful manager. Stierheim kept himself busy through the spring and summer by becoming interim manager of newly incorporated Miami Lakes and leading another emergency recovery team through Homestead's shaky finances. In October 2001 Stierheim took on what is arguably his most challenging and important job yet -- superintendent of Miami-Dade County's mammoth public-school system. The school district is a magnified version of the bureaucracies Stierheim had wrestled with earlier: unwieldy, riddled with corruption, and filled with a demoralized workforce. But with the future of 370,000 children in his hands, the stakes are much higher. Stierheim has already begun to heal an ailing bureaucratic culture. Only time will tell whether he can successfully complete the job.
In Miami-Dade County, Steve Spratt was always a little shocking. Low-key, competent, respected -- what could be more shocking in a county employee? Spratt was not only thoroughly informed but able to relay that information without lying, obfuscating, or double-talking. He was a budget expert who wasn't afraid to call a scheme a scam. Surely it was too much to ask someone like Spratt to stick around forever. But he did last a remarkable 25 years at county hall before departing in December 2001 to become the Pinellas County administrator (their version of county manager). Now 47 years old, Spratt began his government career in 1976 as a lowly complaint-taker in the Dade County manager's office, eventually moving to budget director and finally to assistant county manager. Known for his directness and impartiality, Spratt did what he had to do, even if it meant recommending the suspension in 1999 of parks director Bill Cutie, who was later indicted in the famous "missing trees" caper, in which the county paid $1.6 million for 4200 palm trees that were never accounted for.
When Doug Yoder went to work for the county in February 1971 he was fresh out of Cornell University and full of youthful idealism. At the age of 24 he sincerely believed in the notion of public service. And guess what? Thirty-one years later he still does. Yoder has been with DERM since July 1977. In that time he has seen county managers and agency chiefs come and go, but he's still there, worrying about air pollution, water quality, and dump-site contamination while fielding citizen queries and complaints and serving on several national boards, including the Urban Consortium Environmental Task Force. Yoder is beginning to think about retirement in the next few years, but that does not mean he's slacking off. He returns phone calls, brown-bags his lunch, pays attention at boring budgetary meetings and hearings on airborne particulates, and recognizes that he is a servant of the taxpayers. Good man.
BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE MEN
Miami International Boat Show
Annually in February
While many locals complain about the snarled traffic and incessant bridge openings, single women should know otherwise. Not all of the close to 150,000 people who descend on Miami are men, and not all are rich. But lots are. And they're here to let loose, have some fun, and spend some money. Stroll the marinas and convention center and oooh and ahhh at the gleaming vessels and the exorbitantly priced stuff that fills them. Your giddy, grinning neighbor is sure to fill you in on what he thinks about objets d'ark. And just about anything else -- silence is not socially acceptable here. Now you tell him where to go for a drink afterward. Or he'll tell you: "Hey, we found this great place on the water where you can watch more boats," and you'll pretend that Monty's is indeed a hidden gem. All you have to do now is move with the flow. Easy.
Despite his friendly, low-key manner, Ralph Delly isn't shy about repeating the raciest tidbits circulating in the New York and Miami Haitian communities. In fact it's probably because Delly is so likable that prominent people (mostly entertainment and media types) tell him things -- you know, things that really matter, such as how the size of one band member's member played a decisive role in his acquisition of a new girlfriend from another musician. But make no mistake, Delly dishes plenty of solid material you couldn't find anywhere else (in English, anyway). A band suffers persecution, for example, because it played years ago at a now-politically incorrect venue in Haiti. A songwriter's original compositions are repeatedly stolen by fellow musicians. A prominent Port-au-Prince radio personality decides to move to Miami to escape Haiti's instability. Only one problem, Delly confesses: He'll be mingling at a soiree and find some of his famous sources, worried their secrets may be revealed, clam up in his presence.
Old guy with a skeptical look and big horn-rims sitting in the last booth on the right at Enriqueta's on NE Second Avenue, rattling his newspaper, masticating his eggs, a magnet for fight and art fans throughout Miami, the Fight Doctor, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco. Remember him? For many years he worked Muhammad Ali's corner, through all the boxing classics -- the Thrilla in Manila, the Rumble in the Jungle, the Brawl for It All -- an era when sports-as-show-biz took off behind Ali and Don King's logorrhea, with the Fight Doctor bringing up the rear. To hear him today, after fifteen years on NBC, negotiating a seamless two-hour narrative with hardly a break for breath -- "Sherman's march to the sea, a jerk in Coconut Grove giving a historical-society reading, he doesn't want to admit what a racist bastard General Sherman was! How his 'total war' program in Georgia anticipated the Nazis, how America's policies have frequently been casuistic..." and demonstrating how "hustlers" such as Ali, King, and himself were using the culture's own hot-air tendencies as guerrilla tactics against the general bullshit -- is true instant replay. What's remarkable is that Pacheco had a stroke last year yet hasn't lost a mile off his fast ball. He's still grinding out books and paintings for mainstream and Little Havana consumption; still accepting speaking engagements; and would still beat the pants off HBO's boxing analyst Larry Merchant if Sumner Redstone at Viacom had enough sense to let him anchor the rival Showtime fight shows.
Behold the big yellow school buses unleashed on a racetrack designed for stock cars, running figure eights, nearly crashing into each other, dumping fluids and parts where they shouldn't. Fun for the whole family! It's an exhibition, not a competition, held every other month at one of Florida's oldest speedways. And for a mere fifteen bucks the energized crowd of thousands, most of whom were once carted off to school by those hulking monsters, can't get enough. Call for dates and times.
BEST NOT-SO-CHEAP THRILL
Heckler & Koch Mark 23 .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun
This superbly crafted sidearm is light enough for women and seniors, and it doesn't have the tremendous recoil of the old Colt blue-steel Army and Navy .45 models of yesteryear. Inspired by the great popularity of the Austrian Glock, it's a top seller in South Florida gunshops like Eagle Arms (14123 South Dixie Highway; 305-234-8446). At $763, without a box of ammo, it's not exactly cheap, but according to George Soler at Eagle Arms, the Mark 23 is safe to handle and a joy to use on the target range: "It's now the weapon of choice for the Special Forces and is seeing a lot of service in Afghanistan."
Our weather is no secret -- sun, sun, sun -- and our kids are used to it. Which is why they have a wardrobe consisting of shorts and cotton T-shirts rather than corduroy pants and wool sweaters. But Magic City munchkins can still get a cold-weather chill if they head up to North Miami and the only regulation-size ice-skating rink in town. Chances are it'll be a new experience for them, but with role models like Miami Olympian Jennifer Rodriguez, who made the switch from Rollerblades to ice skates, they may already be gung-ho. The arena staff offers lessons (group and individual) for all levels, from beginners to budding figure-skating stars. Hockey lessons too. And hockey leagues. And rental skates. And infrequent but regular free skating. And some of the coldest air conditioning in the subtropics on a hot and muggy summer afternoon. Call for rates and hours of operation.
Hurling a household object at your wife + cavorting with tawdry Latin bombshells = successful re-election.
The reason we love this all-suite hotel has nothing to do with the fact that it's only a block from the Lor-e-lei, the legendary waterfront restaurant and bar where you can get great fish sandwiches, down piña coladas with a rum floater, and applaud the ever-setting sun. No, it has something to do with Casa Morada's terrazzo floors, resident iguanas, sprawling sea grape and hibiscus groves, and serene, sparkling pool located just off Florida Bay. And it has even more to do with the individually decorated studio apartments. If you like the wrought-iron furniture you can buy it. Every item is actually for sale. Not only does that policy allow you to take some of the restful Islamorada lifestyle home with you, it guarantees that the next time you come down for a visit, you'll be treated to new décor.
Valentine's Day, 2001. The scene: More than three dozen Miami notables, from county Mayor Alex Penelas and Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler to Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce chairman Philip Blumberg and United Way chief Harve Mogul, gather before the school board and urge members to grant bumbling back-slapper Roger Cuevas another two years in office as superintendent of schools. Union-boss-for-life Pat Tornillo is also present. As he has on other occasions (such as the time this paper made a stink about the diploma-mill degrees held by Cuevas and several of his top administrators), Tornillo comes to the defense of Cuevas, arguing that, with all the other problems facing the school district, the continuity of leadership Cuevas could provide is needed. The school board decides to extend the superintendent's contract by two years (at $251,690 per annum). Just seven months later the school board is under heavy fire from the media, state politicians, and the public for financial and ethical scandals. Cuevas, until then the board's happy, well-fed puppet, becomes the board's well-compensated scapegoat and is fired. At the same time the district faces a huge shortfall in state funds. When the cash-strapped district suggests that teachers take a couple of days off to ease the strain on the budget, Tornillo agrees. But then the disgusted union rank and file vote down the compromise. His back against the wall, Tornillo suddenly adopts the language of militant union bosses of old, charging that teachers shouldn't have to take a cut just because the school board wasted so much money on things like Cuevas's lucrative golden parachute -- up to $800,000. Now that's chutzpah!
Mayco survived years in the trenches at county hall as a competent and fair-minded bureaucrat, only to be knocked off by county Manager Steve Shiver for -- gasp! -- releasing public information to the press! Shiver forced him to resign and then had the gall to seize his computer minutes later, a humiliating blow to a veteran professional like Villafaña. After knocking around town and a brief stint at the State Attorney's Office, he followed old boss Merrett Stierheim into a true snake pit -- the public school district. May he bring sunshine to the dark corners.
No one can adequately explain the day-long, perpetual traffic jam on the westbound Dolphin Expressway (SR 836) just after you pass over Le Jeune Road and Miami International Airport appears on the north side of the road. This is our Bermuda Triangle, the place where time inexplicably vanishes. There never appears to be a good reason for the sudden crush of cars slowing to a crawl -- no accident, no disabled vehicle, no construction. It just is. Could there be some unknown force field that compels Miami drivers to drop to school-zone speed (which, ironically, they rarely observe in actual school zones)? What up, Miami?
Let's face facts: It's no secret that thoroughly married women have by and large given up on the frills along with the sexual thrills. So you can pretty much assume that any female shopping at Victoria's Secret for lacy apparel that couldn't cover a kitten's rear end is on the legitimate prowl. And if she's not now, she's planning to be. So go ahead. Give it your best shot. Try picking her up while she's picking up a teddy.
Part records technician, part social worker, part comedienne, Minnie Bishop is a pleasant surprise when you walk into the Miami Beach Police Department's snazzy building at 1100 Washington Avenue. Even if it's five minutes till closing time, Bishop will deal with your problem without the hostile stare we've come to expect from government service workers. With a hearty laugh and a "Hold on, baby, we'll see what we can do for you," Bishop swings into action, brown eyes sparkling behind wire-frame glasses. She can help a domestic-abuse victim needing a battery report, fax police documents to the U.S. Attorney's Office, and keep up on the office gossip all at the same time. Bishop also has a million stories for every occasion, some sad, some funny, whatever she thinks you need to hear. "I've laughed at my desk and cried at my desk," she says.
BEST RESOURCE FOR RECENT ARRIVALS
El Paracaidista: La guia del recien llegado a Miami
More than any other city in our great nation, Miami can use El Paracaidista (The Parachutist: Miami Newcomers' Guide), a year-old monthly newspaper that also appears online. Venezuelan Ira Guevara and Argentine Cynthia Zak, both thirtysomething journalists, say they founded El Paracaidista largely as a response to the Cuban balsero influxes of 1994 and 1998. The sheer numbers of Latin Americans who move to Hispanic-majority Miami every year make it expedient to form enclosed networks and never become integrated into mainstream U.S. society. Thus El Paracaidista does what its name implies: helps soften an immigrant's landing with an introduction to the complexities of American institutions and practices (of which even many natives are ignorant) -- everything from filing an income tax return or securing a home or business mortgage to locating the right magnet school, a doctor who makes house calls, or a good deal on a cell phone.
A swingin' bachelor pad's bathroom? The lavatory in a villain's hideout? Actually the ultracool restrooms at the museum of things made between 1885 and 1945 look more like the facilities in the Batcave, so don't be surprised if at any moment crime-fighting superheroes Batman and Robin roll up in the Batmobile for a pit stop. Gleaming black-glass walls, stainless-steel sinks and fixtures, tiny halogen pendant lights brightening the way to relief. As gleaming clean as Alfred would keep it. Holy modern conveniences, Batman, this is the perfect place to adjust your tights!
BEST SANCTUARY FROM THE FAST TRACK
Beach Bar at the Delano Hotel
The Beach Bar at the Delano opened in 1995 and was recently refurbished to a kind of post-Gatsby sheen. The best time to experience that sheen is about 1:00 a.m. on a weeknight, stretched out at one of the tables down at the end of the hotel's magnificent pool (officially known as the Water Salon). Designed by Philippe Starck, with its Liz Taylor-movie backlighting and drama, the curtains from the ground-level suites wafting like veils, the talk from the pool-shooters way back in the hotel wreathing you with tales of George Clooney and Elle McPherson, you soon forget the day's hustle and competition. And relax. The guys who work the bar -- Roberto, Bruno, Nick, Luis, and Dennis -- will build you a caipirinha, a kind of Brazilian mojito. If you get there a little earlier, you might want to go for the "grille menu," which includes two kinds of steaks, mahi-mahi, salads, and desserts, all for $40, and the Veuve Clicquot, which you can purchase by the glass for $20. If you get there really early, as of this spring, you can enjoy the Beach Party, which begins a half-hour before sunset and will feature DJs playing low-key lounge music. Because the idea is to get ... away ... from ... it ... all.
After working for others and then co-owning a short-lived but ambitious venture (The Strand), Bernstein took a major leap: She left South Beach for Brickell Key and the luxe Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Within a year food critic John Mariani from Esquire named her restaurant, Azul, the best of 2001. The Food TV network hired her to host a series on tropical foods. And the Vita-Prep people picked her to pose with a blender between her legs, an advertisement that numero uno trade mag Food Arts featured prominently. Can any other native make that kind of claim to national fame?
Forgive us our pride. Miami native Greenman worked for New Times after graduating from Palmetto Senior High and Yale University. In his time at the paper he wrote some excellent film and music criticism and several pretty darn funny stories. "Cracking Up" chronicled an experiment in which Greenman followed a mad scientist (the late John Detrick) around downtown Miami on a very hot summer day to see if eggs really would fry on sidewalks. During the 1991 tourism crisis, when violent criminals were targeting rental cars, Greenman produced the "New Times Rental Car Conversion Kit," a handy package of mail-order accessories tourists could use to give their rented vehicles a local look. Now based in New York, Greenman has embarked upon a bona fide literary career. By day he edits the extensive calendar section of The New Yorker magazine, to which he also contributes reviews and other material. In his free time he writes quirky and clever pieces of fiction that regularly appear in McSweeny's, the journal and Website (www.mcsweeneys.net). Last year the McSweeney's publishing imprint released Greenman's debut book, Superbad. According to reader postings on Amazon.com (and quoted by Greenman on his Website, www.bengreenman.com), "Superbad has been described as 'a masterpiece,' a 'piece of garbage,' and 'a book I haven't read yet but which I heard was pretty good in parts if annoying in other parts.'" Author Susan Minot had this to say after reading Superbad: "I don't know what goes on in Ben Greenman's mind, but inside there seems to be a Russian short-story writer, a slapstick gag writer, an art critic, a literary critic, a cultural commentator, a cowboy, a satirist, a scientist, a postmodernist, an anti-postmodernist, a surrealist, a nut, a genius, a stand-up comedian, a child prodigy, a dreamer, and a poet." When Greenman unveiled Superbad recently at Books & Books in Coral Gables, his proud parents invited the entire audience over to their house for coffee and cookies. As Greenman pointed out, this wasn't a take on some classic Andy Kaufman gag. Then again, he admitted, it kind of was.
She was a late entry in this contest, but Alonso decisively swept the field of contenders. At press time the Miami-Dade County Commissioner was facing one misdemeanor charge, three felony charges, and up to five years in prison. More charges are possible. Way back in 1993 New Times devoted 13,000 words to Alonso during her failed campaign to become mayor of Miami. The opus by former staff writer Steven Almond, "Meet Miami's Next Mayor," began with this: "On those days when passions flare, when Miami cannot help revealing its more ominous shadings, half the city seems determined to have Miriam Alonso canonized. And the other half to have her eliminated. There is no middle ground when it comes to the woman who would be Miami's next mayor. She is savior or demagogue, invisible outside extremes, and impossible to ignore." In retrospect the criminal charges shouldn't really surprise anyone. Questions about Alonso's integrity began the moment she arrived in the United States with her husband Leonel, who has been charged with four felonies and faces up to fifty years in prison. What were the circumstances under which they defected from Cuba? When exactly did they arrive in the United States? How had Miriam managed to obtain a Ph.D. in only three years? Why can no professor at Catholic University (Washington, D.C.) recall advising or approving her doctoral thesis? Where did she and her husband acquire the half-million dollars they'd spent by 1979 purchasing Miami real estate? These troubling questions and others remain unanswered. But a Miami judge had a solid answer for her in 1988: He yanked her from her debut race for a seat on the county commission after it was proven she didn't live at the address she listed on her oath of candidacy. If she was willing to cheat in order to run for office, is it such a stretch to imagine her cheating once she gained office? Here's something else to imagine, something even Alonso's sworn enemies must have thought improbable: Miriam behind bars.
Why do so many sanctimonious people turn out to be wicked? And has there been anyone in public life more sanctimonious than Demetrio Perez? Back in the Eighties, as a Miami City Commissioner, he sought to consecrate the Cuban-exile cause by, among other things, introducing a resolution to have the city honor convicted terrorist Orlando Bosch, handing the violently anti-Castro group Alpha 66 a taxpayer gift of $10,000, and demanding that director Brian De Palma rewrite the script of Scarface to soften its harsh portrayal of Cuban immigrants. Later, as candidates maneuvered for appointment as city manager, he was accused of but never charged with offering to sell his vote for $50,000. As a member of the school board he argued that students should be forced to rise whenever an adult entered their classroom, that the National Guard provide school security, and that uniforms be mandatory at all schools. As a "safety measure" he wanted all students to squeeze through a human cattle chute lined with metal detectors and x-ray machines. Suspension as a form of punishment was ineffective, he argued, and should be replaced with hard labor. All this while lying about where he lived in order to run for his seat on the board. And don't forget his shrill pronouncements against the violence fostered by America's gun culture -- this from a man whose concealed-weapon permit allowed him to pack heat at all times, which he did with relish and without apology. He even was arrested carrying two handguns through a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport. His chain of private Lincoln-Martí schools teach a rigid and hateful form of moral discipline, to which he gleefully subjected little Elian Gonzalez while simultaneously and shamelessly exploiting the boy for publicity purposes. But the end of Perez's long turn on the public stage revealed the depths of his depravity. A rich man, he was caught stealing $18,000 in rent and subsidies from two elderly women who were his tenants. In September he pleaded guilty to five federal criminal charges, but he escaped prison time. Too bad. Some hard labor might have done him good.
Architect B. Kingston Hall designed the Seymour in 1936 for developer Benjamin London, who named it after his son Seymour. Sixty-six years later the tropical Art Deco jewel still stands, nestled in the center of the nation's only historic district composed entirely of twentieth-century structures. But it lives a new life. In keeping with the Miami Beach Community Development Corporation's mission of illuminating the economic viability of historic preservation, the property, acquired in January 1998, underwent a complete renovation and reopened in August 2001. Currently MBCDC headquarters, it also houses a local office of the Florida Department of Children and Families and a one-stop career center for the Hispanic Community Center, plus it plays host to exhibitions and lectures. The Seymour boasts smart touches, including original color schemes such as a gleaming white exterior and forest-green and deep-burgundy lobby, a restored ziggurat fireplace, and tile-and-wood floors in the exhibition space featuring patterns that outline the original floor plan. An exuberant example of Art Deco, the Seymour also accommodates the Urban Arts Committee, a group of concerned citizens passionate about preserving and promoting midcentury Miami modern architecture (MiMO), the Technicolor splendor of which was evident in the Seymour's inaugural art display: "MiMO -- Miami Modern Architecture, 1945-1972: A Photography Exhibit."
It's an enormous inverted salad bowl. Or maybe it's headquarters of the Justice League of America, where superheroes Aquaman, Superman, and Wonder Woman gather to hatch world-saving strategies. Actually the distinctive building that distracted you so much you nearly veered off the road is the Aventura Government Center. Dreamed up by Michael A. Schiff & Associates and Arquitectonica, the striking contemporary structure swathed in glass and Indiana limestone features a spectacular sloped rotunda, where elected officials meet to make city policy. Since it opened in May 2001, the 72,000-square-foot marvel, housing all government operations (including the police department) has become what its creators had hoped: a one-stop shop for dealing with city business. And quite the looker as well.
Like all truly great annual traditions, Lincoln Road's Halloween parade just sort of happened. There is no sponsor, no formal organization, no one in charge. It's simply an outgrowth of the Road's late-Nineties transformation from a deserted strip into one of South Florida's prime people-watching spots. For locals who hardly need a holiday as an excuse to pose for a closeup, showing up in their Halloween costumes has become a no-brainer. Consequently veteran attendees know to stake out a sidewalk café seat early. Order dinner and a few drinks -- by nightfall the pedestrian mall is engulfed with dead Elvises, vampires, and every drag queen within a 50-mile radius -- all strutting their stuff for an appreciative audience. Never has the phrase freak show been so apropos, or so enjoyable.
A lot of South Floridians quietly cheered this past November when Gittens, less than a year into her tenure as Miami-Dade County's aviation director, lambasted the county commission as "lobby heaven," and accused a lobbyist of lying during a presentation. (Carl Hiaasen described MIA at the time Gittens took over in March 2001 as "operating with all the charm and efficiency of a hillside brothel during an earthquake.") Gittens had a history of successfully fighting corruption in her previous job as director of Atlanta's sprawling Hartsfield International Airport. And even though Miami-Dade County Manager Steve Shiver called her on the carpet for her lobbyist outburst, Gittens hasn't stopped telling it like it is at MIA, or working hard for a more equitable and efficient system of awarding contracts.
For anyone not familiar with the local "rancho" phenomenon, Rancho Grande is a revelation. It really is a ranch of sorts, complete with horses and the occasional whiff of barnyard, way out in what passes for the countryside. But it's a club of sorts too. Tables and chairs are spread around a dance floor, all open to the breeze but sheltered from rain by a patchwork roof. You can drop by any weekend (not open weekdays) dressed like a guajiro or a prom queen or a yachtsman and lounge around drinking beer, sampling the excellent Cuban cooking (while it lasts), and watching. Infants and grandparents, fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, hairless, hirsute. The main reason to drop by is to dance to the DJ music (all Latin varieties), and that's another revelation: On any given Saturday night there's the lone exhibitionist, seemingly a different man each week, stepping and turning for hours in extended experimental theater. There are the couples with amazing vibrating butts. The salseros. The bachateros. The vendors of flowers, toys, chains and watches, snapshots of you, and "African art." Sooner or later almost everyone joins the parade at Rancho Grande.
There's nothing quite like surrounding oneself in bromeliads to ease the troubled mind. This lush little enclave has 150 different kinds. "Bromeliads are cherished for their lovely variations of color, spectacular bloom shoots, and their important role supporting animal life via rainwater collected in their rosettes of leaves," notes the garden's Website. From time to time a greedy subspecies of urban wildlife has been known to sneak in and run off with a few orchids from the Arthur Laufferberger Memorial Orchidaria, another feature of this sanctum. But you can relax. That security problem has been addressed, according to the nonprofit Beach Garden Conservancy, which manages this refuge from the sands and sidewalks of South Beach. The Japanese Garden is an oasis within an oasis. A number of tables and benches scattered throughout the grounds provide perches for those who may enter to slake their thirst or hunger with a little food or drink. The gardens are open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free.
It's a bright and sunny weekend morning. You're headed down to the Keys for some R&R. You think you're pretty smart to use the Shula (SR 874) because it isn't heavily traveled at this hour and it's the quickest way to join up with the southbound turnpike. As you approach the exit for SW 107th Avenue you become aware of a change in your surroundings. Everything seems to open up -- wider lanes, broad grassy median, a smooth ribbon of highway beckoning to you. Is this the turnpike already? Just as you're about to pass under the bridge some involuntary reflex causes you to floor it. You begin to smile. So does the state trooper standing on the bridge, radar gun aimed right at you. Then a quick radio call to one of several FHP cars poised at the on-ramp. You're doomed and don't even know it.
Grimm displays a willingness to actually leave his desk, unlike some columnists we know. And as far as we've seen, he has never wasted column space writing about the comments generated by his last column. No, Grimm goes down to city hall and rummages through files. He visits the boulevard where protesters marched, and he witnesses the sentencing hearing from the courtroom. Such shoe-leather reporting informs Grimm's intelligent opinions on the news of the moment. Generally warm and funny, Grimm can definitely be prickly on occasion, and appropriately so. His subjects are as far-ranging as cockfighting, black-market plastic surgery, failed shopping malls, swingers clubs, and the tasteless campaign of "Pete the Fireman" Iriardi, an obscure political candidate who attempted to exploit a 9/11 heroism he completely fabricated. Grimm makes all these issues (and many others) relevant to his readers. In his eyes, South Florida is the most interesting, crazy place in the country. He is, of course, right about that.
Somehow we missed that particular issue of Caretas, the respected Peruvian newsweekly, the one in which it reported that Peruvian congresswoman Cecilia Tait was pregnant with a child conceived with the cooperation of Miami Herald reporter Tyler Bridges. But there it was in Joan Fleischman's "Talk of Our Town" column, in the very paper that employs Bridges. "He looks like Richard Gere but with green eyes," Tait told Caretas. Seriously? Tyler Bridges? The same Tyler Bridges who, in a Herald opinion piece, pondered the eerie similarities between his life and that of the late John F. Kennedy, Jr.? (Sample: "John John went to Brown. I went to Stanford.") More recently Bridges shared with readers his experiences preparing for and running a marathon. Surely he won't keep us waiting too long for the details of his long-distance political liaison. We'll be patient -- and maybe nervous.
BEST PARKING GARAGE
Seventeenth Street at Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach
You don't have to live in South Beach to be painfully aware of the fact that finding a place to park your car qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. Keep this garage in mind next time you're about to lose your mind in the quest for parking. Owned by the City of Miami Beach, the Seventeenth Street garage could not be more conveniently located. It's an easy walk to the Jackie Gleason Theater, the convention center, Lincoln Road, and only five short blocks from the beach. It's open 24 hours a day and has space for a whopping 1460 vehicles. The dollar-per-hour rate (maximum eight hours) is quite reasonable. On special-event days it's a flat rate of five dollars. According to city officials, the garage opened 25 years ago, but a thorough renovation in 1996 expanded the facility and spruced it up considerably. You can almost always count on finding a space there, shielded from the blazing sun and close to where you want to go.
"Buenos dias" in the morning. "Buenos tardes" in the afternoon. "Buenas noches" after the sun goes down, just before they lock up the store for the night. "¿Como andas?" "¿Como andamaos?" "¿Que pasó?" The list runs through your head every time you go for a newspaper. The fates have placed you in Little Havana and you're okay with it. In fact you like it, how real the neighborhood feels, how different it seems from everywhere else in America you've lived. Unfortunately you don't speak Spanish -- at all. Or at least not more than a few words. You're painfully monolingual, though you keep trying. Every day you buy your paper at the neighborhood bodega, the one with the shrine to San Lazaro burning near the cash register. Every day you wave and say hello to the butcher. He's 92 years old, you're told. He sits there every day, liver spots sprinkled over his face, all his hair gone. Plastic-wrapped hams and strange-looking cheeses mummify in a cooler. "¡Hola!" he says to you one morning. You do know that one and respond in kind. The next day, when you see him, you smile and prepare for a similar exchange. "¿Como andas?" he asks. What?!? What are you supposed to say to that? You head home and flip through a Spanish dictionary. You call a friend and ask for an appropriate reply. By the next morning you're smarter. But so is he, sitting behind his meat cooler, eating cheese off a cracker. "¿Que tal, mi amigo?" he calls out, reaching over the cooler to warmly grasp your hand. You stare at him blankly, frozen in fear. ¿Que tal? Where the hell did that come from? You mumble something, "Bien" probably, grab your paper and scurry back to your dictionary. Tomorrow you'll be ready.
The Miami Light Project, a nonprofit cultural arts organization founded by Janine Gross and Caren Rabbino, gained a solid reputation soon after its debut in 1989. Today it is best known for bringing to Miami performances by renowned contemporary music, dance, and theater artists. Miami Light also commissions new works and provides an outlet for Miami's own avant-garde performing artists. In this town, however, unfettered artistic expression has been a complicated affair, particularly when Cuban nationals are involved. By the time Beth Boone became executive director of Miami Light, in May 1998, the complications had gained national notoriety, facilitated by a county law severely restricting the circumstances under which Cuban artists could appear here. Despite very real risks to her organization's financial health, in May 2000 Boone and Miami Light joined with the ACLU and several others in successfully challenging the so-called Cuba ordinance in federal court. With the law on her side, Boone proceeded to introduce Miami to a glittering array of Cuban artists. In just the past twelve months she's sponsored performances by Grupo Vocal Desandann, Los Fakires, and the legendary Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. But Miami Light has a much broader mission. Under Boone's guidance, in the past year alone we've had the opportunity to see Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, and Miami's own Teo Castellanos as he created his one-man hit NE 2nd Avenue. That's the kind of cultural kaleidoscope that makes living in Miami worthwhile.
On the University of Miami campus it is possible to take a short walk in the woods and end up on what seems like a tour of the globe. Founded in 1947, the Gifford arboretum was named for the first graduate forester in the U.S., a UM professor and expert on tropical woods. At one time there were more than 500 species here, but in the Seventies and Eighties the collection suffered from neglect and a few were lost. Then, as bulldozers prepared to carve more parking lots out of the campus's north end, local activist Kathy Gaubatz stepped in and saved the place from ruin. The collection, which now includes about 450 species, has been renovated and inked in on the university's master plan. The plants are being retagged and a new checklist of the holdings compiled. It is a little-known sanctuary, and according to director Carol Horvitz, a UM biology professor, one of the few places in South Florida to find a fully labeled grouping of more than 90 percent of the 130 species of shrubs and trees native to the area. From a box by the parking lot, pick up a brochure and begin a self-guided tour through thirteen families of tropical and subtropical plants, including palms, figs, hardwoods, and ornamentals. The trail is well marked, the plants all wear tags bearing their common and Latin names, and benches here and there invite repose and reflection. Note the handsome lignum vitae tree, planted more than 50 years ago.
In Miami, the poorest large city in the nation, women and girls make up the majority of those living below the poverty line. It's a disgrace for Miami and a disgrace for mainstream charities that historically have shortchanged programs specifically for women and girls. And it should embarrass the Florida legislature, which continues its relentless drive to eliminate desperately needed social services. The Women's Fund makes up for some of the neglect by funding innovative and often ignored organizations and projects, programs that cultivate creativity and self-reliance, that help girls and women break abusive or addictive bonds and develop their strengths and talents. Women's Fund grantees don't get a lot of money. Last year the three-year-old nonprofit (affiliated with the worldwide Women's Funding Network) awarded a total of $51,500 to sixteen specific projects, some operated by local social-services and immigrant-relief organizations, but most of them unknowns such as MZ Goose, Pridelines Youth Services, and URGENT Inc. The funding totals a mere fraction of what most lobbyists make in a year, but it's a start.
The Banana Bungalow is a youth hostel, but a nice one. Pastel-colored and improbably located in one of the most expensive tourist traps in the world, the bungalow is low-key and freewheeling. The young and adventurous from around the globe pour in and out of this place, wedged into the southern end of the Indian Creek waterway. They sit by the pool, play billiards, trade tall tales by the bar. The bartender decides nightly what the happy-hour special will be, but the beer is always cheap. A night will cost you around $15 to share a room with three other travelers; private rooms $50 and up.
They were proof of Miami's status as the Latin-music capital of the world. They were an engine of economic growth. They were a sign of our slowly developing political tolerance. They were a plot to thrust subversive Cuban musicians into our midst. They were the pride and joy of Emilio Estefan, Jr. They were the downfall of exile extremists. They were a glamorous, gaudy, God-awful fuss. But most of all, they were gone. Poof! Somewhere in Southern California, then-Grammys honcho Michael Greene is still smiling at his sleight-of-hand.
Sure, the heat and humidity is a killer. But just look at those soft curls you've developed, the streaks of gold in your hair, the silky texture. Who needs a high-priced salon when you can get touched up by the sun? Think of it as deep-heat conditioning for free. Indeed the only folks who don't have a reason to stay in Miami for the summer are, well, the high-priced stylists.
The best new building won't be there much longer. It will be taken down not because it is an historic landmark no one cared about but because it wasn't meant to last. But while it stands, it's incredible to behold. Artist George Sanchez decided to create a model of the famous 1929 Le Corbusier house in France, an exquisite example of modernist architecture, and put it up underneath the I-395 underpass off NW Thirteenth Street. That's right -- Overtown at its most blighted decrepitude. It sits clean and sleek -- at night it glows -- amid the concrete and filth of Miami's neglected urban core. Sanchez called it "The Blessing." Maybe that's what the city will need to follow the artist's path and create permanent beauty and hope in an area too long without it.
This place is known for its amazing Saturday and Sunday dim sum brunches, in which customers choose from authentic comestibles presented on rolling carts. And it is precisely this movable feast that makes Tropical a great venue for a debut date. For one thing, you can order as much or as little as you want, which means the date can last as long or short as you wish. Like her? Slowly sample all 56 dumplings, buns, rolls, and tarts. Less than thrilled with him? Over shrimp rice pasta, develop a sudden seafood allergy. Want to test his spirit of adventure? Grab an order of chicken feet or fried squid heads. Need to know if she's got a gag reflex? Serve her a sample of congee garnished with a thousand-year-old egg. Best of all, whatever the outcome of this encounter, dim sum ends at 3:30 p.m., which means you've got the rest of the day to, uh, fool around.
A recent Mendez client is serving a nineteen-year sentence in federal prison after a Miami jury convicted him of espionage, along with four other Cuban agents. But one must judge a lawyer by the principles for which he stands, even when they are misunderstood and unpopular. For Mendez one of them is the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." Numerous Cuban-American lawyers in Miami declined to defend those charged with spying for Cuba. And sure enough, once the trial began, fanatical anti-Castro radio commentators called Mendez a "scoundrel" for taking the job. In so doing they impugned not only Mendez but one of the most crucial of American judicial institutions, the Office of the Federal Public Defender, Mendez's employer. The public defender provides counsel even to the most unseemly of characters, who are, under our system, still innocent until proven guilty. Beating an espionage rap, however, is almost impossible, and jurors were not about to forgive anyone who appeared to be snooping around U.S. military bases. Judge Joan Lenard slammed four of the defendants with the maximum penalties allowed, but Mendez managed to shave 11 years off the nearly 30-year sentence federal prosecutors had sought for his client.
The Fontainebleau was ten years old in 1964, when the James Bond film Goldfinger opened with a glorious view of the high-rise curving toward the sea and its guests drinking martinis by the huge swimming pool and its waterfall. That was when the Fontainebleau was a celebrity hotel that attracted the stars of the day: Steve Allen hosted the Tonight Show there, and its La Ronde Room booked the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and even Elvis Presley. Other movie scenes have since been set at Morris Lapidus's sublime temple of whimsy, loved and loathed by critics for its colorful and hyper-glamorous design and furnishings. Like an aging screen siren, the Fontainebleau has inevitably had its nips, tucks, and makeovers. In keeping with Miami's Latinization, the La Ronde Room is now the Tropigala nightclub, redone in a tropical motif, and Latin-American tourists make up much of the hotel's clientele. And of course time and the economic downturn have dulled the glitz overall. But the Fontainebleau will always be an icon.
To the unaware, Mike Bode could be just any other UPS guy. He wears a brown shirt and brown shorts. He drives a brown van around South Beach, concentrating on Lincoln Road. But he's not. His customers describe him as the hardest-working human being on the planet. Store owners up and down the Road sing his praises unsolicited. Phrases like "amazingly conscientious" come up often. "He never gets down, no matter if he's lugging around dozens and dozens of boxes," marvels one merchant. "He's always up. They need to clone him. The whole world should just be like Mike." It's obvious Bode takes pride in his work. "The best part of my job is being able to make people happy," he explains. "My grandfather taught me to treat people the way you want to be treated. He also told me to enjoy my job. If you don't enjoy what you do, why do it?"
If they're visiting from out of town, there's a good chance they're not familiar with the word guajiro. In Cuba it's the name given to country folk, that island nation's noble peasants. Rancho Don Goyo, a rustic retreat in Miami's own countryside, keeps the guajiro spirit alive on Saturdays and Sundays, when Cuban immigrant Gregorio Arensibia, better known as Don Goyo, throws open the gates to his two-acre ranch and invites in the world. Bring your guests here and let them experience a peculiar and exotic aspect of Miami: This really is not the U.S.A. From noon until roughly 10:00 p.m. South Florida residents hailing from all over Latin America gather for food, drink, music, and dance in an atmosphere that feels a lot like home, whether that was Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, or Cuba. Rancho Don Goyo is marked by an unassuming sign on the north side of Okeechobee Road (U.S. 27) beyond the turnpike, after it opens up under a big sky and a landscape of broad fields. (If you reach the junction with Krome Avenue you've gone too far.) A dusty side road takes you to a makeshift parking lot, then on to the heart of the place -- a ramshackle general store and an immense open-air restaurant where patrons enjoy their beers along with a tempting variety of freshly grilled meats and tangy side dishes. When live bands aren't playing, the jukebox kicks in. Either way the dance floor will always be occupied. If possible try to be there on a Sunday afternoon when local enthusiasts of punto guajiro take to the stage. Punto guajiro is a Cuban musical invention of improvised lyrics set to the poetic decima, a traditional Spanish form favored by itinerant troubadours of yore. At Don Goyo's the tradition lives with an exuberance that requires no translation. Fun and games and barnyard animals for the kids. Ice-cold cervezas and back-slapping camaraderie for the adults. And a very special treat for your out-of-town guests.
Every exodus deserves a festival. The epic flight inspired by the collapse of the Argentine economy is no exception. Luckily those fleeing the new bartering society of Buenos Aires already have Miami's best festival waiting for them. Every spring, for four years now, long-time expat Enrique Kogan has offered tens of thousands of his compatriots a daylong celebration of tangolandia. And thanks to performances by the biggest stars along the Rio Plata -- Miguel Mateo, Charly Garcia, Alejandro Lerner -- the folks back home can see you on Telefe. Whether you are Argentine or just wish you were, you'll find something to love at this paean to the civilization Sarmiento dreamed of: futbol, rocanrol, choripan, dulce de leche, and the national question, asked by patriots and expats alike: Che, how did we end up here?
The irony is just too delicious. This past October marketing executives from Burger King, reeling from the botched introduction of their revamped French fries and gearing up to push the new Chicken Whopper sandwich, participated in an "achievement" team-building seminar on Key Largo. According to published reports, some 100 Burger King employees "used their bare hands to bend spoons, break boards, and smash bricks. Some bent steel bars with their throats and walked over a board of 6000 sharp nails." At the end of the seminar the executives were introduced to the highlight of the evening: an eight-foot-long pit of glowing-hot rocks they were told to walk across in their bare feet. Most of the participants made it over fine, and supposedly enjoyed a surge of confidence that comes from knowing they can overcome any obstacle. Unfortunately not everyone could overcome this particular obstacle. A dozen people suffered first- and second-degree burns on their feet. One woman had to be hustled to the emergency room. A day later several executives had yet to recover ambulatory status and were moving around in wheelchairs. As Burger King spokesman Rob Doughty told the Herald: "We certainly didn't intend for that to happen."
We know what you're going to say: Robert's is not a true farmers market. A splendidly eclectic fruit stand/reptile show/folk revue perhaps. What, you'll ask, about the Coconut Grove farmers market? Or the one outside Gardner's Market in Pinecrest? Fine. But this is our list and this year we're picking Robert Is Here. Yes, it's partly about the exotic fruit milkshakes, which are divine. But Robert Moehling and his crew have so much more to offer. In the fruit-and-vegetable department, for instance, just about everything grown in South Miami-Dade. In season there's U-pick strawberries. Plus live bees in a glass-enclosed honeycomb, every type of honey and preserve known to man, countless pepper and barbecue sauces, key-lime-infused chocolate-covered coconut squares, and many touristy trinkets. Out back is a large pen filled with giant tortoises and iguanas. There's also a one-man band playing in the corner on Saturdays. This is a place where you can truly eat, drink, and be merry.
From the Miami Herald, Thursday, December 20, 2001: "On Sept. 23, 2000, The Herald published a story about a house donated to the Fort Lauderdale Branch NAACP. It included information provided by Hansel Williams, who was interviewed at the house, that is not correct. Williams subsequently said he is not married, has no children, did not live in the house rent-free and that his grandmother did not live there with him."
From the Miami Herald, Wednesday, October 24, 2001: "A story in Friday's editions referred to the Batman costume Elian Gonzalez wore at Halloween. Elian arrived in the United States in November and left in June, so he did not wear the costume at Halloween."
On South Beach attending and critiquing over-the-top parties isn't just a leisure activity, it's a way of life. And for local fashionistas, one of the most anticipated fetes is Ocean Drive's annual birthday bash, where the magazine's glossy pages, chock full of beautiful people, come to life. Even the Herald bought into the hype this past year, giving the Loews Hotel-hosted party front-page coverage, and in light of the hordes of would-be crashers lauding it as the season's most coveted invite. Once inside, however, a different truth emerged. Yes, there were the requisite flocks of aspiring models trucked in by their agencies, and a smattering of celebs were coaxed to the shindig by Ocean Drive's wunderkind publisher. But the overall vibe was less fabulous than bar mitzvah: serving stations of food, well-mannered members of the tribe schmoozing away, and a DJ spinning an early-Eighties playlist that stopped just short of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" -- the usual cue for a hora circle. Only the writhing, half-naked "living sculptures" added a welcome touch of Beach tackiness, reminding everyone this wasn't a post-synagogue affair.
A unique confluence of ugly events led the citizens of Miami to overwhelmingly approve the creation of a Civilian Investigative Panel in November 2001. Leaders and activists in black communities, enraged over the alarming tendency of police to shoot suspects dead even when they were in wheelchairs, had long insisted that someone other than cops should investigate cops. But it took Cuban-American outrage over beatings and questionable arrests during the April 2000 Elian Gonzalez riots to provide the critical mass needed to put the idea to a citywide vote. After that it was groups such as Brothers of the Same Mind and People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality (PULSE), along with the legal expertise of the American Civil Liberties Union, that kept the flame blazing. CIP members, when the slow-turning wheels of Miami city government finally get around to appointing them, will be able to subpoena witnesses and recommend penalties to the police department.
For its first 43 blocks, narrow little Collins Avenue is at best an inconvenient way to get around Miami Beach. At 44th Street, however, it widens to six lanes, becoming one of South Florida's premier boulevards, a show street lined with fancy and famous hotels, luxury condos, palm trees, and private yachts. This also marks the exact location where South Florida's true character is revealed, for this is where automobile-industry magnate Harvey Firestone built his magnificent Georgian Colonial mansion. Lured by the warm winter weather and the phantasmagoric hype of Miami Beach hucksters Carl Fisher and John Collins, Firestone and other American tycoons scooped up oceanfront property (Firestone's estate encompassed fourteen acres) and erected ostentatious monuments to capitalist wealth. By the Roaring Twenties this stretch of Collins Avenue boasted some of the most audacious private homes south of New York. But Miami Beach was really nothing more than a shifting sandbar, and the alluring vision of South Florida as a land of boundless opportunity under the bright subtropical sun was as illusory as the mythical landscapes that decorated crates of oranges heading to the frozen north. So it was fitting that Harvey Firestone's dream home should be demolished to make way, in 1954, for another dreamscape, the Fontainebleau hotel. Thus began another chapter in the life of this section of Collins Avenue. As the mansions went down, the fantastical hotels went up, followed by the towering condominiums that isolated bay from ocean and man from nature. From inhospitable, mosquito-infested mangroves to concrete canyons in the bat of an eye. It's magic. It's what Miami is all about. And it's all there in this nine-block-long postcard.
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