People & Places

In South Florida, the notion that there’s such a thing as a first-rate politician is hard to swallow. But Garcia is simply good at what he does. For a while he’s been the brain behind Miami-Dade County’s Democratic Party, a liberal group if ever there was one. Before that, he oversaw the Cuban American National Foundation, a more conservative bunch. And he’s served on a number of appointed boards — generally somehow remaining acceptable to both ends of the political spectrum. He’s smart, frank, and ballsy; we’re talking about a guy who’s willing to call an El Nuevo Herald reporter a douchebag in front of a roomful of reporters. Now Garcia, who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, has a little scheme. He’s going to turn all the red Cuban-American congressional seats blue. As Barack Obama heads toward a showdown with that dinosaur John McCain, Garcia and fellow Democrats Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo are tailing him. If the top Democratic gun is faster, his whole gang might triumph too. Perhaps there is something to this “change” business.

Maybe ole Don didn’t know what show he was on. The Coral Gables mayor was tapped to comment on the city’s ban on pickup trucks on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report for a February segment called “People Destroying America.” No, Slesnick is not the one destroying America; that honor goes to Lowell Kuvin, who has been fighting the town for years for the right to park his pickup truck at home overnight.

Here’s what the City Beautiful’s honcho had to say about the narcotic effect of those four-wheeled menaces: “It’s pickup trucks today, tomorrow it’ll be larger trucks, and then the next day probably commercial vehicles, and finally we might have swamp buggies out in the street.”

“And nobody wants swamp buggies,” Colbert intoned ominously.

In today’s Miami-Dade County, the Village of Miami Shores is a throwback. Families have lived there for generations. There’s a golf club that still has the dowdy but cozy feel of the Sixties. And the Fourth of July celebration makes you feel patriotic just like Americans did back then. But the one thing that has long-marred the village’s perfection is the downtown area along NE Second Avenue, a series of shabby storefronts and lawyers’ offices. Well, those days are gone. For the past few months — and likely for months to come — workers have been tearing up the street to install wider sidewalks and underground sewers to replace drain fields. This all sounds rather quotidian, but it means the “Village Beautiful” will soon be home to sidewalk cafés, restaurants, ice-cream shops, and other joints to go along with the recently added Starbucks and Playground Theatre. It’s a pain now, but the future looks, well, beautiful.

It’s hard to prove a negative, but the next time you step into an elevator and don’t plunge to your death, you might want to thank Michael Chavez. A county employee for more than 20 years, he has held his current position since 2003. In 2006, Patrick Fraser of WSVN-TV (Channel 7) phoned Chavez on behalf of an elderly couple trapped in their apartment by a broken elevator. Chavez helped get it fixed. His department, Fraser said, “moved as quickly as I have ever seen a government agency move.” New Times had the pleasure of coming across this county bureaucrat while inquiring about a pair of condo towers with terrible elevators. Chavez, to our surprise, not only handled the call himself but also rattled off their history from memory, pulling additional records as he spoke and promising to investigate the matter. He was candid, responsive, and, apparently, personally troubled by the report. He followed up with an inspection, a notice of violation, and a fine. “We haven’t heard any complaints since,” he told New Times. “I guess no news is good news.”

Have you ever tried to put yourself to sleep by tuning in to a radio broadcast of a local school board meeting and been jolted from slumber by a whining, irascible voice decrying recent efforts to outlaw exotic animals in the burbs? That’s Alan Rigerman. He’s a gadfly, perhaps the greatest ever. Definitions of the word are sketchy. In one iteration, it refers to a cattle-biting insect. When applied to people, it’s defined as “a persistent annoying person” or “one that acts as a provocative stimulus.” Rigerman walks the line between those two. He has participated in a class-action lawsuit against the big, bad rock miners who blast around his back yard. But he has also choked newspapers and voicemail boxes with an unholy payload of rambling pontification. He lives with two cougars, a porcupine, and scores of snakes. The guy is one of South Florida’s true gems. Just don’t get stuck in an elevator with him.

Max Rameau is rather soft-spoken for a radical freedom fighter. An organizer, author, and political theorist, he has become the voice of this city’s disenfranchised and underserved citizens. As leader and spokesperson for two major projects — CopWatch and Take Back the Land — he makes eloquent arguments for why housing is a human right and justice is necessary for all. Throughout his campaigns to “take back” vacant public housing and to fight against the expansion of police power, Rameau has offered his message calmly and without violence. Ask him about his top accomplishments this year, and he’ll talk about his advocacy for the Liberty City 7 (6? Whatever.) and dealing with the aftermath of the Umoja Village fire. Then he’ll tell you about his most important project this year: raising his two-year-old son. This is a man who has his priorities straight.

Miami isn’t exactly the best place to be green. Folks hurl fast-food bags from car windows, our shorelines are clogged with detritus, and our recycling rate is one of the lowest in the nation. But Rebecca Carter, the kind-hearted woman who writes the Greener Miami blog, tries to encourage us to go easy on planet Earth. Her site is part green events calendar, part newswire. The best part is that it’s focused on Miami, not nebulous, insurmountable global issues. Rebecca also has a great sense of humor; earlier this year, she held a “Greener Baby Contest” to help her name her soon-to-be-born baby. The online winner — who suggested “Oliver” (which means peace) — won a reusable shopping tote and a gift certificate to used clothing store Rag Trade.

Thirty-seven-year-old Angel Soto made headlines this past December when he took police on a wild, multicar, high-speed chase that seemed to end after he crashed his Volvo into a U.S. Customs building near Miami International Airport. When he tried to escape, cops tackled and beat him. Unfortunately for the officers, helicopter-mounted news cameras caught them wailing on the goon. Two of them were suspended. “They’re just as bad as me,” Soto told TV reporters as he left jail. We hear you, buddy.

If you enjoy sitting in your car until your butt melds with the seat, or grinding your teeth into a fine powder, then by all means, travel southbound on the Palmetto during rush hour, or at any hour for that matter. Once you pass the NW 25th Street exit, settle in and pull out that book you’ve been trying to finish, because you won’t move soon. The Dolphin Expressway interchange is up ahead, and these are the two most congested expressways in the Western World. It is a guaranteed fact that you will get flipped off at least once, probably by some jerk on a cell phone who has just cut you off. Traffic is so bad here that the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority and the Florida Department of Transportation are planning to begin redesign and reconstruction of the entire interchange late this year. That will deepen this traffic quagmire for six years. That’s right, six years. The construction warning signs should say, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

Chaos ensued when a dump truck flipped and spilled gravel, shutting down the town’s major freeway on a sweltering summer day. Traffic bottlenecked for 15 miles, and in that angry line of drivers sat a full Greyhound bus. The passengers became incensed after a woman in an SUV cut off the bus, which had no air conditioning. Everyone was smelly, sweaty, and irritable to begin with. So they begged to be let through traffic to an exit so the driver could exchange the bus for one with working A/C. The woman in the SUV (who wasn’t named in a Miami Herald account of the melee) refused. She defended herself against the unruly mob: “I’ve been waiting in line for two hours,” she screamed to the news media. “We’re running out of gas. At this point, their problem is no bigger than my problem. If I have to be the fucking bitch of I-95, then so be it!”

If you’re one of those people who gets off work Friday night, drives to Miami Beach, and then starts freaking out because there’s no place to leave your car outside your favorite lousy club, you need to face a harsh reality: One way or another, you’re gonna have to pay to park. Swallowed that bitter pill? Good! Here’s the trick to finding nongarage parking any day or night of the week: Drive along 18th Street, just west of Alton (right by the Office Depot). There is never, ever a shortage of metered parking ($1.25 an hour; it could be worse). From there, it’s an easy walk to Lincoln Road. And in our experience, if you don’t make it back to feed the bugger, you’ll probably squeak by unnoticed. But don’t push it, huh?

Last November, Matti Herrera Bower became the first Hispanic and first woman to be elected mayor of Miami Beach. The retired dental assistant’s political roots trace not to some sleazy deal or romantic tryst (remember Alex Daoud?) but to the PTA. She knocked out Simón Cruz, a banker who raised loads more money, with 54 percent of the vote. Tagged the underdog, she pledged to stop overdevelopment and invest in parks and schools. Bower, then a commissioner like Cruz, scored the win in a runoff even after ethnic baiting by the Cruz camp; a flyer showcased her opposition to handing over $10,000 to the Holocaust Memorial after its organizers were late in applying for a grant. An estimated one-third of registered Beach voters are Jewish. An even bigger coup for Bower would be getting more Beach residents to vote. Only 23 percent turned out last fall.

The best mile of Miami, contrary to what you learned as a kid from 2 Live Crew, is not to be found on Ocean Drive. No, North Beach is where it’s at. The undervalued neighborhood has all the life and lazy, sandy bliss of South Beach without all the silliness. It’s the very best of Miami minus the very worst, all compacted into one happy mile. The fun starts at 69th Street, on whose corner sits the Sandbar, one of the last places a body can have a cheap beer, a good conversation, and a fun game of pool without getting all fancy about it. Microbrews — try the Longhammer I.P.A. — are only $3.50 a pint, so bottoms up! A whole slew of good pizza places and low-key cafeterias line the street going north to 71st Street. Cross that, and you’re in Argentine bakery territory: The Buenos Aires Café is a particularly nice place to get a hot cup of coffee, a fresh pastry, and a heart-thawing smile from one (or more, if you’re lucky) of the many friendly and pretty waitresses who work there. Take your food outside and watch the unobnoxiously busy nightlife pass by. If it’s recreation you’re looking for, head north only a few more blocks to the North Shore Open Space Park, a verifiable refuge from the concrete labyrinth of Miami and a helluva place for a weekend barbecue. And remember, the beach — and a lifeguard, for the kids — is right there!

Alma, where are we?

How should I know? You’re the one with the steering wheel, Max.

Well, we were just driving through Miami Shores on our way to North Miami; it seemed simple enough.

Then you took that shortcut.

That was because of all that traffic on NE Sixth Avenue, especially the buses.

Well, which way did you turn, Mr. Adventurer?

Right. You notice all these grassy medians?

Yes, they’re so pretty and peaceful. And shady. Where’s the map?

Whoa! Look at that green open space! Is that a park or something?

I don’t see a sign. Just looks like a regular street.

A regular street with an extra-wide median the size of a small park. Hey, there’s another one!

I know. They’re all over the place. Watch where you’re going! Where’s the map?

It’s around here somewhere …

Remember the speed limit is 25 miles per hour. There are people and kids and dogs walking all over the place.

Here’s the map. I better look at that thing. Let me find a spot to pull over. I notice there aren’t any cars parked in the street.

How about up ahead, next to that log cabin?

Good idea. What is this place, a restaurant?

“Biscayne Park Police Department.” Wow, they have their own police department!

Okay, here it is on the map, northeast of Miami Shores, south of North Miami, and west of the railroad tracks. Now I know where we are. See here on the map?

It’s even shaped like a jewel!

Maybe it’s because Miami is such an international place; maybe it’s because we’ve just got so much damn crime — but whatever the reason, the Magic City’s juiciest stories always seem to wind up playing out in federal court, and that’s where the Herald‘s Jay Weaver comes in. Weaver has covered the tribunales full time for about four years. Over the past year, he has guided South Floridians through the complexities of former Panamanian general Manuel Noriega’s battles with extradition, the wave of rampant Medicare fraud, and, of course, the trial of alleged terrorist José Padilla. Soft-spoken, friendly, unfailingly gracious in person — no small feat at the Herald, where a fair number of writers have the personality of poison ivy — he’s also a hell of a good reporter. When seven Miamians were arrested and charged, among other things, with conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower nearly two years ago, Weaver put his nose to the ground. Months before the trial began, he unraveled for readers what is probably the most haphazard and absurd case brought by the Bush administration since … well, since the last absurd case in the war on terror. When defendant Lyglenson Lemorin was acquitted, and then hauled off to a deportation center anyway, Weaver visited the man’s wife and wrote about the Haitian-American family’s struggle to remain intact — in terse, pointed language, as always. “Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted of terrorism charges last week in federal court in Miami,” he wrote, “is still a guilty man in the eyes of the U.S. government.”

The Miami Herald has certainly employed some great opinion-makers over the years. Carl Hiaasen is tops. Pulitzer-winning Leonard Pitts did well for a while. Joel Achenbach and Gene Weingarten, who moved onto the Washington Post, were clever and mischievous. (Weingarten’s Pulitzer this year was a tribute to the idea that spit-ballers can make good.) And Liz Balmaseda, who also won a Pulitzer in the role, changed the newspaper’s (and the city’s) dynamics at a time when it was an old boys’ club. But for our money, the best of ’em is Fred Grimm. This is a guy who long ago covered the South and whose deep Southern roots flavor much of his writing. He’s a gent with a smile and an encouraging word for colleagues — and old-style, kick-ass Herald sarcasm for just about everyone in elected office. Take a recent column that pointed out the hypocrisy of Florida supporting Scripps Oceanographic Institute in Palm Beach County and advocating teaching of intelligent design in schools. The message of “cracker” and “bible-thumping” Florida legislators to Scripps, Grimm wrote, is this: “Either do your so-called biomedical research by giving equal time to the seven-day creation theory, the 7,000-year-old earth theory, and intelligent design, or take your (monkey) tails straight back to Cow-lie-forn-ya.”

“Street Named for the King of the Guayabera!”

“Angelina and Brad Divorce!”

“Ants Don’t Need Sleep!”

These are but a few of the frenetic and exciting headlines you’ll find in Calle Ocho News, the only paper dedicated specially to covering the eponymous street in Little Havana. Founded in 2001, it has grown to a circulation of 40,000 and, in a testament to the cultural reach of that one little street, it can be found all over the city: in supermarkets, gas stations, and neighborhood cafeterias — Cuban or otherwise. Topics range from the minutiae of everyday life to themes of wider scope: A recent edition depicted two cowboys facing a sunset under the headline “The Old West Comes to Florida” — a reference to a recent wave of violent crime in the city. The paper has a website that, although minimal, is functional and offers up a web-only video section, where you can watch the popular “Shakira: Hips Don’t Lie” or “Depravadores Sexuales” (“Sexual Depravities”). But best of all is the paper’s Curiosidades (Curiosities) section, filled with the kind of random trivia you just can’t get from the Miami Herald: Did you know blondes have more hair than brunettes?

There’s an epidemic of bad public relations in Miami. The field is overrun with hoochie mamas in designer gear who think Facebook is an awesome PR tool, who can’t write worth a damn, don’t have any idea what publication they’re pitching to, and instead dedicate themselves to primping and pouting and being seen … all without doing the research and beating the pavement. So it’s a real pleasure to encounter a professional such as Larry Carrino. Most often he can be found quietly working his ass off rather than hobnobbing with C-listers at trendy nightspots. Susan Brustman and Associates was already a PR force to be reckoned with when the firm hired 19-year-old Carrino as an up-and-coming PR assistant. Dedication, writing skills, and knowing his niche has paid off. Now Carrino is in his early thirties, he has moved up the ranks to vice president, and Brustman Carrino is the preeminent culinary, arts, and entertainment PR outfit in Miami. They represent major restaurants and famous chefs — Fleming’s, Bourbon Steak, Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, and the esteemed Bali Ha’i event at The Kampong are but a few of their recent clients. The plume in their cap is the Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which keeps growing each year.

Ay, Jaime. A voice so calming, a manner so disarming. Each weekday evening, the thoughtful Peruvian journalist pops onto Mega TV at 10 on that beloved screen in your living room. Este muchachito feels like a confidante, one of your smart friends, as he playfully yet wryly dishes about Latin American and U.S. politics. He should be good; his TV career spans 25 years. In front of a black, sparse backdrop, the bespectacled and always-suited broadcaster conducts interviews with the directness of Larry King and the suavidad of Diane Sawyer. Bayly’s simple yet thoughtful quality adds a whole dimension to Spanish-language television. He’s bliss in a world often dominated by fart jokes, scantily clad dancers, and lowbrow love stories.

Last November, a crying woman in her late twenties appeared at a media briefing outside Miami Police headquarters. She told reporters a man had assaulted her in Little Havana. He had cornrows, a “LOVE MOM” tattoo, and a dime-size mole. Women across the city were rattled, and police set off to search. Some 100 hours of investigative work later, Adriana Velasquez told police she had cut her clothes and self for “sympathy, because she was having marital problems.” Then the artful actress pleaded emotional problems before fainting on-camera. But cops didn’t swallow this part of her story. They booked her on a misdemeanor.

It’s no wonder so many arts organizations have paid obeisance to Sanford and Dolores Ziff. At 83 years young, the Sunglass Hut founder and the former Bond girl rule the Miami art world from their private box in the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center. And these two have given money to promote not only culture but also education; in fact the University of Miami, Florida International University, and Nova Southeastern all have buildings named for the pair. Just because they were born in 1925 doesn’t mean they can’t drop it like it’s hot. Despite their senior-citizen tag, the Ziffs party with the best of them; Sanford has been known to do keg stands while Dolores tries out the latest Soulja Boy dance. This dynamic duo sure knows the joy of life. They’ve helped fan the flame of Miami’s cultural renaissance and then wangled themselves invitations to the best bashes that celebrate this very same revival!

Have you noticed the stunning complex that sits on Biscayne Boulevard, between gleaming towers of empty luxury condos and the historic streets of Overtown? We present to you the Carnival Center for … uh, wait, we mean the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. Wow. Try saying that five times fast. As if the Carnival Center wasn’t a cool enough name, the folks who run the year-old center came up with another one thanks to arts patron and Total Bank founder Adrienne Arsht. God bless her! No, wait. Manny Diaz and Carlos Alvarez, bless her. Arsht, you might recall, wrote a big, fat check worth $33 million that helped this money pit get out of debt. And now let’s get on with becoming a real city like San Francisco or Boston, where the arts count!

For nearly 25 years, Raul Martinez ruled the city of Hialeah with a grin and a book’s worth of pithy quotes. He was a charming Democrat in a solidly Republican city, a big thinker in a small town. He ushered in affordable housing and improved Hialeah’s infrastructure, all while campaigning successfully for eight straight elections. He even pulled off a courtroom miracle. After prosecutors nailed him for corruption, el gigante had the ruling overturned by an appeals court. When he retired from office in 2006, it was hard to believe he’d be content with eating early-bird dinners and living the rest of his life on a golf course. Sure enough, in early 2008, he announced he was going to take on another Cuban-American icon: U.S. Congressman and Republican Lincoln Diaz-Balart. The contest is expected to be the talker of the year, and Raul seems up to the task. After all, he’s got cojones, whether he’s talking about why the district needs a Democrat or about his controversial history. “I would debate any fucking Republican about my past,” Raul told the Miami Herald. “We’ll have a debate mano a mano if they want to take me on. I’m going to take them on.”

As the world seems to be fast tumbling toward apocalypse (global warming, World War III, economic meltdown), we see signs of hope in the most unlikely places. Take for instance local charity Miracles in Action. It was started by a middle-age American Airlines flight attendant, Penny Rambacher, who was on a layover in Quito, Ecuador, in 1999 when she came face to face with a “dumpster child” in the city’s outskirts. Witnessing such extreme poverty immediately made her take action. Thus Miracles in Action was born. With only $20,000, Miracles has helped build in rural, impoverished areas of Guatemala approximately 20 schools serving about 300 to 350 students, most of indigenous Mayan descent. The organization’s motto is “Help Poor People Help Themselves.” The results: increased literacy rates, higher life expectancy, better hygiene, and, most important, happier and safer communities. So while $20,000 will get you a modest Honda Civic, it could also save lives.

During segregation, D.A. Dorsey was Miami’s first black millionaire and a real estate mogul with property from Fisher Island to Broward County. He contributed a lot to the community. But today, decades after his death, the old man continues to give. His two-story home in Overtown, originally built in 1914, is filled with high-quality used clothing along with new overstock and samples from brands such as Anne Klein. If discarded garments, accessories, and shoes don’t meet the stringent standards of the store, nothing goes to waste: The staff sorts through everything and donates what it can’t use to a nearby church. Women in job training programs receive $100 gift certificates to shop there for job interview outfits. Profits go to charity. And the fun part is that after you drop off your old stuff, you can shop for something new. Open Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment.

The local artist created a mobile video installation from an old patrol car that cruised local streets during Art Basel and earned a trip to Houston’s Art/Car Museum this spring. Gagnon’s Border Cruiser, about the plight of illegal aliens, featured rear-window video projections in which a Brazilian man related his ordeal of illegally entering the United States. On the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, the vehicle brought a news crew from the Al Jazeera English network to a halt in Little Havana, where the befuddled journalists filmed crowd responses to Gagnon’s rambling opus.

Technically called Smith Commons, this cafeteria bar might be the cheapest and most sweetly situated watering hole in Miami. Located at the rear of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School campus and protected by an often-unmanned guard gate, it’s a little hard to reach. And it’s open only Thursdays and Fridays. When you arrive at the campus, just follow signs for “The Commons” all the way at the back of the school. Walk down the hallway (lined with stuffed sharks) and make a left at the awesome fish tank. The bar is at the back of the cafeteria. Pints of Colorado microbrew go for about $3. The patrons are smart and congenial, so don’t bother coming if you’re a stupid jerk. Enjoy your beer outside while overlooking the marine school’s unspoiled beach and view of Key Biscayne’s undeveloped shore. The sunsets are beautiful, and there’s a small service window so you don’t have to go inside to get another round.

You can swing at a playground, even swing open a door — but you’re not using the word at its fullest strength unless you mean “to engage freely in sex.” You know, like when Mr. and Mrs. Jones from next door are hooking up with Mr. and Mrs. Smith from down the street for a night of fun. That’s right, folks, the swinger lifestyle isn’t just for the people on HBO’s Real Sex; they’re doing it in your cul-de-sac, and they’re doing it at Miami Velvet. Trading spouses, allowing folks to watch, or accepting a third wheel — all are considered a part of the lifestyle. And whether you’re an active participant or a nervous newbie, the Velvet is the place for you. This members-only club provides a safe and sexy environment with enough leering to turn you on without creeping you out. Do a seductive wiggle with your honey on the dance floor, get to know a curious couple at the B.Y.O. bar, and then meet upstairs in one of the private rooms for a more intimate meet-and-greet. What you do up there is your business, unless you choose to do it in one of the public rooms.

At 12:30 a.m. on a hot, humid August 4, the crowd outside Chakra in South Beach was beyond rowdy. The club refused further entry. It was filled to the brim. Glitterati outside flashed their VIP status to no avail. Hosted by local event guru, Gorillas Lifestyle Marketing, this was the hottest night by far during the dead heat of summer, as two hip-hop icons battled it out on a small and intimate stage for 3,000 of their closest friends. Common and Erykah Badu had come to share the spotlight for one night. In case you don’t recall or never knew, these acclaimed hip-hop neo-soul artists were once lovers; fans of urban music had daydreamed the pair would produce the next hip-hop messiah. Unfortunately, Badu and Common parted from each other and the music scene. The two kept a low profile until that fateful night at Chakra. Halfway through Common’s set, surprise guest Talib Kweli jumped onstage. Talib Kweli! Thank your lucky stars that your ass actually got in!

Sweet creeping Jesus! How did you get home? There’s no way to know. One thing’s for sure: You need pancakes and coffee. And a newspaper. And a place where no one is going to ask you any hard questions. So call in sick, put on a pair of sunglasses, and drive (slowly) to this fine, cheap eatery. Get the banana pancakes or the corned beef hash. They’re good for what ails you. Everything is going to be all right.

There’s art, books, a view, a card game, and a public toilet — a darn clean one at that. Life doesn’t get much better. Perched in the clouds in the Spanish-style plaza atop the Miami-Dade Cultural Center, a set of often-sparkling public restrooms connects the county’s main public library and the ever-evolving Miami Art Museum. It doesn’t seem to matter that the homeless population is wise to it. The place remains free of nastiness, stray papers, and your usual public shithouse detritus. So head downtown, drink in some art at the museum, borrow a book at the library, and sit in for a round of cards with the boys on the patio — then head to the head and spend some time relaxing in the only place modern man (or woman) ever finds peace.

As if free bottles of Yellow Tail and Bacardi weren’t enough for those sexy single ladies out to prowl, how about some really nifty contemporary art? On the second Saturday of every month, both Wynwood and the Design District light up as art galleries open their doors with open wine bars and funky DJs mishmashing Flock of Seagulls with Rick Ross. Best of all, every single, bearded, black-rimmed-glasses-wearing hipster male who reads 19th-century Russian novels will be out and about on this faithful night to, you guessed it, meet you, you hot, single sex kitten! Free booze and weird art bring out the best of single men this city has to offer. So what are you waiting for? Crank out your red lipstick and Lucite heels and go get ’em, tiger! Oh, and did we mention the free booze?

Women like air, food, and shelter. Even though they live inside, they must have exercise to survive, in order to prepare for the coming weekend’s intake of vermouth. This means a good spot to find them congregating is a jogging route. The three-mile asphalt oval that wraps around the Turnberry Isle golf course is a great spot to locate females. But just because you have found the perfect fishing hole does not always mean there are fish in it! Women spend the day in different places depending on occupation, income, and temperature. Try the early evening on a Thursday. As the light reflects off the condominium towers, they’ll emerge. One or two at first, then four or five, and soon there’s a river of reflective sneakers and spandex. Do not find a bench and wait quietly. It’s also inadvisable to follow them in your car, for this behavior is closely associated with an undesirable type of male. The best method is to suit up in a similar outfit, substituting the spandex for something more loose-fitting, and join in. An ability to run the entire oval without puking or developing full-body sweat stains is recommended, though faking an ankle injury has also been proven effective. Don’t lunge or pull up alongside right away. Start a routine. Get yourself known. Do the eyebrow-nod-as-you-pass thing for a few days, and then try timing your arrival so the two of you are stretching side-by-side. When all else fails, break out your BlackBerry and talk a little too loudly about how it’s the second hundred feet of the yacht that makes all the difference.

The man who was once in charge of making sure the city followed the law accepted a plea deal in February 2008 that included one year of probation. His crime: “making false official statements.” In plain English, here’s what Fernandez did: He remodeled his office at a cost of $300,000 (those plasma TV sets, in-wall speakers, and DVD players were necessary, of course) and billed taxpayers $1,539 for a dinner at the Rusty Pelican (which happened to also coincide with his son’s graduation party). Oh, yeah, and after Fernandez accepted the plea deal and resigned from his job, he told city officials that under his contract, they owed him nearly $300,000 in “severance pay.” Ultimate cost to you and me: priceless.

How tawdry those corporate water-cooler romances. How tacky the holiday party punch-bowl hookup and subsequent Friday in the exact same pantsuit from Thursday. But a shared-office-space romance? That’s hot. You won’t find any Brickell law-bots in the new Brikolodge Coworking Community, just Varvatos-sandals-and-Trovata-pants-wearing freelance correspondents recently returned from a revolution in Sri Lanka; Ivy League-grad fiction writers arguing with each other about whether Sebald’s style is more Proustian or Jamesian; and documentary filmmakers editing bomb blasts on their MacBook Airs. So you end up after “work” at PS14, making out with him while dancing to Santogold? Don’t come in the next day. Hell, he might not even be there. His grant might have run out or someone may have assassinated the defense minister of Paraguay. It’s a big world, and Brikolodge is just one small intersection on the information highway. A few years later, you might stop in to finish up that chapbook, and there he is, over by the coffee machine talking to Alphonse about the best brand of pen to use in an emergency tracheotomy. Your eyes meet and all those old feelings come rushing back. “Of all the co-working communities for creative people in all the world, you had to walk into mine….”

Rule #1: Don’t name your team “Balls Deep” or “Schweddy Balls” or “Blue Ballers” or “Huge Knockers” or “Rubber Balls and Lick Her.” (Though, just for the record, these names are awesome.) Rule #2: Don’t be the über-competitive guy who argues calls, starts fights, and pegs girls as hard as he can to turn that oh-so-crucial second-inning double-play. Rule #3: Don’t be the guy who shows up drunk, keeps drinking, and pukes into the cooler. (Though, just for the record, that would be awesome.) Rule #4: Don’t be the “funny guy” — hey, look at me! — who always wears Kurt Rambis-style protective eyewear, high socks, Chuck Taylors, and short-shorts. True, every team needs that guy; just don’t be that guy. Rule #5: Don’t start hitting on your teammates after the first game. Rule #6: Hit on the other team’s teammates after the first game to make your teammates jealous. Rule #7: Don’t be the guy who has the deal locked up and then does 11 Jäger-bombs at the Sandbar, passes out in a booth, and gets dicks drawn on his forehead. (Though, again, that would be awesome.) Rule #8: If you do end up dating that gorgeous art dealer with the English accent and absolutely no athletic ability (at least with a kickball), don’t make a funny reference to your team name midcoitus, such as “Who’s ball deep, now?” or “I guess I have to turn in my Blue Ballers shirt.” Rule #10: Jog, don’t run — no one likes Schweddy balls.

Way to go, sport — you’ve made the initial phone call (or text message) and set up that all-important first date. It’s a bad idea to set the bar too high with dinner at a chichi restaurant or too low with a stroll on the beach, but a night at the Upper Eastside Garden is just right. The urban oasis is open Thursday through Sunday, and unless you like awkward both-hands-in-the-popcorn moments, the plan should be to hit the Back 9 Putt-Putt. That way, you’ll be able to play the getting-to-know-you game while checking out each other’s “swing.” But this isn’t your typical minigolf course. The obstacles on each hole were designed by local artists, so you’ll have plenty to distract from your suck-ass game. Plus each round comes with a free cocktail, so that takes you and your wallet off the hook for at least one round of jitter-destroying drinks. But you can’t blame the libations or sweaty palms when you send the golf ball flying off the course. Not even the magic of a first date will make her forget you’re that bad.

In 2005, during those dark days following Hurricane Wilma, a bunch (gaggle? den?) of burrowing owls decided to take refuge in a grassy area at 3000 NW 199th St. in Miami Gardens. Problem was, the city planned to build a $15.2-million community center there. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission protected the owls, so that meant the community center developer had to work around them (a familiar problem if you’ve read Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot). City workers ended up transporting the owls’ nests to another corner of the grassy lot. By the time that happened, the cost of construction had dropped because the housing bubble had burst. “The owls probably saved us more than $1 million,” says Miami Gardens City Manager Danny Crew. If only the owls could have saved the rest of Miami from real estate woes.

This year, the fellas grew tired of simple side and center parts in their hair and decided instead to use their scalps for a canvas. Both professional and kitchen-table barbers were bombarded with requests for intricate designs etched into the sides and backs of heads across the city. To say that the tressy trend turned into a form of self-expression would be an understatement. We’ve seen guys with UM logos in the Gables, delicate star patterns on SoBe, and “Amor” in Hialeah, but we’re still looking out for “The Heat Sux” downtown. Jason Amado of the Next Level runs down a few of the styles that have walked out of the shop’s doors. “We’ve done laugh now/cry later, a panther, a dragon, Mohawk with designs on the side, and a lot of tribal designs,” he says. “I don’t see the trend going away. I think it’s something that’s always gonna be around because the young kids feel like they gotta get it since we [the older generation] got it back in the day.” Some moms have even taken razors to their children’s heads and crafted cringe-worthy designs akin to serving a Big Mac at Prime 112. We love them for the penny-pinching effort, but we won’t tell them the “cut” looked more like strategically placed bald spots.

Located at the nexus of the Coconut Grove universe, where Main Highway, Grand Avenue, and McFarlane Road intersect, this pizza joint comes with a front-row view of the Grove’s sidewalk drama. There are sure to be high heels, high tempers, and high blood-alcohol ratios every day of the week. Pull up a chair outside around 2 a.m. on a Sunday and watch as attractive young people devolve into belligerent street performers smelling faintly of puke.

There once was a boy named Man-go who lived in Publix. His friends called him “Go” for short, and he was a sweet boy, with the most beautiful reddish-orange skin you’ve ever seen. One day, Go and his friends spotted a giant of a man roaming the place. At the sight of his dark, tanned skin and billowing white linen outfit, the little mangoes cringed in horror. So the stories are true, they thought. The man approached the frightened fruits and without hesitation reached for Go, saying, “Hi, my beautiful new friend. I’m fittin’ ta take you to your family reunion. Didn’t cha know it was this weekend?” And before he could protest, Go was lifted into the giant’s shopping cart. Then he was moved onto a conveyor belt, shoved into a paper bag, and, finally, plopped into a big green pickup truck.

Although he was afraid at the thought of being away from Publix, the little guy was also excited. Soon the giant pulled the little fruit from the paper bag and laid him on the dashboard. He tried to set Go at ease by talking about how much fun Go would have meeting all of his relatives. He talked about how Go would meet his cousin Nam Doc Mai from Thailand and how they could get their faces painted together. Go got excited when he heard about the dinners and samplings held in honor of mangoes, but when he heard about the tree auctions, seed decorating, and mango puppets, his smile faded. He realized the tall tales about giants kidnapping mangoes were true. As the giant pulled into Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Go saw the huge sign that read, “International Mango Festival,” and sighed. He saw all of the happy faces entering the gardens and knew he would be the only one not enjoying this day in the sun.

Have you ever eaten a piece of fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding? Or one that smells like Juicy Fruit gum? How about root beer? Thanks to South Florida’s subtropical climate, the black sapote, the jackfruit, and the sapodilla — which offer these tastes — can all be sampled at a beautiful 35-acre oasis west of Krome Avenue and north of Homestead. Although you can’t pick the fruit from the trees, you can eat whatever has fallen to the ground, except for the ackee, which is poisonous if you consume it before ripening. (For this reason, the ackees are fenced off.) At least once a month, the park has an interesting, usually fruit- or plant-related festival. They celebrate orchids, palms, and rare fruits, for instance. Or you can just wander around the grounds anytime, marveling at the oddities of the South Florida soil. Park admission is $6 for adults, $1.50 for children.

There are some days when you just want to munch alone, away from computers, co-workers, and crowded eateries. Not to be goth or emo or macabre or anything, but what better place than a peaceful city cemetery, albeit a slightly run-down one? One entrance is across the street from a hardscrabble grocery store, the other on gritty North Miami Avenue. Inside, however, is a peaceful, historical haven filled with palm trees and stately grave markers that date as far back as the turn of the 20th Century. Built in 1887, one year after the city was incorporated, the cemetery holds the likes of Julia Tuttle (the mother of Miami) and Lawson Thomas (the first black judge in the South since Reconstruction). The Burdines department store family has a stately granite crypt, and the Art Deco touches on some graves are stunningly gorgeous. Park your car under a tree and enjoy this downtown oasis amid the dead — sometimes contemplating one’s own mortality at lunch makes the rest of the workday seem, well, insignificant.

There are no maître’drones herding tourists in from the sidewalk. No overcooked lobster sits under plastic wrap at the door. And most important, there’s nothing over $20 on the menu. Everyone knows that Front Porch Café offers one of the best brunches on the Beach, but the eatery is often forgotten about at lunch and dinner. Almost all the fresh, homemade entrées are under $15. Try the sushi-grade tuna encrusted with sesame seeds and served with orange ginger sauce — just $14.95. You don’t have to walk inland to eat after a day at the beach. Stick around, enjoy the view of Lummus Park, and take another bite of that chicken caesar salad wrap (less than $10).

It was bad enough for the poor people of Miami when in January last year, Parrot Jungle Island was renamed Jungle Island in a desperate effort to attract more visitors. Parrots, it seems, are not as exciting as jungles alone. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. At least not so far. Since moving to Watson Island in 2003, the attraction has failed to bring in dollars and, consequently, long ago stopped paying off the $25 million federal loan that was secured to move it there in the first place. In 2006, the City of Miami reluctantly agreed to take on 80 percent of the financial burden. But the Jungle has proven itself a remarkably un-public place. Through-the-roof admission prices (adults pay $27.95 per ticket; children older than two cost $22.95 — that’s more than $100 for a family of four) have helped ensure the Island remains a destination mostly for opulent private meetings, private conferences, and gala dinners. The park is open 365 days a year from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Parking costs $7. Have fun!

Titanic makes its own delicious beer and simple, hearty food. It’s almost like an interdimensional portal into the Midwest — a window, if you will, out of Mojitotown. Some of us just need beer and meat loaf at least once a week — it’s kind of an anti-gym membership. If you’re jonesing for that kind of thing, Titanic gives you an easy out. For $85 a year, they’ll engrave a large mug with whatever handle you choose and keep it around on a hook. They’ll give you a shirt, feed you every Wednesday, and let you drink all night at happy-hour prices. It’s kinda like renting a cool uncle for a year.

It’s Sunday evening, you partied too much this weekend, and those doldrums are settling in. Stave off a bummer of a Monday with a whole slew of flowers. Once the sun goes down, stuff a few bills in your pocket and head to the farmers’ market on Lincoln Road in South Beach. That’s when sellers slash prices to a buck or two a bunch. For a mere $10, you can cart away enough flowers to make your home feel like the abode of a Coral Gables socialite. Or buy roses, which usually go for $5 a dozen. Take them to work and start a spicy rumor about you and your fabulously rich (and invented) lover. Monday mornings just got a little more thrilling.

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince dusted off their dookie chains and came out of retirement just for this occasion. We transcribed.

Fresh Prince: A-yo, Jazzy. Can you please tell me why you never see a rapper driving a Cam-ry? I’ve seen Lambos and Maseratis, even a Ferrari and a Bugatti — but not a Mazda or a Honda on MTV.

Jazzy Jeff: A-yo, why you worried about what the next man is doing? Go get your own. You got money — who you foolin’?

F.P.: Man, I don’t have no cash — shiiit, I’m practically down to my last. I’d be a fool to cop a car if I can’t buy the gas.

J.J.: Yeah that wouldn’t be a good plan, and you can’t ask your pops — your parents just won’t understand.

F.P.: But what’s this I see? A quick-fix solution. We in business, Jazzy! For 4,500 bones, I can just rent a car that costs more than my home. The Rolls Royce Phantom, top-of-the-line, and for the next 24, this bad boy is all mine!

J.J.: Yeah, that’s it, but check this out, Prince. Since you got your credit card out, you might as well go all the way — throw in another 500 beans and have a driver all day.

F.P.: Word, I’m gonna do that. You wanna ride?

J.J.: Man, you already know who’s on the passenger side.

At first glance, this might seem like just another fine example of affordable housing. But Tangelia Sands’s new place is the first one in Miami-Dade that is certifiably green, as in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified green. That means builders used renewable materials and designed the home in such a way that the place is considered environmentally friendly to a set standard. Although some upscale buildings have incorporated these elements, this is among the first of its kind built with public money. Remarkably, making the three-bedroom, two-bath home near Liberty Square energy efficient required only an additional $12,850 in construction costs, but Sands and her four kids get to expect an energy savings of $2,500 per year … while the rest of us get a cleaner environment.

Hipsters usually scream in horror — often with good reason — when corporations muscle in on their turf, but this one time, they might be wrong. Live Nation’s takeover of operations at the storied Jackie Gleason Theater may just be the best thing to have happened entertainment-wise since the Great One appeared at the Miami Beach Auditorium in 1964. Live Nation spent about $4 million to transform the location into a contemporary concert space. Attendees are thrilled at how much nicer and enjoyable the place is. But the best part is the booking; popular artists now fill the schedule. No longer are there only school graduations, low-rent comedians, and the occasional foreign musician. The theater is now part of the Fillmore family of venues, which originated in San Francisco during the flower-power years. It’s a much sweeter deal than paying Cirque du Soleil to turn the place into a creepy jugglers’ paradise. Real groovy, man.

When New York Times reporter Bruce Weber came to Miami in 1999 to do a story about Little Haiti’s art community, he described the nascent effort to renovate the Caribbean Marketplace, not only to save the building itself — only nine years old then, it was well on its way into, as Weber said, “decrepitude” — but also to establish a cultural center for the neighborhood. Another nine years have passed and that dream is almost realized. The award-winning design by Haitian-born architect Charles Harrison Pawley once again looks like the building it’s modeled after, the famous Iron Market in Port-au-Prince. And the new construction in back, at the time of writing, was very close to finished. Redesigned by the Zyscovich firm, the new site will soon be home to a theater/auditorium, a dance facility, a community meeting room, gallery space, a darkroom, a computer workroom, and a kiln. In conjunction with the soccer fields on NE 62nd Street and Second Avenue, this revitalized site will finally give Miami’s Haitian community respectable facilities for sport and cultural events. At 50,000 strong, it’s about damn time.

On any given Sunday, this tiny Little Havana church — a shrine to the patron saint of faith and purity— fills with worshippers clad in suits or mantles and gloves while clutching their Bibles and rosaries. They enter the modest building down steps that oddly descend under sidewalk level. Inside, a sonorous Father Rueda delivers mass at 8 and 11 a.m. every Sunday. After service, many parishioners mingle in the parking lot in scenes reminiscent of an Elmer Gantry revival. A billboard on the shrine’s front lawn urges help for pregnant teens.

Don’t let the red rope dissuade you. You’re smart and good-looking enough, and — gosh darn it — the rich people inside the Sagamore will find some reason to like you. Plan ahead. Leave the flip-flops and ratty cargo shorts at home. Spiff up a bit. Smile when you arrive at the entrance. It’s worth the act to take a peek at what’s inside one of the best art spaces in Miami Beach. (The Sagamore says the collection is public, but we’ve spied unattractive people turned away at the door.) Hotel owners showcase their contemporary collection of oils, photography, and sculptures throughout. In October 2007, the hotel opened an exhibition from Spencer Tunick’s photography sessions with 500 naked Miami residents at the hotel. But perhaps the best reason to pretend you’re a guest is the video art reserved exclusively for paying visitors.

If you are visiting the area, and you want a real taste of M.I.-yayo, this is the perfect place to stay. Since Miami never sleeps, neither should you. Located on the infamous Calle Ocho, this motel is decorated with red neon lights and mirrored ceilings. The toilets are equipped with bidets. In fact some folks consider the motel to be a historical landmark, since the film Jamaica Motel was released in 2006. It was shot on location and caused some controversy (check out the director’s MySpace page, www.myspace.com/jaydeph). The rates are convenient and inexpensive: $70 per night, or $50 for two hours. Yeah, mon.

It’s gone now, but for a few heady days in January, the International Inn adjacent to the 79th Street drawbridge on the Normandy Isle side was no longer the International Inn. It’s gigantic green sign, one of the few spectacular neon signs left in Miami, hung over the glittering waters of Biscayne Bay advertising a magical place called “Intern Inn.” How the “ational” letters of the sign knew to malfunction in unison to produce a mildly comedic chuckle that would have been downright hilarious in the spring of 1998 is a mystery that local psychics are still trying to parse out. But for those of us who were able to catch it, perhaps on the way home from a long day of trying to sell off a bloated inventory of condo units, while listening to Lakshmi Singh announce the latest death toll in Iraq, it took us back to a simpler time, when all we had to worry about was the commander-in-chief’s taste in cigars, and should we throw another five percent into the 401K? Let’s throw in another five percent, and while we’re at it, get those Goo Goo Dolls tickets. Front row, baby.

The City of Miami’s omnibus redevelopment package, a.k.a. The Megaplan, would under any circumstances be called a boondoggle, folly, or even pure insanity. What qualifies it as chutzpah, too, is that this past December, commissioners decided they didn’t need to ask voters about redirecting billions of their dollars toward capricious whims instead of curing the poverty much of the money was meant to alleviate. Of course, the voters had already said they wanted $50 million of it to be spent repairing the Orange Bowl — which is being mega-torn down under the plan — so who gives a shit what the voters think? Or maybe it qualifies as chutzpah because several Miami-Dade County commissioners complained they had less than two days to review the extensive plans before their vote — which mysteriously was also a go for this hell-spawn of a love affair between Leviathan and Cthulhu. What exactly do the commissioners expect the public to buy them? A tunnel that no one is sure can physically be built, a baseball stadium unanimously supported by all 25 Marlins fans, a soccer stadium without hope for a team, an art museum in a flood zone, funding for an unprofitable arts center, and a few other tidbits. That’s more than $3 billion worth of chutzpah. Feh!

Think Babel with chocolate croissants and cappuccino. Along with French classes, the Alliance Française on Calle Ocho offers German, Spanish, and English. The center is tucked in the heart of east Little Havana near an auto dealer and storage facility, and its parking lot abuts a Spanish-language Evangelical church. Officially opened in April, the Alliance Française’s village houses a travel agency, French-style hair studio called Trini in Private, and La Provence Bakery. It’s not uncommon to hear a gracias followed by Cuban-accented merci beaucoup from a customer buying a crusty baguette. The Alliance also hosts events such as lectures on the Middle East and fashion shows by a Haitian designer. If you attend, bring your dictionary. You never know when you’ll have to traducir por un étranger.

Some kids would rather portray the Bad News Bears than actually be part of a championship baseball team. If your little cherubs happen to fall into this category, forget Little League this summer and treat your children to Creative Camp instead. Here some of the town’s top acting teachers will introduce the wonderful world of theater. Kids get to write and produce their own movies, incorporating new skills from acting, directing, dance, music, and other performance fields. They also learn to use video and audio equipment, musical instruments, and a professional stage. If that isn’t enough, they’ll enjoy field trips to theatrical productions and local attractions, and receive goody bags filled with magic tricks, juggling supplies, and a T-shirt. You can choose from two locations, one in Kendall and the other in the Gables. Costs range from $380 to $1,600, depending on length. (Scholarships are available.) Just remember to thank us at the Oscar ceremony.

There are many good reasons to leave town in July. The sun is relentless, the humidity high, and afternoons are plagued by sudden thunderstorms of biblical proportion. But those who migrate north miss out on the splashy summer transformations at Miami Metrozoo. Chill out at the chimpanzee-activated sprinklers: When the primates pull a handle, they douse visitors in the S.O.A.C. (Sprinkler Offense Area/Chimpanzee) Zone. Cooling mists also provide wet relief between glimpses of other exotic animals. And there’s a new giant water-shooting mushroom near the spotted hyenas, in addition to the spouting frog, pink flamingo, and seahorses around the park.

So you want to get the hell outta Dodge, but you can’t afford a plane ticket to a faraway kingdom. No worries, mate — pack up your camping equipment and head down to Big Pine. For more than 30 years, the lodge has been a home away from home for those who want to get away from home. Why? Is it the amply sized campgrounds, complete with rustic-style or fully hooked-up sites? Is it the RV sites and the clean public bathrooms? Is it the proximity of both Key West and Islamorada for dinners followed by debauchery? Perhaps. But we also attribute it to the key deer, the adorable, nearly extinct, dog-size critters that have put Big Pine Key on the map. The deer aren’t afraid to walk right up to you for tidbits. You aren’t supposed to feed them, of course. But if you don’t, the cute little bastards might just dig through your garbage bag when you’re not looking. Less than an hour’s drive away, Big Pine is a perfect escape from Miami drivers, violence, and intensity.

They can laugh at our politics, they can laugh at our culture, they can laugh at our driving. But one thing visitors from more-established cities can’t laugh about is our weather, especially when they’re experiencing it over a tiki-torch-lit alfresco dinner consisting perhaps of cream-centered fresh burrata cheese with truffle vinaigrette-dressed haricots verts ($12), followed by seared local tuna with almond-spiked Catalan romesco sauce and herb salad ($18) at this sleek, breeze-cooled hotspot. Chef Mark Zeitouni’s menu, featuring seasonal and organic ingredients, is divided roughly 50-50: half comprising simply grilled meats and seafood with mix-and-match sauces and sides, the other half consisting of the kitchen’s mostly Mediterranean-inspired creations. These range from a vegan fritto misto of baby artichokes, shiitakes, and chickpea fries with egg-free garlic aioli ($10), to saffron-scented bouillabaisse ($26) or a fun trio of mini cheeseburgers ($16). Although dishes are mostly health-minded, anything one orders should be accompanied by a cone of the one purely sinful offering: thyme-and-sea-salt-sprinkled shoestring fries that could beat Belgium’s best. There’s also a pleasant indoor room with the same menu. But the spectacular waterfront outdoor setting is what takes this dining experience over-the-top, in only-in-Miami style.

Every Monday night, tens of thousands of people in flyover states tune into one of the most popular crime dramas on television today: CSI: Miami. Although the show is about a group of intrepid and intelligent crime fighters here in the Magic City, the real star is Miami. Shots of sun-dappled beaches, lush and glowing tropical foliage, and skyscrapers that glitter in the white-hot sun entice the pasty hordes to our city. Trouble is, many of the scenes aren’t filmed here. They’re shot in California. No matter. It’s hard not to watch the show and think, I want to live in that subtropical paradise. Wherever that is.

The City of Miami Gardens was incorporated in May 2003. Four years later, the community of 100,000 got its own police force — and not a day too soon. The area, which includes much of Carol City, is known for being one of the toughest in Miami-Dade County, with two dozen homicides in 2007 alone. (Rapper Rick Ross has chronicled the mean streets of this area in several songs). To deal with the problem, the city threw its support behind the fledgling department: It hired 159 officers from around the nation, paid them a $12,000 signing bonus, and gave them shiny new Crown Victorias. The department now has a budget of $33 million, making it the fifth largest in the county. Miami Gardens, says chief Matthew Boyd, ”is already at the bottom. The only place to go is up. And when it turns around, give us our due…. If we can get this turnaround, we will be a model for the nation.”

These two Krop Senior High girls decided one night in 2007 to videotape themselves singing a parody of Fergie’s “Fergalicious.” They threw the video up on YouTube for fun (against their mothers’ wishes) and almost overnight became superfamous. Maybe it was because the parody skewered a certain kind of Miami girl — a chonga — or maybe it was because the pair was simply campy, funny, and zany in a sweetly innocent way. Somehow, in that Weird Al-type of spoof, Mimi and Laura captured the spirit of an entire generation of South Florida kids. The song spread from the Internet to Power 96 FM to ringtones on tweens’ cell phones. And the girls still get recognized when they hang out at the mall. Adults love them too: They were the grand marshals of this year’s King Mango Strut. Now the young ladies have their own Wikipedia entry, videos of several performances around Miami-Dade to send to college recruiters, and 2.2 million hits on YouTube. When these two appear on television or in movies in a few years, no one in Miami will be surprised.

Five years ago, on a cool September evening, Miami Police stopped Sisser while he was driving in Coconut Grove with a known drug dealer in the passenger’s seat. The cops found four bags of crack cocaine and a homemade glass pipe used to smoke the drug. Sisser was charged with third-degree felony coke possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. At the time, he was the most powerful lobbyist at the Miami-Dade School Board. Following his arrest, he entered a 30-day detoxification program in Tucson. It wasn’t easy after his return. During a court appearance in January 2004, Sisser admitted he would not pass a drug test because he had used cocaine. But he overcame his addiction and dedicated part of his life to helping other people like him. In 2006, he hosted a luncheon to benefit Miami-Dade’s “Friends of Drug Court.” The invitation described him as a “Proud Graduate of Drug Court.” With then-Gov. Jeb Bush, Sisser raised tens of thousands of dollars for the program. He’s also bounced back in the political landscape, recently holding fundraisers to re-elect Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein.

For a while, having Scott Storch as a friend was pretty cool. After all, who doesn’t want a pal who owns a 10-bedroom, $10-million waterfront palace on Palm Island with a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in the driveway? This is a guy who makes beats for Lil Wayne, Fat Joe, and 50 Cent. But it turns out the multimillionaire music producer isn’t so cool. This past January, his baby’s mama, Dalene Jennifer Daniel, accused Storch of being a deadbeat dad. In Miami-Dade court documents, Daniel claims Storch is habitually late with his $7,500-a-month child support payments for their two-year-old son, Jalen. In addition, Storch’s check to enroll his kid in the Florida Prepaid College Plan bounced. Storch’s son is not the only one getting the shaft. The music mogul owes $445,916 in property taxes since 2006 and, this past December, paid the IRS $79,259 in back taxes. The guy is so broke he listed his $20-million, 117-foot yacht, Tiffany, for auction on eBay. Reserve bid: $600,000.

Sometimes a city needs a man of wealth and power to stop the wealthy and powerful from ramming through a massive boondoggle at the public’s expense. In Miami’s case, this is Norman Braman. The multimillionaire philanthropist and luxury auto dealer has demonstrated he is unafraid to use his personal financial resources to defeat proposals that will cost taxpayers and benefit special interests. In 1982, he led a successful campaign against a city sales tax that would have paid to renovate the Orange Bowl for then-Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie. In 1999, he helped defeat a one-cent sales tax that would have generated $1 billion for a doubtful mass transit plan. And now Braman is doing everything in his power to whack a $3-billion interlocal agreement between the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County for the megaplan. In addition to suing the city and the county, Braman is publicly speaking out against it. And he commissioned a poll that found Republican State House Speaker Marco Rubio would offer a formidable challenge to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez in the upcoming campaign. Oh, and did we mention Alvarez is one of the interlocal agreement’s key supporters? Braman has also dedicated his philanthropic work to the memory of the six million Jews killed during World War II. As chairman emeritus of the Holocaust Memorial, Braman has contributed more than $1 million to the monument. And he was instrumental in adding the name of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist who was abducted and killed by terrorists in 2002, to the memorial’s wall. Miamians should stand up and applaud Braman for his independent thinking.

After the notorious suicide of former District 5 City Commissioner Art Teele in 2005, Michelle Spence-Jones’s election might have seemed like a breath of fresh air. But it wasn’t long before all of that oxygen turned stale. In the past year, Spence-Jones has shown Miami she can play rough too. A former aide to Mayor Manny Diaz, she leaned on powerful friends in the runup to the election — Billy and Barbara Hardemon, a well-connected couple, in particular. Their hard-line campaign tactics on her behalf ultimately earned her a slap from the Florida Elections Commission, which fined her $8,000 for violations of campaign law, among them passing out tens of thousands of dollars to campaign workers on Election Day. This past December, news broke that the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office had launched a criminal probe into Spence-Jones’s finances, an investigation that two months later nabbed the commissioner’s pastor, Rev. Gaston Smith, on charges of misspending a county grant. So far, that investigation has yielded no charges against Spence-Jones herself. Finally, in January, there was the “secret memo,” filed as a memory aid, apparently, by District 2 Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. The memo recalled a conversation in which he says he was told by former City Manager Joe Arriola that Spence-Jones was withholding a vote on a proposed Coconut Grove condo unless two of her friends received a combined $150,000. No doubt about it, this has been a rough year for Spence-Jones. But while the commissioner might be embattled, she ain’t licked: Spence-Jones has remained defiant, denying each and every allegation, repeatedly hurling the stuff back at her attackers. Will she be vindicated? Only time — or possibly a lengthy court case — will tell.

Perhaps Jim Hampton was a victim of that old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Maybe he was just lucky, but Hampton’s years as a journalist led him to some of the most talked-about news stories of the past 40 years. He was in Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention and at Kent State only a couple of years later. It would be at the Miami Herald, though, where he and his editorial board deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize in connection with their work on freeing 2,000 Haitians trapped at the Krome Detention Center. Hampton was a beloved editor whose troops spoke about him with adoration — and who spoke about the newspaper’s reporters in a kind way that was never the norm at the Magic City’s largest daily. Once long ago, when a Herald scribe who happens to be editor of New Times now, was at dinner with the kindly gent in Tallahassee after an arduous legislative session, Hampton turned and said, “You know, you guys kicked ass this session. It’s too bad we can’t get more of [those damn legislators] indicted.” Hampton was a brilliant, hard-working, hard-drinking Heraldite who toiled for the paper from 1978 to 1998 through some of the most interesting years Miami has ever seen. It was also he who supervised cartoonist Jim Morin when he won a Pulitzer. And it was he who died — far too soon — in early February at age 73. We’ll miss you, Jim.

It was the most horrific, senseless crime: In April 2002, 18-year-old Ana Maria Angel and her boyfriend, 18-year-old Nelson Portobanco, were kidnapped by five men as they strolled romantically through South Pointe Park in South Beach. Ana Maria was gang-raped, while Nelson was beaten, stabbed, and left to die on the side of I-95. Both were robbed. Ana Maria was shot to death as she begged for her life. Five men were eventually charged in the crime — Victor Caraballo, his brother Hector Caraballo, Cesar Mena, Joel Lebron, and Jesus Roman. In 2007, Victor went to trial first, and a Miami-Dade jury not only convicted him but also sentenced him to the death chamber. “If the death penalty was ever merited, this is the case,” said State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle.

Traveling east on Dade Boulevard in Miami Beach, you are transfixed by a massive bronze hand that stretches to the sky. As you approach, you see the hand is only part of a compelling and complex sculpture. Surrounding it are humans cast in bronze, their faces twisted in agony and pain, clawing and crawling over each other to reach the outstretched palm. Known as the Sculpture of Love and Anguish, the hand is the centerpiece of Miami Beach’s Holocaust Memorial, the most poignant monument in the county. Architect and sculptor Kenneth Triester, who completed and opened the memorial in 1990, created a place that not only honors the six million Jews killed in World War II but also provides a place where survivors can find solace and the public can see and feel the impact of the 20th Century’s greatest crime. The memorial is open seven days a week 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In front of Baptist Hospital, there are two gigantic man-made lakes and an asphalt jogging track. Surrounding the lakes are benches, and they are usually occupied by people feeding the ducks and their feathered friends. It doesn’t matter that the signs say, “Do Not Feed the Birds.” This is hallowed ground. As you begin to stroll or jog on the half-mile tree-lined track, a calm and meditative state of mind transports you. A few seconds later, you’re contemplating life and death, which both occur in the hospital behind the lakes. The peach building’s Italian Renaissance architecture is as beautiful as Miami’s Vizcaya. Need a glass of ice water after your stroll? No problem. Inside the main lobby is a cafeteria with a water fountain, as well as a great salad bar. With all of those endorphins pumping, you might need to sit down and say a little prayer. Good news: Next to the cafeteria is a beautiful and quiet chapel (which closes at 10 p.m.). Best of all, there is 24-hour security, so if those ducks attack, you’ll be saved.

Once upon a time — between 1925 and 1931, to be precise — the residents of Miami, lacking giant Hummers, boarded streetcars to get around the city. Then car companies lobbied for the destruction of the rails, and the on-street transit system was no more. Now Mayor Manny Diaz wants to bring the streetcar back. Maybe you like it, maybe you hate it, but Mayor Diaz’s plan to build a $200-million system connecting Little Haiti, the Design District, Wynwood, and downtown is one of those issues that gets city activists fired up. Those on the pro-streetcar side tend to see it as the eco-friendly, neo-urban kick-in-the-pants the otherwise car-dominated town needs to move it into the 21st Century. But not so fast: Opponents such as Norman Braman (see Best Citizen) think it’s a big, fat waste of money. And Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, elected on an anti-streetcar platform, has called it a “glorified bus.” So far, the scale seems to be tipping in the streetcar’s favor. But don’t let the politicians decide the matter. If you have an opinion, go ahead and clamor for it. That’s what democracy is all about.

This past Christmas, Coral Gables Police Major Scott Masington did a seemingly nice thing. He gave 30 motorcycle, bicycle, and other cops Casio watches. Problem is, he paid $625 with city plastic called a p-card. By Coral Gables policy, that’s not allowed. The whole thing might have ended there, but this being the City Beautiful, it didn’t. When officials — and cranky critics including our personal favorite, George Volsky — began looking at the receipts from city cards, they found much more impropriety. The city’s computer geeks had charged hundreds of dollars for pizza and doughnuts. Others bought vittles at a Chinese joint and Publix. The best find: City Manager David Brown apparently violated policy by purchasing expensive wine at lunch. Major Masington never could have guessed it would turn out like this.

Nothing says, “Get thee to a nunnery, reality!” like removing one’s fig leaf in public. After all, what better escape from our escapist society than to turn to one’s left and drink in the canvas of a 60-year-old man’s withered equipment, marooned on his leg like some hideous snail that has lost its shell. Absent airbrushing and product placement, the human body truly is a marvel and an occasion to a meditate on the nature of a God who would outfit His people so poorly for life outside of air-conditioning. Next to a crustacean, our armor seems flimsy and riddled with extraneous holes. Our feet are too small, and more often than not, when presented with the nakedness of our species, we cringe in disgust and yell, “Cover up! Help us, Marc by Marc Jacobs!” But no such veil lurks here, and the visitors to the Naturist Beach become like Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, eyelids forced open by the bland splendor of Eden. In about 30 minutes, you’ll be begging to be cast back into the wilderness of corporate brand names.

Let’s face it: You didn’t follow up on your new year’s resolution to lose the holiday flab. And now a reunion/swimsuit season/wedding/back-fat blast looms, um, large. What to do? Call Rafael Moret, boot camp master. For $249, which covers four weeks with an “iron-clad money-back guarantee,” he’ll whip your ass into shape in no time using squats, thrusts, pushups, situps, you name it. You’ll do all of this in a park — Kennedy Park in Coconut Grove, Highland Oaks Park in Aventura, or at locations in Miramar and Pembroke Pines in Broward — and you will sweat. A lot. Don’t expect Rafael to yell at you like you’re in the military; that’s not his style. He motivates with positive words and kindness. But your back fat will be banished. Ahh, boot camp.

Less than an hour from Miami, this nearly seven-mile portion of the Florida Trail is not for the wimpy or those unwilling to get wet. Don’t be stupid and wear flip-flops, either. Lace up the hiking boots: You’ll be stomping among snakes and sticks in shin- to waist-high water.

Coming from Miami, take a left off U.S. 41 at Loop Road near the wildlife check station. The marked trail begins about a dozen miles into the swamp. Along the way, play wildlife shutterbug and gawk at the bounty of birds and alligators that makes it feel like you’re driving through an awfully nice zoo. Then park the car on the side of the road and look for the trail head. Enter the alien landscape of saw grass prairies and cypress swamps that was South Florida before the damn Yankees up and ruined it.

The only down side is the distance. You might want to drop a car at the preserve’s Oasis Visitor Center on U.S. 41 if you don’t plan to hike the trail there and back. At 13 miles, it could be a grueling day. Hiking six miles in the swamps can take at least four hours, so the one-way trip is much more doable. And pleasant.

A playlist to describe Kendall’s perfect place to keep the pace:

1. “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago: Just like the public park utopia painted in this bouncy, horn-heavy song, Hammocks Community Park has a similar vibe. In the parking lot, warm up your legs by taking a brisk stroll past a playground pumped full of tots. As brass instruments intensify, step onto a paved path that leads into a jungle of bleachers. As the smoky scent of grilling hot dogs slithers from the concession stand and into your nostrils, kick up a leg and stretch while you watch a baseball game.

2. “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol: As you walk past the park and onto the jogging trail, note the “No Trespassing” sign, but try not to sweat it. You’re in Miami. Do as Miamians do — regard the law as a mere suggestion.

3. “The Great Salt Lake” by Band of Horses: Embark on your jog as soon as this grandiose folk rock song starts to flourish. Trot past wide, green fields and pick-up soccer games. As you begin to turn a corner, you’ll notice a lake, clear and blue, greeting you with spritzes of cool water.

4. “Cars” by Gary Numan: Because you won’t see a single one.

5. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen: With seven miles of road ahead of you, you’ll feel like the very embodiment of this blue-collar poet’s signature song.

6. “Swimmers” by Broken Social Scene: Dedicated to the man-made beaches that dot the trail every mile or so. Like this song, the small beaches are mellow, refreshing, and serene.

7. “Don’t Stop” by Brazilian Girls: Simply because you won’t want to. Regardless of the scorching heat, you’ll be shaded by rows of royal Poincianas.

8. “Amsterdam” by Peter Bjorn and John: While jogging under bridges and around twisting canals that connect to larger lakes, you might think, if only for a moment, you’re in Holland.

9. “Bougainvillea” by Great Southern: This romantic ballad is great for a cool-down, as you walk under overpasses drenched in the purple flowering vines.

10. “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell: Because unlike most former paradises in West Kendall, this one has yet to be paved and turned into a parking lot.

Serve.

Located in the heart of South Beach, this court boasts colorful Art Deco apartments as the backdrop for swinging tennis rackets and soaring fuzzy balls.

Love – 15.

The 17 brightly lit clay courts are far enough from camera-toting tourists yet close enough to the inviting surf and sand.

Love – 30.

The practice wall is the spot for singles looking for doubles, and the full-service pro shop is where strings are tightened and expert advice dispensed.

Love – 40.

After three sets of grunting, running, and swinging alongside your neighbors, a dip in Flamingo Park’s pool is second to none.

Game. Set. Match.

Miami is flat as a pancake, a place where having a mountain bike is kind of like having snow skis. But the Grove Skate Park is proof that man can make mountains out of wood and steel. For $10 on weekdays and $13 on weekends, you can roll through 10,000 square feet of perfectly constructed transitions, including a 28-foot-wide miniramp, quarter pipes, a beginner’s course, and other obstacles for the brave bike rider. The skate park is located in Coconut Grove’s beautiful Peacock Park, where there are also less-dangerous nature trails to explore (as long as you don’t ride over a sleeping homeless person). Because the skate park gets mobbed on weekends with young skateboarders, we recommend mountain-biking there during the week, when it is usually empty. After riding around the wooden ramps and obstacles, cruise through the Grove. There are trails that lead toward the bay or in the opposite direction, toward the bars.

Rural can be a fuzzy word in South Florida, but this trek — dubbed the “Snowbird 25-Mile Fun Ride” by local bicyclist Tom Burton of the Everglades Bicycle Club — gets you just far enough out there for things to be pretty, with plenty of agricultural sightseeing along the way. The ride is long enough to keep you busy and short enough that you can bring your own water. Plus it’s a loop. (For ambitious riders, there’s an optional spur to Everglades National Park.) Start at the lovely, bucolic intersection of Loveland Road (SW 217th Avenue) and Palm Drive (SW 344th Street) and make your way north — past avocado groves, baby palmetto stands, and green bean fields — to Silver Palm Drive (SW 232nd Street), and head east. You can turn anywhere, but if you want the maximum countryside and the minimum people, avoid the housing complexes to your right and continue all the way to Richard Road (SW 197th Avenue). Then head back south, returning to Palm Drive. If you feel up to it, you can go south on Loveland, turn left on Ingraham Highway, and take it all the way to the entrance of Everglades National Park.

The Miami River is one of the most underrated beauties the city has to offer. Sure, it’s a faded, grungy beauty, but beneath Miami’s sheen of glitz and glamour, the river remains a secret flowing artery. The best way to see it is by bike: Start at Bicentennial Park, or anywhere else downtown, and take NE Sixth Street west — through some of what’s left of historic Overtown and under the interstate that largely obliterated it — until you get to the river. Turn right and follow it south along NW North River Drive, and take in the tugboats and barges laden with cheap goods bound for the Islands. The road will curve to the west and become SW Third Street — just keep on going until you hit SW Second Avenue. Make a right, head south across the bridge, and continue until you hit SW Seventh street, where you will make another right (this is the boring part). At SW Third Avenue, though, the trip gets better. Take it north to José Martí Park, a quirky and surprisingly scenic little spot that offers a nice behind-the-scenes vista of the river, as well as tables where you can sit, drink whatever you’ve got in that bottle, and enjoy life a bit. When you feel like it, make your way to SW Fourth Avenue, which becomes — behold — NW South River Drive. Follow the river, observe the homeland security warnings, and see if you can get in trouble for taking pictures of the tugboats (apparently it’s a form of terrorism). Continue as long as you like up the river; in a perfect world, you’d be able to cross back to Miami via the bride at NW Fifth Street, but it’s out of commission indefinitely, so turn around when you feel like it and head home.

Spalding, get dressed. You’re hitting range balls today at the Miami Beach Golf Club, and you’re going to like it. For just $12, you get a plastic bucket and a code to punch into a giant stainless-steel dispenser, out of which your generous allotment of pearls comes tumbling. The mats aren’t exactly a cross between Kentucky bluegrass and Northern California sinsemilla, but the consistency of the hitting surface will help you concentrate on your swing. Anyway, the real appeal is the putting green. Well-manicured and directly adjacent to the range, the green is where 84s turn into 79s. When the range closes at 8 p.m., you’re within walking distance to all the restaurants and bars on South Beach, which means you’ll have a full selection of luxury sports cars to toss your cookies into. In the meantime, the female clientele on the range ain’t too shabby. Mrs. Crane, we’re talking about you. You wore green so you could hide, but we don’t blame you, you little monkey woman.

There’s really no better feeling than lifting a 12-gauge cannon toward the heavens and blowing a flying object to smithereens.

Hemingway knew it.

And when he lived in Cuba, he shot trap and skeet with a little club called the Club Cazadores del Cerro in Rancho Boyeros.

The club came to Miami in 1968 and continues to provide good, clean fun for people with enough scratch to compete at shooting clay discs a couple of times a week.

These guys are nice. They like newcomers and pass the time between rounds of shooting by playing dominoes and bullshitting in Spanish. Food is served. For $75 a year, you can be a cazadore too.

You won’t find any posers inside this 12,520-square-foot warehouse turned skateboarders’ paradise. From the youngest riders to the old-school tricksters, M.I.A. Skate Park is the place to witness some of the most electrifying, gravity-defying skaters in the state, if not the entire nation. They perfect their skills and showcase their talent on an obstacle course that includes towering half-pipes, a miniramp, and a double set of stairs to leap from. “We make it a point to have anything you would want to ride your skateboard on,” says co-owner and lifetime skater Matt Cantor. “We’ve replicated authentic street spots like marble ledges and regulation-size hand rails — you know, things that are fun to skate.” Cantor and his partners Ed Selego and Chris Williams opened the skate park two years ago. The veteran thrashers envisioned a place where younger generations could not only learn and master the fluid art of skateboarding, but also build a community tied together through the love of wood slapping concrete and metal grinding metal. It is a place where you see local phenoms like Ian Rosenberg, Tony Peoples, and Brian de la Torre tear it up alongside famous boarders like Jim Greco and Mark Gutterman. Throughout the year, M.I.A. Skate Park holds a variety of demos and contests sponsored by some of the leading brands in skateboarding, from Emerica to Zoo York. It’s not just an all-boys club, either. Girls always skate for free here. Fellas, on the other hand, pay $10 a session. On Saturdays, an extra 15 bucks lets you skate all day. The park is open Monday through Thursday 3 to 10 p.m. Hours are noon to 10 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays; and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays.

There are those workdays when you just want to take your sandwich and sit peacefully, alone, in silence. Enea Garden Lounge is the perfect place to chill and relax. Designed by Swiss landscape designer Enzo Enea for Art Basel 2005, the little enclosed park is his interpretation of a rain forest. As you enter through the large bronze doors, you are transported to a tropical land: tall bamboo rustles in the wind and water lilies float delicately in tiny ponds. There are a few tables scattered about, along with some plastic sofas and chairs. On any given weekday, there will be a few folks eating lunch, grabbing a smoke, or even taking a power nap on the sofas. The best part: It’s free.

It’s the weekend, or maybe it’s just Tuesday, and people are shuffling into the clubs all over Miami and dancing until they produce enough sweat to fill a small pool. To the rest of the world, that is all Miamians are willing to do — and many natives believe this myth. But if you are dreading another night of clubbing, there is hope. Skydiving, a sport once believed to have been reserved for slightly demented adrenaline junkies, has been around long enough that it’s not just for the insane anymore. It still isn’t for the faint of heart, but the sheer thrill of dropping from an airplane flying two miles above land is sure to leave your heart pumping faster than any night at Mansion. Miami Skydiving Center offers tandem jumps, which means your instructor is strapped to your back and all you have to do is enjoy the fall, for $169. However steep that price might seem, you’d spend that on drinks at the club, where it’s a lot less fun to fall down.

As charming as they are, too many “nature” trips are pretentiously involved in removing you from the city and placing you in counterfeit communion with what passes for untouched land. Why bother with phony baloney when Miami has a gorgeous urban and wild landscape you can appreciate fully from the inside of a kayak? Launch yourself from Pelican Harbor Park into an emerald green wonderland populated with dolphins, manatees, and even the occasional alligator. Glide over fields of sea grass or stop at one of several postage-stamp-size islands as you paddle south toward the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Do observe signs that tell you to keep out of the bird rookeries, though, but draw close enough to enjoy the fowl cacophony. At the last island before the causeway, turn west toward Morningside Park. Either call it a day here (if you use a second vehicle), or do the return trip up the shoreline. At the mouth of the Little River, a quick detour around Belle Meade Island will let you peek at a few squawking human roosts as well. Then it’s back over to Pelican Harbor and your own nest.

Public basketball courts are a mixed bag. Some are so filthy that if you simply dribble around for 10 minutes, your hands turn black with dirt and grime. And don’t fall, because that hand you put down to save yourself might land on a used condom, or needle, or maybe some broken glass. That’s why when a new court opens, it appears as an oasis in the desert of dilapidated and poorly managed ones.

Normandy Isle Park is such a refuge: The green asphalt is smooth and free of cracks, nets hang from the rims, the courts are well lit, and water fountains function. A lot of things can ruin a public basketball court: a dominant crew monopolizing court time and intimidating newbies, an atmosphere that promotes bickering over every call, interminable waits to get in on a game. Nothing is worse than showing up for some pick-up hoops and finding a bunch of meatheads posturing and running their mouths more than the court. Normandy Isle, perhaps because it hasn’t been around long enough — it was christened last year — is free from all of those things. Best of all, if you’re playing during one of those sweltering Miami days, just hop in the park’s pool when the games end.

Let’s face it — the Everglades isn’t exactly the Appalachian Trail. There’s nothing to climb, and vistas are scarce. Hiking paths are few and far between, and where they exist, they tend not to go anywhere special. When you get right down to it, the Glades is just a big old swamp; so if you want to see it the right way, you’ve got to get swampy. Luckily Everglades National Park affords an opportunity not available in the dry climes up North: slough-slogging, an activity described in unusually poetic language on the park website as “wading through the shallow waters in search of wildlife and the secrets of water.” Plus it’s as cheap an outing as the cheapest cheapskate could desire; all you need is a willingness to spend the day waist-deep in muck and mud, soiled from head to toe, your limbs bloodied by saw grass. Wearing a pair of rubber boots (available at most hardware stores for a couple of bucks) isn’t a bad idea. You can slog anywhere there’s enough muck to stick a shoe in. Just watch out for alligators. And pythons. And snakes. Don’t forget the snakes.

You know Card Sound Road? That cryptic stretch of asphalt on your way to the Keys? Were you ever tempted to turn your steering wheel to the left just to check it out, but because of the dirt road and lack of traffic signs felt, well, a little paranoid?

Suck it up (along with a spliff) and take a 20-minute cruise into the depths of this unknown part of upper Key Largo, passing along the way lush mangroves, snippets of sea, and rustic houseboats spotted with sunburnt fishermen. Once you hit the toll booth, you’ll immediately hear the pluck of honky-tonk booming from a weathered shack of a restuarant. Park the car, let the smoke out through your windows, and walk into the 60-year-old Alabama Jack’s — one of the best places in South Florida for you to simmer out after blazing.

High? No big. Most people here — an assortment of odds and ends (emphasis on odd) — won’t care. Take a seat at a waterside table. Order up locally made brews such as Key West Lager and Sunset Ale and indulge your senses in the salty smell of the sea and the rowdy rumble of idling motorcycles. The sights here are priceless — fish swimming below you, tropical birds flying above you, a drunk regular spinning in circles on the dance floor at noon as a band plays “Redneck Woman.”

And although Alabama Jack’s has enough going on visually to amuse you, it’s the king of all munchies that’ll hook ya. Their conch fritters — golden, sweet, and fluffy — will keep you camped out on the wooden deck for hours … or at least until you figure out how to concoct a bong out of all your empty cocktail sauce containers.

It might seem a little counterintuitive at first: drink, then run — and then drink some more, run a bit, and finish it all off with a few “down-downs,” which consist, oh yes, of drinking (teetotalers need not worry — water is okay too). It’s called hashing, and, crazy as it sounds, it’s a worldwide sport, with chapters everywhere from Boca to Baghdad. The premise is fairly simple: Every week, hashers gather in a different location and send out a “hare” to lay a trail — using chalk, flour, toilet paper, whatever — for the rest of the hashers to try to follow, shouting the customary “On, on!” to show they’re on track. The wily hare, not wishing to be caught, lays various ingenious traps for the hashers in pursuit. It’s not easy, but when things get sticky, the hare stops everyone in their tracks with — what else — a hidden stockpile of beer. Afterward, everybody gathers in a raucous circle to sing songs, make merry, and impose down-downs on each other. Although Miami has yet to claim a hash all its own, the Fort Lauderdale/Miami Hashers are always nearby, and they’re a hell of a nice group of people to spend a Monday night getting sloshed with. For information about the next hash, call the hotline. On, on!

Trading Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis for pitcher Andrew Miller and centerfielder Cameron Maybin was vintage Marlins stuff. Unload the guys we love for twerps. Dump the present for the future. Hit us fans in the stomach. Hard.

But hold on a minute! The generation of Marlins who will stay here — at least for a bit — might have finally arrived. The Marlins will be revving up to move into the new Marlins Stadium (planned for 2011) just as these two guys are hitting their strides.

Maybin is a phenom. As a friggin’ high school freshman, he led his North Carolina team to a state title and was named most valuable player. He was honored in 2004 as the Baseball America youth player of the year and has labored in the minors for a couple of seasons. In his second major-league game last year, he hit a homer off Roger “Liar, Liar” Clemens.

This spring, the 21-year-old was competent, but not striking, batting just under .300. He pulled a hamstring, which hampered his speed. And he faced reasonably strong competition for a starting spot.

Upshot: He’ll likely get time to develop — both in the minors or on the bench. And that’s just fine. Because it means the guy will come online as the Marlins prepare for a third World Series victory.

The few loyal Dolphins fans who continued to attend home games as the losses piled up walked through Dolphin Stadium like zombies December 16. With their team sitting at 0-13 and facing the grim possibility of the first 0-16 season in NFL history, Fins fans had no cause for optimism. When the Baltimore Ravens tied just before the end of regulation, and won the coin toss for possession to start overtime, Fins fans dropped their heads in defeat. Then it happened: Baltimore’s Matt Stover missed a 41-yard field goal wide left. Miami took over, and suddenly back-up wide receiver Greg Camarillo — who had one career reception before that day — slipped behind the Ravens’ typically tough defense. Cleo Lemon hit him on a short slant and Camarillo trucked 64 yards for the game-winning touchdown. It was the longest offensive play for the Dolphins all season. The stadium erupted as if the team had just won the Super Bowl. The party spilled over into the parking a lot, and for the first and only time all season, the Dolphins faithful could toast to victory.

Camarillo is the kind of ballplayer who defies jock stereotypes and is easy to root for. He stands 6-1 and weighs 190 pounds. He turned down Harvard so he could walk on at Stanford, where he never caught a touchdown and never had a reception more than 36 yards. Still he made it to the pros. Now Camarillo will go down in Dolphins lore as the guy who came from nowhere to save the team from the ultimate stigmata of a winless season. The Fins’ most athletically gifted player, defensive end Jason Taylor, perhaps said it best. “It got a little dicey there at the end,” Taylor told the AP after the game. “Thank God for Camarillo.”

In the land of the talentless, the one-shouldered man is king. No doubt a healthy Dwyane Wade is still one of the NBA’s premier players, but this year, surrounded by animated carcasses like Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, and Luke Jackson, the hobbled Wade just seems like the only Heat player unbitten by the Eddie Curry zombie. Fantasy-crush Shawn Marion has been a welcome addition, but everyone knows he’s no Shaq. In other words, his arrival neither transforms the franchise nor drags us out of the Michael Beasley sweepstakes. Kudos to Coach Pat Riley for opening up some cap space and somewhat correcting the Davis Debacle, but with each move, he only seems to confirm Wade’s place as the franchise’s sole source of identity. Call it the Kobe Plan, and to avoid more bottom-dwelling, he needs to draft some Andrew Bynums fast.

Things were looking bleak for the Miami Heat on February 5. Dwyane Wade was playing through injuries, Shaq wasn’t playing at all, and when he did, the Diesel looked more like a jalopy. The Heat had the NBA’s worst record, 9-37, and a roster full of guys who were either past their prime (Jason Williams), crazy (Ricky Davis), or just too inexperienced (Dorell Wright). Shaq’s contract called for $40 million over the next two years, making it seemingly impossible to move him and limiting the Heat’s ability to work around the salary cap. Then, on February 6, came a ray of hope called the Phoenix Suns, who were scrambling to keep pace and make a championship run out of the tough Western Conference.

Trading the disgruntled and unmotivated Shaq for the versatile Shawn Marion and forward Marcus Banks was a big victory for the Heat. Marion can defend all five positions, fills the stat sheet, and could be a great athletic counterpart to Wade. Marion can opt out of his contract at season’s end if he decides to forfeit next year’s $17.2-million salary, potentially giving the Heat substantial salary-cap space this summer. Shaq’s colorful personality will be missed in the Magic City, but getting rid of the behemoth and his equally huge contract will allow the Heat to build for the future around Wade.

At one time in our city’s history, you could visit Virginia Key and discover signs that told you exactly where you were: “Colored Only,” they read, and black residents knew this was the only slice of South Florida where they were allowed to sink their toes into the sand or enjoy the sensation of sun-warmed seawater on their skin. Flash-forward a few years, and Virginia Key was known for two things: the sewage treatment plant and Jimbo’s. Nowadays Jimbo’s is still going strong (thank the Lord for drunken tradition), and the tables of history have turned for old Virginny. The beach is back, better than ever, and it’s open to sun and sand lovers of all creeds and races. The park makes full use of its 82 acres, with areas to camp, places to picnic, spots to sunbathe, nature trails to hike, and a brand-new carousel to ride with the kiddies. There’s even a stage for live performances. And then, of course, there’s the beach: serene and beautiful, with calm, lapping waters you won’t be afraid to splash in. Soon you’ll be saying, “South Beach where?” And, “Crandon what?”

Tomas Vokoun spent the first four years of his career consumed by an overwhelming fear that he would flop. It turned out he had obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which for him manifested itself in an irrational and overpowering fear of failure. Once Vokoun was properly diagnosed and treated in 2002, his life returned to normal. But the roadblocks to establishing himself as a solid NHL goalie were just beginning. Vokoun rose to be a leader and All-Star for the Nashville Predators, but in April 2006, he was diagnosed with thrombophlebitis of the pelvis, a blood-clotting condition. While recovering, he missed the team’s remaining regular-season games as well as the playoffs. He then broke his thumb the next season and was traded to the Panthers in 2007. He’s been healthy and solid between the pipes ever since.

Vokoun, age 31, was the only All-Star on the Panthers squad this year, and has emerged as a team leader. When the Cats missed grabbing a share of first place in the Southeast Division after giving up a two-goal lead with 15 minutes to go, Vokoun didn’t hesitate to speak his mind.

“It’s unbelievable. I don’t think words can describe it,” he said after the 5-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. “It just shows you our lack of commitment to defense. Many times it didn’t cost us, but today it cost us dearly. We basically had the game and gave it to them.”

Don’t tell Christina you liked Million Dollar Baby. She’s heard it before, and if that’s your only reference for women’s boxing, she knows you don’t know anything. The number one amateur female boxer in the United States trains at the South Florida Boxing gym, where she sometimes spars with men, including her boyfriend, though she says they can’t forget she is a girl; they just don’t hit hard enough. Not a problem when she’s fighting other women. In 2007, she was the National Golden Gloves Champion, and she’s hungry for more titles. Christina dreamed of going to the Olympics when she was a girl, and she thought swimming might take her there. But during her senior year on the Hurricanes swim team, she suffered a shoulder injury. That was four years ago. After college, she craved the competition of her life in the pool, and she found boxing. As a leader in the sport, she might have made it to the Olympics in 2008, but a motion to add women’s boxing to the games was denied. She was disappointed, but she’s already looking forward to the next national championship. Don’t feel bad for her: She’s tough.

Ten years ago, Booker T. Washington wasn’t even a high school, and five years ago, when Tim Harris took over the football program, the Tornadoes were flounders in an ultracompetitive sea of Miami prep football full of great whites. Harris’s work to build the program from the ground up culminated this year in the school’s first Class 4A state title, its first perfect season, and a number four ranking in the ESPN National High Elite Top 25 poll. Oh, and the Tornadoes track team, which he also coaches, won a state title too.

With a 57-7 record in his five years at the school, the 42-year-old Harris was named USA Today High School Coach of the Year. Booker T. shut out eight opponents this season, including two in the playoffs, on its way to a 14-0 record. The team gave up a paltry 66 points all year —an average of 4.7 per game.

Harris’s nickname, Ice, comes from his childhood emulation of NBA great George “Iceman” Gervin in basketball games, but could just as easily describe his cool and collected demeanor on the sidelines.

Bored with the humdrum, off-key murmurings that pass for song at your local Shabbat service? Secretly disenchanted with the perky pop tune prayers that have replaced many a heart-wrenching Jewish dirge? Look ye no further: Cantor George Mordechai is in da house of worship. An Australian native and the son of Iraqi Jews, Mordechai brings a blend of Middle Eastern, Indian, Eastern, and Western musical traditions to his Shabbat prayers at Temple Emmanu-El, a.k.a. “The South Beach Synagogue.” It doesn’t hurt that Rabbi Kliel Rose, the congregation’s young, bearded leader, is crazy about Mordechai’s music, and holds a note well enough to do back-up vocals, making for a show worthy of kicking off a well-deserved — and Almighty-decreed — day of rest. Services are Friday nights at 7:30 (there is an optional meditation at 7).

Whatever will we do when Dwight Lauderdale unclips his mike and steps away from the anchor desk for the last time? The local news legend — South Florida’s first black television anchor, we’ll have you know — has announced his official retirement will be May 21. “I’ll be at home, sipping a little Pinot Noir and watching you,” he informed co-anchor Laurie Jennings (who still looks like actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen disguised as a soccer mom, if you ask us). Why will we miss Mr. Lauderdale so very, very much? Quite simply, there’s something compelling about him. He’s not afraid to cast a disapproving frown or let that bass voice deepen to an ominous rumble if a story bothers his moral sensibilities. Unlike some local news anchors (ahem, former Deco Drivers), Lauderdale has always prized substance over style. He seems to resent the increasing celebritization of the news. His “whatchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis” expressions at Jennings’s foot-in-mouthisms never fail to bring the LOLs. He reminds us of Marmaduke, in the best possible way.

Last October, investigative reporter Jeff Weinsier gave us some sublime television when he stood up to police and demanded his journalistic rights. A camera caught several cops bullying him off a public sidewalk outside Miami Central High School.

“You guys are totally wrong on this,” he says on an unedited video on the Local 10 website, as cops escort him across the street. The reporter later says to the camera: “They’re going to arrest me. You’re going to get it on camera.” Soon the plucky journalist heads back, thus provoking a fleshy, mustached cop.

“I am giving you a lawful order to get off the sidewalk,” the officer yells in Weinsier’s face.

“I’m not,” he says calmly, before getting cuffed and locked up.

Police later found a loaded handgun on Weinsier.

A month later, all charges against him were dropped by the State Attorney’s Office. Weinsier later filed suit against the Miami-Dade County school board and three school police officers. Go get ’em, Jeff. But next time you head to a school, try leaving the weapon at home.

Watching Steve Shapiro match wits with superagent Drew Rosenhaus every Sunday night during WSVN’s Sports Extra is one of the most comical, entertaining experiences in local television. Throughout the segment, the two exchange barbs while mixing in their thoughts on pending free agent moves, players about to be released from contracts, and other aspects of the business side of sports. With his jaundiced eye, smirking grin, and booming high-pitched voice, Shapiro injects an incredible amount of pizzazz into his coverage of Miami’s local teams, whether he’s at the Soul Bowl or the Super Bowl. Although some people might find his style abrasive, the Boston native is never afraid to take jabs at his subjects — like the time he nicknamed Miami Hurricanes head coach Randy Shannon “Randy Saban,” a not-so-subtly unflattering comparison to ex-Dolphins coach Nick Saban. It was Shapiro’s way of chastising Shannon for implementing a strict protocol against the media, much like the Fins’ former head man had done. And don’t let the sharp duds and dashing good looks fool you. Shapiro is a bright fellow: He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tufts University and a master’s in broadcast journalism from Boston U. He began his career in 1980, covering sports in Roanoke, Virginia, and has anchored sports in Albany, Boston, Cincinnati, Hartford, and Richmond before arriving at WSVN in 1997. In 2003, the station promoted him to sports director.

With his million-dollar voice and MIA-influenced beats, the Palestinian-American DJ Khaled delivers daily musical therapy to I-95 rush hour victims. Also featuring the charismatic K. Foxx, Khaled’s The Takeover radio show proves his worth by giving loyal listeners a balanced blend of local 411 and tastes of the hottest hip-hop albums. Most important, he is establishing himself as a radio renaissance man devoted to the Miami music scene. Even casual fans can’t help but tune in to his show, hoping to get an exclusive listen to the popular radio jockey’s latest chart-topping jam. As a member of Fat Joe’s Terror Squad and as a producer using the alias Beat Novocaine, Khaled is constantly expanding his industry operations. He has become one of SoFla’s finest on-air talents, and shows no signs of slowing down. So “listennnnnnn” up: His name is DJ Khaled, and the takeover has begun.

By now, most Miamians are familiar with radio host Javier Ceriani. His glamorous poster — showing him sporting gold designer sunglasses and a diamond-encrusted neckband — seems to be plastered on the side of every public bus in Miami-Dade County. The Buenos Aires-born Ceriani has been hosting Zona Cero since 2005. Known as “El Aguila” (The Eagle), Ceriani lends his morning show a cool, campy sense of humor (he likes playing Spanish versions of Abba songs) while sinking his sparkling teeth into the latest Latin celebrity dirt.

But there’s a more serious side to the gossip king. Last December, Ceriani traveled to Mexico and reported on the troubles of 10 jailed Cuban exiles. His segments brought light to the Kafkaesque circumstances experienced by many Cubans seeking asylum in Mexico. For his efforts, three exiles where set free by the Mexican courts, and the City of Hialeah declared February 12 as Javier “Glamour” Ceriani Day. Honors aside, our Eagle has proven to be the rarest of birds: a funny shock jock with a solid social conscience.

Calle Ocho closes it off to the north, and Miracle Mile seals it to the south. Ponce de Leon Boulevard makes up its western wall, and Douglas Road binds it to the east. There’s food, beer, and ice cream to be had along Giralda Avenue.

But make your way north and you’ll feel like you’ve popped into the early-Nineties computer game Myst. The Gables suddenly becomes a collection of fountains, cadaverlike condo projects, and fake old architecture. The wide streets lay empty. Banyan trees and climbing vines loom in the bright streetlights. There are reflecting pools too. And pretty courtyards.

So go find ’em. Just you and your lady.

If “soca in me veins, soca in me blood” is blaring through your car windows and you’re threatening to pull over and do the soca wine, it can only mean it’s Saturday afternoon and time again for Mike Andrews’s Caribbean Connection. Andrews has been host of the most energetic show on South Florida airwaves for about the past 20 years. When he’s not giving you the latest sports scores and reading the most-talked-about news items from his native Trinidad, Andrews is spinning popular sides from the island country’s finest musicians. It’s not all infectious soca, though. You’ll get an education in calypso, parang, chutney, steelband, and other musical styles from the Caribbean. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll catch Andrews singing over those Carnival tapes smuggled in from Trinidad.

Finding a public restroom that isn’t nauseous is a challenge. If only there were some sort of restroom guide — a Zagat of shitters, if you will. Enter Crappers Quarterly — an online magazine that reviews public restrooms all over the globe and traces its humble beginnings to some shit-talking University of Miami students. Ten years ago, William Kercher III and his buddies were joking about how cool it would be to start a magazine that reviewed the world’s porcelain thrones.

Kercher, a web designer at the time, ran with the idea. He and his crapper-critical friends began reviewing and photographing facilities everywhere they went. Today the site includes bathroom breakdowns and snapshots from a dozen U.S. cities, 30 countries, and even a few cruise lines. Judged on user-friendliness, cleanliness, privacy, and facilities, each crapper gets a rating from one to five toilet paper rolls.

And if you run out of descriptive pseudonyms for dropping the kids off at the pool, CQ has a long list of those too. Here’s one to relish at tax time: “IRS audit: You had a hard labor and gave birth to a nine-pound turd. So you named it and claimed it as a dependent.”

Forget about the people who blog about their favorite movies or their kids or the vegan meals they eat every day. Eye on Miami is smart, witty, and informative — almost like daily newspapers used to be. It’s the conscience of the local blogosphere, concentrating on foreclosures, housing woes, corrupt politicians, and the rampant waste of taxpayer money in our community. It’s an easy-to-read, simply designed site — the right-column index of scofflaws and newsy topics is especially handy — with an edgy voice. The two people who run the site (Genius of Despair and Gimleteye) do it anonymously, but they still let their personalities shine through. (One classic post described Genius of Despair accidentally hitting University of Miami President Donna Shalala with a chair at a concert.) What the blog does best, however, is research and explain the often hard-to-understand issues in our area. The bloggers think nothing of taking a news story printed in the Herald and explaining the festering, moldy truth that lies beneath the people quoted in the story. They research foreclosures, lobbyist records, and campaign donations — often with sobering results. The truth isn’t pretty here in the Magic City, but thankfully Eye on Miami is watching.

In the world of free weeklies, believe us, it’s hard to keep afloat. That’s why we so admire El Venezolano for its 16 years in the muckraking business. With Hugo Chávez’s daily antics to watch and a burgeoning Venezuelan community in Miami to inform, the newspaper has plenty of copy to fill its weekly editions, which are available throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties as well as Orlando. Founded and run by Venezuelan transplants since 1992, the paper boasts a staff that has earned widespread recognition, including first place from the National Association of Hispanic Publications for its six-week investigative series about how Miami Beach Police abused a Venezuelan tourist. Even more admirable — with an entertainer like Chávez in power — is editor Oswaldo Muñoz’s pledge of objectivity.

Miami’s moment as a crime town, a noir town, a Scarface town, has passed. The Magic City has been replaced, in the literary canon, by locales that understand real violence: Fallujah, Afghanistan, the Sudan. Now we have multiple farmers’ markets, decorative lamp posts, and pineapple festivals, and it’s time for the city’s consciousness to return to its rivers, to imagine Biscayne Bay without dead bodies surfacing at its edges, to try to reconcile the impact glass of high-rise windows with the impact of an afternoon asleep by the pool, the skin of a palm frond with the aluminum casing of a can of Schaefer beer. In other words, poetry has arrived, along with Campbell McGrath’s seventh book, appropriately titled Seven Notebooks. Winner of the Kingsley Tufts prize, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, McGrath is in the on-deck circle of poetry’s highest echelon and seems intent on bringing the Magic City with him. With his keen eye for the shards of modern culture and a deep concern for the landscapes of the mind, McGrath has sung to, for, and from Miami many times. Whether explaining the Holocaust Memorial to his son or deconstructing sunlight as it enters his beer at Scotty’s Landing, he’s a poet of his time and place. Perhaps now, with his most formally impressive collection to date on the nation’s bookshelves, that place is ready for him.

If you lived in South Beach from roughly 1987 to 1997 — during those transitional years when the area was no longer God’s Waiting Room but not yet Developers’ Heaven; when the low-rent buildings were populated by unemployed artists, barely employed writers, drag queens, drug dealers, Holocaust survivors, fashionistas, club kids, refugees from wherever, wannabe whatevers, plus the glut of trend-sniffing celebrities who kept it all unreal — then this book will bring back everything you’ve forgotten. Which is likely everything; the drugs were better then. Fortunately author Brian Antoni, who moved to SoBe in the late Eighties and researched Miami’s hottest nightspots for the next 20 years, did remember all, thanks to a secret weapon: a pad in his pocket. And he tells all in this novel, with charmingly ingenuous prose that perfectly evokes the oddly innocent decadence of the era. Disclaimer: Resemblance to any real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Hah. Figuring out the real identities of the thinly disguised rapacious real estate moguls, crooked politicians, and other local icons is half the fun.

By now, everyone knows Books & Books is Miami’s literary mecca. Famous authors flock here not only to recite their works to admiring crowds, but also to shop, read in the store’s quieter nooks, and feast on offerings from the in-shop café. It’s that inspired combination of reading material, social succor, and fine dining that makes this place a must-visit. It also explains why the Books & Books book club is Miami’s finest. First Course is a fortnightly evening meeting held at the Coral Gables flagship store. For $40, you receive an appetizer sampler — such as ceviche, avocado salad, and hummus — and a glass of wine with which to wash it all down. Club coordinator Debra Lynn puts a lot of thought into the sessions. She takes pains to choose a mix of topics, story types, and authors, and always seeks the kind of high-quality literary fiction that would make store owner Mitchell Kaplan beam beatifically. Just a warning: This isn’t the kind of book club you can just show up at without having read the book in advance. So far this year, they’ve discussed and dined over Dave Eggers, Anne Enright, and Ben Fountain, and at one of every four sessions, the author stops by in person to discuss his or her tome with the participants. Where else in Miami would that happen?

It isn’t easy being a history museum in a city that thrives on reinvention. Yes, we love our Art Deco district. The tourists do too. But there’s a new historic site in town, and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida is working hard to give it the attention it deserves. This year, the HMSF secured the management of the Miami Circle, an archaeological site at the mouth of the Miami River. Two thousand years ago, it might have been a Tequesta chief’s home, but now it will take millions of dollars to make the site the showpiece it deserves to be. In a town where high humidity, regular hurricanes, and new waves of developers continue to wipe away the city’s past, the historians at HMSF know the story of Miami can’t be told in one building. That is why they take to the streets and waterways with tours and cruises, reminding us that even if we just arrived here, we are now part of the tale of Miami.

From its informative Morning Lecture Series on the monumental figures of 20th-century architecture, to the breathtaking Herzog and de Meuron design for Museum Park, Miami Art Museum (MAM) finds itself swept up in a whirlwind of buzz. MAM also mounted one of its most memorable exhibition seasons in years. “Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted” marked the Mexican master’s first major U.S. exhibition in 30 years. It featured nearly 100 of Rufino Tamayo’s paintings, many not shown publicly for decades, offering an in-depth examination of a prolific career spanning 70 years. “The Killing Machine and Other Stories 1995-2007,” by Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, marked the first entry in the ambitious MAC @ MAM sweeps. The sprawling exhibit featured 11 multimedia installations mixing opera, art films, and literature with B movies, rock and roll, and radio broadcasts. MAM’s current exhibit, “Wifredo Lam in North America,” herds more than 80 of the Chinese/Afro-Cuban master’s works, more than a quarter-century after the artist’s death, finally giving the controversial Lam his due in the Big Mango. Throw in the museum’s thoughtful educational and family programming and it adds up to an enticing recipe for stampedes all year.

Miami Dade College brought Francisco Goya’s caustic series of 218 engravings, created between 1799 and 1823, to the Freedom Tower, where they depicted the Spanish master’s brush with state-sponsored terror during the Inquisition and Napoleon’s brutal invasion of Spain. The skull-staving exhibit included Los Caprichos, which earned Goya a spot in the history books alongside Velásquez and Cervantes as Spain’s greatest talents. It also revealed why art historians hail Goya as the first modernist and why the 80 engravings composing Los Caprichos remain one of the strongest indictments on man’s inhumanity to man.

This old biker bar sits on the border separating Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Hitchhikers are usually sitting across the bar’s parking lot, an ideal spot for a few reasons: First, South Dixie Highway ends here and becomes the two-lane Overseas Highway, which goes south to Key West. Two, if you are heading north, this is where South Dixie Highway meets Florida’s Turnpike. And three, there is plenty of space for drivers to pull over and pick you up. Hitching with bar patrons is not recommended.

The bronto-size exhibit filled the Miami Science Museum with some of the rarest dinosaur fossils on the planet in a sensational show that made its U.S. debut in our own back yard. It boasted a whopping 14 of the reptilian behemoths’ mounted skeletons, as well as an impressive array of pristinely preserved feathered dinosaur and bird fossils hailed as the missing link between the meat-eating dinos and the earliest bird. The undisputed star was an 85-foot fossilized skeleton of Mamenchisaurus jingyanesi, one of the longest-necked beasts to have ever trod the Earth. The length of two school buses, the gargantuan creature was featured in the “round-up” scene in the Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World and was the favorite of local students visiting the show during public school tours. The museum even built an interactive playroom where the sandbox set could unleash their inner paleontologists, freeing mesmerized parents to roam the enlightening boneyard on their own.

David Castillo’s work ethic would have put the Puritans to shame. The young dealer often clocks 14-hour days, out-hustling competitors and regularly organizing gallery and museum shows for his modest stable of emerging and midcareer artists. The Yale grad has been in the business 13 years, successfully trafficking in the secondary modern art market with the museum trade. But it’s in his pristine Wynwood gallery where Castillo is leaving heavy footprints on the local scene. From Pepe Mar’s impish cut-up three-dimensional collages, riffing on pop culture artifice, to Andrew Guenther’s psychedelic lobster-clawed space aliens, to Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova’s brainy excavations of contemporary domestic life, Castillo’s shows have been consummately curated and first-rate. It comes as no surprise that one of Miami’s sharpest talents, Glexis Novoa, has recently entered Castillo’s budding stable, considering the gallery has been swamped by more than 3,000 artist submissions since opening in 2005.

While many of his competitors seemed to be elbowing each other for the “Size Queen” crown during December’s Art Basel cash grab, spunky dealer Anthony Spinello made a convincing argument that small matters. The young veteran of the art fair circuit hired the same company that outfits the growing number of local fairs fertilized by Basel to shoehorn four booths into his eponymous gallery for “Littlest Sister 07,” which featured small-format works by 25 artists. Perhaps best reflecting the Basel Zeitgeist, Tawnie Silva’s One of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong Here depicted two works, including a dancing ice-cream cone on one panel and a proctologist’s rubber-gloved hand ready to go rectal on the other. Spinello poked fun at the sensibility driving the torrid art market while adroitly making his cash register sing.

When Baselphrenia grips the Big Orange each year, the moonberries creep out of the woodwork, eager to add some homespun flair to the planet’s greatest arts confab. Some peddle nickel bags of art and push shopping carts full of ephemeral trash across town, others splooge art swells with the sodden contents of a four-foot-long pneumatic pink-foam pecker. But Maite Josune froze traffic on NW Second Avenue and 23rd Street in Wynwood during the fair with her car-wreck-cum-jungle installation, which she christened “Mind the Snails.” The nervy Josune salvaged a 1995 Mazda MX-3; slathered it in acidy cranberry, cobalt, and lemon yellow hues; and plopped it down in front of Art Miami for maximum media exposure. She covered the jalopy with huge white and green snails as symbols that “no artist should be left behind.” To crown her achievement, Josune planted ficus, ferns, and palms from her Kendall garden in the car’s trunk, bringing a loopy dash of suburbia to dreary art district. The homeless loved it, sleeping in her vehicle long after chichi art patrons evacuated the area at nightfall. Josune’s problems arose when neighboring galleries called the cops to complain. Miami Police ticketed and impounded the tagless art piece, apparently unimpressed by the enterprising artist’s conceptual clunker.

The self-taught experimental filmmaker and artist creates throwback black-and-white slapstick horror movies reflecting an upbringing one could call Southern Gothic. As a tyke, Childree spent his summers with his grandparents in Mobile, Alabama, where his budding imagination romped wild. His granny, Doris Wall, had been a Vaudeville performer as a young girl. Grandpap J.F. Walls regaled the impressionable Childree with lurid tales of his adventures as a sea salt. Childree recollects that Doris once lost her glass eye through the wooden slats of a pier and he helped fish for it. His mother, Barbara Doetsch, who had once been a Catholic nun but gave up the church to raise a family, was a creative influence as well. She spooled Super8 horror reels for the young Childree at their Plantation home, infecting him with the celluloid bug. The 37-year-old auteur went on to helm The Flew, rated one of the top 50 midnight movies of the past decade. His quirky shorts earned him in recent years the South Florida Consortium and Native Seeds grants. It Gets Worse, Childree’s latest opus, unfolds the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like account of a seafarer whose scrotum blows up to monstrous proportions when his deadly alter ego possesses him. The filmmaker says he was inspired by a story his grandpa once told him about a visit to Brazil, where he encountered a man suffering from elephantiasis, which caused his balls to grow so large he had to cart them around in a wheelbarrow when out on the town. The amazing thing about Childree’s irreverent, hallucinatory productions is that he writes, directs, produces, and stars in them.

What do a professor, a surgeon, an apocalypse, and Hollywood have in common? Not much. Oh, except for the fact that united, as one inpenetrable force, they made up Team Balderdash, the greatest (and most supercoolest) group of middle school pencil fighters, like, ever.

Pencil Fighting: The Life and Times of Team Balderdash is a clever mockumentary about four pencil-pounding pals, Jackson (nicknamed The Professor), Phillip (The Surgeon), Cornelius (Apocalypse), and Maxwell (Hollywood), who fall apart when Maxwell becomes “tainted by the one thing that’ll blind a man enough to do the stupidest of things: love.” Yup, puppy love. And in order to preserve the circle-yes-or-no-if-you-like-me prepubescent brand of feelings exchanged between himself and a young lady named Marilyn, Maxwell duels a Husky pencil with his standard No. 2 and loses with a single lick. The rest of the tale unfolds 15 years down the road, when the surviving members of Team Balderdash reunite for one last shot at glory.

Although bigger-budget films have dazzled audiences with glitzy images of South Beach, Pencil Fighting stays true to its 305 roots, shooting, for the most part, in a Miami Lakes playground, a warehouse near Tamiami Airport, and at the filmmakers’ Coconut Grove digs, Gold Dickenson Productions. Winner of Best Short Film at both the Orlando Film Festival and the Miami Underground Film Festival, it’s showing for free on MySpaceTV at vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=21666289.

But be warned: Drinking milk while viewing may result in it flying out your nose.

Miami Beach, the city with a history only as long as a coke line at its latest trendy nightclub. Or is it? Some of those club kids vaguely remember Miami Vice was a TV show before it was a movie, but few remember the vibrant Yiddish community that was the centerpiece of the town’s cultural identity for six decades. Vaudeville theaters, literary groups, radio shows, artists, and entertainers supported a thriving community of tens of thousands of year-round residents (and even more snowbirds and tourists) that was also suffering from segregation. Filmmaker David Weintraub painstakingly pieced together the fading memories of the era using vintage footage, contemporary interviews, photographs, and other bits of memorabilia to portray what Miami Beach was like before Crockett and Tubbs resuscitated the neon.

There’s more to Italian cinema than Fellini. Every October, the Italian Film Festival becomes the perfect place to immerse yourself in la dolce vita. Last year’s three-day festival, held on South Beach, featured the charmingly funny comedy Manuale d’Amore (Manual of Love) and a dozen other films, plus a few parties and afterparties sponsored by quality Italian brands (Peroni beer, anyone?). What really makes this fest topnotch is its organizer, Claudio DiPersia. Hailing from Rome and formerly an executive with Telemundo and Sony Pictures, DiPersia has a passion for his home country, and its movies, that is evident in the quality of films selected. A word to the wise regarding this year’s festival: Get to the theater early, because the lines are bursting with people clamoring to watch the flicks.

Dexter isn’t just a murderous psychopath; he is a Miami psychopath. In the first episode, he relates his hunger for blood to some people smashing stone crab claws at a fair. He disposes of his victims’ bodies in Biscayne Bay and revels in his knowledge that Miami’s police department is unlikely to catch him.

Michael C. Hall (from HBO’s Six Feet Under) is Emmy-worthy as the psychopathic vigilante. He has mastered the silent stare of the homicidal maniac, sending chills through the viewer when the camera slowly closes in on his steely eyes and sadistic smile. Despite Dexter’s murderous nature, Hall’s performance actually makes you sympathize with the character as he seeks out only other killers (no innocents, no children) to chop into pieces.

Of course it’s Animals & Plants. The competition wasn’t even close. Anything you could possibly want out of theater — and a lot of it — could be found in this production. The script, which tells the story of two small-time dope dealers holed up in a snowbound motel, was human, funny, and weird. The acting from Eric Fabregat, Joe Kimble, Kei Berlin, and Scott Genn was inspired, carried out by people who not only got the script, but also who seemed as excited by its possibilities as we were. The set was dankly atmospheric, and there were little moments of pure terror that came out of nowhere, land mines buried deep in the performances, the set, and the dialogue that made the whole endeavor otherworldly. Anybody who watched carefully was moved, and they stayed that way.

Max can’t wait. He wants his tennis ball and he wants it now. He lets out a thunderous woof! “Oh, you want this?” teases his mama, Viviana Bojourno. “Well, here you go!” She hurls the ball. The four-year-old black English Labrador gives chase, snatches the fuzzy sphere, and turns it into a slobbering mess. His gal pal Tabitha, a two-year-old bull terrier, comes over and playfully paws Max’s face. He gets up and runs after her. A black Lab puppy named J.J. careens into the two pooches. Even Shakes, a female golden retriever/chow mix with a sprained right paw, is having a grand old time at the latest pooch playpen to open in Miami-Dade County. Conveniently located on the east side of Biscayne Boulevard, four blocks north of 163rd Street, the Northeast Regional Dog Park sits on 1.67 acres divided into two sections for small and large hounds. As their canine companions frolic on the grass, mark territory around the fire hydrants, and run in circles, owners can sit and relax on wooden park benches and picnic tables dotted throughout the doggy area. Bojourno, an Aventura resident, loves Max’s new playground. “The park is wonderful,” she says. “It is so nice and safe.” Just remember it opens at dawn and closes at dusk. And if you take your barking best friend to East Greynolds on the weekend, expect to pay a $5 entrance fee.

Mad Cat’s just got something. The Carbonells might not see it, billionaire philanthropists have yet to see it, your great-grandmother might have a hard time figuring it out, but it’s there. And in the years since the company began, legions of smart young theater people with more taste than money have found Mad Cat and responded. It’s partly the tiny, immersive space; partly the company’s knack for creepy mood lighting; partly the fabulous taste in music. But mostly it’s balls, enthusiasm, and verve — the sense you’re entering a space where smart and passionate people are doing what they do best. In any given country in any given decade, it’s a good bet there are only a few places where the real art is going down, where the stakes are high and everybody looks and feels like they’re on amphetamines, just from the wild rush of creation. Sometimes it’s Max’s Kansas City; sometimes it’s City Lights. Maybe now it’s Mad Cat. It’s a long shot, but these things do have to start somewhere.

Huge sets, great singing, fun and intricate dancing — Urinetown had all of that, and we salute it. Generally, though, we also like our shows full of ideas, novelty, craziness, and weirdness — again, all of which Urinetown had in excess. Urinetown is not a happy musical — Mark Holman and Glen Hotis’s piece begins with a sad premise and ends with what might be the extinction of the human race — but it ekes more fun, surprise, and joy out of its gloom than most musicals without any gloom to plumb. This has something to do with the play’s obsession with urine, maybe, but it’s also the way it gives you the odd feeling you’re seeing something you’ve never, ever seen before (unless you’ve seen it before). It is, after all, a musical political allegory about needing to take a piss, and there’s not a lot of that in the world. What most folks want from their musicals is a night of pure, sugar-coated entertainment, which Urinetown was pleased to deliver while making everybody think a little too. Nobody else came close to doing both of those things this year; hardly anybody else even tried.

The best new drama to hit Miami this year was written in a single night and was less than 10 minutes long. Twenty Six had its first and probably last performance at The 24 Hour Theatre Project, a fundraiser masterminded by the cats at Naked Stage and gamely sponsored by the great Joe Adler, in which assorted playwrights came up with scripts with randomly assigned titles before dawn November 29, which were turned into plays and performed that same night. Most of the submitted pieces went for the funny bone rather than the heart strings, but Twenty Six wasn’t one of them. SoFla’s daring, darling young playwright Marco Ramirez somehow believed a 10-minute run time was sufficient to sell an audience on a highly improbable premise, get them to fall in love with his characters, and make them all cry. He was right. The show was about a man who had grown to the height of 30 stories overnight. When he woke, he freaked, and while trying to get his bearings, killed quite a few people, including a baby. His sister has been convinced by the military to persuade her brother to take a poison tablet in order to end the threat posed by his unfortunate size. It’s not a conversation anybody expects to hear passed between a brother and sister, and few playwrights could have summoned the delicacy needed to pull it off. We’re blessed to have one in our back yard.

Lela Elam is probably the most intense working actor in Florida. Her characters are lived-in, internally consistent, and fiercely themselves; no two are alike, and not one is much like anybody you’ve ever met. Which is why Elam was also a close contender for Best Actress for her portrayal of a hard-of-hearing, free-spirited lesbian in New Theatre’s Fill Our Mouths, as well for her few moments onstage at The 24 Hour Theatre Project as a beauty-obsessed mall-rat surgery-freak with no morals. But she had more lines in In the Continuum than in either of those pieces (it was a two-woman show), more time to cover her character with layers and fill her with life. In the Continuum found Elam portraying a Los Angeles teenager impregnated and infected with HIV by her love-’em-and-leave-’em high school star athlete boyfriend. What audiences found in her was a girl with eyes wide open, forced to witness her own life and dreams and future being sold on the cheap. She overcooked nothing yet held nothing back, and the performance was devastating. People filing out of the big theater at The Biltmore didn’t know what to say to each other.

Loud but not too loud, funny but no scenery-chewer, smart but not showy, and crazily, bodily committed to his roles, Fabregat is an actor’s actor. He makes bad plays good, good plays great, and great plays transcendent. Animals & Plants was an example of the last, and Fabregat deserves much of the credit. There was nothing very notable or obvious about his character: As an awkward, small-time dope dealer named Dantley, he was a little dumb, a little shy, and extremely unsure of himself and his place in the world. He walked through the world of Mad Cat’s stage as if every unopened door concealed either a kiss or a pie in the face. We found ourselves rooting for him like he was a stand-in for all the lost, scared bits of ourselves we’ve tried to throw out over the years. His great achievement was allowing audiences full of circumscribed individuals to see themselves in a character to whom they bore no resemblance, and whom they would, in the real world, ignore without a second thought.

The memory of Kei Berlin’s performance, like a great number of things about Animals & Plants, left everyone who saw it with the queasy suspicion that nothing that followed was its equal. They’re right. Playing Kassandra, a sexy hippie chick who works at a head shop in the Carolinas, she blew into the protagonists’ motel room in the middle of a blizzard for no reason at all, and the heat from her great big heart seemed apt to melt the snow outside. She had wise and laughing eyes peeking out of a gorgeous face atop a hot young bod, and not only did you want to get to know her but also you felt that, somewhere, you already had. She didn’t arrive until late in the play, and when she did, all that had come before seemed incomplete. People could fall in love with this Kassandra, and those who did might now be wondering where in hell Kei has gone since then. She hasn’t appeared at Mad Cat, nor at GableStage or New Theatre or anywhere else, as far as we know. Wake up, darling. The world needs you.

Sheaun McKinney is a cute, cute kid. If there were a “menace scale” for actors, he’d rate somewhere between Andrea McArdle and Haley Joel Osment. At least, that’s how it went until you caught him in Jesus Hopped the “A” Train. For ever after, when you saw him on the sidewalk, you made sure to cross the street. In Jesus, McKinney played a prison guard who was either psychotic or principled, depending on what moral perspective you brought to the show. He thought his inmates were scum, and he treated them as such. Even when Bechir Sylvain, who played a serial killer turned deeply peaceable spiritual guru, was trying to inspire his fellow inmates with righteous, well-meaning pep talks, McKinney was there to rub his face in shit. He seemed to enjoy it. For a great many nervous moments, one suspected McKinney really wanted nothing more than to drag his costars out behind the theater and shoot them. The hell of it is, his convictions were so firmly held and so ardently conveyed that you almost wanted it too.

Maybe the hardest thing an actor will ever have to do onstage is convey a sense of intimacy — not with the audience, but with fellow actors. You, the audience, just walked into the place, you don’t know these people, you’ve never even seen them before, and somehow they must convey chemistry, history, and a gazillion unseen moments in the characters’ unwritten pasts. In Fill Our Mouths, this happened many times. Katherine Michelle Tanner’s character time-lapsed through a profound lesbian affair with Lela Elam’s; Tanner’s relationship with her husband, played by Brandon Morris, was solid and yet vaguely on the rocks; and when the play opened, Elam was on the verge of a tense transitional moment with her deaf girlfriend, played by Kim Ehly. Figuring out which one of these dynamics was most convincingly portrayed is impossible. Playwright Lauren Feldman didn’t weigh the play down with exposition, and yet by the middle, you felt you could write these characters’ entire shared histories. Whether it was Ehly playfully wiping flour across Elam’s face, or Morris’s loving, if occasionally bullheaded, attempts to deal with Tanner’s infidelity, or the exquisitely subtle signs we were given that Tanner and Elam’s relationship was blossoming into something more than platonic — any given 10 minutes of Fill Our Mouths was filled with enough smartly acted humanity to convince you that you’d been with these people from the beginning.

Marco Ramirez’s Mr. Beast was a rushed piece of writing with big problems and frequent flashes of brilliance, and Mad Cat’s constant director, Paul Tei, capitalized on the latter while squeezing the former almost out of existence. The script was packed with continuity errors, gaps in character development, and enough cheese to make Wisconsin blush, but it mattered not a whit — probably because Mr. Beast was about a werewolf, and werewolf literature is seldom held to the same standards as the rest of the Western canon. We value it for its ambiance, its cheap thrills, the way it can make the tacky creepy and vice versa. Paul Tei understands this viscerally. He gets the atmosphere right; he gets the right kind of hushed, creeped-out performances from his actors; and most of all, he nails the language. A more conservative director wouldn’t have known what to do with lines such as “There are some things the dark keeps for itself,” but Tei recognized it for the precious thing it was: an opportunity to go totally, gleefully over-the-top. Tei went, we followed, and it was fucking awesome.

Ellis Tillman’s work at Actors’ Playhouse this year was subtle and awe-inspiring. The vaguely ill-fitting, vaguely daft duds on the members of the Altar Boyz seemed to reflect the awkwardness of their stock poses. Martha Mitchell’s expensively lurid ensemble in Martha Mitchell Calling spoke of old-school classiness trying to get along in a world where everything comes cheaper by the day. And in Urinetown, the mere cut of Cherlyn Franco’s potato-sack dress captured the feeling of dumb youth struggling with the implications of adult wisdom. Glen Ballard’s uniform as the psychotic Officer Comstock suggested Patrick Bateman with a badge, Tally Sessions’s Bobby Strong character looked like a dystopian Rob Roy, and Rachel Jones’s matronly rags conveyed poverty, dignity, and sternness. Doing a lot with a little is always better than doing a little with a lot, and in Urinetown’s worst neighborhoods, Tillman outdid himself again and again.

Sometimes you need a little weirdness to help you get your head together. This is the weirdest afternoon you could possibly want.

At Miccosukee Resort & Gaming, you can pop into the bingo room to observe the odd goings-on of a bunch of neglected elderly people. About 1,200 of them. They’ve been there all night. You’ll also find thousands of video gambling games and about five dozen poker tables.

Once you’re either broke or rich, hop back into your car and jet to the Trail Glades Gun Range and vent your rage or celebrate with a bang. If you’ve got your guns with you, fire away; if not, they’ll rent you some. Who knows? You might even meet someone friendly enough to let you shoot one of theirs.

After that, stop by the Pit Bar-B-Q. It’s called “the Pit” because it used to be connected to a go-cart track — the only business in that part of town. It’s not the best barbecue in the world, but they usually keep a pony outside. Plus they fry biscuits.

If you’ve had enough, then get your ass back to Miami. But if you like what you’ve seen so far, venture west along the Tamiami Trail to Loop Road. It’s the weirdest and most beautiful place in the county. Peer into the culverts at all the creatures that survived the dinosaur holocaust. Talk to the locals. They’re better than anyone you’ve ever met anywhere.

There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room for Michael Amico’s Summer Shorts sets. On some nights, 15 shows were produced in a single program. Long waits between them was not an option, even though all the set components had to be dragged between the bleacher-style seats in total darkness to the in-the-round performance space. Despite those logistical limitations, and the budget constraints of generating 15 separate sets for the price of one, Amico did dazzling work. Some of it was also purely functional — a nondescript airport lounge, some baseball bleachers, a kitchen — but the moments when he really took off were hard to beat. Especially his re-creation of Oz, whipped up for Michael McKeever’s bizarre Splat! (about the angry munchkins forced to clean up the Wicked Witch of the East’s rotting corpse after Dorothy traipsed off down the yellow brick road). Dorothy’s Kansas house was there, the witch was there, the yellow brick road was there, and so was the requisite Technicolor Ozian flora. It was a stunning set for a show that clocked in at 10, maybe 15 minutes. Let’s hope they’ve kept it in a storage room someplace, just in case any longer visits to Oz are in the offing.

It’s crazy but true: Until 2007, nobody had thought to turn Tolstoy’s book into an opera. Maybe that’s because not a lot of Russians have composed operas, or maybe it’s that setting so much familial intrigue to music is too daunting for composers of any nationality. Whatever the reason, it’s nice that we were forced to wait for composer David Carlson. His music is dense, dark, and mysterious — just like the lives it is meant to illuminate in Anna — and given to occasional moments of glittering transparency that leap up out of nowhere and disappear back to the same place. A strong (if starless) cast of people who could act as well as they could sing — soprano Kelly Kaduce, with a lonely timbre and a diaphragm like a bazooka; sweet-voiced Sarah Coburn; the sensual Christian van Horn — gave Colin Graham’s libretto all the dramatic punch it needed, and then some. In a year filled with good or great productions of canonical lollipops such as Manon Lescaut and Samson et Delila, Anna felt right at home.

When someone in Miami says, “I’m a dancer,” people respond, “At which club?” But there is a fragile, growing dance scene here, and the Miami Contemporary Dance Company is at the center of it. Twelve full-time hoofers do their physically and emotionally demanding work Monday through Friday at the company’s small studio. Dancing is their day job. And that makes MCDC founder and artistic director Ray Sullivan immensely proud. Now in its eighth season, MCDC continues to create fulfilling, sustaining works — often with a social justice message — such as Sullivan’s Tango Undressed, for world-class professional dancers. It has built a much-needed dance education program for children and adults in Miami Beach. Just surviving in this rough economic and philanthropic climate is admirable, but Sullivan has big plans. Instead of being presumed strippers, dancers here someday will be asked, “With which company?” MCDC is a movement.

Although the drag scene has To Wong Foo-ed its way into mainstream oblivion, Elaine Lancaster has survived the fleeting South Beach fad. But don’t dismiss this six-foot-two imaginary love child of Lana Turner and Burt Lancaster as just another lip-synching, trash-talking, stripper-shoe-loving pest. If anything, think of her as a bee. A queen bee. With excellent taste in Chanel.

Strutting onto Ocean Drive in size 10 1/2 ladies’ shoes the day Versace died, Georgia-bred boy model James Davis had a sudden change of art. Instead of immersing himself in a shattered fashion scene, he created Elaine — a high-society queen with a penchant for pink lipstick, $10,000 gowns, and a face that could snag some questionable alone time with Colin Farrell at the Versace mansion back in 2005.

Since 1997, Elaine has grown in popularity, making it local knowledge that whenever you see Miss Lancaster in her blond beauty-queen-inspired hair — be it vamping at a PGA tournament, playing Marge at The Forge’s Simpsons Movie release party, or running down Collins Avenue with Dennis Rodman in tow — you’re in for a good time. Or an expensive time — the kind that’ll make your wallet sting. But all of Miami will be abuzz.

With a name equal parts Greek god and New Jersey Mafioso, Nektar De Stagni stands out. You can spot her pretty much anywhere worth being spotted, wearing a pimp fedora that screams, “I grew up in Miami in the Eighties!” and the clothes she designs have a similar homegrown pedigree. The opening shot on her website — of a blond model in a tight black skirt and Corey Hart Ray-Bans — looks like either the B-side cover for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or a Michelle Pfeiffer still from Scarface. Either way, this is the kind of clothing that chicks from Boca Raton just don’t understand. Oh, and did we mention she rocks a weekly DJ gig at The Standard? As Mugatu would say, “Nektar. So hot right now.”

From mid-December through mid-February, Miami fell in love with a carnival of freaks that descended on the shores of South Beach. This band of burlesque revivalists pitched its psychedelic tent on the sands of Collins Park, at 21st Street and Collins Avenue. Each performer had his or her own bag of tricks. Nate Cooper, a dashing, muscular fellow, juggled knives while dressed in drag. Raphaelle Boitel, an olive-skinned, dark-haired beauty, lay on her stomach and curled her legs over her head so her feet dangled in front of her face. Julie Atlas Muz, who holds the title of Miss Exotic World 2006, straddled an aesthetic chasm on towering platform heels. Their performances were surpassed only by the raunchy and politically incorrect antics of the potty-mouthed ringmaster known only as “The Gazillionaire.” A slender chap dressed in a white tuxedo jacket, black slacks, and sparkly gold pointy-toe shoes to match his lone gold tooth, The Gazillionaire shoved his padded crotch into guests’ faces when he wasn’t kicking the air or offering women a dollar to show their nipples to the audience. He was once a clown for Cirque du Soleil and Ringling Bros. before landing his gig MCing Spiegelworld’s Absinthe and Late Night Lounge. Prior to packing up the tent, he revealed to New Times why he loves the intimacy of his shows: “I want people to feel my sweat.” Let’s hope The Gazillionaire will get to drip on us again next year.

You’re lying in bed one early Sunday, head under the covers, when a group of chirpy Christians knocks on your door. After spotting them through the peephole, you cross your fingers and pray they shove off. Hell-bent on salvation, they keep banging away, eager to bring the pagan on the wrong side of the threshold into Jesus’ fold. Before giving up, the anonymous evangelists slip a check from the “Bank of Heaven” under the door. It reads, “Pay to the order of everyone without The Lord Jesus Christ.” The sum for those unwilling to bend their knees for the glory of redemption? “Eternal Death — Torment Forever in the Lake of Fire.”

We hate to break it to you, but your tired old back yard isn’t cutting it anymore. It’s cramped, it’s cluttered, and it’s just not bringing the sexy for the kind of balls-to-the-wall bash you aspire to have. You want this to be the best party it can be, right? Then let’s rent out the craziest, kookiest, most fun and fanciful venue in the city. Bro, we’re talking about Wherehouse 2016. Yeah, we said Wherehouse. What do you mean you’ve never heard of it?

Okay, dude, imagine this: It’s a warehouse that’s, like, totally hidden away in the North Miami Beach business district. It’s, like, covered in art — we’re talking wall-to-wall murals, huge paintings, and furniture brushed in superbright colors. This artist guy named Bruce Grayson painted everything, and whoa — he must’ve been on acid when he came up with this shit. It’s frickin’ awesome. Big dance floor, lots of comfortable couches where we can mack it to the ladies, and the place can handle it all — from catering to the DJ. No more use for your shitty iPod party playlist, dude! No offense, all right? Your taste in music is cool and all, but not for this bash. We’re gonna do this old-school rave style. Trust me, dude, it’s gonna be epic. You with me? Dude?

Deep within the dynasty of North Miami, Si Fu Gus Rubio imparts the ancient arts of Shaolin and Cheung Kune Pai Kung Fu. He knows the animal forms — monkey, dragon, crane, etc. — like the back of his iron palm.

Laden with stoic statuary, ancient weapons, and students of all ages breaking things with their fists, Rubio’s studio looks like something out of a final scene of a Bruce Lee movie. (Yes, it’s named for one.)

The whole one-punch-kill thing is not easily learned. Only a lone student of Rubio’s is actually studying the iron palm technique, and he’s been a pupil since age four. Short and warm, Rubio also plays bass and guitar in a band called Face of Abandon. Ask to sit in on a class. You won’t be disappointed.

Look, don’t try to figure this one out; it’s a fucking mystery to us all. This town is just bursting with MILFS.

Compounding this mystery is the fact that an inordinate amount of them congregate in this particular produce section. This is evidenced by the slow-moving dolts who shuffle down the aisles at the rate of about three feet per minute. They stare, mystified, at the immaculate female forms, carting their one or two or three children around like magic tricks. It’s as though they just pulled them all out of a top hat.

What goes on, man? What goes on?!?

Flamingo, Florida, is the end of the road — literally. Located 38 miles southwest of the Everglades National Park entrance, the area offers incredible hiking, canoeing, and bicycling. It’s the perfect place to bird watch too. There’s also a campground with (cold) showers and the thrilling knowledge you’re as far south as you can get in the contiguous United States. But regardless of whether you’re there for a day picnic or a weekend blowout, DEET is a must. Even riding the Snake Bight trail at a fast clip isn’t enough to shake those aggressive Everglades skeeters. And if you’re walking the trails, use a hat with a net, or a suit of armor.

There’s nothing particularly fancy about this park — which is what makes it so great. You can almost always bet that at least one of the three tennis courts is going to be open and that your toddler will have enough jungle gym space to carve out his own little fiefdom. About the most you’ll have to worry about on a bright, sunny day is a band of 13-year-old boys ragging on each other under a basketball hoop.

If nothing else, enjoy the town’s finest taco truck — a regular weekend installment. Or bring a picnic. There’s something about the place that just feels warm and nice. Bachelor though you may be, the park will make you tingle with the thought of whiling away an afternoon with a brood all your own.